Damien groaned as he opened his eyes. He couldn't see anything at all. The ground, the sky, even his surroundings—everything was black.
He could at least tell he wasn't outside anymore, after all, he couldn't feel the cold or hear the trees swaying in the vicious winds of battle.
He couldn't smell the stench of blood.
He couldn't hear the war cries or the blasting of spells on the ground.
He couldn't feel the pain in his chest anymore.
Wait, the pain…
Touching his chest with quivering hands, Damien heaved a sigh of relief. He wasn't hurting anymore, and his veins had stopped glowing. What's more, even his skin had returned to normal.
However, that was the least of his worries at the moment.
'Where the hell am I?' He wondered, crouching on the ground to raise himself. The last thing he remembered was hearing Ahara's scream before fainting on the pit's edge.
Then he froze.
'Was it just fainting or am I…dead?'
His chest constricted at the thought. He couldn't be dead. Ahara needed him. She sounded like she was in pain not too long ago. He had to help.
"No, I'm not dead. I can't be dead. Not yet. I need to get out of here…but how?"
Damien gnawed at his bottom lip. He couldn't even see his own body because of how dark it was around him. Not to mention the heavy air that weighed down on his body, the same way those invisible flames from Ahara and the others had.
"Is somebody out there?" Damien called out, hoping the burning sensation he felt was Ahara or one of her friends lurking somewhere in the darkness.
Like a wave, his voice spread throughout the vast expanse, not even stopping to echo. Damien immediately knew he wasn't confined in a small space.
'Probably bigger than the park?' He wondered, his heartbeat increasing as the adrenaline did its work.
Just then, a fiery golden light suddenly pierced through the vast blackness at a distance. It was floating mid-air, tiny, but just enough to let Damien scan his surroundings.
The space was indeed vast, stretching into an endless expanse. The ground was shrouded in a sheet of black water, unbroken by ripples or waves from his movement, as if it were frozen in time. It too stretched like the darkness it mirrored, creating an unsettling sense of depth and infinity that prickled at Damien's skin.
With a pale face and a mind that kept telling him he was dead and this was hell, Damien turned his attention towards the light and moved in its direction. As he drew closer, he could feel the burning sensation deepening on his skin.
Then the source of the light came into view, and he loosened the grip he had on his chest.
"No wonder I don't feel pain anymore," he mumbled to himself, his eyes glued to the small gem soaring in the air.
Surrounding it were strange symbols that writhed around like living serpents. They were very similar to the ones he had seen on the golden necklace, but that wasn't the most surprising part of it all.
"What the…?" Damien scrunched his eyebrows, trying to decipher what he was seeing.
Encircling the floating gem were three shades of flames, each one distinct and captivating to his normal eye.
A soft yellow flame flickered closest to it, its gentle warmth casting an eerie glow. Dancing around it was a crimson flame, its strokes painting the darkness with a vibrant color. And beyond the crimson was a purple flame, hot and shimmering as it burned the darkest among the flames. To finish the master piece off was a shadow smoke floating all around the flames, its delicate tendrils curling like a misty aura.
Without thinking, Damien reached for the gem, hesitating for a moment before touching the shadow smoke.
As soon as he made contact, a sudden gust of wind shot at him, sending him stumbling backwards, and before he could regain his balance, the flames erupted. One by one, they began to disperse and float in different directions around him, then in the most bizarre sight Damien had ever witnessed, they took on human forms.
The purple flame had a lithe, long-legged frame with horns protruding from its head, a mass of burning embers attached to its spine in the form of wings seemingly writhing behind its back. It was the most intense among the three flames, burning Damien's skin even though it stood the farthest behind his back.
To his left was the crimson flame, its body tall and husky like male warriors, the light emitting from it a delicate balance of light and shadow. His flames shone with radiance brighter than the others, as if guided by a deep understanding of the universe's power, although they didn't burn like the purple one did.
As for the yellow flame standing to his right, it had morphed into a gentle female, her hair flowing like the wind, with skin a warm, calming glow that was rather too welcoming. Her embers flared with ethereal grace akin to a mother's, and Damien couldn't help but move closer to her.
The flames seemed to draw the boy into their world, a realm of primal undisputed energy that expanded his senses. However, they paled in comparison with what came next—the dark shadow that had been masking them around the gem.
Like the others, it took on human form, although its frame had an uncanny resemblance to Damien himself. He didn't disturb anything, only waited as the shadows appeared from the black waters, engulfing the gem.
Then it moved in his direction.
The once still waters beneath him came to life with every step the shadow took, sending ripples of waves all over the dark expanse.
PLOP! PLOP!
Damien stilled as it approached him, unsure what to do. Thanks to the flames surrounding him, he could see the shadow clearly, but he couldn't guess what it was about to do next.
However, he soon realized he didn't need to.
As soon as it reached where he was standing, the shadow extended its hands at him, revealing the gem and pushing it to his face.
Not about to risk his life, Damien obeyed his shadow by taking the gem, and just like that, the black space surrounding him vanished back to reality, except, everything was still. The trees weren't swaying, and the wind wasn't blowing on Damien's skin.
He wondered if time had been paused somehow, that is, until he noticed his body lying on the ground, blood coming out of his mouth and nose, flowing on the ground as if formed a small red puddle.
Reality hit Damien like a sledgehammer, and he flopped to the ground, face pale as his hands quivered.
"This…this can't be happening. I can't die. Ahara still needs me down there," he cried, pointing at the dark hole beneath them.
Just then, the ground began to swirl around him like a movie on fast forward, and in mere seconds, they were deep in the tunnel, surrounded by dragons and vampires alike, with Kaos in the middle of it all. Damien didn't even have the time to mourn his death because right there in front of him was Ahara, floating in the air with Thanatos thrusting his sharp wand into her abdomen.
"No!" The lad screamed, rushing to grab his sister, only to have his hands pass through her like a hologram.
"Shit, I'm dead!" He screamed, turning his head to the still flames and shadow that were still surrounding him.
Then it dawned on Damien. This wasn't reality. He was simply being shown what was happening outside this darkness.
He had died.
The lifeless body he had been shown by the shadow was enough evidence for him to reach that conclusion. No one could survive that much blood loss. And yet, he still didn't want to give up.
Walking towards the shadow, Damien grabbed its shoulders, a bit surprised he could even touch it, before shaking it vigorously as if his fingers were quivering with fear.
"Please, do something, anything, just…help my sister, please."
Like before, the ground swirled in a dizzying motion, and they were back in the darkness again, except this time, his lifeless body had come too. With a loud hiss, the shadow evaporated from Damien's touch into his lifeless body as if it were a spirit.
Then a deafening silence fell in the dark space.
It took a moment of hopeless silence before a noise erupted from Damien's body as his chest heaved up dramatically, flopping onto the ground with a loud thud. Then he choked, and Damien immediately understood what the shadow had done.
He had sacrificed himself to give him another chance.
A stray tear escaped his eye, and he wiped it with shaking hands.
"Thank you, thank you so much," he sniffled just when he felt the soft impact of something pure and harmless coming from behind him.
Turning around, Damien's heart almost leapt out of his chest when he saw how close the yellow flame was, but he didn't back away. Instead, when she raised her fiery hands to reach for his face, he found himself lowering his head and letting her stroke his cheeks for a moment.
Then, like the shadow copy of himself, she too vaporized and disappeared into his body.
As soon as she entered his frame, a yellow flame erupted around the body, and Damien gasped in horror, half closing his eyes before he witnessed himself getting cremated. However, the flame didn't burn his flesh like he had suspected.
Rather, it seemed to heal the wounds on it.
Such was the same occurrence when the crimson flame patted his back and entered his body. He could see the color slowly returning to his pale skin.
As for the purple flame, it didn't bother showering him with affection, just flew straight into his body like it was being pulled by a magnetic force, before engulfing the other flames like it had been doing around the gem.
Then the shadow flared from his body and coated them all, seemingly sucking in the dark expanse and black water into Damien's now healthy body.
The boy didn't have the time to wonder what was going on with the void space before the gem in his hand started glowing again and bulleted straight into his chest.
"Aaargh!" Damien flopped on the disappearing black waters, another seizure hitting him.
Then, as if history was repeating itself, he lay still on the wet ground and fainted.
*****
"Damien!"
The boy ducked his head just in time for Koas's spell, lunging in his sister's direction and scooping her off the floor.
"Stop shouting and focus on healing yourself!" He growled at Ahara, landing a good distance away from the action and placing her on the ground.
Ever since waking up, his body somehow knew what to do. He wasn't yet fully conscious, but he knew how to tell the enemy and his allies apart, especially his sister.
Dion and the Song followed behind him, sending attacks flying in every direction, whilst Kingston, like Ahara, focused on healing himself after landing.
"How did you know I can heal myself?" Ahara forced the words out.
The aura in the air was too overwhelming for her, a power only her uncle was capable of pulling off in all of Gibbous's entire history. But he was dead, and no hero alive had enough aura to make her want to bow her head like this—not even the most feared old man in Gibbous.
The most confusing thing was how Damien was the only one capable of moving freely, even though the others' movements were restricted, not to mention him knowing everything about her being a vampire and how he was helping in the fight.
He was even better than her three friends, and two of them were on the potential future Numen list back in Gibbous!
Surely his physical education classes didn't train him how to fight, Rouges did it?
She was in the middle of thinking when Damien grabbed her head and flipped it so she could face him. Then she felt the aura in his fingertips, and her eyes widened.
'The gem!' It was her first thought, but before she could look at her brother's chest, he raised her head to face his.
"Look at me, Ahara. Do I still look weak to you?"
She didn't have the time to reply or think before another spell was shot in their direction. Damien flicked his hand behind him, sending a wave of thinned air in the spell's direction.
BOOM!
The ground shook when the spell clashed with the shield.
Ahara's eyes almost came out of their sockets as she stared at her brother. He wasn't emitting any kind of aura. But she had sensed it in him. The gem's aura.
"S-since when did you…" she trialed off, choking as another wave of aura subdued her.
Three minutes. It only took three minutes of her being unconscious for everything to change.
"I'll explain later. Right now, we need to defeat these guys," Damien replied, turning around to face the rogues.
Kaos and his team stilled in their tracks when he glared at them. If it weren't for the earth dragons manipulating the ground and elevating the entire team to the top ground after Damien left with his sister and her friends, every rogue would have been butchered in the pit by now.
His aura alone was choking most of them, and instinct kept screaming at them to run away, but they couldn't just leave without the gem…unless they wanted to die an even more painful death later that is. They had to fight him somehow, but none of their attacks had proved useful as of yet. Damien kept blocking them and defending the four heroes with ease, as if their power was a mere joke to them.
"We need to escape whilst that monstrous aura is flowing from you. Whatever you and the gem are doing, don't stop," Dion forced the command out, but it fell on dead ears.
"No, I'm going to make them pay for what they did to my sister," Damien hissed, taking a step closer to the rogues. "Take Ahara and leave. Now!"
"What do you mean we should leave? Are you trying to insult us?" Song whined, but stopped immediately when his wings gave out after Damien released another wave of his aura.
He turned his head to glance at the boy, and one look was all he needed before he shot in Ahara's direction, scooping her from the ground and flying away. Dion handled the wolf, and they too followed the dragon into the skies.
A violent gust of wind erupted from where Damien was standing, clearing the ground of any rubble and dead bodies. Ahara watched as her brother took on a stance similar to the one she had done a while ago, glaring at Kaos.
"My turn, old man," he notified the rogue. Then in a spine-chilling sombre tone, he chanted:
"Primal ascension!"