As the first light of dawn gently pierced through the thick canopy of ancient trees the forest awakened with a soft symphony of rustling leaves and chirping birds.
The air was crisp and fragrant carrying the scent of damp earth and dew kissed foliage.
Two men their faces illuminated by the soft glow filtered through the trees could be seen hiking.
"Rick do you think this is a good idea? We just became Contractors yesterday, I can't even summon my demon yet so how am I supposed to fight an infected beast? worst we could run into an actual demon?" The first man said.
With a scoff Rick replied, "Stop being a pussy Bob, the selections just ended, we may have passed the selections but to the Silence we're just newbie's with low level demon's, to pass the second selection we'll need to be much stronger than we are now, or do you want to end up In one of those low level families?"
Hearing this Bob turned silent, the selection's where held once a year, and was hosted by the Silence, this was an event where people with enough talent would be giving the chance to make a contract with a demon.
If successful they would join the second round where they would have to fight against other Contractors of the same grade, the goal wasn't to win but to attract attention.
Thinking about their dreams of joining the Bob let out a sigh.
They hiked for a few hours without spotting anything but when they finally spotted something in the distance, they froze.
It was a beautiful woman with otherworldly futures, her beauty was one part but what flustered these men most was the fact that she was barely wearing any cloths, instead she covered the most important parts of her body with cloths made of leaves, it was unclear how she managed to do that.
To the two men before her she looked like some kind of hot white Amazonian, "dang," both men called out simultaneously as their eyes landed on her assets viewing without restraint.
"Excuse me, can you help me with some cloths," a female voice asked.
Unknowingly the strange woman had gotten close enough to talk to the both of them, feeling a bit flustered Bob stuttered, "Y-y-yes no problem," he said as he tried to take off his jacket.
Seeing Bob take off his jacket Rick frowned as he stretched out his arm to stop him "I don't think so," he said as he gazed at her chest.
He's offensive stare incited a small frown from the woman in front of him, her beautiful black eyes narrowing a bit, "if you want cloths you have to let me cup a feel." Rick continued.
As he spoke he had already reached out, his hands moving towards her chest without shame.
"Bang!"
The sound of a muffled bang sounded out as Rick was Spartan kicked in the chest, sending him flying back, seeing this Bob's eyes widened, "shit," he muttered.
Rushing towards Rick, Bob yelled out, "bro are you ok, what got into you?" grunting a bit Rick shoved Bob to the side.
"Bitch you just made a huge mistake, I'm a threat level ten Contractor," as he spoke faint grayish lines could be seen around his body as his muscles tightened.
"Is that so," the woman in front of him said a small smile forming on her bewitching lips.
The two men didn't know this but the from the woman's point of view a dark fog was emanating from the man named Bob.
As the black fog grew it involuntarily floated towards her entering the pores of her skin, making her feel energized all of a sudden, "is this his fear," the woman thought as her smile widened.
"Whoosh!"
The sound of wind tearing sounded out somehow while she was distracted Rick had crept close enough to deliver a reasonable attack.
But the woman was quick on her feet leaning to the side and dodging the punch by a hairs breath.
With a small jump she put some distance between her and the Rick, her actions made Rick burst into a pang of hearty laughter as he said to her, "you scared now bi-"
"Bang!"
Before he could finish his sentence a delicate foot had kicked him at the side of his face, sending his body flying sideways.
But that wasn't it as his body bounced on the ground a shadow flashed behind him catching him by his hair.
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
His head was slammed on the dirt multiple times before "bam," he was kicked in the chest once again.
By now Rick had long started to feel fear "Ahh," he groaned in response to the pain, the black fog that the woman had seen on Bob was now emanating from Rick as well.
Absorbing this black smoke the woman couldn't help but smile as she could feel herself getting stronger.
"Take off your cloths," the woman said, her commanding voice addressing the two men, today she was going to milk these two men until they couldn't feel anymore fear.
************
Aiden opened his eyes and he seemed to be leaning on a tree, the surroundings were hazy, but his eyes eventually cleared up as memories of what happened last night flashed in his mind.
He had literally raised someone from the dead, "Badump, Badump," he felt his heartbeat increase, he was excited.
If he had the power to do this much then this did mean he could cure his mothers condition?
"Don't get ahead of yourself Aiden; did you get soft after leaving that place? You've killed hundreds of demons living on the edge each and every step of the way, you of all people should know the first thing to do after waking up in a place like this is to assess your surroundings."
Hearing Landon's voice Aiden scratched his head, "good morning to you too," he muttered.
It wasn't really that bad, he was just excited. His thoughts seemed to have annoyed Landon who said grimly, "excited you say, hey Aiden did you notice that you're wearing clothes?"
"Huh," looking at his body Aiden was indeed wearing cloths, a jersey and pants and not only that he felt a bit refreshed and his hair was also tied to a pony tail.
"Shit!"
Aiden thought, "ohh your awake, g-good morning sir" Aiden heard a shy voice, fortunately it was a voice he was familiar with.
It was the girl he had saved and Aiden noticed that she was also wearing cloths, a t shirt and blue jeans to be specific.
Although she wore clothes they seemed to be oversized as they appeared baggy on her person.
"Good morning," Aiden responded calmly scratching his head before asking, "how long have I been asleep for?"
"You've been out for two days my lord," the girl said, hearing how the girl addressed him Aiden raised his eyebrows but shortly after what she said finally clicked in, "two days," Aiden almost yelled.
"It seems that creating a seed with your current strength took a lot out of you," Landon commented calmly.
Letting out a breath Aiden disregarded the fact that he had waisted two days, "So how do you feel? Are you ok?" He asked.
Hearing this the girl smiled "I'm fine, I feel even better than before, thank you for granting me your power my Lord."
Hearing the honorifics again Aiden smiled but inside his head he was screaming "LANDON, WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?"
Hearing his name Landon quickly explained, "What do you mean what is happening she's the seed of fear, and you are the soul sovereign she has to be loyal to you or she might die, it's the price she has to pay after all you saved her life." He said before darting in.
"But don't worry she has complete free will in a case where you don't order her she can do anything she wants, which also means she called you that out of her own free will."
Scoffing at Landon's explanation Aiden stretched out his hand as he said, "I'm Aiden, it's nice to meet you."
But the girl didn't take his hand, instead she bowed a bit, "my name was Emma it's nice to meet you my Lord."
"Was? Did you change your name," Aiden asked.
"No I didn't," the girl replied, suddenly Aiden heard Landon's voice again, "ohh I forgot, you have to give her a name, why don't you name her Whisper after the last seed of fate?"
Aiden felt weird, why couldn't she just use her old name, but he was too afraid to ask, he didn't want to trigger another wave of explanations from Landon.
Thinking about it for a bit he agreed, "ok."
"Whisper," the girl suddenly muttered, before saying, "thank you for the name my Lord."
Laughing a bit Aiden asked, "can you not call me that, it sounds kind of weird," hearing this the girl smiled a bit.
"Don't worry my Lord, I won't address you that way in public, I owe you my life, and knowing everything that you are I wish to follow you."
"How did you get us cloths?" Aiden asked trying to change the subject.
"Ohh yesterday I found some hikers who tried to take advantage of me, so I took care of them." Whisper responded.
Aiden didn't even want to ask what she did to them, "wait a minute she found hikers?" Aiden thought feeling quite shocked.
"The woods where more dangerous than the main cities in the sense that there were no alarms.
People found in the woods where either Contractors looking for demons to kill or stronger Contractors looking for demons to kill.
"Does that mean she beat a Contractor," Aiden thought, feeling shocked "that's seems to be the case but don't get shocked, right now she has a much stronger body than you, and don't forget that she has the combat experience of the last seed of souls, and there's also the fact that she is also a Contractor."
"What, how can you tell?" Aiden thought feeling surprised, "it's easy; would you like to view her current abilities?" Landon asked.
"Yes," Aiden said without hesitation, immediately he said that a book had appeared in mid air, its pages shuffled a bit before it stopped at a random page, in that page was a vaguely drawn female figure, and on the right where her current abilities.
Name: Whisper
Race: Human (Advanced)
Level: First Gate (34%) (May be limited by creator)
Strength: 8
Speed: 9
Stamina: 6
Agility: 12
Perception: 5
Fear energy: 2 (100%)
Innate skills: (Fear feeding)
(Stealth: basic)
(Semi immortality)
(more abilities may be gifted by creator)
Skills: (Light steps: Advanced)
(Adaptive combat: Mastered)
(Chakram mastery: perfect)
Contracts: (Nine tailed Vorathax: Infant)
(Due to subjects connection with the soul sovereign the contract has been forcefully rewritten, the powers of the infant demon may be used indefinitely in exchange for the privilege of keeping its life.)
Looking at her abilities Aiden felt a bit envious, this girl even had a demon although it seemed to be a weak one, but what lingered in his mind was that sentence at the end of the contract tab.
"What dose forcefully rewritten mean," he thought.
It was common sense that a contract could not be changed once formed.
Suddenly Landon said, "I know where your thoughts are going but I've never experienced anything like this, after all Contractors didn't exists in my time."
With all the thoughts on Aiden's head the feeling of envy didn't linger for long, "It's time to get out of this forest," he muttered, "Do you remember where you encountered those hikers?" Aiden asked.
"Hmm," Whisper nodded; soon she led Aiden towards the spot where she fought the two men, some plants where crushed and visible footprint could be seen on the dirt indicating that a fight had taken place here.
"Do you feel that?" Landon asked, "Yeah I feel it," Aiden replied, "something's following us," they both said simultaneously but where was it coming from?
"What's wrong?" Whisper asked, throughout this short walk she had been observing Aiden, after all she didn't even know the man she was working for all too well.
So far from what she observed despite having a good body and a cute face he had quite the absentminded attitude, by seeing this absent minded attitude suddenly turn into one of seriousness she knew something was wrong.
It didn't take long for Aiden to pinpoint the trailers location "it's there," Aiden muttered to himself referring to a few bushes.
"Whoosh!"
A being ran past him with an astonishing amount of speed "Bang," Aiden's sensitive ear picked up a small bang followed by the whimper of an animal.
In that instant something was kicked out of the bushes, it was a fox and it's head seemed to have been bashed in, but Aiden didn't even flinch he had experienced this far too many times, he just stared at the figure cat walking out of the bushes.
"Impressive," Aiden said as he watched Whisper walked toward him with a white glowing soul in her palm.
"My Lord," Whisper said as she handed the soul to him.
Looking at the soul in front of him Aiden was reminded that he would have to kill people to grow stronger, that thought made him feel unsettled.
But no matter what he would stay true to his morals he didn't want to become a man his mother wouldn't be able to look at once he cured her or at least that was what Aiden told himself.
Whisper stared intensely at her master, all she could consume was fear and trying to consume a soul for her was akin to eating a ghost it would just faze trough her.
She could see and touch souls and thanks to her inherited memories she knew that her master consumed souls, frankly speaking she was a bit curious at how the process went.
Aiden himself didn't know this but as he opened his mouth a bit his canines grew longer making him look similar to the vampires told in folklore.
"His teeth sunk into the white soul and rapidly the soul dissolved flowing into his mouth.
It didn't take long for Aiden to finish.
"Let's go," Aiden said, as he wiped his mouth, his person seemed a bit colder than before, but Whisper didn't complain.
As they walked Whisper seemed to become addicted to killing small creatures and delivering their soul to him, for some reason the process of him eating seemed to astonish her greatly.
But after eating about twenty to thirty souls Aiden felt stuffed, not only that, he felt a high amount of energy rushing through his body almost like an adrenaline rush but with quadruple the intensity.
"You should stop feeding," Landon said, "why? Isn't eating souls supposed to make me stronger I can literally feel the energy rushing through my veins," Aiden thought.
Sighing a bit at Aiden's comment Landon asked.
"Are you stupid? Do you think that this is that place where you could eat those fake souls?" Landon inquired before darting in.
"What you're eating now is the real deal, do you want to explode? Anyway you're currently full and have too much energy in your body, the best way to absorb this is either to sleep and let it be, your body would gradually absorb it on its own, and the second way is to speed up that absorption process by straining your body through fighting or extreme physical activities."
Turning towards Whisper Aiden said, "We should stop now Whisper, I'm full," as he said that Aiden could have sworn he saw a look of disappointment on her face.
Suddenly Aiden's ears twitched, "I hear traffic," he said excitedly, as his feet slammed on the ground, shuffling through the tree's Aiden ran towards the sound with explosive speed.
Even a normal human athlete would have trouble keeping up with him but by his side was an abnormal woman who could and her face was expressionless.
Soon they finally made it out of the forest and in front of them was a highway with a few vehicles zooming past them, "hahaha," Aiden burst out laughing somehow seeing the traffic put him at ease.
Whisper stared at him with an expressionless face, she couldn't possible know what he was feeling.
They stood in the highway flagging down cars until a radom one stopped, it was a good samaritan who offered them a ride to twilight city which wasn't that far just a few kilometers.
The ride was short and the two found themselves in the slums of twilight cit.
Aiden surveyed his surroundings with an excited look on his face, the skyscrapers towering above, the windows reflecting the vibrant chaos of the city below.
Whisper smiled a bit as she watched Aiden look around like an excited child, suddenly she felt a thug on her arm as Aiden pulled her.
As they navigated through the labyrinthine streets, they encounter a lively street market with vendors selling exotic foods from around the shelter.
The aroma of sizzling kebabs and steaming dumplings filled the air, tempting their growing stomachs; the only problem was that they didn't have cash, so they could only watch.
It was getting dark and they didn't have anywhere to sleep.
After wandering for a while they stumbled upon a music store where a man was playing a guitar in front of the crowd, he was quite good with his smooth voice earning applause and generous tips from the crowd.
Aiden looked towards Whisper who seemed to be enjoying the show, "do you like music?" he asked.
"Jmm," Whisper nodded, "then watch this," Aiden said, walking through the crowd of people.
He strolled toward the performer and whispered a few words into his hear.
The performer nodded and smiled giving Aiden a thumps up, and Aiden didn't hesitate, he picked up an instrument by the side, coincidentally it was an instrument he was very familiar with, the violin.