The air thickened with tension. Damien tried to stand, but couldn't move his body. All he could do was stare at Ahara and her sudden evolution.
Her tight bodysuit was now but ripped, blood oozing from her body as if coming from a reservoir. Her eyes, her teeth, her posture—everything about her was nothing short of a monster.
The same applied to Kaos. His entire sense of humanity had vanished after he chanted the same line she had, making the two seem like ravaging beasts in the middle of a standoff.
Kaos attacked first.
With the flick of his wand, he shot red flames at Ahara. She ducked, charging at the wizard from the ground in an uncanny resemblance to a venomous spider, both in movement and god-like speed. However, Damien could keep up with her.
Flicking her whip, it curved in towards the wizard's head just when she lunged into the air. Kaos had barely managed to evade the blades before Ahara was animatedly swinging her free hand in the air and pulling.
Akin to needles, the blood that had been oozing from her body and flowing on the ground crystallized and floated, the needles aligning themselves horizontally before firing at the wizard.
"Ah!" Kaos cried, thrashing himself around to evade the blades. However, even as he moved with trained precision, a few blood needles managed to cut him.
Taking the open chance, Ahara charged at him, swinging her whip as she danced by its movement like a trained acrobat. The crystallized blood floated along with the whip, and when she released it, they dispersed, charging at the wizard once again.
"You insufferable bitch," Kaos hissed, leaping to create distance between them as the needles threatened to cut him open.
With the flick of his wand, he sent a spell flying in her direction, hitting her knees and making her fall. Instead of attacking like Damien thought he would, Kaos leapt further away from Ahara, and he stopped at a distance.
Before Ahara could respond, he was already levitating once again, but charging in the opposite direction from where Ahara was—towards his henchmen who were fighting the other three.
A loud rumble came from where Ahara was standing, the earth quaking after she had whipped. Another gust of heavy wind hit Damien's face, and he winced, trying to cover his head but failing to do so in time for a stone that hit his forehead.
"Ugh," he moaned.
His body was still numb. He could move his hands now, but the rest of it was pretty much dead. Then it hit him.
The necklace. The gemstone!
'Even Ahara said she couldn't hold her on with it around her,' the lad thought to himself anxiously.
Without wasting time, he grabbed the chain around his neck with clammy hands and a rapidly palpitating heart and pulled...but it wouldn't move. Not about to give up, Damien tried once again, but he still failed to pull the necklace off his neck.
"I'm too weak," he fumed, raising his head to ask Ahara for help.
But she blitzed at Kaos before he could mutter a word, and he was left lying alone next to the restaurant's ruins.
As if that wasn't enough, another sharp pain coursed through his chest, this time reaching his heart as the feeling of a sharp, rusty metal prickling at his delicate organ overpowered him.
"Aaagh!" He screamed, coughing up blood. Tears soaked the corners of his eyes, his fists clenching as he tried to handle the searing pain.
No one noticed him in the secluded corner, holding on to dear life as he regretted trying to defy his sister and wearing the necklace. It was a death wish. A stupid decision on his part.
"Am I gonna die like this? Aargh!"
Damien gripped his chest and tried to yank the necklace off him once again. This time it came off, but only the chain. The gem and its holder had vanished in thin air…or not.
With shaking hands and a hitched breath, the boy removed his shirt and anxiously peeked at his chest, his face draining of color at the sight awaiting him. His hardened skin had now upgraded into scales, exactly like the ones the dragons had, with strange marks similar to the gemstone's holder now glowing on his chest. It didn't take a genius to know where the stone had vanished to.
"What the...?"
BOOM!
A blast came from where the fierce fighting was taking place. Damien shot his eyes in the direction, his heart pounding when he couldn't spot Ahara instantly.
"Ugh!" He groaned just when another sharp pain hit his chest, but he suppressed it, standing so he could get a clearer view.
The moment he stood up straight, another blast echoed on the ground, this time more prominent and aggressive as it drilled a stadium-sized hole into the ground, sending gigantic waves of dust and stones flying all over the park like a sandstorm.
Luckily, Damien wasn't in range to be buried underneath the dirt thanks to the attacker's trajectory, but everyone involved in the fight vanished.
Then everything went silent.
The dust subsided along with the loud war cries and screams, leaving the tear-jerking stench of clotting blood, and the gruesome sight of dissected body parts lying around; heads, hands, legs, tails, you name it.
The kid's playground that had once been filled with swings, slides, monkey bars, and climbing frames was now but desolate land. Everything had been destroyed, including the metal. They had managed to melt it somehow.
Closing his eyes every time had came across a head lying on the ground, Damien avoided stepping on the decapitated bodies as he moved towards the hole. Surprisingly, no human had shown up at the scene to witness the horrors unfolding in their beloved park, nor did the police ring their sirens to warn the beasts about their arrival.
It was all too peaceful out there, as if the massacre hadn't been occurring two seconds ago, and Damien was just dreaming it all. However, the pain coursing in his chest was enough to tell him that he wasn't hallucinating about anime scenes.
This was reality.
As if to cement the thought, when he reached the edge of the pit, an awfully familiar scream echoed from its deep end.
"You stop hurting her right this instant!" Kingston's voice followed, making Damien freeze in his tracks.
"Or what?"
"Aaagh!" Came the scream again.
This time, Damien was sure of it. Ahara was the one screaming. He could never mistake that voice for anyone else's, not even if his body was half dead and in pain.
Gritting his teeth, Damien debated jumping down the trench and rescuing her. But how? He was the weakest among the lot with no powers and a half-dead body thanks to the Gem seemingly sucking his life away from within.
"What do I do, what do I do, what do I fucking do?" Damien pulled his hair in all directions, tears threatening to come out.
Just then, he felt it. Another wave of pain. Intense and piercing as it came, hitting his entire body and making him flop on the ground. Then came the convulsions. He couldn't control his body or movements. The power surging within him took over, thrashing the poor boy around. Not even his limbs were free from it.
A strange amber glow flashed on his chest, flowing through his veins as it showed on his skin. Then it spread, painful with each tiny fraction, the light pulsating in his body. He wanted to scream, but he couldn't. His lungs had no air left in them. His body was hot, and his mouth was dry.
"A…ha…ra…"
A scorching flare burned in his heart and he coughed out blood once again, tasting the metallic sensation and grimacing. Then almost instantly, his eyes rolled to the back of his head, and everything blacked out.
*****
"You honestly thought you could take on twenty S-ranked rogues just the four of you?" Kaos's sickening cackle rang out in the dead silence at the bottom of the pit, his eyes mocking the three mutated men in front of him.
"I mean, yes, you have two X-rankers with you, but to tackle twenty of us plus thirty A-rankers? Man, you heroes are so full of feculence," he hissed the words out, twisting the dagger in Ahara's stomach.
"Aaagh!" She yelped, and the wizard closed his eyes, smiling as if her cries were music to his ears.
He had cast a spell on her, rendering her immobile for the next hour or so, enough time for him to mock them a little while longer.
"I don't care what the others do to you old men, but this one..." he flicked his eyes open and glared at Ahara. "I'm going to torture her myself. Then I'm going to go for her stupid brother and devour him in her presence whilst she watches in pain. Oh, I can't wait to see the devastation on your face once I kill your brother, you bit-"
SLAM!
Kingston fumed after punching Koas and sending him hitting the wall, raising his hand to hit the wizard once again. But before he could land another blow, he received a sharp kick in the face from one of the vampires standing next to him, sending him slamming into the wall as dust fell from the pit's edges.
"Looks like someone has a stupid boyfriend. Can't you tell your predicament just by looking around, or do you want me to torture her some more?" Kaos wiped the blood coming from his nose as he glared at Kingston.
Flicking his finger, the wand twisted violently in Ahara's gut, and blood gushed out of her like a fountain as she let out a sharp cry once again.
"Please stop. We won't fight you anymore," Dion's deep voice reverberated on the walls, his once dull eyes now awake.
"Good thinking, fellow wizard. You have a good eye. Now bow before us and beg for forgiveness, or I'll kill her."
"You son of a...mmmh," Song Kim didn't get to finish before Dion cast a spell on his lips, sealing them.
Then with practiced caster magic, he pulled the two shifters and brought them to their knees, bowing before the rogues as he racked his brain for a possible solution that might save them, but no suck luck came their way whatsoever.
The rogues had locked all their escape routes even from above, and most importantly, they had Ahara. She was being held hostage to stop the heroes from fighting unless they wanted her dead, one of the many cheap tricks the rogues liked using on them.
Dion couldn't risk losing Ahara over a feat of pointless rage. The best course of action was to subdue themselves until an opportunity presented itself, only, luck wasn't on their side today.
Or so he thought.
Gale-force winds suddenly erupted from the pit's mouth, sending the floating dragons blocking the escape route from above banging on the walls as the source of the power swiftly descended upon them. With a loud thud, it hit the ground, sending a wave of dust and rubble flying around the place.
'A dust cloud,' Dion beamed.
Releasing the others, he shouted: "Now's our chance, grab Ahara and let's disappear!"
But when he tried to move, his limbs were frozen to the ground. Such was the same predicament for the two X-ranks on both sides. They were struggling to stand up.
Raising his eyes to face the demonic aura that had managed to conquer even the highest-ranked heroes of Gibbous, Dion's eyes twitched when he saw the source.
There in front of them, with a blazing aura that made the very ground and air crackle, was Damien, an unconscious Ahara in his arms. He slowly floated to where the three men were bowed, his eyes glowing a fiery amber. Then, with a spell Dion could only master after becoming an S-ranked hero, he had all three men floating mid-air, and lunged into the sky.
Once they were outside, Damien placed them near the two demolished buildings, leaning in front of Kingston and pushing the man to sit up, before gently resting Ahara in his lap.
"Hold my sister for me, I'll be back soon," came his deep voice that sent a chill running on Dion's spine.
Then in a flashy thunderous dash, the boy vanished from their eyes, and disappeared into the pit.