Chaos Heir

Chapter 1533: Encirclement

Luckily, the Kros were quite the practical species. Khan’s arrival and technique had surprised them, but they couldn’t distract them from the issue at hand, not for too long, at least.

By the time Khan’s invitation finished resounding in the area, the tall metal sphere had completed its calculations, readjusting itself to the new energy that ran through the line of weapons.

Khan had made it easy for the sphere, only providing a slight boost to that mana, so the Kros’ mainframe quickly reestablished its connection to the many weapons, stirring them into action.

Another volley of bullets, beams, and more shot from the heavy weaponry, illuminating the dark sky, shining on the black battlefield. Those attacks carried the mana’s iconic blue color, but tiny sparks ran through them, occasionally flashing with purple-red shades.

The air itself shook, releasing another condensed tremor, but the bullets endured the interference at that time, completing their flight and crashing into the veil of glowing smoke.

The outcome was better than anyone in the allied front could have ever predicted. The fastest bullets exploded when touching the True Chaos, leading to mutual annihilation that opened a path through the smoke.

The following attacks either exploded, too, or flew inside those openings, reaching for the enemies inside the glowing cloud, detonating into destructive pillars of crackling mana.

Obviously, the Kros’ mainframe wasn’t the only one to snap out of its surprise and remember that the fate of the regulated universe was at stake there.

The Leviathan-class ship also benefited from Khan’s technique, regaining control of the many weapons peeking out of its hull, which didn’t hesitate to fire a second volley of bullets while the first was still busy crashing into the enemy army.

That started a coordinated chain reaction. The distant layer of clouds was vast, but still occupied a limited area. Firing every weapon simultaneously would waste precious mana, so the Kros’ sphere and ship alternated their assaults, creating an endless series of explosions.

Little by little, the scorching blue halo occasionally invaded by purple-red sparks overtook the glowing smoke, eradicating it from the area.

The surrounding black ground suffered from a similar fate, seemingly connected to the darker-than-black cloud. As more explosions unfolded, cracks opened on that surface, spreading while its overall level dropped.

That was a curious outcome. Areas unaffected by the explosions caved in as if depleted, while the assault kept raging on the enemy army.

The cave-in didn’t only affect the enemy army’s immediate surroundings. Khan could see how the celestial body as a whole was experiencing that assault, as if the cloud, the creatures inside, and the ground were one and the same.

Of course, the celestial body only experienced faint tremors in reaction to that destruction, but the event still confirmed one thing. That war wasn’t about soldiers. It saw the regulated universe fighting against the True Chaos as a whole.

After a while, the weapons on the ground and ship stopped firing, letting the burning blue light in the distance disperse, revealing the destruction they had caused.

In Aynor, technology had merely been able to keep the watered-down True Chaos at bay, but an entirely different and welcome scene unfolded on that pitch-black battlefield.

Complete obliteration spread as far as the eye could see. Charred traces filled the black craters created by the continuous firing barrage, and mangled corpses lay among them.

Many of the same bloated-backed, faceless monsters that had attacked Aynor now lay dead and in pieces. The volleys of bullets hadn’t only been effective. They had proven once and for all that technology was the regulated universe’s greatest edge against that enemy.

That was undeniably reassuring and morale-bolstering, but Khan couldn’t cheer, and the same went for the soldiers on the ground. Despite the promising result, the True Chaos had far more than watered-down versions of its energy and faceless creatures in store.

Khan almost waited for that to arrive while continuing to inspect the surrounding world. The True Chaos was everywhere, even making the very air he breathed, but his senses looked for something else and failed to find it.

However, the celestial body didn’t stay still during Khan’s inspection. It didn’t provide him with what he was looking for, but it added something that justified the army’s hesitation to cheer.

Glowing smoke oozed out of the black surface again, except that it flowed from various locations now. It reoccupied the area destroyed by the volleys of bullets, but also appeared at the army’s sides and behind the Leviathan-class ship.

Those new clouds also expanded, stretching sideways to connect and form a single body of glowing smoke. The Leviathan-class ship and the army could only watch as that True Chaos encircled them, and the concerning event didn’t stop there.

Bloated-backed figures had accompanied the smoke that had risen from the ground, but stronger versions of that energy existed inside the encirclement of clouds and soon rose above them to show themselves.

Four humanoid, pitch-black figures flew out of the encirclement of annihilating clouds, staring directly at Khan through their fully dark eyes. A single horn also grew on the left side of their foreheads, hiding their true power behind their intact state.

Khan didn’t really mind those newcomers. They were evolved warriors, but his target was elsewhere, a place that he had yet to find.

Besides, Khan couldn’t waste energy on mere warriors. Fighting them wasn’t his job, but they didn’t care about his strategy.

The four warriors didn’t wait for war cries, direct orders, or anything else. They didn’t even mind the still-expanding clouds below them. They shot directly at Khan, summoning different amounts of True Chaos.

Proper spells had yet to form by the time the four warriors reached Khan, and they never had the chance to. Khan didn’t do anything, but the very world seemed to slow down, interrupting the True Chaos from condensing and even stopping those evolved enemies altogether.

That stop wasn’t limited only to the four evolved warriors. The ship, weapons, and soldiers below suffered from a similar fate. Even the clouds interrupted their expansion, seemingly falling prey to a different flow of time.

Then, steady, graceful steps resounded in the area, heading toward Khan. A white figure walked through the air, lowering its temperature while adding a chilling touch to the atmosphere.

"[Do you know how long it took me to convince him not to waste time killing you all]?" Liiza sighed, speaking in her native language, but also adding deeper meanings to her voice so that the black evolved warriors could understand her.

Of course, the message was hardly for those four aliens since a white light started to shine from the very center of their figures, quickly covering their bodies and existence, freezing them in ice forever.