Chapter 616: The Seal
Eiro pressed the tip of the needle in his hand into Naomi’s skin one more time. It was the last addition of ink that was needed, and with that single push, the sealing tattoo was finished. The Demon made his magic flow through the special ink that was now covering the girl’s body, watching as it slowly let off a gentle glow. It covered her whole torso, as well as her thighs and upper arms. Eiro was able to restrict the tattoo to these areas after careful planning and consideration of the situation. Luckily, it would be quite easy to hide the tattoos like this.
He placed the needle down on the table next to him, and grabbed his son’s arm. Naomi was still continuosly trying to bite into Rudy’s flesh to no avail. She had grown quite tired after the 15 hours it took to complete the tattoo, so it was quite easy for Eiro to pull her off of Rudy. Using some arcane magic to force Naomi’s mouth shut, he quickly forced her to stand up straight.
Rudy had been dozing off for a while now, but this quickly woke him up. He still wasn’t able to see, but he felt that Naomi stopped trying to bite him, “Dad?” he asked, and Eiro quickly replied, “We’re nearly done. I’ll remove the spell from your eyes in a few minutes, so just hold out a bit longer.”
“…Is Naomi alright?” Rudy questioned his father, who stayed silent for a few more moments than made the boy comfortable. Eiro slightly glanced at Noma, who had anxiously stood up and was standing across the room, as far away as possible as if he was scared to mess something up just by being right next to his sister. Unlike Rudy, Noma had been awake this whole time and had been able to watch the changes to Naomi’s body happen.
At some points during the process, Naomi’s body resisted quite heavily to what was happening to the monstrosity inside of her. She had formed fists and dug her fingernails into her flesh, causing blood to drop onto the ground. By pushing her feet onto the ground, she forced her toenails off her feet more than just once. But that wasn’t all, as Naomi’s teeth hadn’t come unscathed out of this either. She had continuously been trying to bite into Rudy for hours on end. Some of her teeth chipped and cracked, and two of them even fell out altogether. Overall, these sorts of damages were minimal, and Eiro was able to heal a lot of them nearly immediately. As for the teeth Naomi lost, Eiro would just give her some prosthetics later, so that wasn’t really an issue either. However, there were some damages that Eiro couldn’t do anything against either, and those were damages caused by the monstrosity itself. It was as if her body was trying to adapt and become like that of a true monster.
First, she grew a few inches in height. Eiro had to fix up some sections of the tattoo due to this, but it wasn’t anything major. And while this wasn’t something that Noma could observe, Eiro noticed Naomi’s musculature and bones changing ever so slightly, which would probably increase her natural strength and flexibility after this. But the most blatant change was that some parts of her skin hardened. Luckily, this only happened after Eiro already covered those areas in ink by then, but this was still a change that would affect her body permanently after this. It was as if part of her back turned into a hard bone or carapace. It was flush with her skin, and due to the placements probably wouldn’t restrict her movement at all, but it was visible, as in those areas her formerly olive skin became as white as bleached parchment.
But these changes weren’t something that Eiro could do anything against. The monstrosity not only corrupted her body, but her soul was caused to quickly adapt as well. The shape of her soul now represented her current body perfectly. And so, since there was nothing else he could do, Eiro finished up the process.
He pressed his palm onto Naomi’s stomach before pressing his other hand onto her upper back at the height of her heart. He made his mana flow through her body as he began the sealing arts ritual to complete the tattoo. With both of his voices, even if they came out of a single mouth, Eiro started to speak a ritualistic chant that he had adapted and fine-tuned to his purposes. The glow of the ink soon grew stronger, to a nearly blinding degree. Naomi, or rather the monstrosity inside of her, was struggling to break free, knowing that it wouldn’t take long for the sealing to be complete.
And then, in a single moment, the glow disappeared in a way that made it seem as if the pitch black ink was trying to suck the light from the room into it as well. At the same time, Naomi collapsed from exhaustion, dropping down unconscious. Noma immediately ran forward, startled, but Eiro quickly caught her and laid her down on the couch. He grabbed a robe that he had prepared earlier an carefully placed it onto her to allow her to cover up once she woke up.
He stared down at Naomi, smelling the air around her, and formed a satisfied smile, “It was a success. The existing monstrosity has been suppressed to a practically nonexistent degree, and I’ve managed to block any further monstrosity from trying to enter her soul and body. I’ve completely sealed the Taboo skill as well, so for now, nothing is going to happen with this.” Eiro explained as he turned to look at Noma, who had tears streaming down his cheeks, “Thank you, thank you so much, Lord Daemonherz!”
“There’s no need to thank me,” the Demon replied, waving his hand to remove the cloak of darkness from Rudy’s face, “For the time being, you should head to your rooms. Rudy, could you show Noma to an empty bedroom?”
“Ah, no, I would like to stay here with Naomi, if possible…” Noma replied quickly, wiping the wetness from his eyes, but Rudy placed his hand onto his friend’s shoulder, “Meh, don’t worry, she’s probably going to sleep for a good while longer than either of us. Let’s just get some rest ourselves. My father is going to get you if anything happens, right?” Rudy said tiredly, and Eiro quickly nodded.
“Exactly. There’s no need for you to worry. This whole ordeal was incredibly tiring for her, much more so than for you and I. She will sleep for quite a while after this,” Eiro reassured, “I will make sure to bring her to a separate room soon myself. I just want to keep an eye on her for a little while longer to make sure that the seal is stable enough.”
Noma was still unsure whether or not he should just follow along with what he was being told, but at the end of the day, he knew that Rudy and Eiro were right. The only thing he could do was anxiously sit next to his sister while she was sleeping anyway, so he may as well get some rest himself, “Again, I don’t know how I can ever repay you for this…” Noma said once more, as he was led out of the room by Rudy. The door closed behind the two of them, and not even a full second after, Bavet already jumped off of Eiro’s body.
“Fucking hell, they really couldn’t have left soon enough, this itch has been killing me for hours!” Bavet complained as his formless body laid on the floor, wriggling around disgustingly.
Eiro sighed as he leaned onto his desk, “You can feel itchy?”
“Not exactly, but it’s this really uncomfortable feeling when my slime dries out somewhere, you know? It was that spot at the base of your neck.”
“Ah. Yeah, you tend to put yourself onto me a bit too thick there, so I made you thin out.”
“Could you not manipulate my body against my will, please?” the slime asked in an annoyed tone of voice, but Eiro just smirked lightly, “I’ll think about it. Anyway, I guess it all worked out somehow, huh?”
“Barely. Her body’s more like that of a monster than it would’ve become if you just let her be,” Bavet quickly pointed out, “The way you applied the seal just pissed the taboo off even more, didn’t it?”
Eiro shrugged, “Maybe, but I expected something along these lines. And yeah, the changes to her body may be a bit more extreme than they would have been, but they’re much more stable as well. Her body would’ve ripped itself apart like a certain someone’s if we had just let her be.”
“You won’t even say his name anymore, huh?”
“I forgot.”
“Hah, good one,” Bavet scoffed, “But well, it’s not like he really has a use for a name anymore. You broke his mind with the taboo, and then turned him into a nest for some new toys.”
“…They’re not toys, they’re living beings like you and I. At least call them tools, it’s more accurate anyway,” Eiro pointed out as he squatted down in front of the couch that Naomi was sleeping on, trying to examine her. The slime next to him turned into a small snake and slithered up his body to his shoulder, “So, what’s the next part of your plan?”
Eiro thought about it for a moment before simply shrugging, “I guess I’ll fully remove the monstrosity from her once I kill ‘The Devil’ and retrieve the key. Until then, I don’t have a particular use for her, so I’ll just leave her be. Rudy seems to like her, though, so there’s that. That means I should at least take care of her a little bit.”
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