Chapter 505
Ikenga emerged from the planet’s core with the slow, deliberate grace of something ancient and wounded. His body had returned to its human form, though it bore the deep, glistening scars inflicted not just on him—but on the world itself. They criss crossed his skin like molten veins, seeping golden blood that shimmered faintly in the dim planetary light.
Yet, ever cautious, ever disciplined, not a single drop touched the ground. Each droplet of his luminous blood hovered mid-air before reversing its descent, flying back into his body like birds returning to a wounded nest. Flesh reknit. Muscle wove back into sinew. His skin, a tapestry of divine resilience, mended silently.
Without fanfare, Ikenga lifted from the scorched surface. His ascent was smooth, effortless, yet heavy with loss. He broke through the fractured sky and hovered in the cold silence of space, suspended between stars, looking down at the planet he had once been bound to.
It was dying.
Where once its crust had thrummed with life, now fault lines bled magma into oceans that boiled away. Forests shriveled into ash. Storms no longer raged—they simply collapsed under their own weight. The mages’ law, the corruption they had embedded into the ley lines and lifeblood of the world, held firm. It had taken everything from the planet to resist them. It had survived only because Ikenga had fused with it, sustained it with his own essence. But now he was no longer part of it.
And the rot had begun to show.
From his vantage point, he saw them—the mages. Their astral bodies loomed like eldritch gods above the stratosphere, colossal silhouettes pulsing with twisted sorcery. They were no longer whole, their forms shimmering with instability. They had sacrificed too much to run from him.
Ikenga slowly opened his palm.
Within it danced fragmented soul-embers—remnants of the mages’ spirits, incomplete and writhing. They spun and twisted in his grasp, drawn to the golden warmth of his divine blood, yet unable to escape his will.
A tired breath escaped his lips, and he spoke—not in anger, not in triumph, but in sheer, exhausted acceptance.
"It seems... you have more toys to play with, Keles."