The heat was so intense that Khan had to send a continuous stream of mana toward his cells to boost their resilience. Mana also had to escape from his figure to shield him, but something reached him anyway.
Sparks flashed all over Khan as his mana shattered the scorching heat wave. His empowered skin remained unaffected, but the temperature was too high, littering his trousers and cape with expanding, burning holes.
The heat wasnât the end, either. Something minuscule but blinding hovered in the long-haired alienâs palm, shining so brightly Khan had to squint his eyes to endure its glow.
That blinding, scorching dot even released a certain pulling force Khan had to oppose actively. He had to control himself and his mana to avoid getting sucked into that minuscule technique.
The surrounding debris wasnât as lucky, falling prey to that suction force, burning inside the blinding dot to fuel its almost unbearable heat.
In a way, the trails of debris that converged toward the blinding dot reminded Khan of his training technique. However, to his dismay, his squinted eyes didnât make him blind to the spellâs real nature.
The suction force didnât come from a hungry drive or a specific technique. It was a mere consequence of what the blinding dot was.
The same went for the heat and radiance. The long-haired alien wasnât doing any of that. The dot simply couldnât help but gain those features.
Because the suction force was gravity, and the heat and radiance came from something Khan skimmed through when researching entropy. The long-haired alien had caused nuclear fusion to happen on the spot, making the dot a miniature star.
"[There are two fundamental divine powers]," The long-haired explained as if sensing Khanâs realization. "[Matter creation and matter manipulation]."
Those abilities werenât exclusive to Gods. Every mana-enhanced individual could generate mana and manipulate it, technically falling under those categories.
Yet, Khan understood what his opponent really meant. Sure, he could turn his mana into pretty much anything, but a proper star was several levels beyond the reach of his skills.
Moreover, Khanâs flexibility came from his element. After all, chaos was the origin of everything and could assume endless shapes.
Instead, the long-haired alien didnât use any special True Chaos. He didnât even summon any of his energy. He merely took what happened to surround him and condensed it until nuclear fusion unfolded.
"[As you can see]," The long-haired alien continued, "[I inherited our dear Fatherâs matter manipulation. The celestial bodies you have encountered were my making]."
The long-haired alien suddenly closed his hand, making Khanâs survival instincts scream, only to quiet down when the blinding dot disappeared.
"[As such]," The alien stated, smiling, "[You may call me the Maker]."
A sudden, distracting, catastrophic event claimed Khanâs gaze. A pitch-black wave so tall and wide it could put worldwide tsunamis to shame rose from far away, submerging the floating mountainâs left side and adding several layers of soil to the area.
Khan couldnât see the waveâs origin but could guess where it came from. He had lost track of the Emperor and the short-haired alien, but the apocalyptic calamity was made of True Chaos, so it had to be the latterâs technique.
Except that there was no technique to speak of at all. The wave truly was immense, seemingly wanting to challenge the mountainâs height while also stretching far past it, reaching as far as the areas with condensed space.
However, that was it. The wave was nothing more than a mass of True Chaos pushed forward by gravity and initial momentum alone.
Of course, the quantity of True Chaos inside the wave was breathtaking. It was actually incalculable. Khan could change the weather in entire quadrants, taking over their symphony.
Yet, that still meant relying on the worldâs mana, and that pitch-black attack was bigger than anything Khan had ever produced without doing that.
The world on the left side of the floating mountain wasnât the same after the wave finished crashing.
For once, the giant mountain with the elliptical gate wasnât floating anymore. The wave had refilled the gap under its base, solidifying to turn into new ground.
Something similar happened to the battlefieldâs left side, creating a messy mountain chain that stretched as far as the eye could see.
And, something exploded among that just-formed mountain chain, revealing a dark-red figure digging through its fabric to climb back out in the open. The Emperor jumped onto a slope, showing how the apocalyptic wave had been able to push him away.
Khan didnât really have to think or review the event. The long-haired alien, or Maker, had already given him the answers he needed. His opponent could manipulate the True Chaos to the point of giving birth to stars, so his twin had to have the ability to produce enough energy to build them.
"[My twin is so unsophisticated]," The Maker sighed, also inspecting the mess on the other side of the battlefield. "[Our dear Father never gave us names, but I call him the Source]."
The Emperor never looked in Khanâs direction, snapping him out of that giant distraction. Still, his brain didnât have the gift of stopping churning thoughts, awarding him with a terrifying realization.
Both the Maker and the Source wielded truly shocking powers to the point that Khan would struggle to believe them if he hadnât seen them in action with his own eyes.
However, there was something even bigger behind all that. The alien twins had only inherited parts of their Fatherâs powers, meaning the True Chaosâ God could wield both and probably more.
That was the scale of going against a being that could create a whole universe, and Khan had to admit that his hopes dwindled by the second. No matter how he reviewed the issue, victory looked impossible, but he would fight nonetheless.
"Maker, I must apologize," Khan announced, reclaiming the alienâs scarlet gaze. "I planned to test the waters in the hope of saving something for later, but it seems I disrespected you."
Khan lifted his hand, and mana immediately came out of his palm, gathering and condensing above it until it turned into a mass of thundering sparks.
Each flashing spark released a thunderous noise, but they gradually morphed, growing deeper and gaining a certain rhythm that almost made it resemble a growl.
"This is no star," Khan declared, glancing at the unstable mass of mana hovering above his palm, "But Iâm pretty sure it can eat those."