Chaos' Heir-Chapter 1117: Tainted

Khan didn't waste time waiting for replies and shot upward, disappearing from the opening of the ship's cargo area.

Khan rose through the sky so quickly that the ship's scanners lost track of him. However, he stopped when he felt he had gotten high enough. His nostrils could still smell the distant stench of synthetic mana, but he dismissed it to focus on more important problems.

Truth be told, Khan had yet to recover fully. He had retrieved his sense of self, but distant echoes of the previous torrent of images still called for him, attempting to send him back to his confused state.

That wasn't the end. Khan looked at his bare feet, tilting them to feel the symphony's texture. Something was off about that sensation he had long since committed to memory, but he couldn't explain how.

Nevertheless, Khan knew why he was feeling like that. It was impossible for him not to realize that. After all, that was his second time already.

Khan lifted his gaze and rose again, picking up speed while testing himself. He felt he could still perform as usual, but everything was undoubtedly different as if his body was simply adapting to his habits, enabling them despite their futility.

The atmosphere's edge arrived earlier than Khan had predicted, but he still pushed upward, flying past it. The air grew scarcer and scarcer until his body updated him about entering the planet's orbit.

Khan was still close to Coravis' atmosphere, closer than where the snake's beam had pushed him. He only needed one sprint to return to the safety of the relatively breathable air and pressure, but his glowing eyes pointed upward, staring at the vast dark expanse.

Space was deadly in every sense. That barren environment was simply uninhabitable, and that truth hadn't changed. However, Khan sensed the difference from his previous experience as stark as day. As impossible as it sounded, Khan didn't feel in terrible danger inside that empty blackness.

Of course, that could be a misguided conclusion. Khan wasn't in the best state, and his previous experience had messed with his head. It would be normal for his senses to be off.

Yet Khan's perception worked fine, better than fine, actually. He only needed to stare in a random direction in the dark expanse for some distant echoes in his brain to grow louder, closer, and clearer. They seemed willing to tell him something, but he kept them away for now.

Still, if Khan were to trust his senses, he would also have to accept that his body didn't suffer from being in space anymore. He couldn't breathe, and a certain discomfort had taken root inside him as soon as he left Coravis' atmosphere. That feeling grew stronger by the second but wasn't as deadly as he recalled.

'For how long can I survive out there now?' Khan wondered, his hand reaching for his phone, only for him to remember that his trousers were gone and his device with them.

'How long have I even been down?' Khan cursed, planning to rub his eyes in the middle of space, but his hand stopped rising when he noticed its many scars.

It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened, not for Khan. He had gone through similar symptoms already, and the distant echoes in his mind basically confirmed that. Everything matched what Khan had endured since a Nak spaceship had crashed on him.

The Second Impact had tainted Khan when he was five. Interacting with the Nak's hand on Milia 222 had flared the mutations delayed by his father, transforming him into what he was always supposed to be.

Ultimately, the toxic substance on Baoway awakened the dormant mutated genes, updating Khan on his inherited mission. He would have come full circle after finding the Nak, but Coravis had created a new one.

Khan didn't really remember killing the Great Old One, but his current state and strange awakening confirmed his hunch. He didn't know how long he had slept but knew he had done it in Coravis' not-waters, among the gargantuan snake's carcass.

Coravis' sea and atmosphere already contained much of the Great Old One's mana, and killing it had added its blood to the equation. Khan had been right in the middle of it, injured and broken, and some of it must have tainted him.

'Tainted at five,' Khan thought, not knowing whether laughing or crying, 'Tainted again at twenty-five.'

Much had to be confirmed yet. Specialists would have to study Khan, doing endless scientific tests to verify the deed. However, Khan felt it in his bones. The Great Old One had tainted him, transforming him through its powerful blood and passing down some of its species' traits.

'Didn't it talk about a bloodline or something?' Khan tried to recall, sorting out his confused mind. 'Did that species draw power from their blood? Or was it bodies?'

Khan couldn't be sure. His Tainted status didn't come with a manual, and the Great Old One wasn't the best example of that ancient species of overlords. Part of the video on the lake was probably a lie, but Khan believed some of it had been accurate, making Coravis' serpent the weakest of the bunch.

A series of simulations formed in Khan's mind, creating tests he had to perform in private environments to learn from his new state. He would also have to rely on actual scientists at some point, but his attention returned to his scarred hand for now.

Khan's body had healed during his sleep, but the process couldn't have been natural. His recovery speed was inhuman, but the White Mouse crew seemed to have just landed on Coravis. Even if Khan added a few months to his longest estimate, that period probably wouldn't have been enough to fix all his injuries.

Moreover, Khan couldn't see any new scars, which even the best recovery would leave. That meant his body had already fully healed during that new transformation, but the marks on his hands and forearms had remained.

Captain Lochport had just finished warning Khan, but his prediction had already become true. The transformation didn't fix his scarred arms, meaning it saw them as part of him. Those ugly marks could still fade, but Khan didn't harbor much hope.

At most, Khan felt glad to be the reason behind the marks. Unlike his blue hair, those scars came from the power he had achieved, and it seemed he would carry them forever.

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