Upon a closer look I realized they were a man and a woman.

I felt an unknown force call to me. With one eye still open the kludde stared at me almost shouting at me spiritually.

I touched the wolf on its forehead as it laid there half dazed on the precipice of death, our minds connected.

The wolf searched my mind, and I searched hers. Rage, pain and annoyance filled her mind, it was an ocean with raging seas. At its center were four of her pups, they weathered the storm however from the far distant came a dark force that withered all it touched to nothingness.

The darkness creeped closer and closer to the center and the world shook violently. It seems death was ready to destroy the mind of the wild beast. I wondered why the wolf invited me to her subconscious.

Then without knowing myself, my deepest request was asked.

“Help me wipe that kingdom from the map.”

Surprising even myself that that's what I truly wanted, I heard a response.

“Protect and feed my pups, kill as many of these pests as you can, so long as you do this, You will have the blessing of an emperor Kludde.”

Hearing how perfectly my inner hatred and rage aligned with her request I nodded with a smirk, accepting the proposal.

Within my mind the four pups jumped at me and then disappeared to a smoke of darkness. The world that was already withering had now been fully consumed by the darkness and collapsed.

With two basic thoughts, a contract was made. A wolf tattoo appeared on my left shoulder and a mist of darkness seeped into the wolf tattoo. The kludde’s eyes closed, as she sank into a deep sleep.

Then I walked over to the pups, stretched out my arm and the tattoo on my shoulder glowed in a black hue. Then the kluddes vanished into my shadow as though they never existed.

The darkness magic covered my body and my eyes glowed yellow as I felt my senses heighten. I turned around to look at the warriors further behind, the two were kneeling.

I was a young warrior that day, looking at a child whose body looked barely to be ten years of age. His face, a complete blur, with a black diamond at the center of his forehead.

He had intercepted my partner and I with a blade and threw us back several meters and with a singular word exerted some unknown force upon me and partener.

The force so powerful and unique that we who at the time were both arch knights was forced to take a knee.

What was even more shocking was how easily this unknown child subdued the kludde. We had been hunting her for weeks, waited until she had given birth and was at her weakest.

She still fighted like a wild beast, despite all the factors her magic was unmatched. Our team started with fifty members and narrowed down to twenty odd something by the end of the chase.

When the boy finished signing his beast contract a darkness engulfed him and the pups that we had worked so hard to try and steal were stolen from us. A beast contract was a once in a century phenomenon that I had only read about.

Beasts generally hated humans and while periodic agreements could be made, a beast contract was a different concept. The beast would give it’s soul or a part thereof, the more, the more powerful the contract and contractee.

It required the beast and human’s goals to be one or close enough to align but the dividing factor was that the contract needed to be without arriere-pensee. Humans always had ulterior motives this was what caused the majority of beast contracts to collapse before forming, most likely due to his young age it was easier to be single minded.

The boy surrounded by dark energy ignored the two of us. He casually walked past us and headed over to the main party. A few members were still breathing but paralyzed on the floor, some had missing limbs while some were covered in burnt flesh.

One after the other the boy calmly stuck his blade in each of my party members' heads ensuring no signs of life remained. Then he released the four pup kluddes and they frenzied upon the dead corpses.

Eventually it was our turn. He stood over us both with the strange black sword still dripping blood and brain fluids. Our bodies were already exhausted from weeks of tracking and fighting. His voice without remorse or quiver addressed us as though he had not just murmured our entire party.

“What are your names?”

“I am Ivan and this is Kamila Winchester, Arch knights of the Dragneir Kingdom.”

Ivan spoke as he gritted his teeth while he layed paralyzed barely holding his neck up to look at the blurred face of the boy.

The youth paused before he spoke.

“Ivan and Kamila Winchester swear to me under a blood oath one favor, without question, then you may leave.”

Ivan in an instant spat at the youth. He knew it was only because of his exhausted and injured state that such a weak brat dared to speak to him with so much lordship. Ivan flared up his paladin's will which lashed out at him. Before it could reach him the darkness that covered the youth intensified and cancelled out his will attack.

“I am Alric Dimachaerus, the last of my kind.”

With these words Alric’s sword pierced the back of Alvin’s head, then a red blast erupted from it’s tip, instantly vapourizing Alvin’s head leaving a deep crater. Only smoke arose as Alvin’s body spasmed as it went lifeless.

I was mortified by the sudden explosion. My eyes opened in surprise, seeing my fiance's body now spasming lifelessly.

“I accept!” mortified and without reservations I stretched out my hand to accept the blood oath. With the mixing of both our blood a translucent chain connected us.

As quickly as he arrived he disappeared. When I finished the oath I felt some of my wounds heal and energy had started to flow more smoothly within my body. Despite this the damage was still massive, it took another two days before I was able to move.

-

Alric was exhausted as he escaped, Alric was proud of himself for finding a use for his x-ray crystal. He placed it at the center of his forehead and used a small trickle of magic to keep his face blurred.

Alric had used almost his entire reserve of magic to pin down two the arch knights and they resisted him non-stop. Truth be told, if he had stayed any longer he would have lost his grip on Kamila and her paladin’s will alone would be enough to kill him instantly.

Alric lived in the library as a child and the concept of a beast contract had long since been documented by his family. All that was needed was for a beast and the human’s goals to align.

-

At first I thought I would gain a quarter contract, maybe a half contract if I was lucky, but to gain a full contract of a magically emperor beast this was unbelievable.

This meant that the beast sacrificed its entire soul to fulfil the contract, the more of its soul used the more power the contract granted. In the past, warriors would gain small boosts in strength from magically beasts but this was minor and often temporary. A full contract on the other hand was for a lifetime contract.

I meditated and explored the magic within my tattoo. If I focused, I could understand it’s essence. The tattoo gave me a magic cloak of shadow that could protect me from mental and physical attacks. It also heightened my senses to inhuman levels, my hearing, vision, and sense of smell was at least twice as sharp as an ordinary human.

When I flooded the contract with magic my senses would advance to superhuman levels. My physical strength had doubled, now on par with that of a fully grown man. If I flooded my contract with magic I would be able to increase my strength even further, temporarily at least.

However the most advantage came from the four kludde pups that followed me within my shadow. They followed my orders but being only pups were only the size of an average dog.

They loved being let loose to play and ravished the area as they played tag and chased each others’ tails. The only thing that distinguished the four pups were their eyes, so I named them accordingly. The red eyed kludde was named Rike, the green eyed one Gike, the yellow eyed one called Yike, and the blue eyed one Bike. None of the pups seem to mind the names as I assigned them the names.

In Addition to the contract, I obtained a treasure trove of loot from all the dead bodies, a few of them had dimensional items that stored gold, food and magic crystals. Due to the tattered state of most of the team I was unable to loot much body armour, most of them had already shattered or had been ripped right through.

As for the magical items such as rings, necklaces and capes, I had absolutely no idea what they did. I would have to find an appraisal expert to evaluate each item individually. Despite this I stored most of them within my dimensional ring.

-

Three years had passed, things had changed since we moved into the forest.

My sister Trisha had left to live within the main city one year prior to start school at the Red Phoenix Magic Academy in the Dragneir kingdom. She had assumed a new identity as Emma, a peasant whose family lived within the hills.

When she left us she was fifteen years old, but magic academies accepted students from the age of fourteen. However, Sigfreed thought that I was still too early to leave the forest and decided to wait another year.

Trisha explained to the academy that her family was extremely impoverished and that they needed an additional year to gain enough funds to pay the tuition of the academy. This was a common practice within lower classes so the academy did not consider it much.

Truthfully, we had lived in the forest for the majority of our time, so most of the money we obtained in the underground cave was still in our possession. When it came to finances, we were taken care of.

During the past three years I had spent most of my time sparring with Sigfreed, fighting wild magical beasts and training my pet kluddes. They had grown to the size of fully grown lions. My magic over the years had only reached the sixth circle and once again I had no idea how it helped.

My magic grew stronger and my precise control had improved by a wide margin over the years. The most growth appeared in my physical skills and six senses although I would credit that mostly to the beast contract.

Today is the day I should arrive at the capital of the Dragnier Kingdom. While entering I was forced to assume the identity of a peasant named Alard.

As the carriage I was in drew closer and closer to the Red Phoenix Magic Academy the sinister plans I had spent the past few years developing became clearer in my mind.

As I entered the academy's compound the guards greeted the carriage and checked the coachman's documents and then let him inside.

little did they know that they had just let in a walking disaster.