Eden didn't waste any time and immediately turned to her guards. Two of them walked into the portal and vanished behind the blackness, while the other two remained beside it, their expressions intimidating enough to ward off passersby.
Damien glanced behind at Ahara one last time.
She smiled at him reassuringly, nodding as she waited for him to go. A piece of him wanted to stay with her, to stop in this pursuit for power he had just learned about this morning, but he couldn't bring himself to agree with it.
He needed the power. For his and her sake.
"Now's our turn," Eden tugged at his arm, snapping him back to reality.
She let go of his hand, walked towards the portal before glancing behind at him, a grin on her face. Then she walked into the black space and vanished.
"Your turn," Ahara urged in a soft voice, and Damien nodded at her.
With a thudding heart, he followed behind Eden, hesitantly pushing his hands in first before finally, he entered the portal.
Unlike his other experiences with magic so far, this was rather normal. Too normal. It felt like just passing through a door. There was no sensation to his body at all, well, that is, until he came out on the other side of the portal.
Strong gusts of wind immediately slapped his face, threatening to carry him away and making him blink furiously as he tried to check his surroundings. He covered his eyes, scrunching them just enough to look around.
Then he looked below, and his breath hitched.
"Fucking hell!" Damien yelped, shutting his eyes and clutching the arm of the guard standing next to him for dear life.
His skin went pale, and he looked away from the ground, but the skies weren't exactly offering him the best comfort either. For they were standing amidst it, high up the ground.
They were so up there that the trees below looked like an entire field of small broccoli chunks.
Eden giggled next to him, her laugh an unwanted feat at the moment. "Didn't I tell you this was going to be fun?"
'Fun?'
Damien glanced at her. She was still grinning, standing alongside the guards like she was one of them, and yet, they still stood protectively around her. The last two walked out of the portal, and it vanished behind them, leaving the six of them stranded in the air with nowhere to go except down.
Just then, Eden clapped her hands and turned to face Damien.
"Stop sitting there like a coward and get ready. We're going diving into the palace."
'Diving?' Damien widened his eyes at her, looking below.
"Y-you want us to dive down there?" He stuttered, much to her delight.
She straightened her hands above her head, and so did her guards. Then in a rather authoritative voice, she warned.
"If you don't want to be left alone up here, I recommend you follow what we're doing and dive with us."
"Why didn't you just open the portal on the ground like the ones at the hospital?"
"Because that's not challenging enough to jiggle your Aura dummy?" Eden hissed back, bending herself enough to dive.
Suddenly, it made sense. Damien stretched his hands above his head, too, not about to go against what seemed like the start of his training.
"Any minute now," Eden yelled, and her guards yelled back in unison:
"Ready!"
In a fashion similar to that of a recruit amongst qualified warriors, Damien yelled last in a rather shaky voice:
"Ready!"
"In three, two, one, go!" Eden shouted, and just like that, they all dived in unison, this time, Damien managing to keep up with them.
It didn't take long before two guards were on each of Damien's sides, whilst the others were on Eden's as they shot down like arrows to the ground below. Nothing seemed to change as of yet. The buildings and trees still looked like a 3D map on Google, at least to Damien. To him, this wasn't just a dive to jiggle his Aura.
It was a dive towards death.
"Woooo!" Eden screamed happily, and Damien glanced at her.
Her eyes were glistening with happiness, green hair flailing around like vines gone berserk. He was barely able to breathe or see because of the wind whistling past his face, and yet there she was, grinning and screaming her head off as if this was another normal day to her.
Turning his head back to the ground, Damien was shocked to see the buildings and trees now closer than they had been a few seconds ago, especially the palace they were headed towards.
Like a flower opening its petals to be graced by early morning sunlight, the roof of the castle opened wide, forming what looked like a clover that covered its entire base from sight.
"Final phase!" Eden called out, and just then, Damien saw the guard next to him shift.
With a twist, he flipped around Damien and was floating above him the next moment.
"Brace yourselves for impact," the man yelled, his voice clear in Damien's ears even with all the wind howling past them as he dropped like bird poop towards the castles open ceiling.
"Now stretch your hands as if they're wings!" He ordered once again, and Damien immediately followed the command, glancing at Eden.
She already had her arms outstretched before the command reached her.
The ground was much closer now.
Damien could even see the little people roaming around in the open castle below, not in the least looking like they were fazed by them dropping from the sky and aiming into their building.
"Anytime now!" The guard notified him, his voice sounding closer than it was a few seconds ago. "And whatever you do next, don't stop stretching your arms, okay?"
The boy didn't bother asking what he meant. He was too preoccupied with the castle beneath them.
It was closer now, and he could see its surroundings clearly. The sharp pointy ends on most of its rooftops, the shapes engraved on them, the vines that clung to some of the building's walls, and even the space covered by what looked like a red carpet inside the open lotus dome.
He couldn't see how they were going to land safely without sustaining any injuries. Both outside and inside. Nowhere looked safe.
'I wish I had the gem,' Damien thought to himself bitterly, blinking furiously as he glanced around at the others.
They seemed experienced enough to land safely. Even Eden, whose grin had disappeared now. She looked focused, like she knew exactly what to do the moment her body hit the ground.
It was then that Damien bumped into something, and his body stilled.
'Webs,' he thought to himself when the sticky sensation hit his face.
Then he turned his head to look below, and all the blood drained from his body in an instant.
Eight monstrous yellow eyes stared back at him as a ginormous body the size of a helicopter crawled out of the way as if to let its prey fall deeper into the trap.
'Spider!' Damien's chest constricted as the realization hit him.
In mere seconds, the large spider was crawling above, making its way towards them. Its pinchers kept snapping like scissors about to cut objects in half, sending a chill down Damien's spine as he struggled to move. With each move its legs made on the webs, the lad felt his body sink deeper into the trap. He couldn't move a muscle. Every part of him was trapped.
Every part except his mouth.
With a fiery determination to survive, Damien wriggled his body violently against the webs, hoping with all might that he'd escape from them somehow and land safely into the open castle below.
"Spider! A giant spider is coming towards us!" He cried, wriggling his body uncontrollably.
"Hush, you coward!" Eden hissed at him. "If you keep flailing like that, you'll make him angry and we won't make it home alive."
At that, Damien stilled in his tracks, his eyes glued on the creature, his hands shaking uncontrollably as sweat dripped down his skin. The others were calm. They didn't move. Just let their bodies sink deeper into the spider's trap as it made its way closer to them.
Soon, it was standing right above Damien, facing the guard who had twisted himself to fly above the boy not too long ago. Then it reached its legs towards him, scooping him away from the net.
With a sharp hiss that made Damien tear up a bit, he watched in horror as the first one among them was swallowed whole.
He was about to scream his lungs out when it reached it's legs to grab yet another guard from the webs, repeating the same piss inducing hiss as it swallowed him whole again. One by one, they vanished, until it was only Eden and Damien left.
Then she, too, was scooped from the webs, not in the least looking like she was scared for her life.
"We'll meet at the bottom of the web," she called out just when the spider hissed before swallowing her too.
Then it turned its focus on Damien, and the boy went numb. He saw it reach its legs to grab his almost lifeless body, and when it managed to do so, it began pulling him to its mouth.
Like a reed, he shivered when it screeched, then his eyes widened when he saw its pinchers opening wide as it placed him just above its mouth to swallow him like it did the others.
'Remind me why I wanted to know Ahara's identity again?' The boy groaned in his head, closing his eyes and deciding to believe that Eden knew what she was doing.
'I can't die like this, damnit.'
And just like that, he felt the spider's slimy saliva as it swallowed him whole, his body masked in its webs and rendering his movements useless.