Chaos Heir

Chapter 1528: Meteor

Celestial bodies always moved. That was normal. Nothing ever stood still in the universe.

However, Khan struggled to come to terms with the fact that one of the distant, dark stars grew closer, seemingly reacting to the Leviathan-class ship’s invasion.

At first, Khan thought his eyes were lying to him. After all, he was in a different dimension. His perception and sense of distance could be off. Space could also work differently there, making that scene nothing more than a trick of the light in response to the ship’s advance.

Nevertheless, those hopes soon crumbled. The giant ship was indeed heading for the distant stars, but one of those had also started to move, experiencing a burst of speed that released more energy than Khan could conceive.

That confirmation didn’t come from Khan’s perception. The celestial body was still too far for that, and his senses had nothing to attach themselves to expand their range.

Yet, the world in Khan’s vision told a different story. His eyes had long since been able to see far more than the mere material world, making the event undeniable.

Something immensely powerful had flared all around that moving star, surrounding it into a breathtakingly vast halo. It was like the celestial body had caught fire, burning through its energy to achieve a shocking and majestically bright acceleration.

Khan had to admit the scene froze his brain for a few seconds, but deeper concerns eventually snapped him awake. He had been able to notice that event due to his eyes’ special properties, but chances were the ship’s scanners had yet to spot it.

After all, Khan’s senses could already stretch further than most scanners, and they couldn’t reach that incoming star. The ship probably was still in the dark, and that predicament wasn’t something it could face without timely warnings.

Khan reached for the device still in his ear, only to recall that space didn’t allow sounds. He could still try to send a coded message or rush inside the ship to warn everyone, but the vast halo in the distance flared with newfound strength, producing another speed burst.

Calculating the exact size of such a distant object was impossible, but that hardly mattered. Khan only knew that a massive body was heading directly for the ship as if it were a giant meteor on a direct collision course.

The Leviathan-class ship featured the best the allied front could offer, but Khan didn’t want to put it through the test against such a massive celestial body.

Actually, Khan’s mind quickly defaulted to its most instinctive practices. He had mentally listed those celestial bodies as stars due to their innate dark glow, but they didn’t look as big or scorching.

Of course, Khan couldn’t study the incoming massive meteor yet, but he was confident in his ability to destroy it. He wouldn’t even need to shatter the entire celestial body into pieces. He only had to carve a hole big enough for the ship to cross.

Therefore, Khan’s aura flared as well, his figure releasing a torrent of purple-red mana that left the ship’s barrier untouched while rising through the empty blackness.

Sparks flashed within the torrent of energy as its color shifted toward redder shades, even opening to create a maw-like gap inside its raging fabric.

The desire to devour the very essence of life filled Khan’s brain, sharpening his mana to its limit, joining his innate destructive sides to create something powerful enough to pierce through a literal celestial body.

However, something equally oppressive but far vaster soon spread through the area, filling the vast expanse with its magnificent and unfathomable might.

Khan’s intensity waned at the interaction with that vast, familiar aura. His concentration didn’t dwindle. Still, his gaze moved away from the accelerating, distant star, peeking past his shoulder to look at the other evolved warrior who had joined him on the ship’s hull.

The mana barrier flickered to no end while that grinning, huge red figure walked over the hull, seemingly unfazed by the space’s deadliness. The Thilku Emperor had his eyes fixed on the incoming celestial body, and his excitement couldn’t be more evident.

The Emperor wasn’t even looking at Khan, but the latter didn’t need words or glances to understand his train of thought. Khan didn’t even need to know how the Emperor had learned about the incoming star. He was only aware that he had to increase the ship’s defenses.

The incoming celestial body’s energy flared for a third time, seemingly making it reach its top speed. The blackness in Khan’s vision brightened as that massive object became close enough for him to study. Luckily, it wasn’t even close to a star. If anything, it was a big moon or a tiny planet.

Of course, that didn’t diminish the threat the celestial body posed. Something of that size and with such momentum could obliterate pretty much anything. Khan even sensed the solid True Chaos that made its fabric, comparing it to the Nak’s planet, but his attention never focused there.

A violent impact slammed into the ship’s tip, tilting it forward, making it spin on itself. The engines failed to keep it straight, leaving only Khan and the Emperor unaffected. The former hovered in space, preparing his mana for the incoming mayhem, while the latter was already upon the big moon.

The Emperor had performed a sudden, massive leap that had flung him directly into the incoming celestial body, transforming him into a similar but far smaller meteorite.

Both bodies contained immense energy, but the small planet couldn’t even come close to the Emperor’s density. It was a simple item made of True Chaos, threatening but deeply outclassed.

That sheer qualitative difference basically set the clash’s outcome in stone. The incoming celestial body exploded before the Emperor could even touch it, shattering into expanding torrents of fuming debris.

Khan believed his mindset had started to adjust to his new power level, but the Emperor was a shocking existence. The former had spent the past weeks eating moon, but the Thilku had shattered something bigger into pieces through a simple, reckless charge.