Four – The Prince of Daevrics

With heavy and large steps, the king was escorted by his cousin out of the Dark Tower, leaving the confused prince behind. Chanyeol doesn’t want Hyun to see him, and thankfully, the mage has been caught. Kyungsoo followed him while briefing him of what happened, saying something unusual about the trespasser.

Chanyeol halted on his steps, turning to his advisor with a frown etched on his face. “What?”

Kyungsoo bowed his head, not meeting the king in the eyes, “We suspect that he’s suffering from a disease from the way he looked. We immediately took him in the dungeon just in case the disease was contagious.”

Without furthermore questions the king continued his way down the dungeon, oblivious of the pair of suspecting gaze following him.

∞ ♡ ∞ ♡ ∞

Having Garnlok’s blood and wearing a cape of an Archmage meant one thing—that you respect the balance of all elements. As a child, Chen didn’t know what this meant. What he wanted back then was to learn everything and be the top of the class so he could serve the next Celestial Children.

Cepherus was one of the greatest creations of the gods. It was paradise itself and each life living in it was treated equally. Heavens was pleased with this world so they gave them their guidance. However, since they wouldn’t be able to do so physically, Heavens decided to choose their children from the lineage of gods. Thus they were called the Celestial Children.

Most of them thought that Celestial Children were just chosen representative of Heavens. The truth is they are Heavens themselves, living in a physical body. This was the ultimate gift that was bestowed on their land.

Chen had this ambition to serve one of them. He was named as one of the best Garnlok that ever lived so he became a candidate as a Celestial Child’s right hand man. When the Sun Child chose the prince of Sabre as his right hand and the Astral Child chose not to have one, his hope slowly disappeared. The chance of him achieving his dream, would slip out of his hands when he’s there, so close to it.

That was until the Moon Child made his appearance. Mysterious and eerie, he was, taking small steps as he studied the candidates in front of them. Chen had heard a lot about him. They said he was the cruellest of the three, the ruler of darkness and the harbinger of death. They said he had an awful face that’s why he had that veil.

It was really ridiculous for them to spread such rumor.

Maybe because everyone looked so afraid to be picked, the Moon Child chose to stop in front of him who wore nothing but a curious expression. He heard whispers of pity from the other candidates, praying for his soul when the Moon Child raised his pale hand to reach for his face.

Chen didn’t flinch at the skin contact. The dainty fingers on his cheeks gave feathery touches, and he wondered for a moment if the Moon Child wasn’t a man but a woman. That thought immediately disappeared when he heard him say, I chose you. Garnlok.

He didn’t know but that time, he was happy to even care about the rumors. From what he feels from the Moon Child, he believed that he’s not someone evil.

He worked as Baek Ahn’s right hand ever since then. And as time goes by, he could testify that the things they said about him were pure nonsense.

Though soft-spoken and often by himself, the Moon Child was a gentle and caring man. Behind the veil was a face that could rival the most beautiful goddess. And despite the solemn face he always wore, he had a big heart, pure of love for Cepherus.

And centuries passed, and Baek Ahn became the most important person to him. That’s why it was so painful for him to accept the sacrifice he made to save Cepherus. And today, he missed him so much. His absence caused nothing but emptiness to the Archmage.

It wasn’t until the past few weeks of travelling, studying the mysterious death of random people and other creatures that he realized what might have caused this. However he was not sure if his hunch was right. He needed evidence—he needed an accurate one.

So he took his leave with Luhan’s permission to travel out of the Garnlok territory to see how the people in the South are doing. He left his friend Yixing to provide treatment for the several who were now showing symptoms of this disease. Chen promised to comeback with answers, as he would not stop until he figures out what was happening to the people of Cepherus.

He spent days in order to get to the Shaha, the home of Sabres. He was welcomed with open arms and from what he observed, there were only few infected Sabres, albeit their condition wasn’t better from the others.

From Shaha, Chen travelled to the Herven Palace. And to his surprise, the number of people who struggled with the unknown disease was almost half of the kingdom’s population.

But that time was also when he first saw the symptoms appearing on him.

They were blotches of light spots on his skin at first. But as the day passed, they grew faster and faster until his skin tone weren’t even anymore. He looked like he got some map drawn in some places of his body.

That’s when he found out where it might come from.

It’s the sun. Too much exposure in the sun has turned people into this. Maybe there were no internal physical damages, maybe the energy radiating off from it caused imbalance in every single one of them.

In the South was the strongest sunlight. Since Sabres were protected by the trees, only a few of them got this disease. But Herven Kingdom wasn’t. Most of its people were farmers and hunters. This means that their exposure to sunlight was greater than Sabres.

Chen’s theory was proven when he tried meditating. It’s one thing that he learned from Baek Ahn. He said that meditation helps oneself to balance the energy of his body. And as he suspected, he felt his active energy surpassing its limit, while his passive energy drastically decreased.

“Did you know why people are awake when Sun is up and while they were asleep when it’s time of the Moon?”

Chen frowned, “I…don’t know?”

Baek Ahn chuckled, “The Sun is the source of living thing’s active energy and the Moon is the neutralizer of this energy. Moonshine, as I call it, converts the excess active energy into passive energy to maintain balance in an individual. While active energy provides you physical strength and power, passive energy provides immunity. It helps you resi