Demon's Virtue-Chapter 726: An Ancient Soul
The door creaked. It was old and weak, cracks having formed around its edges over time. Rather, the whole room that Eiro was stepping out of was the same; the walls and floor were worn down, just short of falling to ruin. The furniture placed within, as well as the items that adorned them, were all much newer, but the base, the room that truly represented the state of Eiro's soul, it was old.
But even that didn't compare to the space that he stepped into.
Ancient and cavernous, having fallen into complete and utter disrepair. A city built underneath a darkness that even the realm of shadows couldn't compare to. When the demon turned around, he could see a building. An old hut erected at the edge of this city, surrounded by large, tower-like trees that reached into the distance.
How far, Eiro didn't know; he couldn't see further than a a few dozen paces into this forest, and none of his senses could tell him what was there, beyond the edge of his own soul.
As the duplicate; no, it couldn't be called that anymore. The moment it stepped into his soul, it ceased to be a mere duplicate. It was another incarnation of the true Eiro, now belonging to his soul. Like an aspect of himself that he could use to directly access his own soul.
He could no longer control or alter it, and the minute adjustments he had made were immediately reversed and it took on a completely identical form to the true Eiro.
And so, as the incarnation walked further into the city, the old cobblestone standing strong against the weight of his foot but at the same time giving off a feeling of uncertainty and unsteadiness. As though this city itself, or rather the ground that it was built on, was threatening to crumble away at any moment to fall into the black abyss certainly hiding below.
Though for the time being, it should hold out.
Eiro stepped further into the city, looking at the buildings. There was little rhyme or reason to it, truthfully. Every other building was completely different. New materials, a new style of architecture. Some more delerict than others, whether because they have been here much, much longer than others, or because they were in a poor condition from the moment of construction.
Meanwhile, there were buildings that were much cleaner and grander, having stood up against the test of time better than others. Though, the more Eiro looked around, the more he realized that the hut that he came out of wasn't in the state it was in because it old. It was because it was broken to begin with.
Built from the ground up using wood from another structure that used to stand in its place, held together by rusted nails that were forced into the wood in places they didn't belong.
Out of everything here, there was only one thing that seemed 'right'. The streets; the place that these buildings were constructed on in the first place. Of course, the road was old and almost crumbling away on its own, but it was the only part of the city that was the same all throughout.
The further Eiro approached what he assumed to be the center of this city, the older the buildings became, the less you could tell what their previous form was supposed to be. And then, he stepped into what seemed to be the true middle of the city, a plaza with a large fountain stood in its center. There was no proper water running through it.
But in intervals, two or three drops would flow down the peak at a time.
Almost feeling himself drawn to it, Eiro reached out his hand toward the ornate, old and cracked fountain, catching one of the drops with his finger. His whole body felt overcome with a flow of energy, of pure mana as his skin pulled in the water... and another drop flowed out from the top of the fountain.
This city was Eiro's soul, and the fountain was the source of his mana; his core. He glanced at the edge of the fountain, seeing the deep grooves that were flowing not only throughout this plaza, but he had seen them at the edges of the road while coming here as well. The water from this fountain was supposed to flow all throughout this massive, old city.
And if that was the case, if the water was his mana and the fountain was the contained that used to hold it when this soul was once someone else's, then the massive amount of mana he had right now accounted for just two or three drops within the fountain.
"Who the hell was Morgan la fey? No... what were they?" Eiro muttered, puzzled by what he was seeing. This place was his soul. An ancient thing that was reincarnated again and again, each building in this vast, ruined city accounting for another one of the lives that had been lived. And Eiro?
His whole current life accounted only for a broken, old cabin at the city's outskirts, almost swallowed up by the darkness and the forest.
"This is wrong," the Demon ground his teeth with a snarling voice, "This isn't me. This is them. I am not them."
The world shook around Eiro, "None of this is truly showing who I am. No matter what nonsense Morgan la fey did in the past, I am my own person. I don't exist to live in the ruins of a city built by others."
The fountain in front of Eiro shook. The cracks deepened, and chunks fell from its form, until it simply became a pile of old stone. Not only that, but the ancient buildings placed in every direction were pushed to the side, as far to the edges of his soul as possible.
The trees of the forest sprouted up along the roads, replacing the old cobblestone with the stomped paths of well-trodden woods. The buildings stayed there; they were part of what Eiro used to be. He may not wish to be defined by them, but they were still part of what he used to be. Simply ridding himself of the past was not something what Eiro wanted to do. It was something that he refused to do.
He was too greedy to let go of something that was his, even if he had never asked for it. However, from now on, these past lives would have to live in the shadow of the legacy he was currently building.
The cabin from the edge of the city was being dragged to the center where the fountain once stood. It was old and broken down despite being the newest version of him. As he was an artificial creation, his soul must have been scarred throughout that process.
"But I think I've done enough to heal my soul since then," Eiro said, holding his hand forward. The wooden planks and pillars making up the structure creaked loudly and grew in size, darkening and changing as they became cleaner and more robust. The whole cabin grew larger and larger, reaching up into the sky.
Walls of plaster grew from certain sections, and a base of stone bricks was built underneath it, as the cabin turned into a castle. Before it was even fully done, Eiro stepped onto the set of large stairs as it formed ahead of him, walking into the building.
As the massive doors opened up in front of him, Eiro stepped into his mental library. Bookshelves upon bookshelves spread into every direction. The smell of both fire and water filled his nose, as the sections of books that Eiro read in the other planes were being constructed within his soul. The mental duplicates were also here; though, not in the same way that this small incarnation was.
They were still 'fakes'; drones that were created for specific purposes that existed only to support Eiro's thoughts and memories.
Before long, the space had been constructed, with a small addition. A section specifically set out for different real objects; Eiro's new treasury. The cards of the major arcana that Eiro was keeping were set into a vault deep underneath the library.
However, now that this place was here, now that the mental library had become a true part of his soul, Eiro walked over to one of the nearby bookshelves. It held some books that Eiro had read in the past; nothing special, but still something he wanted to remember.
So, in case something went wrong, Eiro created a copy of that book, placing one back onto the shelf and bringing the other into the section designated for the 'retrieval' through his treasury.
He placed the book onto the pedestal, as Eiro's true body reached out forward. The incarnation in the soul witnessed his own hand appear in wisps of light, grasping the memory of a book Eiro had read long ago. And then, a moment later, Eiro's true body was holding that memory in his real hands.
