Enigma of Sin

Kayn's eyes opened to the sound of shouting and protest. He felt revitalized, as if every part of his being was in the most perfect state it ever had been. All of the pains he was feeling before he starting meditating and circulating the Void Star technique had vanished.

He felt stronger than ever despite his core now regressing to the peak of the 2nd stage. He also intuitively knew that his personal regeneration and healing had risen significantly. As tempting as the prospect of testing his new healing was by injuring himself, he decided not to as it wasn't the smartest idea with his current situation.

Standing up and stretching out the stiffness of his limbs, he noticed how hungry he was. He had only eaten a few snacks when he was flying over to this temple, not a meal like he should have. He was usually hungry after he finished up at the temples, but never to this extreme.

Looking at the watch he pulled out of the Void Loop, his eyes widened in astonishment. He spent an entire 53 days inside of this temple. He couldn't believe that his sense of time was so skewed when he was immersed in the formations that he was unable to tell the passage of time.

Kayn couldn't help but let his worry about home take over his thoughts. He had been on Earth for over half a year at this point, what was happening at home? Was Lara okay? What about Kinzie, Charlotte, and Rowen?

Slapping his cheeks to snap himself out of the downward spiral his thoughts were leading towards, he jumped out of the statue's hat and landed right on top of the bird's head in order to assess what all of the noise was about.

He expected some sort of pleading and crying as the healing aura wouldn't be there after he was finished, but what he didn't expect was for the temple to be completely empty. In front of the temple, a line of troops was using riot shields to fend off the angry mob that was wanting entrance back into the temple.

On the other side of that line facing towards the entrance, were about a hundred individuals all wielding some strange looking gun. There was even one massive odd-looking cannon firmly planted on the ground and which was manned by two people. Kayn couldn't help but roll his eyes. These people just didn't give up, did they?

With his newfound light elemental mastery and what was actually possible with the element being firmly ingrained in his mind, he decided to kill two birds with one stone.

First, healing the people who would have been healed had he not stolen what he began describing as an inheritance. Second, blind the military people in order to do a quick scan of the object in that lady's hand so he could destroy them all when he sensed them.

The device had to emit some kind of signal, or absorb trace amounts of mana or something of the sort, otherwise he didn't know how it was tracking him.

Healing from a distance would still be tricky, even with his new knowledge, but these were all regular people with regular people problems. All he needed to do was send out a massive wave of healing light similar to the temple, but in a more concentrated burst, and everyone present here should be cured of any ailments they had, at least he hoped.

He thought that it would be possible to cover an area that was about as large as his Mana Sense if he used roughly 50% of his mana. If he compared it to how much he would have had to use when he was still in the 4th stage, it would probably have been 75% of his total mana.

It had to be said that 75% if his total mana at the 4th stage was well over 100% of his current capacity, probably close to 200%, so the potency of his mana was significantly higher now. Kayn couldn't help but smirk, he was now planning on visiting as many temples as he could to try and increase his prowess by several fold.

He wondered what would happen if and when he reached the very beginning of the journey a mage embarked upon. Once he was at the very start of the 1st stage, would his mana still increase in power or would his Demonic Dragon Heart go through some type of qualitative change? Only time would tell in this matter, so he would have to wait.

Kayn remained on the top of the statue as he prepared his spell, once he felt ready, he swiftly positioned himself in front of the massive entrance to the temple.

…

Dr Elaine was pointing her device at the entrance to the temple waiting for something to happen as she stood in the middle of the group of military personnel. The readings she was getting had completely disappeared no more than 30 minutes ago, so something should be happening very soon, at least she thought so.

Just then, her handheld device began alerting her to a massive spike in the mysterious energy before a surge of light erupted from the entrance to the temple. People screamed, guns were fired, but everyone, without a single individual left out, was blinded momentarily.

When they all were able to see again, some noticed their exterior wounds healed, some felt as good as they had in their earlier years, and some could even see or hear who couldn't before.

While the masses began praising and worshiping Horus with even more fervor, the group of military individuals all looked towards the one individual that didn't warn them, but also may have an explanation.

As they turned to look for guidance, Dr Elaine was standing there with an expression that told them just how dumbfounded she was. She was looking at her empty hands where just seconds ago her device was held, but she had no idea how it had been taken from her grasp nor why she didn't feel it happening.

Thinking that maybe she dropped it when she was startled by the blast of light, she began to look around on the ground for it. That was only until she realized that it was supposed to be cuffed around her wrist for safety.

She looked down at her right hand with a horrified expression as the woven wire which was supposed to be strong enough to resist any type of cutting was cleanly severed and all that remained was the cuff around her wrist with the dangling wire. As her expression became grim, she looked to Lieutenant Faraday before opening her mouth. 

"Contact command, tell them that the Seed has been stolen and that we will be extracting the Roots immediately. I'll take full responsibility."

The lieutenant frowned as he was not aware of the specifics of the device Dr Elaine was always waving around, but he could guess the importance of it by the look on her face and her extremely grim tone.

He was supposed to be the one giving the final commands here, but watching her walk towards their extraction point, he commanded his men to pack up as he made a call.

…

Busy tapping away at the device to figure out how it worked, Kayn was hovering high in the sky, well above the clouds. He had his wings out this time as it was easier to sustain his flight with them than concentrating on the wind control which he had just learned not long ago.

Unfortunately, this technology was well beyond what he saw back in the early 2010s when he was still living on Earth. He tapped this and that and even flipped it around in his hands for a while before giving up and using more intrusive methods.

Kayn was about to inject pure mana into the device, but paused and instead focused his Mana Sense directly on the ins and outs of the device. To his astonishment, it started to beep, and further probing activated a map on the screen. The map depicted several dots spread out across the world and gave readings from 0-10 on how strong the signal was.

Examining the areas marked on the map, he discovered that each spot was a temple that was uncovered. Several areas didn't contain any marked areas though, such as the United States, Russia, and China.

Kayn found this odd as China definitely should have had some temples, but seeing as how the device was connected with the opposing faction it made sense.

He assumed the same was true for Russia, but the United States should have some markers as they were part of the United Nations Tactical Alliance. The native people to the United States had many gods they worshiped, so Kayn found it odd there weren't any temples there.

That was until he remembered that the war hadn't reached the United States mainland yet, so it may just be that none of these temples were revealed. There were clearly a few down in Mexico and other South American countries. Heck, even Canada had a couple that were revealed along the western coast.

By no means did Kayn want to visit all of these temples, but he could possibly use this device to locate ones that weren't listed on the internet or to the public.

He knew that the people who created this device might eventually be able to track it. So, rather than keep it on himself, he memorized the map and the listed locations as well as the readings that were displayed. Then he destroyed it completely with Extinction Flames.

Stretching his limbs, he decided that it was time to take a little break to consolidate his gains and figure out everything that had changed within him. Plus, he also wanted to do all of the things on Earth that he wasn't able to before. He had a surplus of money and no clue how to get home, so why not do some of the things he used to only dream of.

Many of the places he wanted to go would be open to him because well, he's practically a god here. Otherwise, some of the other areas he wanted to visit were not current war-zones, so they could be open to tourists.

Kayn sighed as he wanted nothing more than to go home, it just wasn't a possibility right now. He descended from the skies into the middle of the desert and pulled out the Wanderer's Villa.

Before anything else he wanted a large meal, and that's exactly what he was planning to do.