Underground Cave

"Clang!"

"Clang!"

"Clang!"

The sounds of rather violent collisions beckoned to Mai, gradually pulling her out of the confines of unconsciousness, and into the realms of reality.

Slowly, her lids fluttered open, and the first thing that pierced her vision were rays of darkish blue.

Her eyes were blurry, and from her point of view, the source of these blue rays, tiny dots above, seemed to move between see-through and physical as they multiplied.

It took a few seconds, but her eyes eventually adapted, and she noticed that she was in a wide-open cave filled with glowing minerals.

Below her was something soft, like a bed of some sort making Mai's hazy mind even more confused.

"Clang!"

"Clang!"

"Clang!"

That rhythmic, and violent collision continued, seemingly wanting to clear up Mai's hazy mind, reducing the fog with each hit.

But a clear mind came at a cost.

"Argh!"

She let out a low groan as her back throbbed from the sharp and stinging pain, but those weren't the only parts that hurt.

She also felt a pain she was familiar with, burn wounds, all over her body, adding another layer of discomfort to her plight.

Turning her head, she noticed a shirtless man, slender but muscular standing close to a nearby wall.

If a sight like this wasn't odd, then the black, slender metallic-looking tail that extended from his back made it odd.

With the illuminated surroundings, Mai could now examine Aiden's tail in greater detail,

Aiden seemed to be wearing a dirty coverall, with the top half ripped. His tail extended from a tiny hole in his coverall, with a length of about five meters and the width of three straight fingers placed side by side.

The tail didn't look soft in the slightest, as apart from its spike-like and rugged structure, the tip of the tail was also long and pointed, like the blade of a stiletto-type dagger giving it a spikey feel.

"Clang!"

The collision's continued, right now the tail moved at a speed too fast for the human eye to follow, violently hitting the wall of the cave in front of Aiden generating large amounts of sparks in the process.

After observing Aiden for a while Mai tried to move but discovered that even the tiniest movements caused her pain.

"You should stay put," Aiden's voice suddenly sounded out as the rhythmic clanging sounds came to a stop.

Walking towards Mai, he squatted his dark eyes tracing her attractive figure, imprinting its intricacies to memory.

Aiden's gaze suddenly made Mai more aware of what she was wearing, for starters her body armor and her inner clothes were gone.

Instead, she seemed to be wearing a dark blue coverall.

At this realization, Mai's face scrunched up into a frown as she looked toward Aiden, "bastard," she muttered under her breath her gaze laced with anger.

Feeling confused Aiden said, "I saved your life, you should at least give me a little more credit."

"YOU WERE THE ONE WHO PUT US IN DANGER IN THE FIRST PLACE! ARGH!" Mai suddenly screamed shocking Aiden as her voice echoed in the cave.

"You seem frustrated," Aiden muttered.

"Of course, I'm fucking frustrated," Mai replied before darting in, "if you had listened to me and went back, instead of following the river downstream and jumping down a cliff, we could have avoided this whole-"

"Or we would have been killed," Aiden interrupted Mai his voice raised in annoyance as he continued, "Stop blaming me, at least I'm trying to survive, if we had gone back, that demon would have found us eventually, either that or we would have been killed by something else."

With Aiden's words, there was a strange stillness in the air as neither party spoke again.

After a while, Mai suddenly said in a much calmer tone, "My apologies, I lost myself for a moment. Where are we?" She asked.

"I have no idea," Aiden replied before darting in, "You've been out for over twenty-four hours, after we escaped the volcanic area I ran in here and found this place."

"Ohh, Mai muttered before asking, "did you do anything-"

"Hell no!" Aiden abruptly said before adding, "There's a natural hot spring over there, I just collected the water and let it cool before using it to wash you up, you seemed to need it since you were all black and covered in as, plus I didn't want your wounds to-"

"Haha it's ok," Mai said with an awkward laugh, before asking, "So where did you get the coveralls?"

"There's something like a tent somewhere in this maze, I found it in one of my walks, along with the bed you're lying on. I also found pots and metal containers which I used to prepare food for us to eat" Aiden explained.

Upon hearing that Aiden made food Mai raised her brows in confusion, strangely she felt full, "You made food?" She asked.

"Yeah I made food," Aiden confirmed before explaining, "This place is full of cute moles so I did what any normal person would do and cooked them, I didn't have any spices though so they tasted quite bland. As for you I just fed you the meat stock since you couldn't chew anything."

"So you fed me mole water? How did you even find fire?" Mai asked.

"It's not mole water, it's mole stock, if you didn't eat how would I feed you the healing pill, in the end, the pill just boosts your body's ability to heal itself, and as for how I got fire I burnt the tent I found," Aiden said proudly as if asking to be praised for his resourcefulness.

Of course, Aiden didn't actually eat the mole meat, it was unnecessary, all he did was eat its soul and because of that he managed to recover 5% of his soul energy, fortunately after his soul energy crossed five percent it started recovering by itself, and now Aiden's soul energy was back to 100%.

Upon hearing Aiden explain what he had been up to in the time she was out, Mai let out a short sigh.

"Thank you Aiden," she said calmly, prompting Aiden to reply.

"It's no biggie, at least you don't think I'm a demon anymore."

"I still have my doubts," Mai hurriedly said before adding, "I still don't believe you're a Contractor, if you're not a demon then are you some kind of half-demon? Maybe one of your parents is secretly a demon and you're just awakening your abilities now."

At the dawn of Mai's words, there was a strange silence in the air as Aiden processed what she had said.

"Phft!"

Aiden suddenly made a strange sound as he struggled to suppress his laughter, "You have... a wild imagination I'll give you that."

"Hey, I can't move, a wild imagination is all I got," Mai joked, and the both of them let out a low chuckle.

"Argh!"

Mai suddenly stopped laughing as she groaned in pain, the injury on her back acting up.

Upon noticing this Aiden frowned, "since you're awake and full, it's time for us to leave this place, we could find people in this cave," he said.

"I don't think I can move," Mai said with a frown but Aiden just smiled.

"You're looking at the most resourceful person around, I already thought of a solution," Aiden said playfully and in the next moment, he picked something up from the ground.

Because of Mai's limited field of vision, she hadn't noticed it before, but now she did.

Aiden had tied the mattress she was laying on, to a rope she hadn't noticed before.

With that, he started walking with the rope in hand dragging Mai on the floor of the open cave as he walked into a narrow tunnel.

Looking around Mai noticed that the tunnels were darker than the open cave, but there were some glowing minerals here and there so it wasn't that dark.

As they walked, Mai slowly drifted into sleep, feeling bored by the unchanged scenery of the cave's low ceiling.

Aiden on the other hand didn't mind the silence, he just kept walking while reflecting on his abilities.

During the time Mai was asleep he had been exploring his new limb and discovered a few things about it.

The first thing he noticed, was that his tail was hard, so hard that it could be mistaken for a metal chain just from the way it felt, but despite its hardness, it was still very flexible.

Aiden also discovered another strange thing, and that was the fact that his tail could extend.

Although it got thinner it could extend and double in length, from five feet to over ten feet long.

Elated by the fact that his tail could extend Aiden tried to retract his tail and to his delight he discovered that he could retract it to a size of about two feet.

To test its durability, Aiden tried hitting his tail against the wall and discovered that it was quite tough, he also couldn't feel much with his tail.

He could feel if his tail hit something, or if something grabbed it, but he couldn't feel any pain when his tail hit something with a large amount of force.

The last thing Aiden found out was that his tail even in its fully extended state was the fastest and strongest limb in his body being able to lift his his entire body off the ground with ease Aiden could literally hang off a branch with just his tail supporting him.

"You seem fond of this new limb of yours," Landon's voice sounded out in Aiden's head prompting Aiden to nod.

"Having a tail is cool and all, but how am I supposed to hide it from the rest of the world?" Aiden asked.

"You should just cover it with some clothing, if there's one thing I've noticed about this generation it's that you guys have the freedom to wear whatever you want," Landon responded.

"That's right, I've been meaning to ask you. What generation are you from?" Aiden asked.

"Generation wouldn't be the best way to put it," Landon said before cutting in, "let's just say I come from a place where the lands could speak and the trees could move, I am but a simple land demon chosen by the Soul Sovereign."

"Land demon? So are you from hell?" Aiden asked as he walked.

"Yeah something like that," Landon muttered.

Sensing Landon's reluctance to continue the topic, Aiden chose to stay quiet.

"What are you going to do with the girl?" Landon suddenly asked, his voice taking a strange pause before he continued, "Are you going to turn her into a seed."

"No, I'm not looking to turn her into a seed, in fact, I'm not ready to create another seed that I can't protect," Aiden said.

"Then why save the girl? I know you're not a ruthless person, but she's a potential risk," Landon said.

"She helped me back at the river Landon, and even when I fell unconscious again she didn't abandon me and somehow ended up in that cave with me, do you think my breakthrough would have been successful in that whirlpool?" Aiden asked.

Upon hearing Aiden's reasoning, Landon fell silent for a while.

"I'm just paying her back by helping her escape, and I trust my instincts, I believe she wouldn't sell me out for no reaso-" Aiden said but paused midway.

"Someone's approaching," he muttered as his eyes narrowed.