Chapter 1302: Ellipse
Wayne’s warning acted as the tipping point in that strange situation. Khan still couldn’t understand what was happening, but his alert instantly reached its highest level.
Both of Khan’s hands went on the control desk while a storm of thoughts and simulations filled his brain. Liiza also made herself as small as possible on his lap, giving him room to work while warily inspecting her surroundings and preparing for the worst.
That abrupt developnt couldn’t have been stranger. Khan was inside his ship, and its many channels into the universe were closed, so he shouldn’t have been able to sense much past the hull.
However, the ship was small, and Khan’s perception encompassed it in its entirety. He even perceived details from inside Zalpa’s living quarters despite all the protections she had placed.
The eerie sense of uneasiness had to originate from outside the ship, but that was where the second strange feature stood. Liiza’s perception was incredible, being on par with Khan’s, but she couldn’t sense anything out of the ordinary.
Khan could confirm Liiza’s cluelessness through the ntal connection, so Wayne’s warning provided hints he couldn’t ignore. Wayne’s perception was above average but nowhere near incredible, so sothing was up, and Khan felt to know what.
As unbelievable as it sounded, Khan had already been in a similar situation. Back on Milia 222, he had been able to hear the Nak’s call while Jenna had failed to sense anything of the sort.
The recent revelations about the true nature of Wayne’s elent seed to set the matter in stone, too. Whatever was happening, it had to do with the Nak or the mana as a whole.
Khan prompted the ship to do a thorough scan of its surroundings while activating additional functions.
Truth be told, the ship’s scanners were quite underwhelming. Garret had been forced to neglect them to build a vessel that could allow Khan to sense the universe on his own.
Still, Garret had compensated for that flaw by connecting the ship to the various checkpoints. Khan’s vessel could achieve state-of-the-art scans with the nearby outpost’s help, but those functions ca back empty.
Of course, Khan never placed much hope in technology in the middle of that strange developnt.
The closed holes that littered the ship’s hull had opened in the anti, and extrely thin mana barriers covered them, preventing the disruption of the internal atmosphere while allowing Khan’s senses to stretch past them.
That was the function Khan required to cross the arrangent of asteroids protected by the blue lightning storm. He had tested it before the departure, and everything worked perfectly even after months of travel.
Nevertheless, gaining the ability to perceive the universe didn’t bring the answers Khan had hoped for. The sense of uneasiness grew clearer and far more intense, worrying Liiza as soon as she felt it through the ntal connection, but its source still escaped them.
Khan’s mind had long since gone into overdrive, but most of his brainstorming happened at an unconscious level. His conscious side only focused on the urgent issues, naly his pregnant wife.
During regular tis, Khan would face the threat head-on. Liiza probably would, too, but nothing about her situation was ordinary now. Khan had to prioritize her safety, and only the imminent outpost could provide that.
Fuel was always a big issue when flying through space, especially in a ship as small as Khan’s. He always kept so saved for safety reasons, but that wasn’t the ti to worry about supplies, so he removed those limiters, sending the ship at full throttle ahead.
The sudden acceleration left the human ship behind, especially since Khan didn’t have the ti to warn Wayne. That wasn’t a priority now. Khan only cared about getting to the floating do as soon as possible, but the sense of uneasiness spiked when he was re seconds from starting the landing maneuvers.
Khan pulled the brakes, and the artificial gravity worked overti to stop the ship’s montum. It didn’t completely succeed, so the vessel’s insides experienced a sudden deceleration, and clanging noises resounded from the cargo area since the unsecured supplies crashed into each other and the tal surfaces.
Liiza and Khan were obviously fine. They weren’t entities re pressure could affect, but the abrupt stop warned the unaware Zalpa about that seemingly dangerous developnt, making her jump out of her living quarters.
The old Niqols didn’t say anything, and Khan and Liiza also ignored her. They had far bigger problems at hand. The ship was right before the floating do, hovering re ters from its dark glass, but Khan didn’t dare to cross that short distance.
The sense of uneasiness remained intense until a visible change happened. Khan felt it before seeing it from the ship’s scanners. A line darker than the blackness of space appeared between the vessel and the do, seemingly cutting through that emptiness.
The ship wasn’t equipped to capture that darker blackness, but that did little to hinder Khan’s senses. He found the sight unmistakable, and that certainty intensified when the line widened, becoming a sharp elliptical blemish among that nothingness.
The darker blackness inside the sharp ellipses prevented the ship’s scanners from seeing anything, but Khan felt it. Even Liiza did. That blemish wasn’t an isolated event. It was a window into sothing else, which released sothing.
At first, it was unclear. Then, what looked like darker-than-black fingers grabbed the ellipse’s upper edge, pulling on it so that a short humanoid figure could climb out of that sharp blemish.
Another, taller figure walked at the first’s side, not requiring any support to escape the ellipse. The latter even closed once the two humanoid entities stepped into space, allowing their darker blackness to reveal a key feature.
The figures’ facial features and other physical details remained vague since the universe’s blackness lacked the ans to highlight that darker shade. Yet, Khan spotted the long capes on their shoulders and instinctively connected them to the visions caused by Baoway’s toxic substance.
Also, another ntal blow followed that realization. The shorter humanoid figure casually inspected its surroundings, and Khan felt to have spotted an excited smile on its unclear face.
Instead, the taller humanoid didn’t dwell on general inspections. It felt Khan’s perception and looked back at him. Its presence had initially been calm but stern, but sensing Khan intensified it, making the ship’s insides experience the full extent of its fearso might.
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