Chapter 1527: Invasion
Following Khan’s gesture, the Leviathan-class ship’s engines whooshed, lifting the vessel from the sand, slowly tilting it toward the vast, pitch-black hole in the sky.
Meanwhile, tendrils of glowing darkness kept escaping the hole, as if they were tentacles of bottomless blackness stretching in search of more mana to annihilate.
The sky had mana, but it was faint, too insufficient to attract more of that gaseous energy. Also, there seemed to be a limit to how far that True Chaos could stretch past the shattered dimensional curtain, as if it lacked the power to perform an instinctive invasion.
Khan noticed that trend while inspecting the approaching hole from the ship’s tip. Those tentacles of darkness wanted to dive deeper into Earth’s sky, but something opposed them. They met the same resistance Khan had faced when opening that gate and lacked the strength to win against it.
It was a curious event that Khan wasn’t sure how to explain. On the one hand, there was nothing wrong with the True Chaos. It should have had all the right cards to invade that different world on its own.
However, that resistance continued to exist, as if the True Chaos didn’t have the right to enter that different world, just like Khan’s existence had lacked what it needed to affect the dimensional barrier on its own.
Khan didn’t know whether that was a good thing. If anything, it only proved that the God wasn’t actively pushing his energy into the regulated universe. As for why and for how long that would last, Khan couldn’t be sure, but that hardly mattered anyway.
Tension built up both inside and outside the ship as the vessel approached the dimensional gap. Khan half-expected its tip to slam on an invisible barrier, but nothing of the sort happened.
The Leviathan-class ship’s tip seamlessly pierced the gate, and Khan soon followed since he was still standing on it, becoming the first to lay his gaze on the environment on the other side.
Darkness immediately filled Khan’s vision, accompanied by the same cozy discomfort he experienced when he stepped into open space. He felt no different than when traversing the universe, but he quickly spotted stark disparities.
The regular universe was indeed dark, but countless stars still shone in the distance, littering it with bright dots. Something similar expanded past the gate, but Khan couldn’t help but find it terribly wrong.
Lights existed in the distance, but they were dark, made of the same glowing blackness as the True Chaos. The tendrils of that energy that had seeped past the dimensional gate were also parts of darker-than-black clouds that hovered among that emptiness, being no different from what Khan had seen in the Nak’s home world.
Of course, the similarities stopped at the shape. What Khan had found in the Nak’s home world were clouds of mana. Instead, that separated universe held the True Chaos’ version.
Those black but glowing clouds reacted to the Leviathan-class ship’s invasion, ignoring the dimensional gap to stretch toward the vessel.
Yet, one of the ship’s functions came to life, syphoning the experimental fuel toward its hull, covering it to create a defensive membrane no different from a mana barrier.
The clouds closed on the enormous ship’s sides and back, only to fail to pierce the barrier. The annihilation unfolded, but the vessel had deep energy reserves, continuing to fend off that glowing smoke, depleting its fabric until it was reduced to nothing more than hovering whisps.
Khan watched everything unfolding from his position atop the mana barrier, seeing the black clouds turning into mere specks of glowing darkness. The defenses were working, but his face was solemn due to the realizations expanding in his mind.
Similar realizations were probably dawning on the experts inside the ship, too. Khan simply had front-row seats to that spectacle and didn’t need scanners to study it, allowing him to reach that conclusion mere seconds after crossing the dimensional gate.
The scientific division had been wrong, or rather, it had miscalculated what that pocket universe actually was due to sheer lack of data, but its true nature was there for everyone to see now.
The handful of distant, dark stars and the clouds of True Chaos provided a far grimier answer. The God didn’t pierce the boundaries of the regulated universe’s reality to settle outside of it. He didn’t just open that additional space. He created it through his energy.
It had barely been a few minutes since the invasion started, but Khan had already witnessed two undeniable proofs of the God’s unfathomable superiority. He had sent his alliance against a being who could create literal universes, highlighting how desperate the mission was.
Nevertheless, the plan didn’t change. Actually, it soon couldn’t change anymore.
It turned out reality was a tougher and more resilient opponent than anyone could have expected. Khan had succeeded at piercing its fabric with the help of his scientific division’s preparations, but that hole apparently demanded constant effort to keep open, which it obviously didn’t receive.
Reality started to fix itself. The gate gradually closed, restoring the separation between the two dimensions, eventually disappearing into nothingness to show seamless and empty space.
The path the allied force had spent immense energy to open was now gone. The Leviathan-class ship had no way back to the regulated universe and was seemingly doomed to continue traversing that different dimension.
Of course, the scientific division had prepared for the possibility. The ability to create an escape route had been a mandatory piece of the battle strategy, especially since the allied front didn’t know what would happen to that dimension if it were to win.
Still, opening that route required time. The process was also theoretical, and pursuing it would put a definitive end to the invasion. It was too soon to go back, so the engines summoned more experimental fuel, pushing the gargantuan ship toward the black but glowing stars.
As for Khan, he kept standing atop the mana barrier, pushing aside his concerns. Yeza was back in Aynor, but the ship still featured his pregnant wife. No matter what, that couldn’t be a one-way trip, not for her.
Luckily, that separate dimension had an easy time distracting Khan. The ship headed for the distant, dark stars, but Khan’s mind went blank when he saw one of them doing the same, forgetting about his previous concerns on the spot.