Chaos' Heir - Chapter 1175

Chapter 1175: Deal

Even Khan couldn’t predict that the emotional impact of that discovery would be so heavy.

Realistically, Khan had matured way past who he had been in the past, getting used to enduring all kinds of tragedies and losses. The discovery shouldn’t have been able to make a single dent in the armor around his heart, but his mindset regressed, reminding him of how arduous and long that journey had been.

Khan had almost forgotten the first weeks and months after the Second Impact, when he was just a clueless kid afflicted by a curse he didn’t understand.

Countless memories had buried the confusion, desperation, and hopelessness of that period, but those feelings had survived inside Khan’s brain, transforming with him. Still, he couldn’t help but reexperience them through a child-like, innocent perspective now, making him fail to control his reaction.

After all, Khan had been nothing more than a kid back then. He knew nothing about mana, the universe, or the Nak. Bret had also damaged himself to suppress Khan’s mutations, so he had been mostly alone, trapped in a curse he didn’t understand.

Twenty-one years had passed since that initial, terrible period, but the curse had never weakened. Khan pretended he had grown dull to it, but the nightmares always delivered foreign emotions he couldn’t avoid experiencing.

Each sleep was an inescapable torture, and Khan couldn’t make it any easier to endure. He could only avoid resting and get used to it, accepting all the psychological consequences his loved ones hated about him.

Truth be told, the issue had gone on for so long that Khan had long since started to believe he would never fix it. The nightmares had cursed him for most of his life, becoming part of him, so he couldn’t even dare to imagine getting rid of them. His journey was about saving the universe now, not himself or his mental state.

However, obtaining that long-sought answer broke something inside Khan, opening a crack in his mental armor and letting his real feelings out. He could finally save himself. He had truly succeeded, and tears wouldn’t stop flowing from his glowing eyes.

All the reckless training, battles, struggles, deaths, killings, losses, tragedies, and suicidal efforts had culminated in that clear path only Khan could see and sense. His vision grew watery, but nothing could hide that answer anymore. Khan knew exactly how to reach the place at the end of his nightmares. He knew where to inherit the Nak’s legacy and obtain his salvation.

Still, the emotional discovery didn’t make Khan forget about his helper. He lowered his glowing, teary eyes to look at the twisted, cursed tree, knowing full well what the Nak had done to it and its species.

The foreign fear Khan had experienced in the visions’ last moments had told him everything. The Nak had planted that species as guides meant to show the way to those able to interact with them. They were the second-to-last security measure, which only an heir could overcome.

“Thank you,” Khan muttered, sobs breaking his voice as he crawled forward to place his forehead on that furred trunk. “Thank you so much.”

The tree didn’t reopen its eyes. Producing those azure tears had exhausted it, putting it in a coma-like state, but Khan couldn’t control himself. He clung his scarred hands on that trunk, almost hugging it as if breaking down in the company of a dear friend.

Khan took longer than he would like to admit to calm down. He stayed there, kneeling on the patches of teeth and horns growing from the ground while clinging to the three-eyed tree. Loud sniffs occasionally interrupted that lonely silence, but Khan knew he wasn’t alone.

After a while, Khan’s figure left the Tainted ground, rising through the air for a meter as he straightened his stance. He wiped the tears from his face with his forearm before fixing his glowing eyes on the furred tree. His expression was still a mess of intense emotions, but he nodded as he placed his palm on the trunk.

“Don’t worry,” Khan said in a steadier voice. “I’ll repay you. I’ll repay your whole species.”

The tree couldn’t hear Khan in that state, but he still kept his palm on its trunk a bit longer, pointlessly trying to convey something or taking his time to say goodbye to a good friend. Khan honestly didn’t care why he was doing any of that. He only knew what needed to come next.

Khan eventually let go of the tree, rising higher in the sky. He crossed the mutated crowns and flew even further until he could see the entire woods with his eyes. It would be wise to keep those guides alive if Khan failed, but that wasn’t part of the deal.

Emotions finally disappeared from Khan’s face, restoring his cold, intense expressions. Traces of the wiped-out tears still tainted his cheeks, but he only cared about the woods under him and all the traces of life they contained.

A thunderous noise suddenly ran through the calm, empty sky. Khan’s aura affected the Tainted but natural symphony, transforming it into an echo of his element.

A tinge of mana then escaped Khan’s figure, carrying an order the world complied with. The natural mana around him churned, condensing into crackling spheres of purple-red lightning that quickly stretched downward.

An array of lightning bolts formed around Khan, wielding enough power to obliterate the woods, but he didn’t stop there. More and more spells appeared, filling the sky and stretching as far as Khan’s manipulation could muster. The world turned purple-red, invaded by deafening, thunderous noises, but a word ended up resounding past them.

“Go,” Khan ordered, and the world complied. The storm of lightning bolts shot downward, crashing into the woods and their surroundings before exploding into crackling, expanding spheres.

The spells instantly obliterated any trace of life but still had enough energy to keep raging, digging through the Tainted ground and creating scarred craters. Yet, Khan diverted his gaze and looked at a random spot on the horizon.

Khan could leave right away, but the many traces of life that reached his senses updated him on all the living beings cursed to live in that twisted state. Each of them had suffered far longer than Khan, and only he had the power to put an end to it. He would save himself, but only after he saved them.