The room exploded into action at Harken's command. Twenty knights took position around the summoning portal, an equal distance from each other, and got into defensive stances. Standing behind them, mages, laden with mana restoration potions, were covered by the knights' impressive tower shields, glistening with various protective spells.

After checking that everyone was in position, the grey-robed mage, who had been talking with Harken earlier, tentatively approached the pedestal and placed the large, white crystal on it, causing the red light that was illuminating the room to flicker momentarily as the crystal ominously started to glow. After fiddling with the position of the crystal, the mage took a deep breath and started chanting in an ancient, long forgotten language.

The other mages quickly followed his lead, their deep, otherworldly voices joining his, causing the air to shimmer and visibly thicken as mana began to concentrate around them, making it increasingly difficult to breathe.

Harken solemnly looked at the knight who was closest to the summoning portal, restraining a struggling woman, and gestured with his hand.

The knight hauled the violently shaking woman to her feet, tearing the hem of her noble-looking dress, and proceeded to push her towards an open space with deep grooves cut into the floor in a pentagram-like shape.

As the woman passed Harken, he could faintly hear her muffled sobs, causing his face to significantly darken as he hardened his heart for what was to come.

The pentagram lit up in an eerie light as the pair stepped onto it. When they reached the centre, the knight stopped pushing the woman, allowing her fall to her knees as her legs buckled from fear. She quickly tried to scramble away, only to be stopped as the man grabbed her long, golden hair and painfully lifted her back into a kneeling position in the centre.

With an unreadable expression, mainly due to the helmet he was wearing and the poor light, the knight turned his head towards Harken as a squire, no more than sixteen years of age, stepped forward with a pale face, shakily holding a long, vicious-looking dagger.

With as much resolve as he could muster, Harken gave a single, resolute nod and the knight took the slender, curved blade and steadily brought it to the woman's neck.

Feeling the cold metal blade pressed against her skin, the woman gave one last valiant attempt to break free. Her chest heaved as she tried to scream and fight her fate, but as the knife was brutally pulled across her throat, her movements became erratic before her body finally sagged and fell limply to the floor, her blood spilling out around her.

"May the gods have mercy on her soul," muttered Harken as he watched the entire process without blinking. "And may they forgive mine for what is about to happen."

The knight quickly stepped back and out of the circle as the blood expanded around the woman's corpse. Suddenly, the blood began to behave strangely, and, as if it were alive, started to unnaturally flow towards the grooves carved into the ground before heading towards the sides of the summoning portal.

Instead of stopping when it reached the misty, black edges, the blood was sucked upwards, revealing frightening, jagged runes that were previously invisible, making the door seem even more intimidating and sinister.

As everyone's eyes were glued to the blood runes, slowly flickering to life on the door, a stream of white light shot from the white crystal on the pedestal, went through the door and hit the woman's corpse causing it to slightly slide back from the impact. After a few moments, a small, grey orb drifted out of the corpse and began floating towards the summoning portal, seemingly drawn towards the light.

Just as the orb was half way through the door frame, the white light weakened, only to be consumed by black bolts of lightning erupting from the bright, blood red runes on the sides. The bolts slammed into the soul, tearing it to pieces in a matter of moments and generating a high-pitched, genderless wail of agony that could be clearly heard above the chanting. Along with the wail, the orb vanished from existence, leaving behind a tiny black hole no bigger than a man's fist.

"This thing destroys souls? Not even the gods have that kind of power... What the hell are you thinking?" hissed Rynheart in a low, threatening voice as he rejoined Harken, his eyes wide with shock.

Harken replied without taking his eyes off the ritual. "Summoning a soul can only be done if there is enough space. This typically happens when a soul transcends to the next realm but seeing as we can't wait for that, we have to emulate the process as best as we can."

Rynheart ground his teeth. "Emulate? We are destroying a soul. There is no way the gods will ever allow this to go unpunished."

Harken was not phased by Rynheart's protests. "We need the energy gained by the destruction of the soul to create the dimensional rift, replacing it with a summoned one. I didn't say it earlier, but that old soul mage, Antek is partially right. If we kill a summoned here, we must destroy the soul and summon another immediately. If done right, the gods will never know."

Rynheart spat on the floor. "I take it back, a civil war would be less disastrous than risking the wrath of the gods. If we fail..."

"We will not fail," interrupted Harken.

Rynheart was about to respond when a much brighter, light grey orb, about twice the size of the original started to emerge from the black hole. "Fuck, I hate knowing the details after it's too late... Your father would be spinning in his grave if he knew what we were doing."

When the summoned soul was completely through, the black hole screeched as it folded in on itself and disappeared, causing a bone-shaking rumble to emanate outwards and dust to fall from the cavern ceiling.

One of the jars of blood appeared to be boiling as some of its contents leaked over the rim, falling into a deep groove leading to the centre of the doorway. Unlike the woman's blood, the blood that had been contained in the jar pooled under the summoned soul before floating upwards, circling the grey orb majestically, if not a little gruesomely.

Rynheart leant towards Harken. “I have a bad feeling about this, the moment something goes wrong, you use that jump crystal and get out of here, or I personally will kick your arse all the way to the capital after breaking every bone in your body.”

The prince laughed nervously, but not a hint of humour or jest appeared on Rynheart’s face.

The blood congealed around the soul, forming a tiny skeleton with horns, no bigger than a human heart. The bones then began to grow at a tremendous rate, until they reached the size comparable with that of an average, eight-year-old child.

When the blood-red bones were fully formed, they slowly turned white as bolts of black lightning once again discharged from the door frame, causing the air to crackle as it licked the surface of the bones.

Instead of destroying the bones, as it had done with the woman's soul, wherever the bolts landed small blood vessels and tissue started to form and grow, expanding rapidly, quickly covering most of the skeleton. The speed of the process gradually increased, causing the runes on the gate to dim as they slowly ran out of the life energy gained from the woman's blood.

Not even five minutes later, everyone was still watching with dumb expressions. A slow-beating heart and working lungs were clearly visible as the muscle and flesh began to cover them. It was at this point where the teeth and eyes started to form, and the first traces of skin could be seen on the newly created body's feet.

It was a further five minutes before the fully formed body of a young girl with jade-white skin floated from the portal as the last of the red runes faded back into the black mist. The girl slowly drifted forward out of the doorway before delicately landing on the floor. The demoness's bright red eyes, glowed in the dim light as they darted about, trying to work out what was going on as her long, whip-like tail wiggled, the small, triangular tip too heavy to be lifted entirely off the ground.

It was at this point that Harken realised he had been holding his breath and let out a relieved sigh. "The first one is a success, and we managed to get a pure, stage two demoness."

"That's if the Sun Clan doesn't claim her. Owning a pure demon is something anyone with ambition would want due to their ability to command and control the lesser demons. Instant, expendable army… if you can find the demons,” muttered Rynheart.

Immediately the young squire who had handed the dagger to the knight moved forward with a large silver collar in his hands. The demoness hissed threateningly, causing the boy to hesitate briefly but not out of fear, he was temporarily stunned by the beautiful, glowing red eyes of the demoness before flashing her a quick, reassuring smile.

The smile seemed to disarm the demoness, enabling the boy to approach and gently put the collar around her neck, closing it with a loud clank, without her putting up any resistance.

The moment the collar fastened around the demonesses neck, the knight who has slit the woman’s throat stepped forward, pushing the squire out of the way. “Move it, boy, this is no place to be flirting with a demon.”

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Thanks for reading,

For those waiting for the MC, not long now, Only another segment (or two) 3.2/3.3.

Huge thanks as always, to Solfyr for the helping get this chapter ready for release (And some awesome ideas!).

I also wanted to give a special (and massive) thank you to hamisun for all his help with grammar/sentence structure, hopefully, I haven't made your eyes bleed too much with this chapter (there were a few spots I really wasn't sure on). Really appreciate you taking the time to help and comment.