The moment the liquid entered his body, Bali felt like something inside him exploded.
Time seemed to slow down.
As a level 9 fire and space awakener, Bali's senses were already top-notch. Yet, he seemed to have entered a higher world.
He saw new shades in the world, heard new sounds, and felt every fiber of his own being like never before.
It was a feeling of heightened self-awareness multiplied over by a hundred.
And while that happened, Bali noticed something deep inside him starting to change.
"Huuuuuh?" He raised a brow and it seemed to have taken forever in his current state.
Then, he concentrated on his will and entered the divine view.
'…This?'
Surprised was a severe understatement.
Bali saw his origins on the space path.
Previously, he had origin on both space and fire paths, but after a lot of effort, he brought them together. He even started merging them slowly.
His task was to merge them completely and then connect the Origin to the divine path.
Bali estimated that merging would take around two months. That's the reason he asked Varian to wait for that long.
But now, under his stupified gaze, the two origins started merging by themselves.
"….How?"
As if he wondered how such a ridiculous thing was even possible, another change occurred.
Something deep inside him started to change. He didn't know exactly what it was, but he knew, almost by instinct that this change was more fundamental than any other.
He vehemently tried to search for the change and in the end, it took him to the origins.
Seeing his origins, he had a feeling that he was in the midst of a space storm. The chaotic breaking of space, the rough space power cutting through his skin, and cracking of spaces…he felt it all.
Before he could get used to it, everything turned normal.
'Hallucination?' Bali shook his head and concentrated on his origins again. He zoomed it in and tried to peer through the merging white spheres.
And just for a split second, he seemed to see three different colored liquids inside the origin. And one liquid seemed to be pushing the other two.
Just by looking at it, his space powers felt a light pull.
'My space powers…?!' Only then did Bali notice another change.
Something changed with his space path. He didn't grow stronger, yet his affinity seemed to have improved drastically.
Instead of wasting any more time, Bali started helping his origins merge together.
Once this step was done, his fire path would be locked and like any single path awakened, he could try hitting the Sovereign state.
*** *** ***
"Miracle potion, eh." Varian looked at Enigma with a strange gaze. "Does creating them harm Sia?"
"As long as it is within the limit, no." Enigma shook her head.
"But there must be a price, right? You can't just improve everyone's talents for nothing." He pressed on and stared at her intensely.
Enigma looked right back into his eyes and answered. "She'd be weakened for a while."
Varian frowned.
"And she'd be experiencing a lot of pain."
Varian clenched his armrest and it creaked loudly. "Then why…"
Enigma narrowed her eyes and said. "That pain is less than a hundredth of what I'm bearing now."
"…" Varian opened his mouth but closed it again.
He looked at Enigma again and noticed that beads of sweat were sliding down her eyebrows. Her hands were tightly clenched and from time to time, blood leaked from the corner of her mouth and stained her mask before being cleaned automatically. If not for the cleaning function, she'd be drenched in blood by now.
Before they approached the location Bali stated, Enigma once again suppressed the tracker.
The tracker went off for a few minutes and using that window of opportunity, Boo hacked a drone near Bali's location and let it deliver the miracle potion.
Or Bali's location might've been exposed to their chasers.
Thanks to Enigma, they didn't have to risk it. But the price was an inhuman pain she had to bear.
"Boo, is there any potion, treasure, anything that can reduce her pain?" Varian asked in a low voice.
Boo hung its head and said in a depressed voice. "Sorry, master. Her pain is caused by suppressing her aura onto the tracker…there's no treasure that Boo knows which can help her."
Varian exhaled lightly and said. "Not your fault."
"I can live with this pain," Enigma said coldly, but when she did, blood spilled out of her mouth once again.
Varian sighed inwardly. She was putting on a strong appearance. Even he could tell. But he didn't point it out, for it served no purpose other than to piss her off.
Whether they liked it or not, she had to bear the pain. There was simply no choice.
"So, what's our Pluto plan?" Blue Flash asked, her voice more optimistic than usual.
"You were looking at their forces distribution data earlier, I thought you already had a plan." Varian raised a brow.
To be honest, that data was more like an army file. It wasn't something a Shadow Guardian should possess.
"I do have a plan." Blue Flash chuckled and walked to Varian. Then, she tapped her comm and a hologram of Pluto popped up.
Surrounding Pluto were its five natural satellites. All of them, including Pluto, were full of abyss-styled military buildings.
Even from a high-range view, Varian could point out the spaceports, barracks, training halls, and so on.
"Tell me what you think?" She asked him with curious eyes.
"With Enigma's tracker on, by the time we start approaching Pluto, they'd already know that we're coming. They'd be alert. In fact, I bet they'd already intercept us mid-way. It's the biggest problem." Varian shook his head.
"Any solutions?" Blue Flash asked, her eyes gleaming in appreciation.
While Varian might appear as a combat madman, which was true, he was also a strategist.
But he showed that side of him only when his strength wasn't sufficient. Just like now.
So, she was curious to see what he was thinking.