Auren sat on the cold stone floor of the hidden chamber, the lantern's weak flame casting restless shadows across Eldrin's lifeless form. In his hands rested the black-bound Demon Summoning Book, its pages old but chillingly alive with forbidden knowledge.
For several minutes, he turned page after page, pale fingers tracing ink that felt older than the castle's deepest stones. Words written in a scholar's steady hand described horrors and promises in equal measure.
He didn't skim.
He absorbed every line, weighing each arcane truth like a contract waiting for a signature.
At last, he closed the book with a quiet snap. The sound echoed off the damp walls, sharp as a verdict.
Auren's eyes flicked to the Redline still flickering faintly around the book's cover, then to Eldrin's sunken face. His mind worked fast, slotting this new knowledge into place like puzzle pieces, reshaping his fate.
His thumb tapped the book's cover once, twice, like the soft rap of thought.
Auren's expression was unreadable in the wavering lantern light, but his eyes were sharp and clear.
"So that's how it is."
Finally, the puzzle clicked into place.
The so-called solution for his Overflowed Soul was brutally simple:
Offer part of his soul to a demon.
The book's pages made it clear enough.
To summon a demon, you must pay.
To wish for something, you must pay again.
And the currency is never gold or jewels — it's your soul, your lifespan, your very being.
Summoning takes.
The wish takes more.
Nothing is free.
For people like the Queen or Eldrin, this ritual was a desperate gamble— a last-ditch scam dressed up as forbidden salvation.
But for Auren?
It was a bargain.
A transaction.
A clean trade.
A problem turned asset.
Not only could he drain the excess soul that was rotting this fragile body from the inside out, he could bind a demon to his will, bend its power to his ends.
A cure and a tool.
No wonder the Redline had dragged him here.
It wasn't pointing at hope.
It was pointing at a deal.
For this reason, Auren decided to perform the ritual without hesitation.
According to the book, the demon summoning required three precise steps.
First was the summoning circle — a complex design of runes, symbols, and exact measurements to anchor the Outer World to this one.
Luckily for him, this step was already done. Eldrin's circle still pulsed faintly on the cold stone floor, ready and waiting.
Second was the offering — the price to crack open the Veil. It could be blood, a life-force vessel, or an item of deep, personal significance.
Auren had walked in here barefoot and empty-handed— no trinkets, no heirlooms, nothing of sentimental weight.
That left him only one currency: his own blood.
Third was the incantation — an alien tongue strung together in a script so old it stank of the Outer World's breath.
One slip of the tongue, and the thing on the other side might never come, or worse, come wrong.
Eldrin must have brought the book here for this exact reason: to read the words exactly as written.
Auren's pale fingers brushed the dry pages again, eyes skimming each rune until the shapes etched themselves into memory.
One step at a time.
No mistakes or he'd join Eldrin in the shadows, soul torn out and swallowed whole.
He dragged Eldrin's withered body aside, pushing it gently into the corner of the chamber.
"Don't worry, old man," He murmured under his breath, voice cold but almost amused: "I'll let you watch how it's actually done."
Auren found a shard of broken glass among Eldrin's ritual scraps — sharp enough.
He stepped barefoot into the heart of the circle, the cold stone biting at his skin.
With one clean slice across his palm, he let his blood drip onto the ancient runes.
Dark red splatters hissed against the stone, as if the circle drank the offering in hungry gulps.
He reopened the Demon Summoning Book and, in a voice steady as steel, began to read the incantation aloud:
"Ez'athra Vul Omnistra,
Surn Valekh Nythora,
Orun'thel Veyara Dras,
Suun Kael Mordris Thaal.
By blood unbound, the Veil undone.
By soul's edge, the bargain spun.
Answer the name carved in bone and flame —
I call thee forth by thy True Name."
The air seemed to tighten with each alien word, the chamber humming, the shadows quivering as if something far beyond these walls leaned closer to listen.
And then the final step.
The True Name.
Every book held only one— a single, terrible key to one specific demon bound to that name alone.
No randomness. No gamble.
Auren's eyes flicked to the last line on the page. Despite the cold sweat on his brow, he remained steady. The last alien syllable slipped past his lips like a knife through silk:
"By blood and breath, I summon thee — Vel'Ezuthra Kael Mynothra!"
The circle under his feet pulsed once, then went deathly still.
A heartbeat of silence.
Two.
Then the blood that pooled around his feet hissed, turning black as ink. The runes flared alive in a hungry crimson, then a deep abyssal violet. The lantern flame sputtered and guttered out, plunging the chamber into near-darkness, except for the ritual circle's unearthly glow.
The air changed. It's thickened like invisible silk curtains drifting through the room. Auren felt it brush his skin, a cold caress behind his ear, a whisper inside his chest where his soul thrummed too loud.
Then the shadows inside the circle coiled together— folding, peeling apart, then knitting again like living cloth. Within them, a dozen eyes opened. They bloomed and winked out in the same breath, like stars behind storm clouds.
A slit of a grin emerged, stitched from black nothingness, and a voice poured into the space— smooth, layered, as if a dozen whispers were speaking the same words at once:
"Ahh… it has been long, long since this True Name tasted mortal breath."
Auren's pulse pounded in his ears, but he forced his expression to stay flat and cold, even as the shadows drew closer to the circle's inner rim.
Slowly, the form resolved: a tall figure, draped in layered veils that shifted like living silk. Where a face should be, only more drifting veils— thin as spider's thread, trailing behind a crown of dark, horn-like branches that curled like black coral.
Within the veil's folds, faint lights blinked— false eyes, shifting, never settling.
The grin widened. White teeth, too many of them.
The voice again sounded amused, polite, and faintly surprised:
"This True Name smelled a familiar scent from you, a young summoner. How curious."
The veiled figure tilted its head in a motion that made the shadows bend unnaturally, as if the world itself dipped to listen.
"Tell me, young summoner. For what do you offer your soul tonight?"
Auren stood at the center of the circle calmly, as if this were just another transaction. He lifted his chin, his voice steady, "I want you to serve me. For a set time. You'll obey my commands and lend me your power."
The veiled figure did not answer first. It just let out a low ripple, like laughter heard underwater.
Auren's pale lips curled in a ghost of a smile.
'Laugh while you can!'
He pressed his cut palm tighter to the circle's core, warm blood dripping into the sigil until the runes glowed with a hungry violet light. He said clearly, "In return, you may take my soul."
The veiled figure stilled.
For a moment, all its eyes focused into a single, collective stare that pierced flesh and thought alike.
It hadn't realized yet that the soul it hungered for was an endless well.
Auren said nothing more.
He flipped the Demon Summoning Book open, eyes skimming the ancient lines.
The next words scraped against his throat like broken glass.
The demon's tongue was not meant for mortal mouths. Still, he spoke it exactly.
Each syllable cracked the stale air like thunder under the old stones.
The circle pulsed with every word— brighter, deeper, shadows dancing wildly across Eldrin's cold body in the corner.
At the final word, the air inside the chamber twisted. Auren's blood on the runes flared violet— alive, binding, locked.
Now came the final key.
The veil of eyes and whispering cloth drifted closer, tasting the iron tang of sacrifice in the air.
Auren bared his teeth in a crooked smile. He rasped, "My true name... Caelus Babylon."
A moment of silence.
Then the veiled figure's shifting veil quivered. A dozen overlapping voices murmured the name back; each syllable sliding like oil over fire.
"Caelus Babylon. This True Name, Vel'Ezuthra Kael Mynothra, taste your bargain and accept."
A cold spark lanced through Auren's chest as the Soul Mark seared into place deep inside him. No wound on the skin, but he felt it: a brand carved straight into his being.
The veiled figure's shadows rippled.
The veil thinned, then re-formed into a sharper shape— vaguely human now, clad in shifting black and dripping starlight, crowned by a floating ring of hungry eyes.
Auren's fingers trembled just once as he drew another shallow cut, blood trickling fresh onto the pulsing circle.
"Feast," He whispered, "Do your part."
The veiled figure needed no urging.
It lunged— or rather, it drank. Not just blood, but the soul-force that coiled under Auren's ribs like a stormcloud with nowhere to go.
Cold swept through Auren's limbs— then warmth, then a dizzying emptiness. The agony that had gnawed at his bones for so long softened, dulled by the demon's greedy feed.
But the drain didn't stop.
The veiled figure paused, puzzled at first. Its veil flickered, an eye blinking open and shut in confusion.
'Why… why has it not run dry?'
It drank deeper. And deeper.
The soul-force kept flowing, excess spilling out like a dam broken by design.
Auren's faint smile curved sharply. His pale lashes lowered, shadowing the glint in his eyes.
"Take it all. I insist."
The veiled figure trembled. Somewhere behind that veil, it somehow understood.
But it was too late.
Auren's soul was no ordinary morsel; it was an overflowing ocean that demanded to be devoured. And once devoured, it bound the devourer in chains of its own making.
Finally, when the veiled figure's essence strained at the brink of gluttony, Auren's voice cracked through the gloom:
"Enough."
The demon staggered back, veils snapping tight around itself, eyes dim with disbelief.
"You… how could a mortal body hold such a tide of soul?"
Auren chuckled softly and clinically.
"Surprise."
As the circle's glow faded to embers, the cold in the chamber lifted, leaving only the faint echo of the pact's final lock.
The veiled figure lowered its shifting head—bound now, anchored to the boy who had cheated death and chained a demon with his own curse.
"Master."
The word hissed out bitterly, every syllable a reluctant oath.
Auren lifted the Demon Summoning Book and looked down at his new servant.
"Welcome to this world," He murmured, "Serve me well. I will not treat you badly. By the way, how should I address you?"
The veiled figure answered, "Master, just called me Velethus!"