Inside a large cavern, deep inside a mountain, an eerie pulsing light emanates from a gigantic heart sitting atop a pedestal. The pedestal sprouts out of a large circular pool that is filled with what appears to be boiling blood. Jagged rocks line the edges stopping only for a single archway containing hastily crafted stairs leading upwards towards a dim light.

Standing towards the edges, hundreds of humans adorned in highly polished armour, or long flowing robes are staring at 32 men that circle the pool. The 32 men are covered in dark blue robes with the symbol of a white raindrop on the back that signifies that they are high-level water mages.

The light of the heart pulses faster in time with the men's chanting causing the blood to shine and a red mist to form, spilling out of the pool like a thick fog.

As the fog fills the cavern, it condenses onto cool surfaces like armour and weapons making the men look like an army of blood fiends. This causes a few of the weaker willed to start subconsciously edging towards the exit.

After the mist had filled the room, the pulsing heart slowed and the 32 mages fall to their knees screaming. Blood pours from their mouths and eyes while they clutch their chests as they slump to the floor before bursting into vibrant golden flames and turning to dust.

Visibly shaken, the rest of the room held a collective breath and restrained the impulse to flee. Even though the mages that had just died didn't know it, this event was expected as this ritual required life essence equal to a number of souls they would summon.

Unable to bear the silence anymore, one of the armoured soldiers spoke up shattering the silence of the room.

“Did it work?” [Knight]

Most had volunteered for this job as the pay was exceptional and easily worth 2 to 5 years living expenses as well as the chance to become a contractor if they managed to bond with one of the summoned. With rewards as high as this, of course, it would be extremely dangerous but so was guarding the borders and at least this way they had a chance of making a better life.

“I knew I shouldn't have volunteered for this” a female mage muttered.

“Anything that is summoned from this ungodly ritual can't be good” [Female mage]

A few of the surrounding soldiers that were close enough to hear nodded their heads.

As she finished speaking her gaze was drawn to small lumps that had started gathering in the pool. The lumps quickly joined together gaining mass and grew into easily distinguishable limbs.

After a period of perhaps 20 minutes, the shapes started resembling well-known species, most having a humanoid form while a few looked to be more beast like.

After a further 10 minutes, most of the bodies started developing characteristics making it possible to start distinguishing what primary race they would become.

The entire scene could be summed up as a nightmare come to life after breeding with every fear known to man causing some of the less seasoned troops towards the outer rim to have emptied their stomachs as they watched the hideous spectacle before them.

A large man in heavy silver armour displaying many dents and scratches from battle cleared his throat and started to speak.

“Capture teams get ready; support units move into formation, mages keep the protective barriers up” [Silver armoured man]

After a short silence as people regained their senses, several groups of people formed and began attending to their designated tasks.

“Yes General Rolf” [Leaders of the teams]

General Rolf was the most decorated soldier in King Michael's private army, scars littered his face, and his armour showed signed of repeated damage and repair which resulted in a dominating aura that caused him to stand out, giving courage to the men.

A large group of mages split and started chanting causing brightly coloured magical circles made of runes to appear on the floor around them. The first group of mages formed a see-through wall of air that surrounded the pool while the second sent sparks of varying colours into the bodies. This was to sedate them and weaken their minds so the subjugation magic would be more effective.

With large door shaped shields a group of battle hardened knights formed a wall of steel in front of the mages. If one of the creatures were resistant against subjugation magic or one of the capture teams failed, it would be their job to stall it until it was captured and minimise the damage to the support classes.

“We can't afford to mess this up” [General Rolf]

The small boy no older than 14, standing behind the general was visibly taken aback by this statement. Although he knew this summoning was something special and very important, as the generals squire he had never seen him this flustered let alone openly showing concern for the mission.

“Capture team one, move in. The first is about to be spawned and for heaven's sake be careful, the earlier the spawning, the more powerful they are meant to be”. [General Rolf]

Some of the knights drew their weapons as the adrenaline pumped through their veins.

“Remember, non-lethal force only. Cause undue damage to them, and I personally will guide you to the ferryman.” [General Rolf]

As most sheathed their weapons, a group of 20 entered the gap in the shield wall and moved towards the silhouette that had gradually risen out of the pool. If it wasn't for the small horns on its head, almost pointlessly small wings and extremely thin tail the shape would perfectly match for a six-year-old girl.

“Why is she so young” [Squire]

“A number of souls we added to the pool was adjusted to target the average age where most species are weak willed to help with the capture and taming” [General Rolf]

“Does that mean we will need to wait before we can use them for war?” [Squire]

“No, they should evolve differently than normal beings causing them to age to match their mental and physical strength. Given them enough training and time and we will have an army of unstoppable monsters.” [General Rolf]

“Even if they look like a bunch of kids” chuckled Rolf as he imagined an army of kids running across the battlefield barely managing to carry their swords.

The mage leading the group began chanting in a faint, quiet tone and the girl rose further into the air until completely suspended and steadily floated towards him. As she passed the edge of the pool, the blood red film that had covered her body started evaporating showing her snow white skin and jet black hair before falling to the floor.

Everyone in the room was silent, and the team stood motionless with a shocked expression frozen on their faces. It actually had worked, they had summoned beings from another dimension and what's more the first spawn was something amazing.

“It's a demoness, and a pureblood as well” [Lead Mage]

The entire room filled with cheers, not only at the success of the ritual but as pure blood demons are extremely rare. Stories were told of them being monstrous beings that had brought kingdoms to ruin and laid waste to entire armies.

Demons were extremely violent and hated being controlled while dragons were very proud and unyielding making it nearly impossible to bind one more than a few days old unless it was on the verge of death. This made the summoning even more valuable as they would never get the chance to enslave these species normally.

As soon as the girl touched the floor, the mage quickly placed a collar around the girl's neck before two heavily armoured men picked up and carried the girl out of the encirclement and towards a black metal cage.

“£%$$£% ^&£$ £&&^*$£$$£ &£$&*£$£ [Demoness]

“GOD DAMN IT SHE'S AWA...” [Guard carrying the demoness]

The demoness had opened her eyes and started to panic, struggling to get free of her captors nearly ripping off the arm of one while winding the other with a kick.

As the demoness struggled an alchemist that had been following the group quickly threw a handful of dust like powder into her face, and she quickly fell unconscious but not before removing the hand of a nearby guard with her tail. Although it was extremely thin, it contained enough power to cut through steel.

“I TOLD YOU! Demons are resistant to subjugation magic and will need paralysis powder, we better hurry before the rest spawn” [Alchemist]

“The collars won't activate until they are in the cage so don’t let your guard down and for the love of Yeth, hurry up!” [General Rolf]

As replacements stepped forward to take the demoness to the cage, healers quickly brought the injured to the back of the cavern where they had set up a temporary medical station.

Once the demoness had been placed inside the cage, bright blue runes started to glow on the cage’s bars with matching runes appearing on her collar. Activating a slave collar for the first time required the subject to be surrounded by a special magic array which in this case was the cage. It was far too dangerous to create a standard engraving on the floor for fear of magic contamination or being damaged in a confrontation.

Once the shine of the runes dimmed one of the cages carriers threw a large blanket over the naked demon before taking his position to carry the cage to the surface.

As they left the rest continued to extract creatures from the pool however it wasn't long until something strange happened to cause the room to almost fall into pandemonium.

At the same time, two creatures rose from the pool connected by a strange ghostly white stream that flicked before fading. One of the figures was a similar to the demoness but male while the other did not have any visible differences from a human.

“Siblings” shouted the general as a bead of sweat run down his forehead. Everything had gone so well until this.

“The higher the risk, the greater the reward” whispered the general with a grim smile.

“Phalanx formation” [General Rolf]

“And make sure to keep them separate when we get them contained” [General Rolf]

Four groups immediately rushed through the shield wall and took up a much more aggressive position.

“Fuck… why did it have to be on my extract” [Young mage]

“It's because you jinxed us with your “It's all going well, and maybe I’ll get a cute contractee” crap” [Old Knight]

The atmosphere of the room that had been previously high had collapsed. Sibling souls would share a bond that would make them extremely hard to control but the biggest problem at the moment was that they could sense when the other was in danger. If they did not capture the two at exactly the same time and the other sensed it, then a lot of people could be injured as the survival instincts would be forced awake.

The mages used wind magic to pull the two towards the edge, and General Rolf took a deep breath.

“Nothing is ever easy” [General Rolf]