A bright, purple-red rune hovered before Khan's exposed torso, siphoning mana from the environnt. A vortex of invisible energy and debris converged toward it, shattering and turning into pure fuel his body stored underneath his skin.
The forest area had once been peaceful, but Khan's presence and training technique had transford it into a symphony of destruction. Soil, grass, roots, and trunks broke under his re influence, turning into dust his improved [Blood Vortex] absorbed and crushed into energy.
It seed Khan was drawing energy from the very world, shattering it when it didn't comply. However, the process was far more natural. He didn't even try to break the flora. The forest simply wanted to fall apart, and his desperation helped it.
From the outside, the scene looked nothing short of mystical. Khan sat on the barren ground, surrounded by waves of dirt that converged toward his rune to provide energy. The forest was flowing into him, acting as nourishnt. The world was his food, and his body greedily absorbed it.
The process seed ready to go on forever. Khan's body had beco a bottomless pit after it completed the evolution, and he had failed to find its new limits. Yet, his departure grew closer by the day, and that strange period gave him enough free ti to focus on his attunent level.
A week had passed since Khan's return from Zedekiel, but no significant developnts had unfolded. With Prince Thomas in charge of the faction, Khan had little to no political obligations, so he spent most of his ti preparing for the journey.
Khan had initially planned to spend all his remaining free ti with Monica, but things weren't well. The two talked every day but always cut their conversations short to indulge in their most basic instincts.
That wasn't purely out of lust, and the issue grew more evident by the day. The couple, but Monica in particular, used sex to interrupt the conversations before they could reach the point of no return, as if afraid of their conclusions, and Khan was at a loss of what to do.
On the one hand, Khan blad himself. Monica had done nothing but support him, going farther than anyone else. She had been with him every step of the way, pushing him toward heights he would have never reached on his own.
On the other hand, Khan felt his deepest fears had co true. He had beco so strong he couldn't relate to Monica anymore, or anyone else for that matter.
That would still be fine. After all, Khan had always been the outsider, the odd one out. However, for once, he was sure of one profoundly problematic detail. Khan wasn't wrong. Everyone else was.
Khan's eyes saw a different world but weren't wrong. His senses stretched farther and deeper than anyone else's but reflected the truth. Everyone but him was blind, incapable of looking at the universe's real face and living their lives in the dark.
Ignorance truly was bliss, and Khan couldn't take it back. He wouldn't, either. His heightened senses went back to Nitis, and his current state was an evolution of them. He was the only one who could see and wouldn't blind himself to make everyone else more relatable.
Khan eventually heaved a sigh, dispersing the [Blood Vortex]. He could keep the technique active for days, but the forest couldn't endure that constant destruction. That place was one of the few remaining green spots near the main quadrant, so Khan preferred to preserve it.
The converging waves of dust stopped flying and fell to the ground, fusing back with it. Cracks and marks of destruction filled every corner of Khan's view. A few tall trees even creaked and bent sideways, eventually crashing down, their damaged trunks unable to bear their weight anymore.
Wild drives began to fill Khan's empty mind. Violent screams roared inside his brain, almost urging him to unleash them. All those complicated thoughts seed to have no place inside him anymore. It was his way or death, with no compromises in between.
"[What should I do]?" Khan asked in the Nele language, almost wondering whether the mana had an answer. Sothing arrived but in the form of human words.
"That one I don't know," A familiar voice resounded behind Khan. "Though I never expected soone to be able to sneak up on you."
"You didn't," Khan said, peeking past his shoulder to look at George. "I sensed you before your ship even landed."
"Of course you did," George snorted, reaching Khan's side to absorb the scenery of destruction. It was night, and the trees' tall crowns hid the stars' light, but Khan's eyes more than compensated for that.
The political mayhem caused by Khan's announcent had forced most of his allies to co to Baoway to look for direct etings. Prince Thomas was handling them now, and it seed George was done with his.
"How did it go?" Khan asked, and George snapped back to reality, sitting on the ground at his side.
"Nothing really changed," George explained. "Your Uncle promised higher shares, but your faction won't incur any loss since the Empire won't tax you anymore."
With Khan's change in status, his benefits had increased. He initially owed the Empire a share of Baoway's profits and still did. Yet, Khan wasn't an external party anymore, so his piece of the pie had naturally expanded.
"The Global Army is still playing hard to get," George continued, "But I bet they are secretly excited to have a Thilku Lord among its ranks. Well, you technically don't belong to humankind anymore, but no one cares about that stuff."
"Look at you," Khan chuckled, beckoning at George. "You have beco a proper politician."
George snorted but still pulled out a bottle from his right. He was visiting Khan, so he had obviously brought booze, and his attempts to hide it didn't work for a single mont.
"I have the right man for the Global Army," Khan reassured, waiting for George to drink the first sip. "You all will be taken care of."
George finished his sip but quickly took another, longer one. Khan couldn't help but glance at him, who decided to co clean about the problem rooted in his brain.
"Anita is pregnant," George announced, and Khan froze, forgetting to seize the bottle he was handing to him.
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