Chaos' Heir - Chapter 1174

Chapter 1174: Twenty-one years
Khan didn’t know what was happening or what to do, and the still-raging woods intensified his confusion. However, the eyes were the mirror of a person’s soul, and that saying seemed to apply to the tree, too.

The disillusioned feeling Khan had previously spotted in the three eyes had turned out to be real since it vanished to make room for something else. The tree seemed to beg Khan with its gaze, but the request had nothing to do with ending its curse. The plant even glanced at the tear-like drops flowing over its fur, sending a relatively clear message.

Khan only hesitated for a second before hovering forward, reaching the tree, and forming a cup with his hands. His fingers ran through the short fur, scooping the three tears that had fallen from its eyes. A few strands of hair ended on his palms, but he successfully gathered that azure liquid.

The amount of liquid wasn’t enough to fill the bottom of a small cup, but the tree’s gaze intensified while staring at it as if its whole life was at stake. The plant then looked at Khan, begging him with all the energy it could muster, but the effort quickly exhausted it, and its furred eyelids closed to restore its stillness.

The woods also followed, growing silent, leaving Khan alone with those few azure drops. The liquid wasn’t dense, but its energy was intense, carrying more than it let out. Khan felt the tree had offered him a piece of its very soul, and he wouldn’t let it go to waste.

Khan didn’t bother to remove the hair on his scarred palms while bringing his hands to his mouth, sticking out his tongue to lick them clean. The azure liquid fused with his saliva, and foreign images rose to his vision before he could gulp down any of it.

The images were distant and faint. Actually, they were barely classified as pictures. The tree had done its best, but its mental capabilities weren’t great. They might have never been good to begin with, and the prolonged time spent in that mutated state had only worsened them.

Nevertheless, Khan’s brain was a marvel of alien perception, especially regarding subjects related to the Nak. It could translate anything it entered Khan’s senses, displaying it in a shape he could better understand.

Nothing ever reached the intensity of what Khan had experienced with the Great Old One. Yet, scenes did form, and Khan pointlessly squinted his eyes to increase their clarity.

The emotions in the blue liquid transformed into colors that gave birth to an incredible scene. Khan saw the same planet he was hovering over, but no trace of the azure shade tainted its environment. He spotted plains, mountains, woods, and even lakes, revealing a flourishing natural landscape that could make most celestial bodies seethe in envy.

Yet, the azure did come. The flourishing landscape disappeared to make room for vague humanoid shapes that played with blue energy waves. Those figures were unclear, and Khan couldn’t spot a single relevant detail on them, but their power was quite familiar.

The lack of details had to do with the tree’s memories. Too long had passed, so the plant didn’t recall what it was before mutating. Still, it remembered the power its species wielded. It was mana, albeit not the Nak one.

However, the unclear images did reveal rather interesting details. That familiar energy never entered the vague figures. The latter manipulated the mana but didn’t seem to accept it into their bodies. They almost seemed to coexist with it, wielding and playing with it without evolving through its power.

Of course, most of those realizations were subconscious. The images didn’t depict much, but the feelings they carried fused with Khan’s brain, delivering knowledge that the vague video couldn’t possibly convey.

Still, something that Khan understood before anything could enter his subconscious eventually arrived. Different lifeforms joined the scene with the unclear figures, and Khan instantly recognized them. He saw them every time he went to sleep in the end. The Nak had appeared in the video, and their behavior shocked Khan to the core.

After gathering all kinds of clues about the Nak, Khan couldn’t believe he could see such a peaceful depiction of them. That conclusion didn’t even come from the images in his vision. The tree’s feelings conveyed how harmless those blue newcomers were, and its species seemed to see them as friends.

The Nak were only visitors, but they played together with the tree’s species, showing the wonders of mana. Despite their superior standing, they acted as teachers, friends, and even helpers. The Nak could easily become gods for the unnamed planet’s inhabitants, and the latter knew that, but they never tried to conquer them.

The images depicted a peaceful period that Khan felt had stretched for a long time, but everything drastically changed at some point.

The scene in Khan’s vision split into countless identical screens depicting a Nak and the unclear lifeform standing face to face. Each picture was too minute for mere eyes to see, but Khan experienced them all anyway. He saw the Nak looking at the sky, and the peaceful mood vanished, replaced by a grave tension.

The Nak then lowered their faces and stretched their massive arms, seemingly replicating what Khan had seen countless times in his nightmares. They sent their mana into the unclear figures, and the hundreds of tiny screens changed focus.

The point of view in each scene rose, escaping the planet and its three moons to fly through space, crossing an unfathomable distance and many other celestial bodies to arrive at a distant reach of the universe.

The many screens brightened, invaded by a familiar azure light. The scene dried Khan’s glowing eyes, which started to burn, but he didn’t dare to close them. They quickly adjusted themselves to that invisible illumination, revealing a shocking scene.

The hundreds of scenes became one, showing countless spaceships Khan knew far too well. Those Nak rides littered the dark space, but the point of view soon moved past them, revealing what they were hiding.

A sea of asteroids stretched past the Nak army, and blue light flashed among them. Azure lightning bolts ricocheted from floating boulder to floating boulder, creating a thick storm that fended off and destroyed anyone who didn’t know how to cross it.

The scene zoomed in on the intricate array of asteroids. It quickly crossed the storm, uncovering an intensifying blue light as it flew toward the center of that danger zone, eventually revealing a safe area that seemed to come straight from Khan’s nightmare.

Then, Khan saw it. A blue star system hovered at the center of that empty area, and Nak’s spaceships flew out of it, aiming to cross the thick array of asteroids to head toward the rest of the universe. A grave, solemn mood filled every corner of that bright scene, but everything quickly disappeared.

The spot where the Nak’s third eye would have been hurt. Khan felt as if the center of his forehead was on fire, and the pain finally made him close his eyes.

Khan reached for that spot, only to find his usual skin. Yet, the area kept hurting, and the video continued, splitting into countless screens again to reveal the Nak still stretching their arms toward the unclear lifeforms.

A foreign fear invaded Khan at that point. The tree and its species had understood what was about to happen but couldn’t stop it. Every Nak on the many fragmented screens brightened, unleashing massive blue explosions that forever tainted the unnamed planet and moons.

The video suddenly stopped, and Khan loudly gasped as he opened his eyes. He found himself on the ground, with the teeth, horns, and dense grass trying to pierce his knees. His forehead still burned, seemingly on the verge of melting, but he disregarded everything to lift his glowing gaze.

Khan looked past the mutated, hideous crowns to gaze at the sky and beyond it, worried that he might lose his grip on the new sensation that had joined his brain.

However, the sensation never tried to disappear. It actually grew clearer, affecting Khan’s mana core and giving birth to a familiar call that stretched past planets, atmospheres, and space. Khan felt the path the video’s point of view had taken to reach the asteroids enveloped in a raging storm. He would be able to find it even if he went blind.

“I found them,” Khan gasped in disbelief, tears streaming down his glowing eyes. Twenty-one years after the Second Impact, Khan finally knew where the Nak were.