The demon is by my side

Summoning a demon for the first time

The human world.

A dark mist shrouded the dim swamp, where even slimes couldn't endure the deadly aura. Deep within the swamp, surrounded by massive wild beast skeletons, there was a large cave, and within it, a faint glow flickered. Jewels scattered across the ground, illuminated by a blue electric light, as a challenging teleportation gate opened.

Felicity watched with bated breath as the one-person-high teleportation gate struggled to form. Although it was a bit short, she had put forth her best effort.

For any interdimensional summoner, the greatest dream was undoubtedly to possess a magnificent and powerful Abyssal demon. However, in the current system, all interdimensional summonings, including Abyssal summoning arts, were strictly forbidden. This prohibition had been in place for five hundred years, stemming from an era when demon summoners were at the height of their power, constantly summoning mighty Abyssal demons for territorial disputes among nations. The war that ensued escalated into a conflict between demons and humans, nearly plunging the entire continent into destruction. It was only when the saint king, Calim, finally defeated the demon lord Sanado that order was restored to the human realm. Afterward, the king divided the land among his twelve dukes, establishing the current twelve-nation structure. To prevent history from repeating itself, all interdimensional summonings that could disrupt the barriers between realms were strictly forbidden, punishable by death.

Losing the powerful summoned demons, the status of summoners plummeted. They became rare sightings, with only a few practicing elemental summoning arts. Some pursued spatial magic research with the support of their respective nations.

The Franed Magical Academy was one of the few institutions where spatial magic research was conducted. Five hundred years ago, Franed, the chief summoner under the saint king, had a demon named Mus, a mighty demon lord, who played a decisive role in the battle against Sanado. However, after the war, Franed and his demon disappeared. To commemorate him, the saint king granted this territory—Frande Kingdom—to be managed by Franed's descendants and established the Franed Magical Academy.

Summoning a high-level demon from the Abyss, like Kargas, was undoubtedly illegal for Felicity. Any interdimensional summoning would create a massive and exaggerated spatial vortex, visible for thousands of kilometers, and the elemental winds generated by interdimensional summoning could devastate an area of hundreds of square kilometers. Conducting such a summoning silently was nearly impossible. To protect themselves, summoners devised a special transfer array—the Blame Array. It could shift the specific effects of a summoning ritual to another location, as long as a matching array existed there.

For a young girl under twenty like Felicity to use the Blame Array was already quite extraordinary. Furthermore, she placed it in one of the most challenging locations—the Franed Magical Academy.

Therefore, as the gate opened, a massive spatial vortex appeared over the Franed Academy. Powerful elemental currents nearly destroyed all ongoing magical experiments in the imperial capital, rendering all magical artifacts in use useless, causing significant losses to the Franed Kingdom.

The king immediately issued an order to find the summoner who had violated the taboo. The academy's headmaster, Elrandt, roared in anger, "This is clearly the Blame Array! Who dares to place such a thing in my academy!"

Felicity cared little for how they would resolve the issue. She chose Franed precisely because interdimensional summoning occurred at the academy, and everyone suspected it. When the continent's elites attempted to interpret the appearance of the Franed spatial vortex, Felicity's summoning gate had already opened silently.

Would he come? Kargas... he should come, right? According to records, he was one of the easiest high-level demons to summon.

As the hourglass after the contract inscription approached its end, demonic script on the door wriggled like tadpoles. The glaring light flashed, and all the words suddenly disappeared.

Felicity's face lit up with joy; this meant that the other party had agreed to the summoning and had entered the gate! The summoning ritual was already more than halfway completed!

Just then, the summoning teleportation gate began to tremble violently, and the entire mountain cave seemed to crumble. The bell tower stones on the cave ceiling started to fall, prompting Felicity to tear apart a third-level wind shield scroll to protect herself and the active summoning gate.

She furrowed her brow, feeling an uneasy pounding in her heart. Was the gate unstable? Could there be an issue with her calculations? But Kargas was just an advanced lower-tier demon; he shouldn't exert this much pressure on the gate, even if it was amplified with dark dragon magic. This gate could accommodate even higher-tier demons. Yet now, she couldn't allow any mishaps. She bit her lip and picked two of the largest dark dragon crystals from the nearby pile of gemstones, throwing them into the teleportation array.

The runic inscriptions on the ground suddenly brightened, and the summoning gate became white-hot in an instant. Felicity quickly tore three wind shield scrolls and placed them in front of her as a massive explosion ensued. When the dust settled, everything fell silent.

The triple wind shield was instantly torn apart, and Phyllis was blasted into the air. Using a buffering technique, she managed to mitigate the impact and then cast levitation on herself to avoid falling to her death. When she landed back on the ground, the summoning gate had disappeared. On the ground's inscription, a humanoid creature appeared.

The demon who arrived under a false identity didn't expect that crossing the teleportation gate would be such a painful experience. The gate was too narrow for him, compressing his energy tenfold. Only after enduring this, he barely managed to pass through. Even then, during the squeezing process against the dimensional barrier, he lost the entire set of molten hound leather armor that had accompanied him for many years. The only thing preserved was the intangible assassination short blade – Phantom, his only soul weapon.

As a race skilled in stealth and disguise, this demon could perfectly mimic Cacasu in both appearance and energy fluctuations. However, traversing dimensions was an extremely stressful task, compounded by the excessive compression of energy, causing some deformities in his disguise.

Now, he still maintained the sapphire-blue eyes of Cacasu. His golden hair, battered by the onslaught of spatial winds, had turned into a messy short mane. Furthermore, his height had reduced significantly, almost matching the stature of the young girl Phyllis.

Upon seeing this version of Cacasu, Phyllis was almost dumbfounded. Is this the legendary beautiful and noble high-level demon? This clearly looks like a small human! If it weren't for the insignia on his left hand's back, Phyllis would have thought he was a dwarf who had accidentally entered a cave, not a demon from the Abyssal plane.

The insignia on Cacasu's hand was a red-lined hexagram with three short swords piercing through the center, forming an arrowhead shape. In the hexagram's center, there was an alpha letter. Almost every summoner had a dedicated insignia with an automatic naming rule. This insignia was Phyllis's specific one. The hexagram denoted the summoner as a hex-magic practitioner, the central three swords indicated that the summoned demon belonged to the physical category, at the level of a third-tier swordsman. The alpha suggested that this was the number one demon in the hierarchy. Of course, this numbering system was self-determined by the summoner, using either common human language from alpha to omega or other languages like demonic, elvish, or ancient divine languages.

The fact that Cacasu had this insignia on his hand confirmed that he was undoubtedly Phyllis's contracted demon.

As Phyllis observed Cacasu, the demon was also examining the insignia on his hand. Although he didn't understand Phyllis's naming rules, he still knew a bit about the insignia. At the very least, it was a mark of successful summoning. As a temporary demon, as long as he accepted the cost and didn't fulfill the task, according to the contract, he could stay with the summoner indefinitely unless the contract was forcibly terminated.

"Alright, so you are Cacasu?" Phyllis walked up to him. With the insignia-bearing demon, there was no immediate danger to the summoner; contracts had protective rules for them.

The demon looked at the human girl almost as tall as him. This was a human, the small, intelligent beings recorded in the books. Her pale purple hair appeared gentle and harmless, while her emerald green eyes resembled beautiful gemstones. Her beauty was not inferior to any high-level demon. Beneath her tender skin flowed pure and powerful soul energy, seemingly vulnerable to the touch, yet holding tremendous strength. It appeared as if one could easily claim it with just a light strike.

Soul energy was the most potent source of power for any demon. Abyssal demons increased their strength by devouring their kin, obtaining not only pure energy but, if lucky, consuming the memories and combat experience accumulated throughout their lives. Now, the human in front of him possessed such a rich and informative soul. However, she lacked the robust physical body to protect against demons. To demons, this was an alluring feast.

Yet, he knew that such a delicacy wasn't easily obtained. No demon could easily enter any human world because every human world was inaccessible to demons. All the high-level demons living in human worlds until now were summoned, bound by contracts. Due to the existence of summoning rules, demons had to obey their masters, and any hostile action against the master was strictly forbidden.

He didn't come to the human world for hunting. He wanted to stay here a bit longer. So, he nodded obediently, "I am Cacasu."

"Oh my, can't you answer like a lord? Can't you be a bit more profound? For example, 'I am Cacasu, foolish human, why have you dared to summon the mighty Cacasu? What is your purpose?' Something like that..." Phyllis, in the past week in the swamp, had imagined over a thousand versions of the conversation between herself and the high-level demon after a successful summoning. She never expected it to be this straightforward.

The demon had only learned some standard human languages in Cacasu's underground library, making him unable to comprehend Phyllis's emotional language.

"Forget it. It seems you lack understanding of human language and literature records. 'Extremely fond of human civilization, well-versed in human language, proficient in various continental languages.' Who wrote this kind of thing? It's basically a scam!" Phyllis complained and, with a somewhat resigned sigh, continued, "Never mind, I won't trouble you anymore. Let's get started with the contract details, mission, and cost explanations. To avoid misunderstanding, I will communicate with you in the demon's universal language."