Chapter 54

Additional chapter for power stones

200 power stones equal an additional chapter

***

The opening of the chakras can be likened to the sensation of all the pipes, through which water flowed, being suddenly cleansed! The water, or in this case, mana, became crystal clear, obedient, so simple to control... It felt as though previously I struggled to change the direction of a river by a few degrees, but now, suddenly, I could twist and turn it as I pleased!

I felt not only my mana but all that surrounded me. It flowed through me, through my chakras, becoming mine. Slowly but surely, it filled me. And the last, the seventh chakra, produced it on its own. Just a little, droplets, but it was noticeable.

Understanding and realizing what chakras are... was harder than it might seem. I managed to open the first chakra. To do so, one needed to overcome and let go of their fear, to accept it. Thus, I accepted my fear of the Avatar. An insurmountable force, nearly impossible to overcome... but I didn't resign myself to fear, instead, I absorbed and overcame it. And the strongest feelings at that moment, like lava, burned through all obstacles and opened the chakra. However, as the great sage Pathik explained, each chakra requires its own set of emotions.

The second chakra, the water chakra located in the sacrum, requires overcoming guilt.

Did I feel guilt? OH YES!

How many nights did I spend tormented by thoughts that if I hadn't run away with my brother, I could have killed the fire soldiers, that if I had trained more, my brother would have still been alive, that if I had acted differently, somehow, I might have been able to save my brother, my mother...

The hallucinations plunged me headfirst into these thoughts. Honestly, I never suffered as much as I did at that moment. Then I understood what Hell is. Hell is not a place where you are tortured and made to suffer. It is the place where you torture yourself. Where you stew in your own juice of guilt, suffering, experiencing anguish because you are guilty!

And I lived through Hell. It seemed my soul was dissolving itself, consuming consciousness, wanting to rid itself of this source of pain. Slowly, gradually, but my own soul was killing me.

But at some point, it seemed I saw them. Two silhouettes. As they approached, I saw such beautiful facial features, which had been etched into my memory since childhood. Mom. And with her was my brother. Just as little as I had seen him last time.

They said nothing. Not a single word. They didn't try to tell me anything. To convey. To judge or explain. They weren't angry with me, which I had feared deep down. Approaching me, as I couldn't even move, mom smiled softly and hugged me, while my brother pressed against my stomach, hugging my waist where he could reach and embrace me.

At that moment, I felt boundless joy. Joy from the fact that they didn't judge me. Weren't angry with me...

With each new trial, I discovered a new facet of myself. Incredibly, I... changed... I... accepted new, or rather, rejected facets of my personality and soul. And I felt with each time, how my power changed. Became purer. Stronger. More obedient. Power becomes me. And I become my power. Shame, overridden and overcome with love. Mourning for relatives, despite the recent encounter with them, which was overcome by... love, or something similar, that I felt towards Azula. Lies, which I accepted and dissolved in truth. Brain and mind illusions, which led me astray in their labyrinths, seemingly for months, years, decades, and centuries, until I suddenly realized that it was just an illusion, an illusory world created by my mind. A flash of enlightenment burned away this illusory world.

However, ultimately, I was confronted with the last obstacle. The seventh chakra. The Thought Chakra. The chakra that generates mana itself. And... I couldn't. Simply couldn't. No matter how much I deceived myself, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't let go... of everything. All attachments. My mother, even though she had passed away. My brother, who was with my mother. And now, as I've come to realize not so long ago, Azula. I didn't want to lose everything I had gained over this time.

Now, sitting on the vast and narrow staircase carved into the stone, feeling the energy around me being absorbed and becoming mine, I realized how much I had changed over time. Not just now, but throughout my life. As it may seem otherwise, I changed every day. Gradually, little by little. However, if at the beginning of my path as an avenger, I only desired power, now, despite still desiring power, I have found a clear goal to which I am heading, I have found people with whom I feel good. And whom I don't want to let go or lose.

These thoughts have been swirling in my head for days now. I couldn't come to a definite decision. Couldn't make a choice. Couldn't decide to lose what I had now, as I couldn't decide to part with what had led me through life in the past years. What made me who I am now. Pathik couldn't offer any advice. As he said, over time everything will resolve itself. Either I will make a choice, or circumstances will make it for me. And I understood that he was completely right. He's surprisingly wise for someone who's been smoking this world for one hundred and fifty years and dabbling with hallucinogens.

And I perfectly understand that, by not making a choice and leaving it to chance, I am now looking for that very chance.

"Who seeks, always finds. Damn true statement!" - I thought, feeling some threat and turning my head to the right, where I sensed an approaching concentration of life. Far on the horizon, I could make out a ship rapidly approaching the temple. And this ship belonged to the Fire Nation.

"One might say it's Azula or her emissaries... however, I sense the threat all too well. My senses have sharpened lately, including the supernatural ones. And I'd bet anything that this ship is clearly not coming with good intentions. Something has definitely happened

and I am unaware of it" - I thought, as I rose up the steps to find Pathik and take him to safer places. I feel the danger emanating from this ship.

A couple of hours later, I watched with all my senses a group of people who disembarked onto the shore from a lowered boat. And some of these people I knew well. Mercenaries.

And of the kind "Dead or alive". I had encountered a couple of them in battle when I was destroying firebenders not far from them and they interfered, one of them even managed to seriously harm me before fleeing. Though it's noticeable that he now has a prosthetic in place of his second arm. One of the few who survived an encounter with me, though almost nobody knows about it.

The company of mercenaries silently and without speaking moved deeper into the territories and soon gathered to split up when my will and bending froze their movements, subjugating their blood and preventing them from moving.

"Well, I didn't think they'd send the best mercenaries after me. Maybe you'll be kind enough to tell me yourselves why such as you..." - I was saying, but the next moment after the last word I had to lean my head back, noticing with my eyes how a narrow beam of energy, heating the air in its path, flew past me and stopped a couple of centimeters from my face, beginning to transform into a fiery explosion sphere due to the instant heating of a small point of air to immense temperatures.

The explosion would have been very powerful... but...

The fiery sphere, instead of continuing to grow, started spinning and began to shrink until it diminished enough and then simply extinguished. A wave of my hand and condensed water from the air froze on the forehead of the fire assassin, covering his third eye.

"Hmm... so they sent you to kill me... and you, Airon, haven't come up with anything new since our last encounter, have you?" I asked the demolitionist.

"You," affirmed the assassin, now deprived of the ability to use explosions safely for himself.

"I, Airon," I said, as my face began to change, taking on a completely, seemingly different appearance - my own native look, "it's me. And I think you all know that I'm not a good girl and will find out what I wish... the question is, will you suffer in the process? And believe me, I have a very rich practice in this matter. Tsk, what a waste!"

At that moment, a creature hiding in the vegetation, a mix between a dog and a mole and five times as large, decided to attack me and rushed at me at full speed.

However, a few strides later, its paws landed on unexpectedly soft soil, which they sank into under its own weight, about a quarter of a meter deep, and a moment later solidified back into the state of stone.

"Jun, if I'm not mistaken? Sorry, last time we didn't have much time for chatting. Well, you know, you tried to kill me, or kidnap me, I wasn't really paying attention to that part, and I was fighting off the poison in me and trying to kill you... anyway, I'm not sure I remembered such a beauty's name correctly. But your doggy, I remembered just perfectly! I struggled long to develop an immunity to the paralyzer.

At that moment, the bounty hunter's shirshu shot its tongue at me, which was covered in saliva with strong paralytic properties. However, I caught the tongue with my hand and, condensing water from the air, nailed the tongue to the ground with an ice spike.

A painful roar spread through the area from the shirshu, while I wiped the animal's saliva on Airon's metallic prosthetic.

"How did they even convince you to take me on again, Jun? Or did you decide to settle scores for the parting gift I left you?" I ran my fingers over the rough scar from a steam burn on the right side of the mercenary's face. "So, ladies and gentlemen, you've engaged an opponent far beyond your level. And now you're in deep trouble. I won't lie, I've recently realized how much I dislike lies, though I acknowledge it as an effective weapon in some cases, so I'll tell you straight - you're all going to die. However, the question is - how quickly will you die at my hands? Believe me, I can prolong this moment for a very long time. Well, anyone wants to gossip with me?"

Two minutes later, the first scream of immense pain spread across the island, but the ship was too far to understand that nothing good awaited it.

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