Chapter 1500 - This Is Our King? It took a few hours for them to finally reach the planet, and honestly Quinn was quite pleased by the fact for more reasons than one. He had felt really uncomfortable around all the vampires. Whenever he would walk past, they would give him glares here and there. At the same time, others would get out of his way or leave the room when he entered. Not that Quinn was the talkative type or anything, but it was clear they were treating him differently, and the thing was he knew it wasn't because they were being rude, it was the opposite. "I guess that's what it's like to be King? I'm happy that everyone on the Cursed faction treats me well, and surprisingly, I'm happy that he's here as well." Quinn said, looking up at Jesk. The ship was landing, and Quinn was waiting to get off by the back of the ship where the ramp would descend. By his side was Jesk, who felt like the only person he could talk to. 'Wait, I just realised, have I just been replacing the voices in my head with Jesk?' Quinn started to think back to how everyone was treating him on the ship. Quinn had often talked to the gorilla when he had troubles, but the gorilla had done and would only grunt at times. "I think I am going crazy with all these past voices in my head, huh, Jesk?" Quinn asked out loud, looking at the gorilla again. He wasn't even aware how this comment made him look to the other vampires, starting to worry about him. Getting off the ship, Quinn could see that the world's air here wasn't exactly pleasant. Everything seemed to be covered in a slight green smog, and the planet smelt like wet mud. It was then that Quinn noticed that the ship had landed on what looked like one of the few pieces of land. When staring out far, he could hardly see any land anywhere, and even his feet were now sinking slightly into the soft mud. That was because almost the entire planet was similar to a large swamp. It was covered in water, but it looked even dirtier than the ones on Earth and ts the water looked to be made of a thicker substance. "Sorry that we couldn't bring you closer." Ronsten apologised, seeing the look on Quinn's face. "As you know, the beasts are far more frequent near the Nest Crystal, and we can't risk them damaging the ship. "We had initially set up the teleporter and tried to retrieve the crystal, but since it proved too difficult, we retreated. Upon returning, the teleporter had been destroyed. If we had more people, we might have left some to guard the teleporter, but given our force splitting them seemed like a bad idea." "I understand." Quinn cut them off. "I'm guessing the ship can't go through the water too well either." The Vampire King watched everyone get into action. Viscount Norvic led a group of four vampire, whereas Viscount Nian led a group of five, while the Earl stayed quite close to Quinn. It seemed like he was taking his duty quite seriously to protect the King. Although they had split into two groups, they weren't far away. It was just how they had been trained to fight, covering each other's back and so on. When Quinn stepped into the swamp area, the water came just below his knees, and the substance he could tell was quite thick. It slowed down his movements in his legs ever so slightly, although Jesk was dealing with it with relative ease. He even offered to let Quinn ride on his back, but he had refused as he wanted to get used to the strange water. "Ah crap, do we really have to do this again!" Moe complained as he stared left and right. There were quite a lot of swamp trees in the area that would have vines in them. Sometimes there were few vines allowing them to see quite far off into the land, while others there were too many trees with the vines making it hard for them to see anything. "Come on, is it really that scary fighting against yourself? Besides this time I'm going to beat her!" Joy cheerfully proclaimed, pumping her fist. The other vampires following from behind found it quite cute. The next second though, they could see the vines moving apart, and what looked like a mix between a frog and a giant hippo swimming through. Its body was large, but its face had puffed out its cheeks. "Beasts, prepare for attack!" Norvic shouted out. Quinn had been warned beforehand that the closer they came to the crystal, the more beasts they would encounter, so he was sure that this wouldn't be the only one. "Your Majesty, let us deal with this, so you can save your strength for the-'' Before Ronsten could finish his sentence a tongue wrapped around his face while he was distracted. Using his hands though, he was able to rip it off, but there were plenty of beasts, and it looked like no one had time to be worrying about the other. Soon, another frog had tried to latch its tongue towards Quinn, but before it reached his head, Jesk had thrown one of its arm out to intercept the tongue, causing it to wrap around its forearm. With another hands it held onto the tongue and pulled it forward causing the creature's fat body to fly in the air and the next second it hammered it down with its fist punching it and causing water to gush up. "I will be fine, focus on yourself." Quinn advised, as he began to observe everyone around him. He wanted to see their strength for more reasons than one. Right now, they were just guiding him to the place, but if they couldn't hold their own, then perhaps it would be safer for Quinn to place them in his Shadow space and just leave them be for now. The beasts were at the Emperor tier level, but there were a lot of them. Seeing how everyone seemed to be doing fine on their own, Quinn wanted to test something, and he soon sprinted towards two of the hippo frogs that were in front of him. Although they had large bodies, somehow they could sink into the ground even though it wasn't so deep, and when doing so, he could tell that they moved quite fast. Some of the others weren't really paying attention to their own fight, instead having chosen to watch their King's action. The frogs began their attack, popping up like moles from the water and would shoot out their tongues. Here Quinn would avoid them, but only just. He was doing this constantly, not getting hit once. Then after some time had passed he ran up to one of the beasts, it opened its mouth wide and attempted to bite Quinn. Despite their bulky size, the beast was quick, and its jaw had chomped down, biting the vampire's arm. He had his gauntlet on, and it was unable to pierce it, even with its strong jaws. 'Now that I know your strength, let's test a few things.' Quinn thought to himself, placing his other gauntlet on the frog. Then he started to absorb the energy. After that, Quinn went to the other frog that was attacking him and gave it the energy he had just collected, just like he had done with Jesk when he had fought the grey gorilla. He then allowed himself to be hit by the tongue. The others watching this were surprised. They had no clue what Quinn was doing. He was still testing the limits of his gauntlet and just how much power he could give them, and take away. What effect it would have in the end. He intended to test out the capabilities of his improved equipment, but for those watching, they could just see someone getting hit by low level beasts, unable to comprehend his action. "Was it really borrowed power?" Moe asked out loud. "No, he hasn't used any of his blood powers, this must be some sort of training!" Rick argued back, while slashing the face off another frog. "Yeah, but he still sucks!" Joy shouted, as she dodged another frog. Eventually all the beasts had been defeated and in the end, for some reason, Jesk had been the one who had killed the two frogs Quinn had been fighting. This was because after his little test, Quinn had given the leftover energy to Jesk since he no longer needed it. He was curious to find out if he could help his new friend evolve once again, by continuously feeding him energy. Of course, he would keep in mind not to overdo it, he himself knew better than anyone what an imbalance of power could do to one's body. To the others, though, they were starting to think the rumours were really true. Even the Viscounts and the Earl were concerned. Continuing their travels, Quinn noticed that this time not only was the Earl by his side, but so were the two Viscounts. "I have a question to ask, can the doppelgangers copy abilities?" Quinn wondered, unaware of what was happening. The surrounding area had become clear, almost void of trees. They were just walking in the strange sludge when a plop was heard. A very loud plop. The water itself rose, and it looked like it was forming into something. Straight away, Ronsten stood in front of Quinn, and a few seconds later a copy of him appeared in front of him, blocking their path. "I guess I'm about to find out." Quinn smiled.