Enigma of Sin

Clara stared at Kayn's face solemnly. She knew he was angry, but so was she. She assumed she was angrier than he was at the loss of her family, not knowing about Kayn losing his to the same people. Unfortunately, no matter how angry one was, it didn't lead to more power in an actual fight, only a loss of rationality thinking that the anger can help you achieve more than you are able to.

"Kayn…you almost died while fighting only a few 6th stagers. You won't be able to take on a few dozen at once. Even if what little forces we have left went to help you, we would all die. I know the Emperor doesn't want to, but our only hope of surviving this is to try and escape."

Kayn thought about her words for a moment before replying, "I have my own ways to get stronger. But talking about escaping does bring up a good question, surely there is some type of escape teleportation scroll or formation set up in the palace, why don't you all just use that?"

"Similarly to the convention attack, they have set up a sealed area that restricts any teleportation or portal powers and items. According to Charlotte, you are the reason we all escaped that massacre in the first place. This time the seal is much, much larger and far more protected."

"Where is it? If I can destroy it, you all can escape and then I can focus on simply fighting without having to worry about my allies being caught up in the destruction." Kayn asked as he began to think how long he needed to use his Void Star technique in addition to eating the few goodies he had picked up recently in order to move to a stage he thought would be enough.

"Did you not hear me Kayn? You aren't powerful enough. Even with all your talents, it won't matter as soon as you are ganged up on!" Clara's voice raised as she felt like she was trying to dissuade a stubborn child.

Ignoring her chastisement once again, Kayn asked another question. "How long will the dome hold out now, assuming worst case scenario?"

"Are you even listening to me? Worst case scenario would be both the Lich King and the Emperor of Carnet attacking the dome with all of their most powerful forces, which would take down the barrier within a month, weeks even. However, they won't do that.

"If things play out as they have, or even escalate by a small margin due to your intervention, we can probably last another six months to a year as long as we keep supplying mana to the barrier. Why do you want to know?" Clara asked in response, even if she still answered his question and was expecting him to ignore her again.

"As I said, I have my own ways to get stronger, I only need time. After I test a few things, I'll be able to determine if what I'm thinking is viable enough to get you all out of here or not."

"What game are you playing Kayn? You may have had my daughter's respect, and you have my gratitude for giving us some time and relief, but this false hope you're trying to give us, to give me, isn't helping me trust you. How do you plan to do what you're saying?"

Kayn noticed Clara getting quite upset with him, which was understandable. However, "I'm not about to reveal all of my secrets to you, but I am willing to give you a glimpse. Does this palace have a mana gathering formation? If so, please bring me there."

Clara narrowed her eyes at Kayn in skepticism, but nodded her head and gestured for him to follow her as she started to walk out of the room.

"Ah, before we go, do you happen to know where my clothes were that I was wearing when I was brought in?"

"Hmm? The rags you were wearing? They should still be in the waste container in the side room over there, but they were pretty much falling off you when I grabbed you." Clara answered and pointed to the room for bathing.

Kayn hurried into the washroom and let out a breath of relief when he spotted the black cloth in the trash bin. He quickly took it out and began to put it on himself. He wasn't sure how long he was unconscious, but they were self-cleaning and repairing items, so most of it was back to normal aside from the few still recovering holes.

When Clara spotted him leaving the washroom in mostly repaired clothing, she felt a bit disappointed in herself. "I'm sorry Kayn, in my haste I neglected to think that someone of your stature would have self-repairing armor. It's been so long that I've thought of nothing but war and now I seem to overlook what used to be normal in my life."

"It's okay Clara. They were still there, so no harm done. I don't know if I said it, but thank you for taking care of me." Kayn gave her a small bow before following her out of the room.

Clara led Kayn down a few different hallways and eventually down a long spiraling staircase. It was clear to Kayn that they were going somewhere deep underground, which made sense for a mana gathering formation as the denser rock around the room helped keep in the mana that was being gathered and focused into it.

When they arrived at the room and entered inside, there were several people sitting on mats inside already, prompting Clara to speak in a hushed voice.

"This is where those not actively feeding mana to the barrier dome rest to replenish their mana reserves more quickly. Usually, this room is reserved for the royal family and their most trusted subordinates in order to help progress their core with the dense mana environment, but ever since we've been holed up here, it has been used to keep us alive."

"I see." Kayn answered before speaking once more. "I hate to be rude, but I'll need everyone here to leave aside from yourself. I can already tell this environment will be better than the room I was in, but if I have to, I'll do what I need to there if it gives me privacy."

It was at that moment that one of the individuals in the room stood up and began making his way towards Kayn and Clara. Kayn didn't recognize him, but had a pretty good guess as to who he was based upon his demeanor and appearance.

A large white tiger beastkin approached and stopped right in front of Kayn with an assessing look on his face. "First and foremost, allow me to thank you for giving us respite from the endless assault. Second, allow me to apologize for not intervening sooner.

"Lastly, if you want me to remove the people from this room, you will need to allow me to stay and watch what you're doing. Unfortunately, I cannot trust good intentions even if I watched as you fought for my people, maybe it was all a ruse to have us let you in?

"Clara isn't strong enough to stop you if you try to sabotage our only way to sustain our defenses, but if I'm here I'm quite positive I could kill you before you finish ruining this room. Before you ask, yes I could go out there and kill a good portion of the army they send our way, but then those two monsters would join and I would definitely be turned against my own people in death."

Kayn stared at the Mancean emperor for a second in thought before extending his hand out. "My name is Kayn Ashan. I would call you Emperor or Your Majesty, but you don't seem to be the type of person to follow the norms. As for your rudeness, I'll forgive it due to the extenuating circumstances."

The emperor gave Kayn the smile of a predator as he firmly gripped Kayn's hand and shook it. "My name is Talaro Mancea, but in social settings my friends call me Talo. It's nice to meet you Kayn, though I know Ashan isn't your proper last name. Now, for what reason do you want to use my mana gathering formation room privately?"

Kayn grinned as well when Talaro spoke about his false last name. "In short, I need to power up before I go out there, kick some ass, and break a seal so you all can teleport out of here. I have a way to do that, but I won't do it with so many eyes on me."

"You want to go out there alone and try to get past their defenses to break the teleportation seal? You realize that they have 10 6th stages guarding that thing, that's a third of their 6th stagers at this point." Talaro said with a doubtful expression.

Kayn turned his grin from predatory to mischievous as he responded. "Now you see me." Kayn then vanished from both Talaro's visual perception and magical senses, even his scent was gone, but he thought that if he used a few spells that he might be able to detect him.

"Now you don't," Kayn then reappeared. "I'm quite stealthy if I want to be. I plan to reveal my presence with a bang along with destroying the seal once I get to it. As I told Clara, I just need a bit of time to gain enough strength, and then their defenses will mean nothing to me."

"Quite the arrogance you've got there. Prove to me it's not all bravado." Talaro spoke then yelled out loud, disturbing everyone's meditation, "Everyone out! Now!"

In short order, the few mages who were in the mana gathering formation room shuffled out and the door was closed, leaving only three people inside, Kayn, Clara, and Talaro.

"I won't reveal everything or what else I will do to supplement my growth, but I believe that if you two pay attention to the mana in the room, you'll understand what I'm doing shortly." Kayn spoke as he walked to the middle of the room and sat down in a lotus position.

He took a large breath and then closed his eyes, circulating the Void Star technique as he regulated his breathing. Clara didn't notice it right away, but Talaro did, he could even feel it. All of the mana in the room was forming a vortex that was swirling around Kayn before entering into his body.

Kayn hadn't used the Void Star technique to its full capacity in a mana rich world yet, so he wasn't aware of the effects it would bring to him or what it would do to his immediate environment. With his eyes closed he was unaware of the changes happening around him since he was focused on the effectiveness of the technique and calculating how long it would take him to progress.

Clara had her eyes wide open and jaw dropped to the floor while Talaro shuddered at the implications of what he was witnessing.

As if the young man in front of him was a black hole, the ambient mana in the room was swirling around him, glowing with all six elemental colors before being sucked into the black hole. He could feel the mana at the edges of the room becoming thinner as Kayn sucked in more and more mana, almost faster than the room was pulling in and condensing it.

Kayn frowned as he made his calculations, it was going to take much longer than he was expecting if he only used the mana gathering formation. With his plans beginning to form, he stopped circulating the Void Star technique and opened his eyes.

He noticed the stunned and flabbergasted looks on the faces of the room's other occupants, so he tilted his head in a questioning manner.

"What?"

Talaro's left eyelid then began twitching.