205 THE EYE OF HATHOR
Damen gave a small, reassuring smile. "Don't worry. I know how to suppress it. All you need to do is absorb something called the Core of Blood."
"Core of Blood?" she repeated. "Isn't that the thing my mother asked you to find in the desert?"
He nodded once, not elaborating.
"Where can we find one?" Liorea asked.
Damen gestured toward the corridor. "Kail! Can you please come over."
A few seconds later, Kail appeared from his hidden server room, a headset hanging around his neck. "Big Brother, you called me?"
"Yes. I need you to check the inventory in the Aukouma Auction. There are a few items I need."
"That's easy," Kail said as a holographic screen blinked to life before them, flooding the room with pale blue light.
Lines of items scrolled rapidly. Damen skimmed through them, his eyes sharp. Then he stopped and marked a list.
"Two Cores of Electricity. Two Cores of Kinetics. Two Cores of Blood," he said, handing the list to Kail. "Have them delivered. I'll pay in full."
"Understood."
An hour later, the delivery arrived….six small crystalline containers, each humming faintly with energy.
Damen took the Cores of Electricity and Kinetics for himself. The two Cores of Blood, glowing a deep crimson, he handed to Eryn.
"Try assimilating these," he said.
Eryn took a breath, then placed her hands over the floating cores.
To everyone's surprise, the crystals shimmered, melted into threads of light, and sank into her chest. She gasped softly as her veins pulsed with blue luminescence. Then, slowly, she sat down, eyes closing in meditation.
"Well, that was quick", Liorea noted.
Minutes passed.
When she opened her eyes again, her voice was steady. "I feel… calm. The wild swings in my emotions…they're gone. It's like my mind's been cleared."
"That's the effect taking hold," Damen said, nodding.
"So, am I cured now?"
"Not yet," Damen replied. "You'll need more. Four Cores of Blood in total before the curse is stable but you should get more of them as much as possible."
"But I only have two," Eryn said, frowning.
"Maybe I can check the other auction houses," Kail offered, already typing.
In seconds, new data flashed on the holographic display. "Got it. The Veylock Auction House has two more Cores of Blood."
Damen smiled faintly. "Then that's where we're going next."
-----
The Veylock Auction House was much like Aukouma's—only older, grander, and more refined. Its architecture carried an air of tradition: polished marble floors, golden chandeliers, and murals depicting legendary relic hunts.
Despite the classic design, modern terminals sat before every bidder, glowing softly in the dim hall. There were no private rooms here, just rows of seats circling a large central stage, yet the atmosphere was every bit as intense.
"Big Brother," Kail whispered beside Damen, his eyes flicking across his holo-screen. "The two Cores of Blood are coming up next."
"I'll need them—no matter the price," Damen said calmly.
"Leave that to me." Kail's fingers danced across the controls.
Eryn sat quietly beside Damen, her eyes wide as she took in the spectacle. It was her first time attending a Silver City auction and compared to the modest halls of Melrose.
"This place is huge," she murmured. "So many people… and they all look powerful."
She wasn't in her usual form tonight.
The Nuralith family was still hunting for her, and showing her real face would be suicide. Since she could only take the form of someone she'd seen, not an invented one, she'd spent hours deciding whose face she would wear from now on.
"Yes," Damen said softly. "Silver City's a much bigger world than Melrose. You'll get used to it."
Suddenly, Kail grinned. "Got them. Two Cores of Blood. Also picked up two each of Core of Electricity and Core of Kinetics."
"Excellent," Damen said without asking the cost.
After raiding the Nuraliths' secret warehouse, half a billion aurs sat quietly in his vault…money was no longer a concern for him.
As the next display case rotated into view, Eryn's eyes lit up. "Damen, that one…can I have it? It seems to be resonating with me…" She pointed toward a crystal artifact hovering within its sealed case.
Damen leaned forward to read the details projected above it.
Name: Eye of Hathor
Description: Converts love into hate. Can transform Hathor's beauty into deadly weapons.
He turned to Kail. "Buy it too."
"Already on it," Kail said, smirking. Moments later, the item was theirs.
When the auction ended, Damen and Eryn headed to the delivery vault, where staff carefully placed their purchased artifacts into a containment field. Damen verified the transfer and made payment.
Once the attendants left, silence filled the vault.
"Eryn," Damen said, "assimilate the Cores of Blood now."
Eryn nodded, stepping forward.
She placed her palms over the two crimson cores and the Eye of Hathor. The items rose, spinning slowly as red and blue light wrapped around her body. One by one, the cores dissolved into streams of light that sank into her chest.
The Eye of Hathor followed, its golden glow fusing with her heartbeat until it vanished completely.
Damen absorbed his own cores in silence…the hum of power briefly distorting the air around him.
When they emerged minutes later, the staff at the entrance stared in confusion.
Damen and Eryn carried nothing.
"Did they… leave the items behind?" one attendant whispered.
The other shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Client confidentiality. We don't ask questions."
Back in the main hall, Kail and Liorea were already waiting, their eyes bright with anticipation. Damen simply nodded to them.
The mission was complete….and Eryn's evolution had only just begun.
-----
"What do you mean Damen Dark is here…in this auction?" Macan Nuralith's voice thundered through the office.
"Yes, sir," his assistant replied quickly, fingers flying over the console. A holo-screen appeared, showing footage of Damen walking through the auction halls, flanked by his companions.
Macan leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. "Wait… is that the girl we lost?" He pointed toward the young woman beside Damen.
The assistant pulled up a still image of Eryn Veyran and ran a facial comparison.
Both faces overlapped on the holo-screen.
They were similar in every feature except for subtle differences the naked eye couldn't catch.
Moments later, the AI produced its report: Compatibility: 76%.
"The system concludes the woman beside Damen Dark isn't Eryn Veyran," the assistant said. "They share strong resemblance… she's possibly a relative."
Macan exhaled a puff of cigar smoke and leaned back. "Reasonable. The girl was already half-dead in the hibernation machine. If she hadn't been taken, she'd be a corpse by now. There's no way she's walking around alive."
"Sir," the assistant pressed, "what if she survived? What if she exposes our experiment?"
Macan's expression darkened. "She can't. Even if they took her, she won't live long without our mutated blood. The alien strain will consume her soon enough."
"And what if Trionix Corporation is behind this?"
At the mention of the name, Macan's calm shattered.
He slammed his fist onto the table, the cigar crumbling to ash. "Trionix again. One of these days, I'll erase that damn company from existence."
He stood, pacing.
The assistant hesitated. "Should we confirm if that woman really isn't her? We could extract a DNA sample discreetly."
Macan was about to respond when something on the live feed caught his eye. "Wait—zoom in. Look at that man walking toward them."
The feed magnified.
A tall figure stepped into Damen and Eryn's path in the auction hallway.
"Stop right there," the man said.
Eryn froze. When she turned, her heart trembled—it was Valtor Veyran, her father.
She opened her mouth to speak, but Damen gently squeezed her hand, with a silent reminder: "You're not Eryn anymore."
"Who are you?" she asked evenly.