The Seven Demon's Tamer

It wasn't too hard for Ryder to find his way home. With his extraordinary jumps, he got to his village faster than he would have imagined.

Each leap carried him dozens of meters through the air, his enhanced body moving with a swiftness that would have amazed him. But now, all he could think about was the smoking ruins of the FSG base behind him and Lucian's accusing scream.

Upon reaching the village, he sighed and relaxed his shoulders while lazily walking through the bush path.

He wasn't tired physically—his enhanced stamina meant he could probably run for hours without breaking a sweat—but he was mentally exhausted in a way that went beyond ordinary fatigue.

He was overthinking once again, like in the past, whenever he got into a mess. But this wasn't just some minor failed exam or something along those lines—this was something that would most likely ruin his life.

The explosion at the FSG base would have consequences, and he knew it. The government wouldn't just let this slide, especially not when their most advanced testing facility had been reduced to smoking rubble.

He had particularly chosen the bush path, trying to stay away from the public. The narrow trail wound through dense bushes and towering oak trees, which was enough to obscure him from the sight of others as he ventured home.

*Monster,* Lucian had called him. The word stung more than Ryder cared to admit, especially since he never intended for all that to happen.

Right now, he could tell how popular he had already become for contracting a beast from the black marked plain—however, it was mostly his name and not his face.

There were many other people bearing Ryder as a name out there, so he should have been able to ease up a bit. But no, not after what had transpired just a moment ago.

The whispers he'd heard yesterday had been nothing compared to what would come now. News of the FSG base explosion would spread like wildfire, and everyone would know exactly who was responsible.

His peaceful days of anonymity would be over forever; hence, he wouldn't like to add to his problems right now. There were already enough problems on his plate.

Ryder could tell he was just minutes away from home when a sudden scent flashed past his nose—something that made his blood run cold, and his enhanced senses were capturing it with crystal clarity.

'What the hell is that?' he wondered as he narrowed his eyes. He wasn't quite familiar with the scent of blood; he could only tell since he just came from the FSG base with the blood of people he had unintentionally injured.

Ever since he had contracted with Luxy, his physical capabilities had increased—every single thing he could do normally, he could now do at a superhuman level.

His senses of sight, smell, and hearing had all been enhanced to the point where he could track a rabbit through thick forest by scent alone, or hear a conversation from three blocks away if he concentrated.

But this enhancement came with drawbacks he was only now beginning to understand. When something truly horrible happened, his heightened senses made sure he experienced every detail with crystal clarity—especially foul smells.

The scent grew stronger as he approached his house. With each step, his enhanced nose picked up new additional smells—torn flesh, blood, and above all that, a familiar floral perfume that made his heart skip a beat.

It smelled unmistakably like roses. His mother's perfume.

The floral scent was one she wore always at home, and the one she'd been wearing yesterday when she welcomed him home with tears of joy.

By the time he reached his front door, the smell was so overwhelming that he had to steady himself against the doorframe. Now, it was as clear as day that the smell was originating from his house.

His hands trembled as he reached for the doorknob, every instinct screaming at him not to open the door, like he wasn't ready for what lay behind. But he couldn't turn away. This was his home, his family—whatever was waiting inside, he had to face it.

Opening the door, his eyeballs shook intensely in pure rage, anger, frustration, regret... Every single negative emotion that existed was flashing through his head.

The door creaked open ominously, making a sound it never made yesterday. Even that small detail felt ominous as he entered.

On the wall, directly across from him, was his mother's body—plastered to it with a pool of her own blood right under her, the dark stain spreading across the wooden floor.

Her eyeballs were missing, revealing empty dark sockets with blood splatters painting her face brutally.

The sight hit him like a physical punch to the gut, causing his heart to thump loudly.

His mother, who had spent yesterday evening preparing his favorite meal and worrying over him like he was still a child. His mother, who had cried tears of joy when he returned safely from the Astral Shadow Plain. His mother, who had worried that his new power would make him forget about his family.

She had been wrong about that last part. He would never forget her now—this image would be burned into his memory forever.

Her body was plastered to the wall, but not in one piece. It had been severed in various places, mainly at her joints, as if someone had taken their time dismantling her.

The precision of the cuts suggested this wasn't the work of some mindless beast—this had been deliberate, carried out to inflict maximum trauma on whoever found her.

His pupils shook as tears streamed down his face in hot streams that blurred his vision. He couldn't even breathe as he stood there. Each breath brought fresh waves of that horrific smell of blood and torn flesh, confirming that what his eyes were showing him was real.

This wasn't some nightmare he could wake up from. This wasn't a hallucination brought on by stress. His mother was dead, murdered in the most brutal way imaginable, and he hadn't been here to protect her.

With his enhanced senses, he could tell his father was currently not in the house. There were no sounds of breathing, no heartbeat echoing from the other rooms.

Either his father had escaped, or—and this thought made his blood run colder—he had been taken somewhere else. In other words, abducted.

The silence in the house was absolute, disrupted only by the steady dripping of blood falling from his mother's corpse that had been plastered to the wall to the floor below.

All in all, there was a letter right on top of the dining table.

The envelope bore a logo that made his enhanced vision focus with burning intensity—a dragon, but not just any dragon. This was a humanoid dragon, something he recognized from the Astral Shadow Plain.

"What business does the Dracogon have to do with this?!" he screamed, his tear-filled voice cracking as he fell to his knees, sobbing.

"What business does the Dracogon have to do with this?!" he screamed, his tear-filled voice cracking as he fell to his knees, sobbing with a pain that stung his chest.

"Why am I going through all this?!" he screamed into the air while tears continued to stream down his face, soaking his shirt and the floor beneath him.

"I contracted a beast—the same thing many other humans have done. Nearly every other human on this freaking Terra planet! So why me?!"

But even as he screamed the question, part of him knew the answer. He wasn't like other humans. He wasn't even like other summoners. He was the first person in several centuries to successfully contract a creature from the demon plane.

Not to mention, demon monarchs were practically fighting each other in a struggle to be his familiar.

The Dracogon, in fact, had marked him right at the moment he was born, had waited eighteen years for him to be ready. This whole event had been truly planned to intimidate him.

"The familiar contracts that change lives for the better are destroying mine! Why?!" he continued to scream, his voice growing hoarse by now as he sniffed.

For everyone else, contracting a familiar was a step into adulthood and power. His father's gravity-controlling familiar had saved their family multiple times.

His neighbors' creatures helped with their daily life routines and so on. Familiars were supposed to be partners, companions, sources of strength and comfort.

But his familiar, contracted and non-contracted, had brought nothing but chaos. First, a chase by demon and devil creatures from the astral shadow plain, then the explosion at the FSG base. Now, this. Everything he touched seemed to turn to ash and blood.

Ryder, out of anger, banged his hands against the ground as he lamented in pain, worsening everything in the process. He had forgotten, for just one brief moment, about his enhanced strength.

He had forgotten that his fists now carried the power of a devil creature.

The moment his hand made contact with the ground, a loud bang resonated like a cannon blast, cracking the earth in spider-web patterns that spread outward.

The wooden floorboards splintered and exploded upward, and the shockwave that followed was devastating.

A gust of wind emerged from the impact—not natural wind, but a supernatural force that carried with it raw power.

It tore through the house, grabbing furniture and picture frames and other precious items and hurling them into the air in a violent, windy explosion that lasted only a few seconds.

However, those few seconds seemed too long since they were enough to cause a little too much destruction.

When it all finally subsided, Ryder found himself standing in the center of complete destruction.

The walls had been blown outward, the roof had collapsed in sections, and everything that had made this place home was now scattered across a fifty-meter radius.

Ryder, who had been inside a shelter, was now outside under the afternoon sun, surrounded by the scattered objects.

He had just destroyed his family's precious home, containing all their valuables—by mistake. The house where he'd learned to walk, where he'd celebrated birthdays, where just yesterday his parents had pampered him like royalty—all of it was gone.

It was purely unintentional, but now, he had only increased his frustration. Not only was his mother dead and his father missing, but he had also erased every physical reminder of the life they'd built together.

The family photos, the small treasures that had no value to anyone else but meant the world to them—all destroyed by his own hand.

"Arrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!"

Ryder screamed into the air, and this time the sound carried for kilometers. Birds fled from trees in all directions, and somewhere in the distance... The scream seemed to go on forever, pouring out every ounce of pain and fury and helplessness that had been building inside him.

Getting up from the ground among the debris of his former home, Ryder's face was drained of all emotion.

The crying had stopped not because the pain had lessened, but because the emotions had disappeared.

He approached where the dining table had landed, now split in half but still recognizable. Flashbacks of recent events flowed through his mind with clarity—how his mother had treated him like royalty, rushing around to bring him food and comfort; how his father had run to get him a jug of water, his round belly jiggling with the urgency of his movement; how he had promised to never forget them, never knowing it would be the last conversation he'd ever have with his mother.

Ryder walked towards the envelope on the ground to pick it up, finally getting a good glance at it. He stared at the envelope's exterior one more time with a hollow gaze at the logo.

The dragon figure was more detailed than he had first realized. It showed the creature in its humanoid form, standing proud with six additional heads writhing behind it like serpents. Seven heads total—exactly what he had seen during the battle between Hollow and the Dracogon.

This is most likely the Dracogon; it cannot be coincidental.

"Luxy," Ryder called out in a low, emotionless tone that carried more menace than any scream should have.

"Do you, perhaps, have a clue about this?"

Luxy, however... remained silent, delaying for some reason.

Opening the envelope with steady hands and deliberate gentleness, Ryder read the contents written in blood.

"Do what must be done if you want to save your father."

It was written boldly, the letters large and crude, as if the writer had enjoyed the act of writing with someone else's blood.

"Yes," Luxy finally replied after a long moment of silence. "This is most likely the doing of Dracogon."

Ryder forced a smirk onto his face, a smirk of madness to be honest, the expression looking odd on features still streaked with dried tears.

"Are you certain it was him?" Ryder asked for clarification.

"Yes," Luxy replied again. "It's just a hunch though, but it is most likely the case. The residual energy signature is unmistakable. But Ryder, I am still quite confused about why Dracogon didn't direct all of this at me."

"I am the one who stole his host, after all."

Once again, Ryder asked. "Can you track them?"

From his left shoulder, black mist began to escape, materializing into a small ghostly figure—Luxy. The process took only a second, appearing with such speed that was only possible because there was no energy displacement.

More like a projection manifestation that could come out at Ryder's will.

Upon exiting Ryder's soul, Luxy opened his eyes and stared around with awe.

"This is my first time being outside in the human plane," he said, but his usual joking tone was absent. Instead, he inhaled deeply, his enhanced senses immediately detecting all scents around.

He could somehow use his sense organs in this form; he only couldn't inflict damage or make contact with tangible objects.

Narrowing his eyes, Luxy's gaze emitted an orange glow as he enhanced his sense of sight beyond even his normal devil capabilities.

The orange light from his eyes swept across the destruction like a lighthouse beam, revealing traces invisible to normal sight. Energy residues lingered in the air like ghostly mist, and the footprints glowed faintly on the ground with an orange blaze.

After a while, he spoke.

"The actual violence—the killing itself—it wasn't done by Dracogon directly. He was never really here; however, I believe he used an intermediary. Someone or something else carried out the physical act while he watched."

The devil creature paused as if allowing the information to sink into Ryder, then continued. "I cannot decipher anything specific about the one who did this. I cannot tell if it's a human or a familiar, if they are stronger than me, or if we are at the same level."

Luxy's projection turned to face Ryder directly. "I'm sorry, Ryder. Based on what I can detect, we have no choice but to wait. We have to hope that they will contact us again."

"Hope that they will be back?! To ruin my life once again?!" Ryder retorted, his voice cracking with emotion.

"Ryder, listen to me," Luxy said, his voice taking on a patient tone. "I am already aware that, other than your parents, you have nothing else. No close friends, no partner, or distant relatives who matter to you."

The brutal fact was delivered without any attempt at softening the blow. Luxy had been inside his soul long enough to understand the complete social isolation of Ryder's life.

"Right now, you have accidentally destroyed your home and all the physical reminders of your family. You have nothing left that they can use against you, Ryder, and you should keep it that way."

"If you refuse to form new connections, if you avoid acquiring new possessions or relationships that matter to you, then they won't have a way to hurt you and will be forced to come and confront you head-on."

"If that happens, then it's checkmate. I am currently the strongest familiar on this entire planet from what I've understood. In a direct confrontation without hostages, we cannot lose."

"Are you trying to tell me to remain isolated?" Ryder muttered, his eyes glaring at the floor with laser intensity and his fists clenching. "And live a boring life?"

"No no, that's not it," Luxy admitted. "You should simply be careful and make friends with the strongest while you also adapt to your new strength and having me around."

Adjusting his feet on the ground among the debris of his destroyed house, Ryder didn't even know where to go. The village that had been his entire world for eighteen years suddenly felt so empty to him.

"What do you think we should do now, Luxy?" Ryder asked, his voice carrying no emotion.

They couldn't stay in the village—too many innocent people who could get hurt.

They couldn't go back to the FSG—he was probably wanted for questioning at minimum, and execution at worst.

They couldn't hide forever—whatever game the Dracogon was playing would continue until Ryder engaged with it.

"You should visit the city," Luxy advised after a moment of consideration. "There must be loads of tasks summoners can do there, opportunities to grow stronger and gain resources."

Ryder sighed as he began to walk away from the crumbled house, and somehow, the neighbors were still oblivious to all that had transpired in what Ryder had once called home.

"You do remember that I am supposedly on the Red List of the FSG, right?" Ryder reminded his familiar, voicing his words flatly, his tone devoid of emotions.

"Who cares? They aren't a threat, are they?" Luxy's response carried the casual dismissal that was nothing short of prideful.

"You are already so strong you do not need to summon me out before handling anything that comes your way—including the FSG. Your body alone now carries enough power to handle entire squads of their best summoners."

"Now, let's go, Ryder," Luxy urged, his projection beginning to fade as he prepared to return to Ryder's shared soul space.

"I am already walking, can't you see?" he replied, but his pace was deliberately slow, as if some part of him was reluctant to leave the scene of his broken house.

After burying his mother's corpse, that is.

"Then run," Luxy said, firmly.