Jason snapped out of his reverie, looking away from the screen and glancing around. By now, the blood that had engulfed him had receded and the floor was now dry once more, the bodies of the fallen gone and the survivors looking around warily. He saw that only a couple dozen or so had survived the literal bloodbath, a shocking casualty rate considering at least a thousand had participated. He scanned their faces, recognizing most of the intelligent devils he saw earlier.

Curiously, most of them seemed to be stretching, staring at their bodies, or throwing punches in the air. ‘Right! The evolution!’

Jason looked down at himself, and was shocked to find that his body had changed drastically. Where his body was once construed by iron-grey wispy mist and smoke, like a cloud, it had now condensed, turning into an ink-black fog, so dense it was practically liquid. His contours were more defined now, with the tiny wisps escaping from his body here and there the only indication that he was still made of mist at all.

And the most noticeable were the gleaming black horns protruding from his head. He carefully touched them, finding them to be made of mist like the rest of his body. ‘What for? I am a shapeshifter, so these horns surely aren’t cosmetic in nature . . . An indicator of my rank or strength?’

As he was exploring his improved capabilities, a sinister voice boomed overhead.

“Now, since the Trial of Blood is over, it is time for you to sign your contracts.” The winged devil said as its wings flapped, staring imperiously at them from above.

It smiled sinisterly, its eyes turning up to cresents. “As your trial is sponsored by the Duke, your rank promotion is owed to him, and you will have to work to pay your debt to him.’

Jason began to feel his heart sink, as the devil conjured several contracts made of fire from a wisp of flame with the flick of his fingers. He wanted to protest, but he doubted that talking back would be a good idea in a society consisting of incredibly violent and sociopathic killers.

Luckily, someone else took a step forward. A devil, not one of the intelligent ones he remembered, strode towards the winged devil. It spoke in the same guttural language, and he understood it just the same. It roared at the overseer, pointing its clawed finger at it. “What is the meaning of this? I owe nothing to you, or your wretche-“

SCHWING

In a flash of light, something flickered between the overseer and the devil, and the devil stopped in its tracks. It stood still for a moment, eyes bulging as it glared at the overseer. With a sickening tearing sound, a line of black blood leaked between its red forehead, before it split in half, falling to the floor with a wet slap.

Instantly, all the remaining devils went quiet.

“Listen up, weaklings. I think you do not understand your current position, so I’ll spell it out for you. You owe the Duke for sponsoring your advancement, so you WILL work for him. Anyone who does not comply,” he lazily stretched his arm out and the core of the dead devil flew to his palm, “will die.” He popped the core into his mouth, crunching into it like a snack.

His face twisted in disdain. “Pathetic. Too weak to even feel anything.”

He waved his hand, and the contracts flew to all the devils in the room. As it reached Jason, he tentatively grabbed the flaming contract hovering in the air, and upon feeling no burning sensation, carefully read the contract. He found that he simply understood the twisted and barbaric characters glowing in the flames, but it was their content that worried him.

[This Subordination Contract declares that the Servant, _________, will obey the following rules until the conditions stated are fulfilled.

The servant will obey these rules:

All souls acquired are to be managed by the Contractor, Duke Barbatos, Head of the Dark Hunt, or any declared Subcontractor.

The servant will obey all orders made by the Contractor, Duke Barbatos, Head of the Dark Hunt, or any declared Subcontractor.

The servant will not think of or attempt any action to undermine the Contractor, Duke Barbatos, Head of the Dark Hunt, or any declared Subcontractor.

The servant will follow these rules until the following conditions are fulfilled:

The servant submits 10,000 souls to the Contractor, Duke Barbatos, Head of the Dark Hunt, or any declared subcontractor.

Any attempt to break any rule will result in punishment decided by the Contractor or declared subcontractor.]

As Jason read the contract, his face slowly darkened and twisted with an ugly grimace. This contract was basically enslaving him! And not to mention the very obvious loophole in it. As long as he did not submit 10,000 souls, the contractors could easily order him around. It was very easy to simply prevent him from ever reaching the requirement.

All around him, low snarls and murmurs of dissent showed that everyone had received a similar contract.

“Silence, filthy servants! You are to sign the contract, or die!”

The overseer was not even hiding it anymore. He was clearly there to gather and enslave capable servants. But what choice did Jason have?

With a heavy heart, Jason formed a claw, much faster than he could before, and drew a small cut on his arm, and dripped the blood on the contract like his newly obtained inherited memories told him to.

He felt it then, an intrusive and authorative energy flow into him, before it enveloped his soul. He was furious, wanting to shatter that energy, but he stifled his reaction, letting it settle.

However, as it started to bind his soul, a red energy burst forth, from the Mark of Sin that he had forgotten was on his soul. The red energy encircled his soul, forming a protective bubble on it. The foreign energy solidified into chains, wrapping around his soul, yet it settled on the surface of the bubble, and not directly on his soul.

‘An opportunity!’ Jason was not clear on what exactly the red bubble did, but he found that he could still think about planning his eventual escape. He was saved!

Jason narrowed his eyes, as he quickly shifted his shocked and ecstatic expression to one of rage and unwillingness, growling in dissent like the others around him. With Jason’s masterful control of his emotions and his increased stats, this entire process took less than a second.

Jason’s senses heightened, focusing on the overseer’s reaction, as he prayed that he did not find out. His face was lowered, hiding his expression from the overseer, yet it was possible that the overseer sensed that something was wrong. For a few tense seconds, he waited for a reaction, but the overseer simply hovered there, flapping his wings as he watched over them signing their contracts.

As the final devil signed his contract, the overseer snapped his fingers, and the fiery contracts flew back to him, and condensed into tiny balls of light that disappeared in the palm of his hand. Jason slowly released the breath that he did not even realize he had been holdling.

“Now, it’s time to head down to the Second Layer. You will all stay in one of the Duke’s strongholds, and serve Him by obeying every command from his overseer, me.” The overseer grinned, and snapped his fingers again.

Jason waited for something to happen, but when nothing did, he began to look around, confused, as did the other devils. Then, he began to feel tremors from the ground below him. The shaking grew louder, and he heard the sound of thumping footstep echo from the massive tunnel in the center of the pillar. Something was coming up, something big.

The tremors turned to rumbling, as he heard more clearly, the rapid footsteps of many legs. Then, a gargantuan creature emerged, dozens of massive legs attached to a long torso gripping tight on the stone walls of the tunnel. It was a giant, wormlike beast with many legs sticking out the side, and the most glaring feature was the metal integrated in its gray, chitinous flesh.

The creature, shockingly, was hollow, with several large cabin encapsulated by metal with open windows in the middle of the creature’s long body. The metal itself was dark and menacing, crudely shaped with sharp angles and spikes jutting out. Inside the cabin, Jason could make out rows of seats, also crude and basic.

“Get in,” the overseer commanded, and the small crowd of devils warily walked towards the beast, taking care to stay away from its gaping mouth lined with needle-like teeth, and stepped through an open doorway into the cabin. Though there was enough space, the crowd split into 5 groups for the 5 cabins on the beast, electing to keep a distance from each other.

Jason stepped into the middle cabin, warily eyeing the 7 other devils that walked in with him. They all took a seat as far away from each other. Jason looked down at the seat he had chosen, seeing that the seat itself was at least not sharp, and sat down. It was uncomfortable, but Jason shifted his body to fit the seat better. ‘Ah, the benefits of being a shapeshifter.’ He smirked.

After studying the seat for a while, he noted a concerning lack of any sort of seatbelts, which was worrying as the tunnel seemed to be completely vertical, but his worries were dispelled as faint red runes glowed on the seat and he felt the seat suddenly pull him towards it. ‘Some sort of magic,’ he muttered.

As he stewed in his own thoughts, planning his future actions and going over his gains, he felt the beast move, getting up and clambering to the hole. His chest tightened for a moment as everything went vertical, but he sighed in relief as the seat held on to him.

As they sped down the tunnel, he looked out the window. ‘Wait, where are the light sources?’ The tunnel was smooth stone, and there was no light in it. Yet he managed to see perfectly. ‘How long have I been able to see in the dark without realizing it??’ Giving up on solving the mystery, he sighed as he gazed out the window, the tunnel speeding by as he was taken to his new life.