Descendants of Gibbous
Chapter 41: Deja vu

Chapter 41: Deja vu

The beefy guy under Damien pushed hard on the ground, flipping him to the side as he fell on the ground with a loud thud. Then in flashy unified flips, the two of them were standing and facing off each other once again, fists pumped.

Damien clicked his tongue, glancing at the person to his right—Ambrose’s half-brother.

’Was it Brandon?’

"Which one’s the Numen’s son, Brandon?" Asked yet another voice, confirming Damien’s assumptions about the name.

He didn’t have to look around for the source of the voice because right behind Ambrose’s brother appeared a guy dressed in a fancy green robe—the Wizard Lord’s son.

’Great. Another blonde.’

With short blonde hair, green downturned eyes, and muscles that matched Damien’s, the boy was easily a formidable opponent, not to mention how he appeared behind Brandon without warning.

’It’s the same as the royal guards from the palace.’

Brandon pointed at Damien. "In the red suit, Prince Vestin," he replied, much to Damien’s annoyance.

’It’s burgundy, idiot.’

Vestin curled his upper lip as if in disgust, sizing Damien in an instant and turning toward Yong.

"Make sure to remind him he’s no longer in the human world, Brandon. I won’t tolerate you being defeated by feculence that can’t even retract his fangs on will with your magic. The rest of you, space out and tag the other teams out," Vestin commanded his team members.

Without sparing Damien another glance, he dashed past the boy with such speed that Damien couldn’t keep up with his movement—even with his now-developed eyes. He had no time to panic though. His second opponent immediately began cracking his hands loudly, grinning at Damien.

"Well isn’t this lovely? I get to pay back for the rudeness you showed my father."

’And I get to squash the shit out of you,’ Damien thought, positioning his feet in a calculated stance to be able to counter either of his opponents if they decided to attack on a whim.

’Like hot water on a cold day,’ he chanted in his head, allowing his flow state to remain constant in his body.

Everybody was doing it. The fights happening around him were enough to tell Damien that.

Attacks flashed by his sides.

Kicks.

Punches.

Magical attacks that were mostly elemental—water, air, fire, and earth were sending rubble all around the stadium.

The shifters changed form. Dragons flew, and wolves howled and pounced on their enemy.

The buzzer kept ringing too, rampantly at first, then at a much slower pace once the team numbers reduced. War cries and screams filled the air, and so did the floating bodies.

Damien noticed one of them from the corner of his eye. The boy had blood all over his face and was unconscious, his lifeless body floating mindlessly above the fighting students as he headed in a different direction from the other disqualified students. He tried to ignore the body and had to fight twice as hard not to look behind him and see how his team was faring.

He could hear their grunts and the slapping sounds—kicks even, paired with their pained groans and the sound of wind whooshing somewhere behind. Probably Yong again.

’No. I shouldn’t be getting distracted now.’

Shaking his head, Damien decided to ignore whatever was happening behind him and trust his teammates. After all, Yong seemed to have become serious after his my little pony moment with Eden.

It was during this moment of focusing that Damien noticed the change happening around Brandon as he cracked his neck. He couldn’t see it clearly, but the air around his opponent was intensifying with a sensation Damien was accustomed to now.

’Aura!’

"Shit, he’s entering his overdrive state," the beefy guy next to Damien mumbled, already a meter away.

"Good for you to notice so soon, doggy. I’ll give you a treat once I’m done with the vampire," Brandon mocked him, the air intensifying with his sickening aura. Damien winced.

"I’m a werewolf, not a dog, damnit!"

When Damien glanced at the beefy guy, he had shifted into a large black wolf. But even in his beastly form, he was already escaping—and it wasn’t just him. Damien noticed how the other students who were fighting around Brandon had somewhat backed away too and taken their battles a distance away.

"Would you look at that? Overdrive state before Gibforge training? Now that’s the kind of students I like to see!" The commentator screamed into the mic, clapping his hands excitedly despite the massacre going on in the ground below. "Only fifty teams left to go before the event ends!"

The aura coming out of Brandon was intense; but even with his opponent developing a new skill Damien had never heard of before, he still didn’t back away.

Instead, he stood rooted to the ground, balling his fists and glaring at Brandon as if they were on the same level of power. His flow state was still in action. He concentrated on it, ignoring every other distraction that stopped him from focusing on the fight he was about to have.

"Ah. I’m ready to dice you up now, and just so you know, the reason you’re going to fail today is that you paired up with too many weaklings. One girl would have been enough but two? That’s a death wish only idiots who know nothing about Gibbous and power would aim for."

’Blah, blah, blah. Make a move already!’

"Well, it can’t be helped. You’re, after all, the weakest link of the group. I’ll spare you the trouble of getting bullied at Gibforge later," Brandon added, putting one foot in front of the other as he readied himself to attack. "Here I come, loser!"

’About time."

However, before Damien could prepare himself for a counterattack, Brandon vanished in thin air before him, just like Vestin had done.

"What the—"

THWACK!—A kick slammed into his face from the right, making him lose balance as everything blurred around him.

"That’s for disrespecting my Dad!"

WHAM!—another kick from the left.

"That’s for glaring at me like you’re some big shot!"

Before Damien could collect himself, a fist crashed into his nose, messing up his senses in an instant. The copper tang of blood immediately filled his mouth, making him wince as he tried to raise himself and fight back—but he was too slow.

Brandon slammed into his body everywhere like he was some sort of punchbag, mouthing nonsense and cursing at Damien. He couldn’t fight back. Couldn’t defend himself.

He couldn’t scream out in pain, nor was he even given a chance to take a breather.

It was attack after attack.

A kick, a punch, a chop—all in different styles that landed on Damien’s body with precision. Brandon’s moves were fluid, unnatural even, with every twist and turn he made defying everything Damien had been taught in his science classes. His movements felt sluggish. He couldn’t keep up with Brandon’s on-and-off flicks around him. It was like his opponent was one with the wind—invisible and powerful enough to send Damien dancing around from being hit in all directions.

’Fuck me, it’s my fault for underestimating him. I should’ve known he’s trained from the way he didn’t look nervous outside the portals.’

SMACK!

Damien groaned, about to touch his face when Brandon blocked his hand and jabbed at his nose again with a punch. Then he did the same with the belly right by the liver. An intense pain stung through Damien’s body and he held on to his belly, a dizzying sensation masking him in an instant.

He lost his breath and flopped on his knees, receiving a kick by the jaw that sent him thrashing to the ground and hitting Yong’s feet.

"Ugh!"

His flow state immediately stopped as if it was clogged all of a sudden. Muscles all over his body ached. So did his face. He was sure it was now bloodied and puffy—a look he knew would make Ahara lose her mind later in the day.

’At least I didn’t lose any tooth,’ the boy laughed to himself, rising to his feet and forcing his flow state to return.

It did, but it was somewhat weaker. The aura in his body was shaky, and his chest—despite taking the least damage—was aching like hell.

’Deja vu?’ Damien wondered, just when he felt two people bump him from the back.

"Eden’s down. She can’t fight any longer," came Ambrose’s shaky voice to his right.

Damien glanced at her, to see a weak Eden in her arms breathing heavily as if she’d just run a marathon in the few minutes Vestin and his team attacked.

"Me too. I used a lot of aura trying to evade that beast," Yong added, gluing himself to Damien’s back and glaring at Vestin. "Fuck, why did Dad even bring me here after I told him I didn’t want to become a hero!"

Unlike the rest of his team, the only mark on Yong’s body was the kick he received from the redhead earlier. She and her team had already vanished from sight, leaving Damien and his team to face the Wizard lord’s son and his minions. The four of them were now surrounding Damien and the others—a huge surprise to Damien since he had seen them vanish after they were commanded to attack the other teams by Vestin.

"How many tags do we have left?"

"One," Eden replied, forcing herself to stand and pushing Yong inside as she surrounded him, much to the boy’s distress.

"Eden, you’re barely able to stand! What are you doing trying to fight these guys again?" Yong hissed trying to push her back inside the circle.

"I’m trying to save our team from being eliminated, idiot. Look at the oblong, only five teams need to be eliminated before the rest of us pass—"

"And you’re not going to be one of them," Vestin cut her.

Damien winced. Another pain stung in his chest, this time, accompanied by a rapid heartbeat that made his eyes lose focus for a solid second.

’Yeah, this feels familiar alright.’

Clenching his jaw and glaring at his opponents, Damien decided to hold it in for a moment. At least until the battle was over. However...

"Hand over the shirt, dragon boy, before I use overdrive to shit on your recessive girlfriend," Vestin hissed, stretching one arm with the other resting cozily in his pockets.

’Dragon boy?’ Damien wondered, just when another sharp pain came from his chest, this time coming directly from his heart.

It was the same kind of pain he had felt that night when he wore the gem around his neck and it started glowing on him. The kind of pain that made him faint at a critical moment, only to wake up in a different world as a ghost version of himself.

’Fuck, why now of all times?’

"If I give it to you willingly, will you spare us the beatings?" Yong asked, just when curses began flying from the girls as they turned to glare at him.

Damien wanted to curse at him too, but his heartbeat was pacing a little too quickly now and he was somewhat losing his breath. Nobody seemed to notice though.

"Of course. That’ll be a good choice on your part. I mean, look at your team, one human-like Gibbit, one wannabe hero chick glaring at her stronger brother, one recessive idiot who can’t seem to acknowledge she was born for sitting in the palace and barking out commands, and then there’s you, scared ass coward who’s afraid to become a hero even though your aura is promising."

"Great description Vestin," Brandon snickered, his eyes now on Damien. "And the human seems to have finally caught on to his fate. Look at him cough up blood."

He was right. Damien was indeed coughing up blood. Everything was happening exactly like how it did that night at the park. Yong glanced at his poor teammate, a pitiful look Damien didn’t quite like coming from him. Then he started removing the shirt.

"Yong Kim what are you doing?!" Eden screamed, but the dragon hushed her in an instant by closing her mouth.

Ambrose tried taking the shirt from him, but he sent a wave of air hitting her and making her flop to the ground.

He was betraying the team!

"I’m sorry guys, but we’re clearly not meant for this shit," he said, about to hand over the shirt to Vestin.

"No, you idiot!" Damien yelled loudly when suddenly, a powerful thud came from his chest, sending a ripple of blood mixed with something surging around all of Damien’s body. He groaned, closing his eyes in pain.

But then, everything stopped.

No noise came from the cheering crowds or the fighting students. No reply from Yong after he yelled at him. No loud booming sound could be heard from the attacks flying in the stadium. Not even the wind brushed past Damien’s skin.

’What’s going on?’ He wondered opening his eyes, only to realize he was right about the deja vu.

He was back in the black endless void with the water on its floors.

And he wasn’t alone.

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