Achaieral

### Summary

Powerful daemon who turn into stone gargoyle upon contact with sunlight. Their presence can ward off less powerful daemon.

An **achaieral** is a beast-like daimon who make nest in abandoned churches and cathedrals. In fantasy, achaieral daemon are popularly known as the **gargoyles**.

## Overview

In architecture, a **gargoyle** is a carved stone statue in the form of a grotesque monster or creature with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building. Preventing rainwater from running down masonry walls is important because running water erodes the mortar between the stone blocks.

Gargoyles are said to scare off and protect places from any evil or harmful spirits.

## Summary

The achaierals, much like the majority of daemon, are the creations of the original demons who used them to wreak havoc in the mortal world, especially on Earth, and bring death and destruction upon mankind.

They are considered a relatively new species of daemon and were created centuries after the Great War by an unnamed powerful demon. Their earliest sighting was recorded in the early 8th-century, when reports of dead pastors were sent to the Vatican alongside sightings of a new breed of daemon.

Shortly after their creation, they quickly became nightmare for church-goers, especially for the mundane employees and those who sought shelter at the churches at night, as the achaierals would transform themselves into stone gargoyles during the day, only turning back into their monster form at night to prey upon the helpless. Because of their superior strength compared to most daemon, groups of skilled exorcists are immediately sent out to exterminate them upon sightings.

According to Irina, many famous cryptids known in popular media such as the Mothman, the Dover Demon, or the Loveland Frog are all achaieral daemon whose sightings were caught by the mundane before exorcists and hunters were able to go out and exterminate them.

## Appearance

At first glance, achaierals appear as nothing more than the typical stone gargoyles, but if one enhances their vision with magic, their true demonic self will appear. They have teeth like razors, blade-like talons, and wide, leathery bat-like wings so black that it seemed to blot out the night sky. They are genderless and can parthenogenesis, laying eggs by themselves without the assistance of a partner.

In addition, due to their chimeric power to absorb the traits of the monsters that it devoured, many can possess the traits of other species of monsters, such as fish tails or multiple heads.

## Characteristics

Achaierals are known as one of the most powerful daemon due to their immense strength and endurance. Despite the stony appearance of their skin, it is actually stronger than concrete and can withstand an explosion in close range, not to mention that it can only be pierced through by weapons blessed with the holy attribute.

They are omnivores, devouring any and every living being they possibly can, even among their own kind if they consider them "pathetic and weak". By doing so, they would absorb their remaining life-force and be genetically fused with their newly devoured prey, gaining new physical features and powers in the process. Because of this, the majority of achaierals shown possess the characteristics of many monsters, the most prominent being human-like limbs, werewolf's claws, and vampire's wings.

This, however, isn't the only reason they are deemed dangerous threats. They have a natural hunger for human flesh, much like many daemon and monsters, but only of those who are pious and religious, and especially of those who hold religious importance such as priests or pastors. They actively go out at night to hunt and kidnap the faithful and bring them back to their nest in whatever abandoned church or cathedral they found and tore the flesh of their victims' bones. After gaining enough bones, the achaieral would use them to build a new nest for it to lay its eggs into.

Newborn achaierals are considered worse than fully-grown ones, as they are significantly more bloodthirsty and would even kill and cannibalize their parents or siblings for seemingly no reasons but for the sake of killing. Luckily, however, the newborn achaierals don't have the same endurance as their older brethren and can easily be killed with any celestial weapons.

They radiate a naturally powerful demonic aura which frightens all daemon less powerful than them within a 100-meters radius, as well as raising the natural instincts of all monsters within said area, often resulting in chaos and mass hysteria within the region's supernatural community. With powerful and ancient achaierals, even mundane humans can sense their presence, though theirs is more similar to a feeling of bad omen than anything.

While it isn't immortal, it can live for hundreds of years before crumbling away into dust and pebbles, though it can extend its lifespan by absorbing the life-force of other living beings, humans and monsters and animals alike. They can also self-petrify themselves and transform into stone statues to heal itself from the injuries it receives even outside of sunlight. While in this form, it is near impossible to kill an achaieral while it is a stone statue, and the only way to destroy it is by boiling the stone statues in holy water for hours non-stop.

## Weaknesses

* **Physical Damage**: Like most supernatural creatures, achaierals can still be killed through mundane means if they have either received serious or immense physical damage or received fatal wounds that aren't healed in time.
* **Light Element**: As daemon, achaierals are the natural enemies of the Light element. Intense light, such as the one generated through Light Magic or used in the light constructs of angels and fallen angels, are extremely deadly weapons against them.
	+ **Sunlight**: Achaierals become petrified and turn into true non-sentient gargoyles when they come into direct contact with sunlight. Unlike their self-petrification state, they are no different from ordinary stone statues and can be easily smashed into small pieces and scattered around so that they can't regenerate.
* **Holy Attribute**: As demonic beings, the holy attribute is the bane of all daemon like the achaierals, regardless of their strength. Religious symbols, scriptures, and prayers are extremely effective when defending oneself against one of them, and items imbued with the holy attribute are considered to be the most effective weapons to use when fighting against them.
	+ **Hallowed Ground**: Achaierals are incapable of entering hallowed grounds, such as churches, synagogues, mosques or other religious places without hurting themselves by every second. However, due to their natural habitat being abandoned religious buildings such as churches or cathedrals, it can be assumed that they have resistance to abandoned hallowed grounds.
	+ **Holy Weapons**: Achaierals are easily wounded by weapons bearing the holy attribute, like holy swords or Sacred Gears with divine properties, such as Blade Blacksmith or Twilight Healing (Asia's the single exception). Holy weapons are also the only known weapons capable of piercing through their ston-like skin.
* **Primordial Regalia**: Weapons and artifacts that belong to the primordial entities can be used to permanently and absolutely destroy every and any being in existence save for other primordial entities, erasing their existence completely so that they can never be reborn or resurrected without God's involvement.

## Trivia

* **Gargouille**, the dragon-like monster defeated by Saint Romanus of Rouen is rumored to be the Alpha Achaieral due to the fact it was the namesake for the gargoyles, one of the achaierals' most well-known names.