"A bud?" Max muttered in disbelief.
He focused carefully and immediately noticed something even more astonishing. The bud was devouring the golden energy at a far greater rate than the Chaos Tree itself had done before. The dense streams of flame energy entering his body were being drawn directly into the bud, as if it possessed its own gravitational pull.
The five leaves still glowed, but the bud consumed with greater hunger.
More than that, the aura emanating from the bud was profoundly different. It was not merely flame based. It carried an ancient stillness, a vastness that felt boundless. As Max sensed it more clearly, a strange familiarity washed over him.
The aura gave him the feeling of standing before the doors of his dimensions.
Calm.
Ancient.
Immovable.
It did not burn like flame. It did not rage like chaos. It simply existed, as though it had always been there, waiting.
Max's expression grew serious.
This was no ordinary evolution of the flame branch.
