CHAOS HEIR

Chapter 1087: Brittle

The tremors didn't result from Khan's physical prowess. He was strong, stronger than many, but there was a limit to how much his punches could achieve, especially without relying on mana and martial arts.

However, Khan's element had always been technology's worst enemy. His presence could make artificial lights and menus flicker, and his mood swings could directly fry them. A simple cloaking dome in that remote side of the universe was bound to be far worse off.

Khan had contained himself, only releasing a tinge of his influence with his knocks. The colony probably lacked chaos-resistant equipment, and Khan didn't want to destroy its dome accidentally. Still, the tremors spread farther than he had expected, telling much about the structure's brittle nature.

'Can I even enter it without destroying it?' Khan wondered, worried that his presence could be too much for that outdated structure.

After living among state-of-the-art technology for a while, Khan had lost his touch. He wasn't sure what inferior structures could handle, and holding back wasn't an option, either.

Nevertheless, it seemed the colony wouldn't give Khan the chance to test that point. Everything remained silent after the tremors dispersed and the fake scene inside the crater stabilized.

'Is there really no one home?' Khan considered, his attention falling on the reddish membrane around his body.

Khan had seized a sizeable chunk of breathable air, but ordinary soldiers would only last a minute or two with it. His evolved body could stretch that, but he had never tested his limits and couldn't exactly hover above the cloaking dome endlessly.

Realistically, Khan was bluffing, hoping the people inside the colony would open its doors in fear of harsher repercussions. That was his only option since the message had failed and destroying the protective dome would defeat the trip's purpose, but succeeding required Blue Moon's cooperation, which didn't seem to arrive.

'How many supplies can they even have?' Khan calculated. 'This colony should also have more traffic, so a siege is possible, but ...'

Unreasonable urges rose inside Khan's mind, filling it with violent thoughts. In their twisted perspective, a colony that didn't open at his arrival didn't deserve to exist. It was his way or death, and his expression grew colder as he placed his palm on the invisible surface again.

The previous tremors had been nothing more than flickers, waves that ran over the cloaking aspect of the device. Instead, Khan's touch generated a proper earthquake now, affecting the very structure that made that colony livable.

The scenes inside the crater started to change. Patches of the fake grey ground opened, creating uneven windows into the hidden environment underneath. Shabby houses and a few figures became visible, but the surrounding area witnessed far harsher calamities.

That moon was dead, and its ground didn't pose any resistance. In many ways, it wanted to complete its own destruction, and Khan's influence fueled that intrinsic desire.

Massive fissures opened on the crater's edges, running toward its bottom before stopping at the flickering but still invisible dome. The structure tried to resist the calamity but was powerless to do anything when the ground it stood on started crumbling. A catastrophic chain reaction was about to unfold, but the colony finally did the only thing that could stop Khan.

The environment suddenly changed. The flickers disappeared, and the same went for the fake crater's bottom. Its many windows into its real face enlarged to reveal what the area actually held, and Khan retracted his hand at that sight.

Khan had never confirmed whether the colony used a dome to survive on that moon, but his hunch had been correct. A half-spherical, transparent glass lay at the crater's bottom, occupying a quarter of its dead space. A small settlement stood under it, and Khan could finally study its details.

The shabby structures Khan had previously spotted reappeared in all their squalor, highlighting their poor condition. Short houses seemingly glued together or randomly stacked on each other created a small settlement divided into even smaller blocks by narrow streets.

The streets had more people than Khan expected, but their number remained under a hundred. Their clothes were torn, poorly patched together, or clearly of the wrong sizes, and their faces and hair carried dirt and oily reflections.

The colony seemed to have come out directly from Ylaco's Slums, but Khan spotted a glaring exception. A few ships in relatively good condition rested past the settlement toward the back of the dome. A bigger structure also rose next to them, and its cleaner state highlighted its relevance.

Khan didn't bother communicating through his phone or returning to his ship. He descended alongside the dome's slope, reaching a spot at its bottom that the previous tremors had revealed. His warm membrane eventually touched the grey ground, pushing dust aside, and a mana barrier expanded before him.

A defensive membrane formed before the dome, enveloping a passage that opened in its thick glass. Khan quickly crossed it, dispersing the pilot's technique once he was inside.

A thick stench of sweat, dirt, metal, and more disgusting substances invaded Khan's nostrils as soon as he breathed the colony's air. It seemed the filtration system wasn't perfect, but the Slums had gotten him used to far worse. Besides, his body wouldn't suffer in that environment.

No one came to welcome Khan, and people even hid behind the various houses once he landed, but he still felt their eyes on him. Moreover, the opening in the dome began to close, so someone was keeping track of his movement. He was being surveilled, but bigger problems claimed his attention.

Khan drew his phone and sent directives to his ship. The dome seemed to create some interference, but his vehicle eventually received the orders and slowly hovered toward the same opening.

Afterward, Khan glanced at the starry sky above, his cold face betraying a tinge of concern. He couldn't feel it outside, but his senses revealed an ugly truth now. Everything about the colony was run down and on the verge of breaking, and that inclination invaded Khan's brain, almost prompting him to fulfill its fate.

'I guess I'm too much for this place,' Khan realized. 'I might really blow it apart if they make me mad.'

Khan kept watching the dark, starry sky while his ship approached the dome. He had half-expected the colony to require another threat to reopen the passage, but luckily, nothing of the sort ended up being necessary. The thick glass moved away again, allowing his vehicle to land before the settlement.

The metal floor that covered the dome's insides released a low scream when the ship landed, but nothing broke. Still, Khan moved his gaze to his feet, tapping them on that dark surface to test its fabric. That surface wasn't exactly stable, but it would hold as long as he didn't release random energy bursts.

'They truly like living on the edge,' Khan thought. 'What a mess.'

Truthfully, Khan knew better than to blame the colony or its citizens. Most people made the best out of what life had to offer, and some had probably been forced into that criminal lifestyle. It had been the same in the Slums, so Khan felt no misguided superiority.

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