The stench inside the spider's belly made Damien scrunch his face in disgust, fighting the urge to vomit. His body was entirely covered in its slimy saliva, a memory he was quite sure would stay with him for the rest of his life.
'What now?'
With outstretched arms that wouldn't move thanks to the webs restricting his movement, Damien wondered how big the beast's belly was to be able to accommodate him and the others in their ridiculous poses, but he didn't have the luxury to think about it for even a second.
Something pressed on his body tightly, immediately stopping him from sliding deep inside the spider's pit. Then came the warm and sticky sensation of what seemed to be its inner flesh.
As if in reverse peristalsis, the skin contracted and loosened around him, acting like the mechanism that made him move in reverse. Instead of descending head first, he was now moving up, his head seemingly getting more force from the contractions as he slid back from where he came.
'Is it vomiting me?' He wondered, hopefully wishing that his words were true.
Finally, the moving stopped, and when he heard the spiders screech, he knew that he had indeed been vomited.
"I told you it's going to be the best experience of your life, didn't I?" Eden's voice rang in his ears next.
Damien immediately flicked his head in her direction and opened his eyes.
"You're alive?" He asked in surprise, blinking furiously when he noticed that her guards were dangling along with her on what looked like a loose thread beneath the thick, almost-invisible webs above them.
Then he squinted his eyes at her, disappointedly. "How is being eaten and vomited by a spider the best experience of my life? I smell like shit damnit."
"Ah, but we haven't reached the best part yet," Eden smirked, nodding at the palace beneath them.
Damien glanced at it, too. They were still a few good kilometers away from land, he noticed, which made him wonder how the spider was able to live up the building without anywhere for its threads to cling on to.
Immediately raising his head to look for an answer, Damien flinched when he heard a snap coming from where the creature was now, on the far end of the web he and the others were dangling from with their hands still outstretched like wings.
Then it happened again—the deadly dive.
"What the fuck!" He yelled, his face immediately turning pale.
But to his surprise, he didn't immediately pick up velocity.
Instead, he seemed to be gliding down as if he had some sort of parachute attached to him, but when he looked up, there was no such thing attached to his back.
"You finally noticed?" Eden flexed her gliding skills, twisting her upper torso and swirling around Damien like a jet until she was back on top and gliding above him.
"We can all control our speed now."
Glancing around, Damien noticed how the guards were also flying gracefully. Him too. He didn't move in hexing motions like the others, but he was flying. He, too, was soaring in the skies like a bird.
"How?"
Before anyone could answer, he finally noticed the spider webs attached underneath his armpits. They weren't tight like they used to be the first time Damien got stuck to them. Instead, they were smooth and thinner now, threads that could even be used like a thread to sew clothes.
"I'll explain later, right now, focus on landing," Eden answered, a grin still plastered on her face.
It was then that something flickered past Damien at great speed, the wind erupting from its force enough to make him float to the side lazily.
WHOOSH!
Another one followed, making the boy's eyes widen as he glanced below him.
Two guards were back in their diving formations, charging at the open dome as if they had somewhere to land safely. Before Damien could comprehend what was going on or even ask for instructions, another guard whooshed past him, diving down like a bolt of lightning.
'Guess the red thing is for safe landing," he thought, withdrawing his stretched hands to his sides and aiming his head below.
"What the fuck are you doing, Damien!" Eden screeched from above, and Damien turned his head to look at her.
She still had her hands stretched, unlike the four guards who had fallen. But that wasn't what scared Damien the most. It was her face.
The happy grin had disappeared, and in its place was now a worried expression.
"Stretch those hands before…"
But Eden was too late with her warning.
Damien's body shot at the ground like a bullet, the wind howling past his ears roughly once again as the distance between him and the building closed at alarming speed.
No matter how he looked at it, the red floor didn't look anything like a deflatable bag safe enough for landing.
Rather, it looked like a carpet.
Tears shot out of Damien's eyes as he tried to think of a reason why Eden would be mad at him. Then they hit him like a brick—the guard's words from before:
'Whatever you do next, don't stop stretching your arms.'
The people who had been minding their own business and roaming about the castle below had stopped and were now looking at the sky, some of them even pointing at Damien. As for the guards, they began landing on the carpet like professionals, but it was the process that made Damien's chest constrict in horror.
They hit the ground with enough force to make them roll away like boulders. It looked painful to Damien, and he cursed himself as he tried to think of a safe way to land.
"Save him!" Eden's cried from above.
But the guards were still rolling.
Even if they did manage to stop somehow, Damien was too close to the ground now. They couldn't make it in time to help him.
'I fucked up,' Damien thought to himself bitterly, hugging his body as he steered his head away from impact.
With enough velocity to crack his entire skeleton structure, he entered the dome, the ground beneath him quickly closing in.
'Damnit. I didn't even get to say goodbye to Ahara.'
He closed his eyes, bracing himself for the pain he was about to face, but right before he clashed with the hard floor, someone scooped him away from the air and rolled away with him. Then they came to a halt.
"Are you okay, boy?" A deep voice asked, and Damien immediately flicked his eyes open.
There before him was a man dressed in a white morning gown, his face filled with concern when he placed Damien on the floor next to him.
The boy silently nodded, awestruck by how much the man looked familiar to Eden. The eyes especially. They were exactly like hers, cat-like and green, with long dark lashes that showered them every time he blinked.
He sighed in relief, standing as he outstretched his hand for Damien to take. However, before he could accept his assistance, Eden landed on the red carpet and rolled down the carpet, immediately yelling his name furiously.
"Damien, you idiot!"
She rushed at him, her hands in the air as if to hug him. But when she reached Damien and bent, he covered his face on instinct.
SMACK!
A sharp pain coursed in his back, and he winced, standing as he rubbed the pain away. But before he could rub it away, another smack landed on his arm, inflicting Eden's fury on him before she even spoke.
"Didn't you hear the guard's instructions? You weren't supposed to stop stretching your arms!" She raised another hand to smack him, but Damien's savior grabbed her hand before she could.
"Don't bully your visitor, Eden!" He commanded.
Eden glared at Damien, a stray tear falling down her cheek as she turned around into the man's embrace.
"I thought he was going to die, Father," she flipped around and hid her face in his chest.
The man hugged her, immediately patting her back as a small smile tugged at his lips.
"How could he die when your father is here?" he soothed, glancing at Damien as a gentle expression masked his face.
The boy's cheeks burned from embarrassment at the realization of who had saved him.
'The King,' he thought to himself, fidgeting with his shirt, his hands slightly quivering.
Forcing a smile, he glanced back at the red carpet where he had almost died not too long ago, blood draining from his body in an instant. Ever since uncovering Ahara's secret, it seemed as if death was following him closely everywhere he was now, ready to send him to the afterlife.
"Thank you," he blurted out. "I definitely would've died if you didn't save me."
"That's okay," Eden's dad replied, still patting his daughter's back.
Once she was quiet, though, his expression hardened, and he glanced around the onlookers, who immediately returned to whatever they were doing before the drama started to unfold.
With a snap of his fingers, the guards who had been escorting Damien and Eden appeared in a flash, forming a square around him, their heads bowed.
"Who was in charge of the boy?"
"I was," one of the guards stepped forward.
"Did you warn him not to dive after the spider coated him with silk?"
"He did," Eden interjected, pulling away from him, her cheeks now slightly pink. "It was the idiot who copied them after he noticed them diving."
"Ah," green eyes glanced at Damien. "Quite the observer I see."
"Observer my ass," Eden hissed, immediately dashing towards Damien, her finger in his face.
"If you ever pull a stunt like that on me again, I'll have the guards snap off your head in an instant since you wish to die so badly," she barked, her eyes teary yet ferocious.
Damien swallowed, cold sweat dripping down his forehead. Eden looked like she meant every word she just said. However, when she noticed the sorry look on his face, the princess withdrew her finger and relaxed her expression.
"Promise me you'll follow instructions closely once we start training, or I'll tell your sister to come pick you up right this instant," she added in a much soothed voice.
Damien glanced at Eden's father. He was smiling at her, watching closely as his daughter rebuked the boy. Not about to make an enemy of the King, Damien slowly nodded at Eden.
"I swear to follow all the instructions and not do anything that might kill me once you start training me," he answered.
With a loud clap that made the beast hanging above the dome screech, the King drew everyone's attention.
"Now that everyone's on the same page, how about eating breakfast before we start your Aura release training?" He finally interjected, his smile now a smirk.
'Another feature he shares with Eden,' Damien noted, letting Eden clutch his arm as she pulled him along.
"We'll come to the dining after we test our Aura points first," she responded to her father, turning on her heel as she pulled the boy along to wherever.
"Hmm, then I'm coming too," the King announced as he strutted after the two, his strides large enough to catch up with them before they left him behind.
"Prepare a feast for the Numen's son, we're coming in soon!" He ordered the people behind him, and they immediately scurried out of the room as the roof slowly closed above their heads.
Then with a smirk, the King patted Damien's back and led the way to whichever room they were headed to.