'Twenty-one? Wait, place your hand on the orb and repeat the test," Eden insisted, blinking furiously as she stared at the flickering numbers on the Aura testing orb.
Damien too. He couldn't believe what the glowing ball was saying.
So he placed his hand on it once again as Eden commanded, furrowing his brows as confusion overtook his senses in an instant. How could his aura value skyrocket like that while he traveled here?
'Maybe it's a fault,' he comforted himself.
However, when the large numbers began flickering on the orb again, counting down at tremendous speed until they stopped at 21, he knew as well as the others in the room that he wasn't hallucinating.
His aura value had increased.
"Why do the two of you look shocked?" Eden's father asked. "His aura value should be making you laugh, not shocked," he added, glancing at the teenagers standing opposite him and his attendant.
They were standing on a circular podium in the middle of a rather empty room, with walls that were painted white and nothing but the orb placed next to them, glowing. The King as Damien addressed him now, was the one who made it awaken by placing his hand on its base and releasing a bit of his aura as if to feed it.
Once it awakened, Damien had been asked to place his palm on it by a woman who had followed them after they left the large dome, and he did, only to find out that his aura had risen by eleven value points.
"From ten to twenty-one, just because you fell from the sky? Are you even recessive?" Eden blurted out, glancing at Damien with squinted eyes.
"I don't know," Damien silently replied, looking at Eden directly in the eyes. "How does it usually work?"
It was that simple act of innocence that made the princess release her suspicious glare on him and sigh.
"You really don't know anything about Gibbous, do you?"
"I thought you heard the conversation I had with my sister. I just woke up in the hospital this morning..."
"And I dragged you here thinking we were the same recessive Gibbit as me," Eden finished for him, rubbing her face in frustration, before pausing almost immediately. Wrinkling her nose, she glared at her hands and swatted them away, groaning.
"Ugh, I forgot about the stinking saliva."
Damien looked at his body too, fighting a gag reflex as he the realization that he too was covered in the slimy fluid hit him. It reeked of the same stench as the spider's insides, a stench akin to that of a dead animal left to rot for days.
"Will you two answer me now, or do I have to use my authority to make you?" The King asked, glaring at the two.
Finally paying him attention, the teenagers nervously glanced at each other, with Eden immediately lowering her head at him. Damien followed suit.
"Forgive us father, we were just shocked by what we saw."
"Don't bow, just tell me what it is," the man sighed, gesturing for them to stand straight.
"Well, when we tested Damien's aura points with my oblong back at the hospital, it was at ten. Now though..."
"It has increased dramatically without him needing to exercise," the King finished for her.
"Yes..." the princess let the word linger in the air, turning to face Damien and soon, both hers and the Kings attention was on the boy.
Their eyes stayed glued on him like that, making him scratch the back of his neck nervously. The saliva was still dripping down his body slowly. He coughed, glancing at his surroundings to busy himself. But there was nothing to look at. Other than the orb and the Gibbits in it, the room was empty.
Not able to contain the attention being directed at him anymore, Damien spoke first.
"Umm...is there something wrong with my face?"
"No!" The father and daughter replied simultaneously, avoiding eye contact with him as they caught on to their strange behavior.
"How about a bath and change of clothes before breakfast, Damien?" The King added, faking a cough.
"What about the food you made the staff prepare just now?" Eden asked, her voice echoing in the room.
"By the time he's done, the food'll be ready."
"Oh," Eden blushed, looking at the floor at her stupid question. "Then I'll be taking a bath too."
Without waiting for her father's approval, she dashed out of the room, leaving Damien at the King's mercy.
"Follow after her incase she needs something," the King commanded the woman standing behind him.
With a bow, she too dashed out of the room after Eden, and soon it was just the King and him in the empty room, alone.
Damien's chest constricted. He didn't know what to do. At least with Eden they were the same age group and she was the one who initiated most of their conversations. With her dad though, well, that was a different matter.
He was the King, and Damien had no experience with people of his caliber.
A tap came from the other side of the orb, and when Damien raised his head to look at the source of the sound, he stilled. The King was now standing in front of him, close enough for Damien to hear his breathing, but not enough to make him uncomfortable.
"So this is what Henry and Cora's famous son looks like?"
At the mention of his parents name, Damien raised his head to look at the King.
"You know my parents?"
"Know them? Your father was the strongest man to ever grace Gibbous and yet you ask me if I know them?"
"Right, sorry," Damien moved his hand to his neck but the King stopped him before he could start scratching it.
"You even developed Henry's bad habit," he laughed, placing the boy's hand to his side.
Damien couldn't help but smile at the King's comparison of him to his father. He wanted to ask more, but withdrew himself when he noticed the small fangs on his upper teeth.
"How can you look so much like a fusion of the two?" The King walked around him, gazing at his frame up and down as if checking his worth before finally coming to a halt in front of him, chin in hand.
"You know what? Let's go wash off the gastric acid covering your body, hmm? That way, I'll be able to judge who you look like more accurately."
Damien stilled once again.
"I'm sorry, but did you just say I have acid on my body?"
The king lightly slapped his forehead, "Ah, forgive me. I forgot to tell you all about it once I saw Eden getting along with you. She's never one to bring strangers home on a whim you know." He wriggled his brows at Damien.
"Then again, you're currently the talk of the town thanks to you being able to use the Gem of Memento Mori. It's a wonder you were able to do what even Dextrodus couldn't do."
Damien stared wide-eyed at the Vampire King who waved his hand in the boy's face, gesturing for him to come down the podium.
"I'm sure you'll meet with him soon once you enroll at Gibforge. He's the Principal there. Strong old man he is."
'Oh, the old man,' Damien smiled to himself, happy to finally indulge in a topic familiar to him.
However, once they left the room and entered the large corridor, the smile disappeared and was soon replaced with his open mouth.
The white walls had large stone statues glued to them, all different in size, color, and design. Male and female, they lined up the corridor, each with a rather serious look on their face. However, they all had one thing in common—a crown on their heads.
Damien couldn't take his eyes off one of them in particular. Standing on the far edge of the corner he was standing, her eyes were glowing red, and so was her crown. She looked as though she were alive, as if she could move from the wall and start wrecking havoc in the peaceful palace just from walking alone.
"That's my wife," the King spoke beside Damien and he flinched, his heart catching up in his throat.
"Her statue is glowing because she's the current Vampire Queen of the Abomasum," he continued, oblivious to poor Damien's mini heart attack.
"What's an Abomasum?" Damien asked, his eye's turning to the man beside him.
"It's a quartet that represents every Gibbit in Gibbous. They're made up of the four tribes in it namely us Vampires, the Wizard kind, the shifters and the dragons," the King explained.
"Wait, aren't dragons shifters too? I'm sure I saw a majority of them transforming into humans at the hospital."
"Oh, they certainly are. But they are more than just shifters," explained the Vampire. "You'll soon learn just how different they are, but first, why don't we wash you up and then get you powerful enough to enroll at Gibforge."
Not about to go against his words, Damien glanced a the Queens statue one more time, before following her husband down the hall. Soon, they reached yet another stone structure that looked an awful lot like the giant spider that had swallowed him alive.
It was on the far edge of the hall, away from royal statues situated a block away from where Damien and the Vampire King were standing now. Its abdomen was carved open, the hole big enough for Damien to stand in.
Just like Damien had imagined, the Vampire King walked inside the open space and the boy immediately knew what the spiders sculpture was used for.
Not waiting to be invited, he hoped inside next to the King.
The moment they were both inside, the Vampire tapped his index finger on the spiders pinchers, and the stone immediately jerked them forward as the sound of stone scrapping on what sounded like metal filled the air.
Then the statues began to ascend upwards.
Damien glanced in silent awe at the the King, not about to annoy him with questions, but the man noticed either way.
"I'm using Clement's webs," he explained.
"Clement?" Damien furrowed his brows at him.
"The spider?"
"Oh."
"Yes, he's my pet. Oh, and about the acid, don't worry, it's not harmful. Clement only soaked you in it to digest the webs so you could be able to fly your way down here safely."
'Pet?' Damien tilted his head to the side, his mind already flooding with too many questions.
"If you don't mind me asking, do you perhaps...control Clement?"
At his question, the King couldn't help but chuckle to himself.
"You really don't know anything about Gibbous, do you?"
"Mmm," Damien replied as the stone elevator entered the porous stone tube above.
"Not even about how aura works in Gibbits or how you can increase it naturally if you're recessive?"
"No," said Damien, feeling stupid by the minute.
"My goodness. And here we thought sending you to the human world would be better for you."
Damien snapped his head at the King, eyebrows raised inquisitively. "Why was I sent to the human world?"
"Because you aura had disappeared. If we had let you live in Gibbous, you wouldn't have lasted more than two days. You'd have burned to death from the constant aura release by other Gibbits since you didn't have any of it in you that could repel ours."
"Right," Damien whispered under his breath.
He remembered the burning sensation he had felt from Kaos and Ahara during the fight two weeks ago. It had been agonizing, enough to make him cry out in pain.
"Well, not to worry. Once we're done eating and I have you and Eden lined up in the gym, you'll soon learn a bit about how aura works. So cheer up and tip that chin, you have the best mentor in Gibbous after all."
At this, Damien smiled.
"Thank you, Your Highness."
Another chuckle as the elevator came to a halt in yet another corridor.
"Please, call me Clement."
Damien cringed at the Vampires back, following him into the corridor.
'Who the fuck shares a name with their pet?'