The Contractors
Andrew Ball
The Earth is under siege by the Vorid, alien invaders who erase those whom they consume. A handful of men and women with a special spark of soul stand on the border between the mundane and the magical: they can become Contractors, gaining magic that grows as they fight back. Daniel Fitzgerald wants only to study law and be left alone, but when the entire planet is a battlefield, there is no place to run. In the second volume, Daniel is sentenced to a Hell transformed into broadcast gladiatorial competitions run by the demon emperor Beelzebub, while on Earth Eleanor Astor fights magician politics to free him.
Progression: Contractor magic is central and explicit: people with a spark of soul can become Contractors, gaining access to magic whose power grows numerically as they kill the alien Vorid invaders and absorb energy from defeated enemies. Reviewers describe it as a numbers-driven power fantasy for RPG and progression system fans, with quantified stat-style growth driving each volume.
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