"Allocate more funds to this Nest," MunuBuntara signed the document in an Information Slip, "And organise a Raid team to target the home of this Pranic Beast. We need to capture more of their kind..."
Bang!
The door slammed open as Wepetay hurried in, his eyes moist as he shouted, "My Lord!"
"...Shit!" MunuBuntara didn't even need to hear the report to know what had happened. There was only one reason Wepetay was both sad and in a state of loss. "I'm coming!"
The duo boarded the carriage and hurried to the same residential complex as the previous day, seeing Wepetay's children standing at the entrance of Inala's house, weeping silently.
MunuBuntara entered the house and halted in shock, staring at the picturesque face of Inala who had passed away in peace. Seated nearby and silently shedding tears was Stalahh, Wepetay's wife, the woman who had taken care of Inala the past decade, treating the latter no different to her father.
Her father died when she was young while her mother stubbornly refused to come to the Varahan Empire, intending to spend the rest of her life at their Kingdom, waiting for the day she could reunite with her husband.
And a few years after Stalahh and Wepetay arrived at the Varahan Empire and were take under MunuBuntara's fold, her mother died.
Subconsciously, she came to treat Inala as her dad, for they were both pretty similar. The way she treated Inala caused her children to open up to him, taking in him as the grandfather they never had. He did tell them interesting stories daily, so they bonded with him easily.
"This...is too soon." Stalahh wiped her tears, her figure trembling as she hiccupped, "I took care of him well. I was sure he'll be with us for another year or two!"
"This was too sudden!" She sobbed, staring at Wepetay, "He died in his sleep..."
"I understand," Wepetay consoled his wife, fighting back his tears, for he considered Inala his mentor figure.
A minute later, Stalahh stared at MunuBuntara, "My Lord, I wish to honour his funeral as my father."
"Hmm, okay." MunuBuntara had no reason to refuse. However, his thoughts were elsewhere, sighing as he thought of the suitcase he received yesterday, 'It seems he was waiting until he completed his masterpiece and handed it over to me. Had I come later to receive it, would he... have lived longer?'
But his coronation ceremony was a month away. And for that, he would have to depart in a week. So, the most he could have delayed receiving the suit was until then, 'But that was beyond my expectations.'
He judged that Inala still had three more months based on the state of the latter's Human Avatar, 'However, if he lost the will to live, then it's not a surprise he died in his sleep.'
But just to be doubly sure, MunuBuntara placed his hand on Inala's cold corpse and poured his Prana inside, ensuring that Inala had indeed died a natural death and hadn't been killed by anyone else. Soon, he concluded, 'It's indeed a natural death.'
The next day, a funeral had been conducted, with a small crowd marching towards the nearby crematorium to cremate Inala's corpse. The crowd consisted of Wepetay's family and a portion of the weavers taught by Inala.
'Not everyone came?' Anger surged through him as Wepetay stared at the crowd that had gathered, silently making a note of those that hadn't arrived for the funeral. He didn't state anything else but already decided to suppress the careers of those that didn't have respect for their teacher.
"Hic!" Stalahh collapsed to the floor upon seeing Inala's corpse being burned into ashes in the crematorium. Wepetay supported her, but his hands trembled. His mentor figure was no more. Now, he had no one else he could consult and be offered either words of wisdom or be chided for his foolishness.
Hovering a kilometre in the sky was Inala, his figure undetectable to everyone else. After all, moments before the old Inala died, he caused another container of wool to take flight, which allowed him to teleport next to it with the power of the Major Treasure of Flight.
Inala didn't erase it and instead used the provided cover to safely fly over the Varahan Empire. His cover will be blown the moment he takes action. But that meant that as long as he doesn't use his Prana, he could remain hidden for as long as possible.
The Major Treasure of Hidden Eye used the influence it generated as fuel to take action. It was pretty exhaustive and hence, even if he wanted, Inala couldn't maintain the state for long. He'd be wasting a Bolt of Transcendence worth of Prana every single day to remain undetectable to basically every single existence apart from the container of wool he'd come to
erase.
As it was a power playing around in the domain of cause and effect, the costs were steep.
He observed the way Stalahh, Wepetay, and their kids mourn for him, truly from the heart, turning him emotional for he now carried all the emotions from his old self, one that grounded him to reality and erased the God Complex that he possessed.
The God Complex was minute, a far cry from what Brangara had, as Inala maintained himself at the Silver Grade. It was a far cry from what he would have had he maintained himself at the Mystic Grade. However, Inala wanted to erase even that tiny fraction, which his old self's
experience did.
As Inala stared at the small crowd, he noticed figures popping up from far away Decodus Trees, their presence masked to the limit using the influence generated by a combination of Natures in their Vara Human Avatars.
Slowly, they were closing in on the crematorium, their target MunuBuntara. One of the people given ideas by Inala was a radical individual who believed that if someone with a Vara Human Avatar were to consume the body of an Empyrean Boar, they'd gain the Secondary Nature of Voracious Nature.
Actually, it was the truth. However, it wasn't easy to achieve it. One needed to consume an Empyrean Boar body every day and maintain it anywhere from ten days to a few months before they obtain the Secondary Nature.
Depending on their talent and affinity, they'll gain the Secondary Nature quickly. But this Voracious Nature was only at the Silver Grade and only allowed them to gain the Natures of existence with Iron and Silver Grade strength upon consumption.
But that itself was amazing, as it meant they could live anywhere on Sumatra as they pleased, becoming a powerful predator.
Every idea of Inala was geared towards the destruction of the Wean Clan. Prumace's idea was subconsciously achieved in such a way that any method he has conceptualised to record music, there would be a set of words engraved that can only be heard by Zingers.
It's like someone learning mathematics. Addition, subtraction, multiplication division are
the actual basics and formed the core of mathematics. Similarly, there were core pillars that formed a Gramophone. Inala simply changed addition a little bit such that it didn't affect the mathematics of a Gramophone, but still resulted in the Zinger voice being added to certain pieces of melody.
And for the Free Humans who have consumed the bodies of Empyrean Boars and gained the Secondary Nature of Voracious Nature, the side effects of the Empyrean Boar race kicked in, making them acquire a taste for Empyrean Boar meat.
That meant they would wish to capture a Wean Clansman for two reasons. First was to constantly make them create new bodies for them and their members to consume daily to obtain the Secondary Nature of Voracious Nature.
And second was to feast upon Empyrean Boar meat daily. This was enough reason to turn them into a fearsome terrorist organisation that tried to consume the Varahan Empire's foundations from within.
The headquarters of this terrorist organisation was based in a far away District. They typically targeted young Wean Clansmen, diverting most of the Peace Keeper force's attention.
Usually, the terrorists didn't operate in a far away district like the Noikatol District, as it was hard to escape from a place with only two railway lines. However, their spy network detected the MunuBuntara wasn't protected as much as usual in the funeral, as he was also part of the crowd to show respect to Inala, someone who had contributed a lot to his District's growth.
The group intending to target MunuBuntara numbered forty, their actions stealthy as they gradually approached the crematorium. Inala observed them in closeup and noticed the small number of guards accompanying MunuBuntara, comparing the two sides, 'These terrorists have a better combination of Natures.'
'Similar to how Brangara achieved a passive effect of Subtle Terrain Domination, they have
managed to figure out one too.' Inala frowned in thought, 'Without something like the Astral Chart, it's impossible to affix the location of the Natures in a respective spot. It's like creating a digital circuit in a computer chip. The slightest motion and the effect won't be produced.'
'Even Brangara only managed to figure it out thanks to the sheer level of control and authority Astral World grants him over the Natures in his possession.' Inala was surprised the more he observed the terrorists, for his old self had only sowed the seeds of chaos and hadn't witnessed the growth of such seeds.
"But...let's not do it today." Inala muttered as he stared at Stalahh weeping in loss, "I don't care if MunuBuntara alone is killed, but I can't stand that family coming to harm."
"Let's not become an absolute monster," He let out a slow sigh, "Only for the family that
truly cared about me."
"W-who?" One of the terrorists trembled in fear as he turned around and noticed a figure calmly standing behind him.
"Yo!" Inala smiled cheerfully as an instant later, all forty terrorists vanished. A Biome Bomb
appeared and hung at the side of his hip as Inala threw a woollen piece of cylinder far away. It slammed into a tree and unfurled itself, with its threads spinning in the right direction that gave it a lift.
A second later, Inala appeared beside it, as the power of the Major Treasure of Flight took effect once again, giving him absolute invisibility. He took to the skies once again and raced in a particular direction while he gathered all the data from the captured terrorists, "That way, huh?"