[Demonic Summon]: Consumes 200 mana and summons a lesser demon. Spell active for 20 seconds.
[Demonic Contract]: Consumes 500 life force permanently to form a contract with a greater demon.
Liam looked at the two demonic summoner skills that he had acquired and then at the demon in front of him, howling loudly like a rabid hound.
"Alright. Not bad. I will keep you." He mumbled after a while. He still did not know what 'life force' was. But no matter what it was, losing 500 of that for this big guy seemed to be a decent trade.
"Keep you?" Both Alex and Mia were confused. What was going on? What was this skill? The next second, Liam started chanting something weird again and his eyes flickered while he did so.
Howl!
The demon as well had a strange look on its face as it stared down at Liam. It even brought out its thick big tongue and licked its lips in excitement, revealing its two rows of spiked teeth.
The demon looked like an angry, ferocious, obese bulldog standing on its two hindlimbs.
Its claws were stretched towards Liam and it was also sharpening them every other second by rubbing them together like it couldn't wait to shred him apart.
Looking at this, both Alex and Mia started to become worried. Did Liam really have this under control?
They silently prepared to intervene if something happened and just like they feared, the next second, a bright red aura started covering both Liam and the demon.
This for some reason made the demon very energetic and it started howling even more loudly.
Howl! Howl! Howl! Thick black vapors started enshrouding its body and its features started contorting and distorting.
In the midst of this mayhem, the demon suddenly reached forward, to swing its claws at Liam.
Pa! Pa! Two heavy blows struck Liam's body, making him stagger on the spot.
Both Alex and Mia immediately stepped forward to defend him but unexpectedly Liam raised his hand to stop them. "I will deal with him myself."
He had to do it himself. Otherwise, this was never going to be successful. Liam stared at the demon and shouted, "STAY DOWN or you will regret this!"
Howl! The demon did not agree with him. It continued lashing out at him.
Liam retreated back a few paces and cast [Ring of Fire] which held the demon in place and stopped it from chasing him.
"Liam! What is happening? What should we do?" Alex asked, anxiously looking back and forth.
"Nothing, it's almost over. Wait." Liam answered. She still did not understand but the woman standing next to her had her eyes peeled open.
"I think he is forming a contract." Mia mumbled in a daze.
"A contract with a demon?" Alex gasped. Now she understood.
Forming a contract with a demon was just like taming a beast as a battle companion. However, though they were similar in some aspects, both of them were vastly different.
If a beast and a demon of the same level were to clash, it was undoubtedly the demon that would get the win.
Demons were far more powerful than domesticated and tamed beasts. They had a bloodthirsty aura that made them excellent warriors and battle companions.
Alex gaped at the demon in front of her. Could he really form a contract with this guy?
It was no wonder that he did not give up on the skill book! Who would want to lose out on such an amazing contract binding skill!
She let out a sigh and watched the scene in front of her anxiously.
However, unlike her, Liam was calm and composed. He was very dissatisfied with the way the fight with Hongumbra had gone down, so this one had to pay for it.
"Stay down!" Liam shouted again and slashed at the howler demon. It neither had the defense nor had the resilience of the strong demon from the abyss.
After a few slashes, the howler demon took quite a big hit and it still couldn't break free from the [Ring of Fire], taking several additional burn damages.
But the demon was not done yet. It growled loudly and started spitting out black orbs.
This was a dark element attack and it had some sort of honing ability because when Liam tried to dodge them, the attack still magnetically veered over to him.
The demon sneered at him. It was game over.
But unexpectedly, Liam was still calm and steady. "Not good enough." He grinned and directly took the attacks head on.
He seemed like a hero facing darkness directly but what the demon didn't realize was that Mia was already healing him.
Liam continued attacking the howler demon again and again and the demon as well fought back ferociously.
However, the fight was one-sided and rigged right from the beginning. It was only a matter of time before the demon became tired and submitted to the contract.
In the end, it had to admit to Liam's strength and power. No matter what it did, it shockingly just couldn't harm him! So it begrudgingly submitted.
Howl! It let out a last yelp before getting sucked into a circle with complex patterns and symbols.
And the next second, Liam promptly received a notification.
[Ding. Congratulations. You have successfully bound a greater demon.]
[Ding. Do you wish to name your contracted demon?]
"Hmmm… demon lackey 1." Liam answered without giving it much thought. He was exhausted from battling nonstop.
[Ding. Your contracted demon is now named demon lackey 1]
He cringed a little on hearing it but then shrugged and ignored it. Phew! He fell back onto the ground, collapsing completely.
"Ummm… what happened? Did it become successful?" Alex wanted to bite her nails in nervousness.
"Yes. Yes. Everything went well. Thanks for the help, Mia." Liam closed his eyes and replied.
Mmm. Mia silently nodded.
However, Alex was shocked again. "What? You helped him? How? When?" She was watching the demon so intensely that she did not even notice the constant heals Mia was supplying.
Also, Liam had explicitly asked them not to help him. So when was he talking about? She looked at the two of them and it seemed like they had subtly done some tricks.
"Tch. So that's why you were able to tame that thing." Alex rolled her eyes. "I knew from the start it would be difficult to use this skill with a bad affinity."
"Bad affinity? I guess you could say that." Liam calmly breathed in and out, trying to relax his tired body. "By the way, you both should log out and set your social media things straight. Otherwise, this might get out of hand."
"Right." Mia nodded. "We will leave then."
"One second." Alex walked up to Liam impatiently. She chewed her lips and wasn't done with the guy just yet. "What affinity do you have? Tell me."
Just once… just once… she wanted to be correct about something!
Liam grinned and teased her on purpose. "Like you said, I have a bad one."
"Ya. What is that?"
"S grade."
"He He. I knew it!" Alex chuckled but then suddenly stopped, "What did you say?"
Mmmm. Liam quietly hummed, not responding to her anymore.
He stretched his hands and legs on that dirty charred ground containing the scars of the battle just now and the dungeon run from before. He just wanted to take a nap.
Seeing him like this, sleepy and defenseless, Alex was so tempted to lift her leg up and give the guy a good kick, but she silently sighed and gave up.
Mia as well tugged her hand, signaling that they had to leave.
"Alright. Alright. I will shut up my mouth now. Let's go." She looked at Liam again and couldn't help but silently wonder just how many top-grade affinities he had.
She knew that his nether affinity was good, at least grade S and now his demonic affinity was also at least grade S? Could it perhaps be that he had every single one of his affinities S grade?
"No. Something like that is impossible." She shook her head, and giving the guy one last look, she followed Mia out of the dungeon.
Now that the two sisters also left, only Liam was present in the dungeon. He tiredly stared at the broken high ceiling. It looked as if it was going to crumble and fall on top of him.
"I should head out too." He muttered in a daze, thinking about some things and he suddenly remembered something that he had forgotten.
Liam quickly sat up and opened the various notifications and his status screen and he finally found the thing that he had forgotten.
[Health] -500
"So lifeforce meant health?" He now understood. "This is indeed an expensive price. That demon better be worth it." Liam sighed and closed his screen.
He then stood up and walked out of the dungeon. Beside him, the white fox quietly trotted over, and besides this fox, there were now two more entities.
One was the howler demon curiously observing everything and the other one was a random demon that Liam summoned using the starter skill.
From now onwards, he planned to train in these types of demonic spells as well. This was the true reason why he was not frowning right now from his health getting cut short by 500 points.
After being in the nether realm for so long and after observing so many demons up close, he couldn't help but become curious about the demonic energy.
Especially now that he had run this dungeon, he could see the clear link between the two types of energies. Both nether and the demonic energy were unmistakably linked somehow.
He did not know where this thought was headed but he couldn't ignore it. And then there was also the abyss. Just thinking about that gave him a chill down his spine.
"No. I shouldn't distract myself so much. There is not much time before everything shuts down and the apocalypse begins. I can't be idiotically following every little breadcrumb."
He gave a quick glance at the demon walking behind him and then at Luna. He instantly knew what he lacked the most right now. He had too many lackeys and not enough experience points!
It was time to power up whatever boost he had managed to gather so far!
Instead of trying to search for new ones, he needed to strengthen what was there in his hand at the moment, his spell casting, his soul army, and his spirit beast!
"Let's go and do some hunting. Come out." Liam summoned his army of soul undeads, walking over to one of the nearby grinding spots.
It was a lush valley with several trees and rolling mountains.
More importantly, it was filled with various different types of lower-level mobs, all ranging from Level 20 to Level 30, a picture-perfect spot for his small diverse army.
"Go. Hunt. Kill. Become stronger. Don't wake me up and don't die." Liam ordered the group and he casually dropped to the grass, falling asleep quickly.
This spot was a hidden spot in between higher-level mob areas so not many players were around. Even if someone were to come, Luna was on duty to wake him up.
So there was nothing to worry about. Besides, there was also the one guy who was watching over everything.
The howler demon laid on the grass next to Liam, like a guardian bulldog keenly watching everything happening around them.
Unlike the others, the demon did not need to level up by hunting these smaller prey because the demon's level was also the same as Liam's. Level 50!
So if any other players were to approach them at the moment, it was not Liam's group that was going to be sorry!
Meanwhile… outside in the real world… just like Liam had foreseen, a terrible storm was brewing. Alex and Mia were getting bashed a lot on social media.
But that was not the worst part. The worst part was that Mia was summoned by the board of directors of her father's company.
