Chilling Situations

In the cold, sterile room, bathed in unforgiving white light, Aiden's expression remained as grim as the situation before him.

He couldn't fathom how he'd ended up in this situation, surrounded by ten men, each bound to ominous black wooden poles.

Their eyes, filled with terror, locked onto him, their muffled pleas concealed by the cruel gags that kept them silent.

A chilling voice echoed through the room, snapping Aiden's attention away from the captive souls before him.

"297," it intoned, the numbers itself devoid of any humanity, "there are ten men in front of you, all of them are criminals responsible for the deaths of many people." The voice said.

A pit of disgust formed in Aiden's stomach as he listened further. "Among them is a criminal responsible for the murder of sixty-two children, he has the highest death count amongst all ten." The words hung in the air like a malevolent presence.

"Two options," the voice continued, each word dripping with cruelty, "find the criminal in twenty-four hours and kill him to earn your freedom, option two, kill all ten men in twenty-four hours to gain your freedom."

Aiden's heart pounded in his chest, and he could feel the weight of the terrible choice pressing down on him.

He glanced at the ten men, their eyes reflecting a fear and desperation that would make one feel pity.

As he contemplated his horrific choices, he knew that his decisions in the coming hours would forever stain his soul, he was about to kill his first human.

The room, filled with an eerie silence, awaited his fateful choice, one that would define him in the darkest of ways.

Suddenly the voice sounded out, "You are allowed to talk to the participants, and once you've killed your desired target you should indicate by yelling done, if you manage to find the right target you will be rewarded."

"What?"

Aiden muttered as he thought, he would be rewarded for killing someone.

He didn't expect this at all, looking at these ten men Aiden didn't know what to say, he just stood there silently, "Tick, Tick, Tick."

Aiden heard the sound of a clock ticking, looking up he saw a digital clock showing a twenty-four-hour countdown, that was the amount of time he had to decide.

He had two options, kill one, or kill all ten; honestly, Aiden felt a deep sense of reluctance, he didn't want to just waste ten lives like this, this reluctance didn't come from pity, Aiden felt nothing for these criminals.

Instead, his reluctance came from one fact, even though he killed all of them he wouldn't be able to consume their souls as his body was still digesting.

He was also advised by Landon not to consume souls for about a month, he also couldn't store the souls in his soul storage because it was filled up as well.

Aiden let out a breath, he sat down on the floor, and took his mind off the situation, first he wanted to see just how much he had improved.

With that Aiden willed it, and a floating book appeared in front of him, the pages moved and shuffled before stopping at a random page.

Name: Aiden

Race: Human (Advanced)

Level: First Gate (96%)

Strength: 100 (adapting)

Speed: 100 (adapting)

Stamina: 100 (adapting)

Agility: 100 (adapting)

Perception: 100 (adapting)

Soul energy: 100 (100%) (adapting)

Temporary points: (Stealth: 2)

Innate skills: (Semi Immortality)

(Soulless)

(Soul body)

(Soul gaze: First gate)

(Soul armor: First gate: 16%)

(Unknown)

(Unknown)

(Soul control: First gate)

(Soul Grace)

(Infect: 1/1)

(Soul tongue)

(Soul storage 3/3)

Skills: (Dagger mastery: Advanced)

(Blade mastery: Novice)

(Crafting: Terrible)

(Adaptive combat: proficient)

"Wow," Aiden couldn't help but exclaim, as he looked at his abilities, his improvements could only be described as rapid.

On another note it did make sense, the number of confirmed deaths back at the stadium was a terrifying 343, meaning 343 souls.

And although Aiden wasn't able to consume all the souls he was sure that he had managed to consume a good number of them before they dissipated.

The best part of it all was that Aiden was able to store the demonic soul from the demon Lotus had defeated.

Originally he wanted to consume it directly since demonic souls seemed to have the best effect on strengthening his soul armor but Landon advised him against it telling him to wait until he was ready to cross the second gate.

Aiden was elated that he was finally close to crossing his first gate, and he couldn't wait to test out his newfound strength.

There was a problem though, he noticed the adapting bracket in front of the ability tab.

Before Aiden could even ask Landon answered, "You've consumed too many souls in rapid succession, your body needs time to digest. I'm quite surprised that you managed to stay sane, it seems that your resistance has increased yet again."

Hearing this Aiden nodded and the book disappeared, now that he knew what his innate abilities looked like he couldn't help but smile.

Meanwhile, in a dark room somewhere in the same facility, a dark-skinned man stood In front of ten separate screens, he wore a formal business suit and had a sturdy-looking frame.

Beside him was a woman wearing a black suit. They both had a blank look on their face as they stared at the monitor.

If you looked closely at what they were watching you could see the nine different people that Aiden had been with in the truck, their situation was similar to his as they stared at the ten men in front of them.

Suddenly the woman asked, "Agent 16, you spend so much time with these rookies, even going out of your way to teach them every year, why's that?"

Hearing the woman's words the dark-skinned man called Agent 16 raised his brows, looking towards the woman by his side he replied, "I enjoy it."

With that, he paused a bit before asking, "What about you? Agent 32 was it, I'm sure the old blood like you would prefer completing dangerous missions and fighting demons?"

The woman smiled a bit before saying, "The expedition is near, and I want to be a part of it, to achieve that I have to be strong enough, I finally saved enough to purchase a basic martial art, I need a calm place to practice it, even though the rewards for teaching the newbies are quite high, it's not enough for me to waste my time here."

Hearing this Agent 16 nodded, looking towards the screen he raised a brow with a look of surprise on his face, in one of the rooms blood flowed like a pond on the floor, and a blue-eyed youth could be seen with a small smile on his blood-stained face.

The room was a mess, and a brutal sight could be seen behind him.

The ten men lay lifelessly on the floor their heads bashed in.

Felix had killed the entire ten men, "done," he yelled and a door opened up letting him pass through.

The other participants seemed to have reached the same conclusion, killing the entire ten men, and now only three people remained.

They were Aiden, then Mai the red-haired girl, and Ethan the guy who had a strange force field power.

Meanwhile, Aiden who had finished going through his improvements stretched lightly as he got up, slowly walking towards the bound men.

"hmmm, hmmm," seeing him approach some of the men uttered muffled moans their words inaudible due to the cloth covering their mouths.

"Are you killing all the men?" Landon couldn't help but ask.

"Nope," Aiden simply replied.

feeling confused Landon asked, "So what do you plan to do, how're you going to find the killer?"

Hearing Landon's question Aiden thought, "It's simple, I'll just ask."

By now Aiden had already reached the men, slowly he moved his hand and in the next moment, "Rip."

He ripped the gag off the first man, then the second, then the fourth, all the way to the tenth man, as he did this the sound of fabric ripping sounded out continuously in the room.

In a few seconds Aiden was done, and with that, he walked back as if to examine the men, their gags had been removed so they were free to talk, but strangely none of them spoke, they just stared at Aiden with nervous and even fear filled glints in their eyes.

"I thought you guys wanted to say something?" Aiden asked feeling confused, the room was quiet, and Aiden didn't like it.

He had thought that the men wanted to confess, but no they just stared at him with pitiful looks in their eyes but Aiden didn't feel anything at their pitiful gazes.

With a sigh he said. "You can all stay silent if you want, I don't care, there are ten of you here, and I can't do any detective work, so I'm just gonna ask, to save your own skins, just point out the bad guy in the room, you have ten minutes, if ten minutes pass I'm just gonna kill everyone."

The way Aiden said it was so casual that it almost seemed as though he was joking, and to top it off his innocent black eyes made him seem harmless.

But these men weren't fools, they knew more than anything that anyone who was allowed into this room was fully capable of killing them all.

"You should at least have tried to sound intimidating," Landon sighed, but Aiden didn't reply, instead he sat down with his legs crossed and quietly closed his eyes.

His strange approach invited looks of uneasiness and confusion from the men, even Landon felt intrigued by the way, Aiden handled the situation.

"It's Luke," two of the men suddenly yelled simultaneously, hearing this Aiden opened his eyes, and the other men said the same thing seemingly unable to bear the silence any longer.

The only man that hadn't spoken was a man at the far left, upon hearing his name being called out by nine people the man paled.

"It's not me, it's all lies, I didn't do any-"

"BAM!"

A muffled bam suddenly sounded out and everyone watched with widened eyes as Aiden moved from his sitting position, he quickly landed a solid blow on Luke's face, it was so sudden that Luke couldn't even react.

His neck was shot back by the collision causing whiplash to his neck as his head hit the wooden pole he was bound to, this caused his head to crack open like a watermelon.

Since this man was a normal human Aiden avoided using all his strength to prevent a mess.

"Done," Aiden yelled immediately and a mechanical beeping sounded out followed by the opening of a door that Aiden didn't know was there.

"You passed," Landon said in disbelief, he was waiting for Aiden to fail so he could have a good laugh but the kid actually passed.

"How did you know they weren't lying?" Landon asked.

Walking towards the door Aiden said, "I didn't, I just figured that they'd probably know each other and since they are naturally dishonest people they would prefer to save their own lives."

Hearing this Landon turned silent, what Aiden said made sense.

As Aiden walked away a pleasant smell wafted through his nostrils, making him stop in his tracks.

He suddenly felt a primitive hunger engulf him but he stilled himself, not even bothering to look back as he continued walking forward.

The door led to a long passageway with rocky walls and jagged floors, Aiden walked into the passageway without fear and he found himself walking for a few minutes, "the Silence seems to love long and dark passages," Aiden muttered.

"What's wrong with that? I think I like it," Landon said.

"It's creepy," Aiden replied, pausing a bit as he darted in, "you're creepy as well."

As Aiden walked a voice suddenly sounded out, echoing throughout his surroundings, "297, you have a new task, sprint to the end of the tunnel as fast as you can, failure to comply may result in injury or death."

"How am I supposed to get hurt?" was the first thing Aiden thought, until, "ting, ting, ting," multiple ting sounds echoed throughout the passageway, and Aiden watched as tiny dots as far as the eye could see appeared randomly on the walls.

"That can't be good." Aiden mused.

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh."

Suddenly Aiden heard another sound from the distance, it started out faint but it slowly increased, and in a second Aiden felt his senses flash like crazy as he looked around.

"Whoosh!"

Before he could react further, a distant "whoosh" sound sent his heightened senses into overdrive.

He instinctively leaned back, and a fraction of a second later, an object hurtled past him at terrifying speed, a mere hair's breadth from his face.

Aiden's acute perception absorbed every chilling detail of the object:

A macabre fusion of a dart and an arrow, its slender, wooden body concealing a sharp, metallic head that seemed designed to pierce the flesh with lethal precision.

The passageway had transformed into a grim labyrinth of danger, and Aiden's nerves were stretched taut as he prepared to navigate this treacherous path.

Aiden didn't waste time, as soon as he dodged that dart he pushed his speed to the limit, rushing towards the end of the tunnel with as much speed as he could muster.

"Whoosh, Whoosh," Aiden heard the sound increase as arrows rapidly fired in random directions behind him.

Suddenly Aiden's perception warned him.

"Whoosh!"

Two arrows had fired from different parts of the wall and Aiden couldn't lean or jump, "shhh," he slid on the hard and jagged floors with so much force that his body armor ripped at the leg, for his armor tore so easily it was evident that this cave was made of strange and dangerous materials, he dodged the arrows at the cost of a leg injury.

His legs had deep scratches and the stinging pain caused Aiden to grit his teeth, but his soul energy quickly started working and in seconds they were scabs forming over his wounds.

But Aiden sensed something, his wounds had stopped healing after forming scabs which was alarming, why didn't his wounds heal all the way?

"There's something wrong Aiden," Landon hurriedly said, "whoosh," Aiden dodged another arrow as he ran towards the edge of the tunnel.

"Why isn't my wound healing?" Aiden asked, and Landon replied.

"Check your abilities, there's something new." He said.

An arrow suddenly shot down from above Aiden and he didn't react in time, "Pierce," the arrows pierced his skin "Argh," what followed was a grunt and Aiden felt the shock and pain of the sudden deep wound course through his veins.

"Whoosh!"

The alarming sounds of darts flying through the air sounded out and Aiden picked up speed, ignoring the hurting wound on his shoulder, he ran for his life.

With his life on the line, Aiden didn't hold back anymore instead he burnt his souls energy, or at least he tried, his soul energy wouldn't listen to him anymore, no matter how much he willed it, with that the thoughts running through Aiden's mind had gone from calm to cursing the Silence.

But in the next moment, Aiden seemed to see light at the end of the tunnel, all he had to do was make a turn, and, "shit," Aiden cursed.

In front of him was something that seemed to be a door made out of wooden material, with a few words written on it.

It read, [hit me,] Aiden didn't slow down, instead he tried to summon his soul armor, something at the back of his mind told him that his soul armor wouldn't show, but surprisingly it worked although a bit weak.

"Bang," Aiden hit the door with all the force he could muster breaking it off its hinges and he found himself In another hall, but this time the lights were normal and there were people there, it was the other nine participants.

Aiden was pale and out of breath, he had been bleeding from the wound on his shoulder, his dark body armor was also torn at the legs and had multiple holes on it.

Unbeknownst to Aiden this armor had helped him stop most of the darts otherwise Aiden would have been much more miserable than he was now.

"He's finally out," a voice grabbed Aiden's attention, it was Felix, the blond youth with blue eyes.

Unlike everyone else who seemed unbothered, Felix looked toward Aiden with a mocking smile on his face, "Don't tell me this is what the legendary Aiden is capable of, you got injured from that?" He asked as he watched the pale Aiden bleed making no attempt to help.

The rest of the participants didn't help in any way either, they just watched.

Aiden didn't answer, and he didn't ask for help, instead, he looked around and found out that the rest of the participants weren't injured in the slightest, even Ethan the most timid of the group was unharmed.

The hall was large, with many seats facing a large screen, it looked like a classroom, as the participants sat in different seats as if waiting for something, not saying another word Aiden found a seat and sat down.

The next thing he did was attempt to pull out the arrow in his shoulder, "I wouldn't do that if I were you," a voice suddenly said from his side.

It was Ethan who had gotten up from his seat and walked over to him, he held something in his hands, and it seemed to be a first aid box.

"Let me help you with that," Ethan offered with a reassuring smile, but Aiden waved him off, determined to handle it himself.

He gripped the arrow shaft tightly, and with a grimace, he pulled it out. The disconcerting "pich" sound accompanied the extraction, and blood immediately welled up from the wound.

Panic surged through Aiden as he realized that his wounds weren't healing as they should, instead, he felt like a normal human.

Startled by the sight of Aiden's unhealed wound, Ethan swiftly donned a pair of gloves, and with Aiden's consent, he removed the upper body armor.

Using sterile gauze from the first aid kit, Ethan pressed it firmly over the open wound, layering more as the blood continued to seep through. He worked diligently, skillfully securing the dressing with a bandage that wrapped around Aiden's shoulder.

With the immediate danger averted, Aiden let out a sigh of relief, though a sense of unease lingered. "Thank you," he acknowledged Ethan's help, his gratitude tinged with disturbance. His gaze turned to the question of the source of the bandage.

"Where did you find a bandage?" Aiden inquired, curiosity piqued.

Ethan smirked slightly, a hint of mischief in his eyes. "I didn't even know there was a first aid box in the hall," he admitted, "Mai pointed it out for me." He nodded in the direction of a red-haired girl named Mai, who sat at another end of the hall, seemingly unaware of their conversation.

Now that his life was no longer hanging by a thread, Aiden contemplated the opportunity to discuss his situation with someone who might offer insights.

But before he could broach the subject, Landon's words hung in the air, casting a shadow over their newfound respite.

"You won't like what I'm about to tell you, Aiden," Landon warned, the gravity of his words mirrored in his tone.