Chapter 56: Finding The Hunter

As Aiden awaited the arrival of the unknown people, a small storm was brewing at another part of the underground tunnels.

At a small corner in the camp, was a tent that seemed bigger than the rest. In this tent, a man with brown hair stared at an odd laptop-like device in front of him.

He had a frown on his face, his eyes narrowing to thin lines as he mused, "Was it a mole, or was this miner killed by the unknown entity?"

Although rare, it wasn't entirely unheard of, for a miner to die in these tunnels, there were normal humans after all, and they could die for a number of reasons.

It could be that their Detritus Marks failed, allowing hell energy to get to them causing the dreaded hell energy shock.

It could also be an attack from the infected moles that inhabited these caves, or it could be a case of a human being caught up in a collapse.

"Ahh, the suspense is killing me," Jonathan grumbled as he ran a hand through his brown hair.

To know what exactly had infiltrated the mines, he would have to go and check it out himself.

"But it's too risky, I don't know what to expect, and that fucker isn't taking this seriously," he muttered scratching his head.

Walking out of the tent he made his way to the middle of the camp sighing as he walked into the largest tent around.

"You seem to be losing your manners Jonathan," a familiar voice sounded out in the tent, as a man with blonde hair spoke.

He had his back to Jonathan, not even bothering to look at him in the slightest.

Jonathan, his brows furrowed in annoyance said with a hesitant tone, "Boss, we already lost a person, you're not taking this as seriously as you should."

"Relax, it's just a human miner," the blonde-haired man, said in a reassuring tone, but Jonathan didn't look reassured.

Squeezing his fist, he sucked in his bottom lip, biting it as he filtered his next words.

"Fuc- boss, we have ten Contractors in our camp, why not just send one of them, the problem would be solved in an instant, these human miners, you're just sending them to die, this isn't what we signed up for, what we told them is that all they had to do was some hard labor, they don't deserve this-"

"Ha!"

A sudden scoff interrupted Jonathan before he could even finish, "What are you implying Jonathan? That they don't deserve death? What are the conditions for working here in the first place?" The blonde-haired man asked.

Jonathan was quiet for a moment, but after thinking for a bit he muttered, "Flexible morals."

At the dawn of Jonathan's words, the blonde-haired man finally turned to look at him for the first time, his brown eyes boring a hole through Jonathan's head.

Letting out a short breath, the blonde-haired man spoke, "It's not just flexible morals Jonathan, or don't you remember? We hired people who could sleep at night knowing they just sold crack to some innocent kid, we hired people who could sleep at night knowing they just killed a man in the worst way possible, drugs dealers, bandits, traffickers you name them, it's the only reason we began this operation this late, I did this because of you, so you wouldn't get attached to them in the first place."

"You did it for me? I don't understand, I wasn't told about this, why would you have to worry about me getting attached to the miners" Jonathan asked, his voice a bit sober.

"Tap!"

The blonde-haired man walked towards Jonathan, his gaze carrying a certain kind of charisma as he spoke, "The more people know about something, the more likely it is to get out."

"We would both be goners if the Silence catches on to our little stunt, the only people that need to know about this are me, you, and the rest of the ten Contractors, we're almost done, you're a smart man, Jonathan, I'm sure you understand what I'm saying."

The way the blonde-haired man spoke was like a mother pampering the child, but Jonathan wasn't fooled by this.

"You planned to kill them all from the start," Jonathan muttered, his gaze widening as his eyebrows shot up, "twenty-five miners, you plan to kill twenty-five people?"

"If they had the power they would have killed us first," the blonde-haired man defended himself, still speaking in a fatherly tone.

"Antony!" The blonde-haired man's name finally left Jonathan's mouth for the first time.

But upon hearing his name the blonde-haired man didn't look pleased, "I'm Blood Pact, never call me Antony again Jonathan," Blood Pact said as he walked out of the tent.

--------------

(Two days later)

"You Fuc-"

"Bang!"

"Bam!"

The sound of a thud could be heard in an underground mine, far away from human civilization as a a gun was flung to the side.

In these dark mines, illuminated only by the faint blueish glows of the minerals on the walls, a man with black hair and even darker eyes could be seen hitting a woman with such force that any observer would frown.

"Argh!"

The woman, briefly disoriented by such a slap stumbled to the ground as she gazed at the man above her.

His eyes were darker than anything she'd ever seen, and he wore a dark blue coverall similar to the one she was wearing. Oddly, his Coverall was ripped from the waist up raveling the chiseled contours of his masculine physique.

Behind him, was a tail that swayed from side to side in a mesmerizing manner, mixing dred with an animalistic grace.

"You're the first woman I've seen in this place," his monotone voice sounded out as he observed her, his eyes as though he could see through her soul.

"I... I'm the only woman among the miner's baby," the woman responded in a flirtatious tone that was clearly forced, initiated by a rising fear.

When she had her gun, she was confident that she could take on this man in front of her, but before she could even shoot, her gun was slapped out of hand by this man's tail.

Because Aiden had hidden his tail, it wasn't apparent to the woman, and because of his lack of Detritus markings, she confirmed that he was a Contractor.

Even though she had this knowledge she was still confident as she knew that contractors could be killed by guns. But in this moment that confidence had been flushed out the window.

Ignoring the woman's tone, Aiden turned to a certain girl with messy red hair behind him, unlike what one would expect, she was sitting up instead of lying down, a noticeable improvement from two days ago.

"Do you have anything to ask this one before I start?" Aiden questioned Mai, but she just shook her head and said.

"We've got all we needed from the twenty-four men you've killed, so get it over with."

Mai's voice carried with it a hint of sadness as she watched Aiden nod and walk over to the woman in front of him, "how were you hired?" Aiden suddenly asked the woman in front of him, his voice still plain and monotone.

The woman, obviously frightened by Aiden, hurriedly spoke, "I was abducted, and en-"

"Swoosh!"

Aiden's tail suddenly moved with abysmal speed curling itself around the woman's neck.

"Akh!"

At that moment, the woman was lifted entirely from the ground, her feet dangling in the air as she struggled to free herself.

"You shouldn't lie to me lady," Aiden's firm voice sounded out in the cave, as he stared into her shakey brown eyes.

"Bam!"

"Ahhh!"

The sound of a thud could be heard as Aiden let go of the woman who took a deep breath afterwards.

Undeterred by the woman's suffering, Aiden commanded, "speak."

At the dawn of Aiden's sudden command, the lady jumped a bit before quickly saying, "I-I am an assassin for a local gang in the seventh shelter, my job was to accompany some special guests and spike their drinks-"

"Slash!"

Aiden's tail suddenly moved cutting through the woman's coverall leaving a deep and bloody gash on her chest.

The woman who was too slow to react took a moment to process, but before she could even feel the pain, she felt an overwhelming energy press against her in all directions.

"Ahh!"

The woman suddenly lost control of her body as she jerked involuntarily while letting out short cries of pain.

Mai watched Aiden as he performed his sinister deed, and for some reason, his back looked a lot more sinister than before.

Aiden on the other hand didn't care what Mai was thinking, he just observed the woman in front of him as though she was some kind of test subject.

During their two days in the underground mine, Aiden had learned a few things, for one he learned that the strange markings on the bodies of these people were called Detritus Marks.

Aiden had tried to figure out how these Detritus Marks worked, he couldn't seem to understand, but from what he could see, it was a flowing source of that black shadowy substance called hell energy.

This confused Aiden, he wondered how hell energy could prevent hell energy shock.

After further observation, he noticed something that he hadn't noticed before, and this was the fact that the Detritus Marks weren't repelling energy, instead they were absorbing and dispelling energy.

When the person who possessed this Detritus Mark was killed the Mark automatically stopped absorbing energy and instead focused on releasing, this was the reason why Aiden thought that the Detritus Mark served the purpose of just repelling hell energy when he killed the first miner.

There was one weakness Aiden noticed though, and that was the fact that the Mark's seemed fragile before his soul energy.

The reason the woman experienced hell energy shock was that Aiden had gathered soul energy at the tip of his tail before striking her, severing her tattoo, and causing her Detritus Mark to collapse immediately.

"Would you stop standing there, she's dead already," Mai's voice suddenly sounded out, pulling Aiden back to reality.

Wiping his face with his hand Aiden stored the woman's soul, before picking up the rope and proceeding to drag Mai through the cave.

The both of them were quiet for a while, but none of them seemed to mind, it was always like this after they killed a miner. Aiden on the other hand knew he had to do this, he wanted to survive, and he wouldn't take unnecessary chances, if the Silence found out about his differences compared to a normal Contractor he didn't know what would happen.

"Are you ok?" Mai's voice suddenly sounded out breaking the silence between them, but Aiden after a momentary delay just chuckled.

With a turn, a small smile formed on his lips as he looked towards Mai, "You've been worried about me lately, are you perhaps falling for me?"

"How does one fall in love in a situation like this?" Mai asked playfully, gaining another chuckle from Aiden.

Letting out a small sigh Aiden said, "That woman was the last one, the real master minds should be showing up soon."

"Aren't you worried?" Mai asked seriously before darting in, "You'll be meeting pro Contractor's soon, do you want to take a break?"

"I'm good," Aiden offered reassurance as he butted in, "We have to get you some food first, I can hear the sound of activity in the distance."

The duo had gotten some information from the miners they had killed before, for starters they discovered that the cave had twenty-five miners and twelve Contractors.

One of these Contractor's by the name of Jonathan seemed to be the one in charge of drawing these Detritus Mark's making Aiden very interested in him.

"Aiden, are you really human?" Mai's voice suddenly sounds out again, a hint of awe and disbelief audible in her tone, unfortunately, she received no answer.

It had been like this the entire time they had been in these mines, in their two days of time, Aiden seemed like a robot, he didn't stop or take a break he just kept moving, dragging her along.

Of course, Aiden's relentlessness came at a small price, for one after he exhausted himself to a certain extent, his soul energy would heal his injuries, which would cost about 10% of his soul energy.

This price was much lower than the price of exhaustion at the first gate which was a staggering 40% of his total soul energy.

Even without exhausting himself, Aiden's body was constantly consuming and recovering soul energy in the sense that, his body relied completely on soul energy to nourish itself in place of food and water, even more so now than before.

As Aiden walked through the underground tunnels he finally saw an opening up front illuminated by blue lights, the sound of activity at the other side told him that he had reached the base of his attackers.

And judging by the amount of their comrades he'd killed, a battle was imminent.