The Seven Demon's Tamer

The village looked like the fictional apocalypse in real life. Buildings reduced to rubble, streets stained with black fluid, and the stench of otherworldly beasts and blood in the air.

Above them all, the massive portal still hung in the sky like a malevolent eye staring down at the destruction it had brought forth.

"Leo, now you have the opportunity, don't you think you should share more about yourself to me?" While they were running side by side, Ryder finally questioned.

Mara and Brok were finding it hard to keep up because, I mean, they are both weak summoners, so Ryder grabbed them—holding Mara by his left arm while Brok by his right.

They didn't need to run anymore because Ryder was doing all the running for them now, but the fact that it was embarrassing remained. Their faces were beet red.

Leo was hesitant, his eyes darting to the portal that was still present above; it wasn't releasing out anymore beasts, but it was still present.

"Secrets were meant to be kept, not shared. But then again, I've lived for too long and I don't know how much longer I will live for, so it's only reasonable to not die with such intriguing information."

Eventually, Leo nodded and began. "The silver gaze technique helps me to get a clear view of energy readings, including that in my body."

He paused, deciding how to put the words. Telling something he'd known and practiced for many years to someone who had never experienced it was practically like trying to describe colors to a blind man.

"Although I am not a summoner, thereby having no trace of gamma energy, but you see, gamma energy isn't the only energy the human body possesses.

Life is an energy the human body possesses as well.

With my silver gaze, I am capable of seeing my own life energy, and that enables me to feel it, and feeling it enables me to control it, and controlling it enables me to amplify it to be beneficial to me in battle."

He raised his previously broken arm, flexing it experimentally. The arm that had been snapped like a twig was now whole, functioning as if it had never been injured.

"I simply manipulate my life energy once in a while throughout my body to increase my life span, heal my dying cells and body wounds, like I did to my arm."

Mara gasped, her eyes wide with wonder. "That's... that's almost like magic!"

Leo chuckled smoothly, despite being in motion. "Not magic, just science that hasn't been fully understood yet. The human body is complex, capable of feats beyond what most people realize."

"All I can do is access my eyes' capability at a greater level and see how much I can do, just with better harnessing of my eyes."

Brok, who had been silently listening, finally spoke up. "So, you're like, what? A self-healing machine?"

"Not quite," Leo corrected. "It's more than that. This life energy doesn't just heal; it is also a very powerful form of energy. With it inside my body, I can expand it to various parts such as my fist to strengthen the impact of my punches or my feet to increase my explosive movement while sprinting."

To demonstrate, Leo lowered himself to pick up a small rock from the ground while still in the quick motion of running.

He straightened his body back, and with a casual flicker of his finger, he sent the rock flying into a nearby partly destroyed tree with such force that it passed through the trunk from one side, bursting out from the other.

The display was effortless, almost casual, yet it was a clear display of how much strength Leo was capable of attaining while enhancing his body with his life energy.

"Think of it like a... like a battery that powers a car," Leo explained. "Except in this case, I'm both the battery and the car. I decide where the energy goes, how much of it, and for what purpose."

Ryder slowly nodded as he digested all the new information. Now it made sense why Leo was so fast and strong despite being an ordinary human; he was simply manipulating his life energy into his body parts to enhance it.

"But that doesn't explain why your hands were broken by a simple gesture of mine. Why did your body feel so weak at that moment?"

Leo replied, "It was because I hadn't expected you to make such a gesture."

He ran a hand through his hair, slightly embarrassed as he admitted. "You caught me off guard. My control over my life energy has its limits, so I do not always spread it out to my fists and feet every time; sometimes I return it back to the core right at the center of my chest."

Leo waved off the apology. "No harm done. Well, technically, harm was done," he added with a wry grin, "but it's healed now, so it's all in the past."

"That's the moment when you scoffed my hand away. I was nothing but a mere human with no extraordinary capability while you, on the other hand, had the strength of a black marked familiar coursing through you."

"That's a nice trick you got there." Ryder smiled. "While using energy only inside your body without sending it out helps you conserve it in a way that you don't lose even the slightest bit no matter how long.

If you should spend it throughout your whole body to fight with someone like Luxy, I doubt if you will be losing."

"You're wrong," Leo replied blankly. "The more you spread out your life energy, the weaker it becomes. After all, the life energy is as tiny as a pearl at the center of the chest of every living thing.

Expanding it to the extent where it can cover your whole fist is expanding it more than 10 times its original size.

Expanding it to feet as well is quite a burden. Back then when I fought with Luxy, I had to concentrate on body parts one at a time and mainly on my fist just so I could be able to match up with him.

A red marked familiar? I could consider spreading out my life energy to both my fists and my feet simultaneously. If I spread it out to my whole body, then maybe I might not even stand a chance against the red mark beast due to the fact that the life energy concentration will be lighter and weaker."

He paused, considering his next words carefully. "What is it commonly called?" Leo questioned rhetorically. "Quantity over quality, right?"

"More like quality over quantity in your case," Ryder corrected, earning a nod of agreement from Leo.

"But wait," Mara interjected with curiosity. "If this life energy is in everyone, why can't everyone do what you do?"

Leo turned to her, his expression softening slightly.

It was a good question, one that deserved a thoughtful answer.

"The energy is there, yes, but the ability to perceive it, much less manipulate it, is rare," Leo explained. "Remember I am only able to do such due to my silver gaze."

"Wow, silver gaze really is complex," Ryder muttered as they finally reached their destination. Countless corpses of beasts were sprawled on the floor where rivers of black blood had replaced most of the sandy floor.

They got to their destination a few seconds after Dwang Sung, and they could see all the Red-Eastern guild members, grouped together.

On sighting Dwang Sung, a particular member hurried forward with his already summoned beast right next to him.

"Blood orc, clear a path for Master Sung." Mo Fan, who wasn't exempted from the call of Master Sung for the former task to reclaim his pride as a Red Eastern guild member, commanded his familiar.

The creature, a hulking orc with skin the color of dried blood, grunted in response.

With a single flicker of its hand to the side, all the blood that covered the ground was moved sideways, creating a clean pathway through the field of mud and blood.

The black fluid blood rippled and flowed like it had a mind of its own as the orc kept it suspended to the side. This is the affinity of the orc, the affinity of blood manipulation.

As soon as Master Sung got close enough, he allowed his orc to release its spell, quickly leaving Leo, Brok, and Ryder behind.

Mo Fan shot one last glare at Ryder, a glare filled with animosity, but with all emotions that could have been used as response, Ryder simply smiled.

"Stubborn till the very end, eh! I like your spirit."

"How are things going on from this end?" Master Sung questioned his guild members with authority. "Things have been going smoothly, and majority of the civilians have been placed under the shelter of Fuji Fan's familiar's affinity space."

Fuji Fan, an average-sized woman with a severe bun and glasses that magnified her already large eyes, nodded in confirmation. Her familiar, a translucent creature that resembled a jellyfish, hovered beside her, its tendrils swaying gently in a non-existent breeze.

"The space can hold about a few thousand people at once, and that is almost around the same number of villagers in this village," she explained.

"We've managed to evacuate most of the vulnerable populations—children, elderly, injured. But unfortunately, my familiar's space got filled, unable to take in the last batch of villagers; about fifty individuals.

A couple of them died, and we are left with twenty now."

"Are there any more beasts roaming around?" Master Sung asked, turning to another guild member.

"No, we have cleared this area," the man replied.

With a single abnormal leap from where he previously stood, Ryder gracefully landed amid the crowd of Red-Eastern guild members, holding onto Mara by his left arm and Brok by his right.

Leo was capable of doing just the same, and he did, his landing as light as a cat's despite the distance he'd covered.

"If all the beasts have been executed, then the portal should have closed up by now," Ryder spoke as he stared upward. "Except... maybe something still hasn't emerged."

The portal remained unwavering, like a malevolent eye in the sky. Its edges crackled with energy, sending sparks raining down upon them like fireworks occasionally.

"Yes, indeed you are right," Leo agreed as he looked upward, his silver gaze giving him more details. "There is still one little rat up there, and it's on another level. I can guess it is the monarch of these pests."

"A monarch!" Ryder retorted in puzzlement.

"Why are you acting so surprised?" Leo spoke dismissively. "You should know by now it is possible for monarchs to exist in all planes.

From the energy reading coming from the last piece that has yet to emerge, I can measure it to be far more than what a brand marked familiar should possess," Leo explained.

"What has yet to come out from that portal that causes its delay and closing up is due to just that one monarch."