192 Don’s sickness

Some of them were waiting for an entrance to enter the building while the others searched the premises to find one. While this was happening, Aster narrated the events that happened in the herbal garden to Rosaline.

"That explains the golems"

Rosaline didnt show her anger or any emotions like Aster but she was burning with anger as when she entered the building, she barely escaped the golems.

Knight was glad they were the first to enter the building and prevented Rosaline from getting the scrolls.

"Have you guys noticed their magical fluctuations?"

After the bizarre event that happened in Brian's home, they created a device to identify and track down specific magical fluctuations.

"They didn't use any spells"

Aster shook her head as the youths also agreed with Aster

"You said they had a white wolf with them?"

Rosaline asked a youth standing behind Aster as he nodded.

"If we can find the white wolf, we can find them, it's the easy way"

"What's the hard way?"

Aster asked Rosaline

"Hard way is to check their space rings, they must have stored the stolen treasures inside the space rings they got from the board, we can tell the board and have them check the rings when we get out"

"But what if they are from the star empire like they said?"

Rosaline smiled when she heard Aster

"Since they prevented the crown prince of Star empire from getting the scrolls, I doubt they will let anyone leave the place without checking their space rings"

As she said, Rosaline looked at a youth who was standing a few meters away from them wearing a fancy golden armor.

Don noticed a few tents on the golden armor and guessed that the golems didnt let them escape without doing some damage to the people who entered the building with Rosaline.

"He's the crown prince?"

The group stared at the youth with awe because unlike the royal family in the moon empire, the royal members of the star empire were said to be the most powerful people in their empire.

From their view, Don could only notice the shiny golden armor and few strands of greyish hair.

"Let's look for the white wolf, if we can find the vile beast, we can finish this hunt quickly"

Rosaline said and the youths spread out to search the crowd as Knight watched them with a smile on his face.

While watching their goose chase, Don noticed a few familiar faces like the Coldfield sibling, Prince Rodrigo, and White honey Amara stepping out of the light beam. 

The crowd pointed at them and started to talk about the prodigies while they smiled and waved at the crowd except for Rosaline who stood there without any smile or wave towards the crowd.

"Wow, it's Princess Audrey"

Her face was the definition of beauty, with her cherry lips and rosy cheeks, she never failed to brighten someone's day. She wore silver armor perfectly fitted her slender body and the armor looked flexible and powerful.

There was a steadiness to her as if all the storms in the world were a whispering breeze if she was there. She seemed kind and clever, perhaps that's what drew people's attention to her. There was nothing "princess" about her though, she radiated fierce independence and a powerful aura and walked confidently with the air of a warrior.

Also, there was something charming about her, perhaps it was a feeling of delight, or perhaps it was simply her goddess-like beauty. But nonetheless, people tend to keep their distance, while they were making up bigger stories about her.

"The youngest person to reach the heavenly realm"

A youth spoke with awe and shock while the Princess walked in front of the crowd as the youngsters who came with her stood behind her with a proud and arrogant look on their face.

Her black hair was as waves of pure earth, softly reflecting the light of the sun; each strand moving freely in an ocean born breeze, a compliment to her stillness

"King Archeron is blessed to have heaven-defying prodigies for children and Princess Audrey is the pride of the whole empire"

While the youth were talking about her achievements and making up stories of her, Arrora noticed Don staring at her without batting an eye.

He clenched his fists and his hands were shivering. Because of the partial battle energy running in her body, she could feel an energy barrier surrounding Don.

Inside Don's mind, the events that happened all those years started to appear. The fire, the screams, and the blood on his hands; he used all of his strength to fight the intense headache he was feeling. If not for the barrier Knight formed around him, the crowd would have felt the massive killing intent he was radiating.

She had never seen him sweating like this as even after hours of training under a scorching sun, she never noticed a drop of sweat on his face but now his face was drenched in sweat.

She didn't know that Knight was using blood bending to prevent the blood from flowing out of Don's eyes and ears.

Just as this was happening, the gateways made of light appeared.

The youths and beasts including the tigress and the cubs rushed into the gateways near them as Arrora waited for Knight and Don to move.

"What happened?"

Arrora looked around to see only they were standing outside

"You bastard, come out of it" 

Arrora almost shouted at Knight when she saw him slapping Don yet there was no emotion on Don's face.

"Not again, not now"

She could sense the panic in Knight's voice as he kept slapping him.

Don didn't hear or feel anything as his mind only showed him the same horrible images repeatedly. The more he tried to fight against his mind, the clearer the fire, the blood, the burnt bodies, and the screams became.

"Hold this"

Knight shouted at Arrora and gave her a worn-out sack after retrieving from his space ring.

Arrora peaked inside the sack to see large metal nails lying inside.

"Heat them up, quick"

Arrora didn't understand what he meant by that for a moment as he shouted again

"DO IT NOW"

Knight held him by his hands from behind as Arrora took out the nails and heated them using the fire created by the bound energy.

"Don't touch it, hold it by where it's marked"

The nails were so long as it had enough space to grab it with her hand.

She would have been surprised by looking at the nail turning red in heat except where she was holding but now she was not in the mood.

While she was holding the red hot nail, Knight ripped Don's armor covering his chest using his huge claws.

"Stab the nail here, slowly"

She thought she heard him wrong for a second

"What?"

"Damn girl, the gateways are fading away and he's dying, do it"

She shook her head because she couldn't get herself to stab him in the chest with this hot nail. She was too afraid and worried; she simply couldn't do it.

Knight would have done it by now but he knew he had to hold him tightly or this procedure would kill him.

"if you don't do it, he will die, stab it, now"

Knight said in anger to mask his true feelings, fear, and panic. Every time he and the old wolf did this to Don, Knight's heart would bleed for him because it was cruel and painful as hell. Most of the time he hated himself for doing this to Don and tried his best to find alternate solutions to break him out of his episodes, but he couldn't find one except slowly stabbing him in the chest with the heated nails of the underworld. 

"Why are we doing this to him?"

Her voice cracked as Knight slapped her

"This is not the time, DO IT"

Even though she didn't know why or lacked the guts to do it, looking at Knight's face and the blood flowing out of Don's eyes, she swallowed her saliva and slowly pushed her hands towards his chest.

She didn't need Knight to tell where exactly she had to stab because there were many scars on his chest yet Knight pointed out a place for her to stab.

"Slowly"

She wanted to quickly stab and take out the nails but Knight ordered her to do it slowly. With the gritted teeth, she placed the pointy end of the nails on his chest. The smell of burning flesh overwhelmed her as his flesh melted like wax when the nail touched it.

"Stab it"

Her eyes turned red as she slowly penetrated his chest as Don's body shook but Knight held him tight.

When the nail went halfway in, his hands started to shake violently

"Come take another one and do it exactly like this"

"What?"

She shouted in shock as it took all her strength to stab him and cause him pain.

"One more will bring him back, come on"

The battle had already started but she was in no mood to watch the projections.

"The sooner will do this, the less pain he would feel"

Knight knew it wouldn't be easy for Arrora, a girl to do this but he had no one else to do this.

She gritted her teeth and heated another nail. When she was moving towards his chest, she had to use the other hand to stop her hand from shaking.

When the second nail entered his chest, Don felt an immense pain in his chest and the images running in his mind suddenly blurred.

Knight felt the battle energy in his body started to circulate normally and sighed in relief.

However, they had no time to spend time asking how he feels or anything considering the light gateways almost faded away.

Taking out the two nails from his chest, Knight threw him into the light gateway.

And before Arrora could curse him for doing this, he did the same to her, and then he jumped into the light gateway to finally begin the challenge.