The Seven Demon's Tamer

Huff! Huff! Huff! Huff!

They heard someone breathing heavily behind them.

"Wait, Ryder!" she called out, a voice Ryder recognized.

Turning around, he blurted, "Mara!"

The young lady who stood before them was slightly built, with long combed black hair tied in a bun and piercing green eyes like beautiful gems.

She wore the practical clothing of a traveler—sturdy boots, loose trousers, and a jacket with more pockets than seemed necessary. With how tidy she still appeared, Ryder could guess she was about to travel out.

But who travels like this in the developed generation like this?

But more surprising, how did she recognize him while still undercover in his cloak?

"What... What are you doing here, Mara?" Ryder stuttered, not looking at her directly. "Don't you have something better to do?"

"I had," she confirmed, her breathing beginning to steady. "Until I heard rumors about FSG massing nearby and a cloaked figure entering our village.

Agents specifically looking for two men, one amongst them known as the demon contractor." She raised an eyebrow pointedly. "Can't imagine who that might be."

"I want an explanation this instant," Mara growled, glaring at Ryder.

She was usually the cold and nonchalant type of person who spoke only at the time of necessity. Just how could she have thrown away that personality into this just because Ryder returned back to the village?

"I'm quite occupied with a lot at this moment," Ryder spoke with a hint of sadness in his voice. "You wouldn't understand."

"Yes I will, Ryder!" she barked angrily. "I want an explanation, starting from your home and parents."

Some passersby heard Mara's outburst and slowly turned toward the small commotion.

Unlike the big cities here in the United Kingdom, this village was a relatively small community where most people recognized each other on sight. The questions Mara had thrown at the cloaked figure confirmed what several had already begun to suspect—the stranger in their midst was no stranger at all.

"Ryder!" an elderly woman called out in surprise, her wrinkled hand clutching at the fabric of her light gown, her eyes wide open.

She's Mrs. Henley, a woman who was friends with his parents, who had watched him grow from a toddling child into a young man.

"What happened to your home?" another voice he recognized intruded. It was Mrs. Smith, their neighbor who had slipped him candied fruits when his mother wasn't looking back then when he was younger.

"Where are your parents?"

"Why did you suddenly disappear?"

So many questions were being bombarded at him while he remained silent and lost, staring at Mara. He trusted his disguise to keep him hidden but it turns out a mere cloak wouldn't stop him from being recognizable by the people he grew around.

Mara matched his stare unflinchingly. That was when she recognized the look in his eyes—this was not the Ryder she had known.

Although they had never been especially close friends, she knew him well enough to see the difference. The gaze of the person before her was simply too cold, too hard; nothing like the warm, often scared expression the old Ryder would have worn. And his pupils... they were red, not the deep black she remembered.

"Yes, it is me, Ryder."

With a defeated gesture, he pulled his hood downward, fully revealing himself to the gathering crowd. At that moment, the noise quieted down as a gust of wind swept through the village street, catching his long white hair and lifting it gently in a dance.

The collective gasp was audible. The Ryder who had left the village a couple of days ago had changed significantly. It was clear with the look in his eyes, his dead eyes.

The figure who stood before them, supposedly Ryder, now had hair so white it seemed to reflect the afternoon sunlight. It was so long that if combed back, it could cascade down to his shoulder. Combined with his now red eyes, it felt like Ryder had seen so much.

With the kind of questions he was being bombarded with, Ryder sighed in relief.

At least there was one small mercy in this situation. The village is luckily one of the few places on Terra where electronic devices were strictly forbidden.

With the look on their faces, it was clear that they were oblivious to the uprising news about Ryder, the demon plain contractor. No smartphones or computers to instantly connect to the global network and stream recent events.

If gadgets were used freely, they would have all been aware of the news about him; the devastating news about him.

"Where are your parents?" Mara started the question while the others fell silent, hanging on his every word. It was the question he dreaded most, yet knew he could not avoid.

Ryder's jaw tightened. The memories threatened to overwhelm him—his mother's lifeless body plastered to the wall, right above a pool of her own blood.

"My mom was assassinated!" Ryder announced, forcing the words out of his mouth. Gasps escaped from everyone's mouths, including Mara's. Her hand flew to her lips, eyes widening with shock and horror.

"My dad was abducted by the assassins," Ryder added, the last part increasing their shock even more.

"So I ran away from home to protect myself."

Ryder concluded with his eyes fixed on the ground, unable to meet the pitying gazes of the villagers he had grown up alongside.

The look in everyone's eyes was sympathetic, all of this so unbelievably tragic. In this village, occupants were all on good terms with one another. Everyone was like family, and Ryder's parents had been close friends with many of those now gathered around him.

Tears broke down the faces of several villagers as many ran home to spread the news to those who weren't present. Ryder remained rooted to his spot, stunned by their reaction.

To think that people he had considered merely neighbors and villagers would shed tears for his parents' deaths...

Ryder bit his lips, his body desperately trying to fight his emotions back, but it lost soon enough. As if a dam had burst within him, tears broke down his face, rolling down his cheeks in an uncontrollable sob.

He hadn't been able to properly mourn his parents' deaths until now, always on the run, getting into trouble and causing disasters. Not to talk of his devil familiar that messed with his emotion and restricted some of his emotions.

"Oh, Ryder," Mrs. Henley stepped forward, wrapping her thin arms around his shoulders in a warm embrace that nearly shattered what remained of his composure. "My poor boy."

"You don't have a mother anymore," she whispered to him kindly. "I promise I will always be here to be your mother."

Other villagers pressed closer, offering words of comfort, sharing their own memories of his parents.

"So much love," Ryder sniffed. "I never believed I would feel these from anyone other than my parents." He sniffed, his voice quavering as tears drooled down his face. "Thank you all."

Brok, who stood by the gate observing the scene unfold, was quite stunned by what was occurring before him. He could only hope he would see Ryder display such raw emotions like this.

He never knew about all these concerning Ryder but on the bright side, Ryder's emotions were coming back.

As for Leo, his usual playful demeanor had vanished entirely. His face had gone pale, his unnaturally vibrant blue-silver eyes fixed on a point in the distance, yet still directed skyward, seemingly unaware of all that is going on nearby.

"I thought he said he could only see things in the village?" Brok scoffed under his breath, slightly irritated. "We are out now; he should drop this new habit already."

"Ry—Ryder, Brok," Leo stuttered, his voice so quiet that only Brok could hear it.

"We are in big trouble!" Leo muttered, his usually confident voice was now covered in terror.

If not for this moment, Brok wouldn't have known that Leo could show fear.

Leo has always been playfully dangerous as well as nonchalant. Surprisingly, right now, he was showing genuine fear for the villagers' lives.

"There is a wave of energy spreading out from far away, heading towards this village," Leo explained, his voice hushed and urgent. "The strength of the energy is so strong... And I am absolutely sure it would cause a breach between the Astral Shadow plain and our planet, Terra."

Brok gasped as he finally understood.

"But porter breach isn't exactly a problem for us," Ryder, who had heard the entire conversation with his enhanced senses, chimed in.

He gently disengaged himself from Mrs. Henley's hug and moved closer towards Leo and Brok, wiping the last of his tears from his face. "You were able to handle the last porter alongside that devil with no problem, weren't you?"

Mara, despite the fact that she was feeling sober, joined their circle. Although she didn't understand what they were talking about, she still listened.

"Then we should stay behind and take care of the breach as quickly as possible now that we are here," Ryder suggested.

"I see no reason why you are so afraid except," Brok narrowed his eyes. "You perhaps know something that we don't."

Leo sighed heavily and made a visible effort to clear the unsettling feeling from the pit of his stomach. "The gamma energy here is in abundance, which is bad and I've told you earlier."

"The gamma energy in the air during the first porter breach we faced previously was intense but covering a small fraction of the air in the warehouse, as small as a single building in this village," he elaborated, his expression grave.

"This, on the other hand, is just as intense as the gamma energy that formed that porter, but it isn't on a small scale like the one earlier—it is literally covering this entire village."

He paused for a while, thinking of how to continue. "The porter that will form here wouldn't be like the mediocre porter from before. It would be massive. Even though I and Luxy are strong enough to handle those beasts from before, I won't be able to handle myself and potentially protect the village, there will be casualties—many would be injured, and there might be deaths here and there."

Leo ran a hand through his silvery hair, a gesture of frustration that they all understood now. "Not to talk of the attention it will bring," he continued. "It won't take long for the FSG agents to notice and send a troop to handle the situation."

His gaze shifted to Ryder, concern clear in his eyes. "They'll know you are nearby and try to take you down."

At that moment, the rumble of an engine broke through the tense silence. A sleek black car, its polished surface reflecting the afternoon sun like a dark mirror, pulled up at the front of the rusty gate and then, a particular figure stepped out, someone they all recognize — Dwang Sung.

He is the leader of the Red-Eastern guild and quite popular all over the world as of for the countable human that contracted more than one familiar.

Dwang Sung contracted four familiars, all red marked.

Stepping through the gate, his red pupils stared at them coldly, starting with the one he recognized — Leo.

Speaking of worse scenario...

'If Leo is standing before him, it could only mean Ryder was with him as well.'

"You guys stay behind me," Leo ordered as he stepped forward with firm resolve, positioning himself between Dwang Sung and the others. "I can handle this."

"Heyyyy," Master Sung called out with a welcoming smile. "Violence isn't necessary.

I am here to save you."

Leo knew better than to trust the man's honeyed words. Dwang Sung was among the parties with which the FSG had collaborated to track down Ryder. If he was here, it meant things were about to go really sour.