Adriana was scared out of her wits the moment she heard the ethereal voice, almost ghostly. She turned towards the voice to see a beautiful and delicate woman looking at her lovingly. The woman was shorter and more delicate than her but stronger than her.
She wasn't scared because it was a ghost but because she could understand the ghost. Adriana had an ability that she hid from everyone including her family and friends, thinking others might consider her abnormal and avoid her for fear of attracting bad luck.
The ability is nothing too big, just that she can see ghosts or rather wandering souls. It is believed that souls after death should pass through the Wheel of judgement and once the soul passes it's judgement, they can either enter the cycle of reincarnation or enter the heavenly abode to serve the Gods.
The one's who fail the Judgement are dragged into the Eternal Fire of Suffering, where their souls are repeatedly burnt and torn apart and then stitched together only to get torn apart again and the pain is so immense one would wish to perish immediately.
Perhaps it's because of this that those who fear failing the Judgement, avoid going to the Wheel and remain in the world only to be bound to the world with no way left to reincarnate but moves on only with the hope of perishing somehow or the other.
These souls are quite rare since it's not easy to escape the servants of the God of Death, the Death Reapers. The most common are the souls that purposefully stay behind either for revenge or unfinished businesses. Most of these souls are dragged back by the Reapers but there are way too many souls but few Reapers.
Since it's forbidden to mention the true name of the God's, each and every God are mentioned using their attribute or monikers like the God of Death, God of life, God of thunder and so on. The only reason being that once their true names are mentioned, that person who uttered the name will be marked and his whole life will be at the mercy of the said God.
When the God of Death and God of Life found souls avoiding the Wheel of Judgement and escaping punishment as well as the Reapers, they granted a few chosen humans, the ability to control Souls, they were called as Soul Mages for convenience sake.
Soul Mages can turn any Souls into their servants, but they were only permitted to control Souls of the dead who refuse to reincarnate or get their punishment. But there was a deviant among the chosen ones.
And that was a man named Adam, who was curious as to why the Gods forbid controlling the Souls of the living and how it would feel controlling them. But while in the surveillance of the God's no one could break the rules. Adam spent several years trying to find loopholes in the surveillance while controlling his impulse with great patience.
Finally after 50 years he found the loophole at the Forest of Misery the boundary to the land of demons. It was an accidental discovery, but to him it was a stroke of luck.
From then on he would lure people into the forest with promises of the treasures and relics left behind by great mages and swordsmen of the past.
Thus, the number of his victims increased to a point that the Gods finally noticed the anomaly in the world they gave a part of their split authority amongst the humans.
At the time when Adam was experimenting with his victims the heavens were busy dealing with the Demon King's minions. These minions wrecked havoc amongst the heavenly beings making them neglect the sudden deaths of humans who died before their time.
Meanwhile, Adam who was unsatisfied with the results of his experiments, slowly crept his hands towards his fellow companions, the chosen beings of the God's.
Unbeknownst to the Gods and his companions, Adam had already made a deal with the Demon King to have enough freedom to do his research, while he help him in return. Since both their wishes coincided, they happily cooperated.
When the God's chose their representatives, these people gathered together to help each complete the tasks delivered by their Lords.
Amongst these people, Adam stood out the most. Not only was he talented, strong and good-looking, but also a had a gentle personality who gave off a calm aura.
Every single mission he had undertaken were finished perfectly without any casualties, thus making him the most trustworthy partner amongst this group of chosen ones.
And thus these companions of Adam who trusted him whole heartedly, followed him into the Forest of Misery, trusting his words of having found the clues to the culprit behind the recent deaths there. If only they knew that the culprit was the same person who they gave their trust to, perhaps they could have prevented further deaths.
Well, as expected Adam obtained successful results from his experiments, and gave the authority of the God of Death and of Life to the Demon King, who used it to steal more parts from the God's during the war between Heaven and Hell.