Noah observed the scene with his head slightly tilted, the Staff of Sonum resting on his shoulder like a scepter. His mismatched eyes followed Aang's movements with interest.
Aang, completely unaware of what was happening behind him, placed one hand on Taga's chest and the other on his head. He closed his eyes and channeled his chi in a steady, controlled flow. Energybending was a dangerous technique, one of the most difficult to master. His own life energy projected outward, seeking Taga's, and when the two came into contact, Aang began to work.
Noah watched with his enhanced eyes. In his vision, Taga's life energy—which until moments ago had been harmonized with the elemental power of the wind, vibrating at a frequency that made it unique—began to lose that harmony. It was like watching a musician slowly detune his instrument. The affinity with air diluted until Taga's life energy became indistinguishable from that of any non-bender.
Noah memorized every detail of the process Aang used while performing Energybending. It was invaluable information. A technique that, combined with his own knowledge of energy manipulation, could open doors he had not even imagined.
When the last thread of elemental connection snapped, Taga's body collapsed inside his stone prison. Aang staggered backward, exhausted, his hands trembling.
"I suppose this is where our relationship ends," Noah murmured to himself.
Aang sank onto one knee, his chest heaving with ragged breaths.
He leaned over Taga and frowned.
"Huh? That's strange."
He pressed two fingers to the man's neck, searching for a pulse. But he found nothing. Taga's skin was already beginning to cool beneath his fingertips.
"His breathing has stopped. But… how is that possible?"
There was no doubt—Taga was dead. But this should not have happened. Energybending did not kill. Aang had used it before, against Fire Lord Ozai, and although he had stripped him of his powers, Ozai had survived. The technique manipulated life energy; it did not extinguish it. So why was Taga dead?
"Now is not the time to worry about this," he told himself quietly, looking away from the corpse.
He stood and turned his head toward the entrance of the sanctuary.
"Sokka?"
The place where his friend had fallen, covered in blood and wounds, was now empty. Only a dark stain remained on the stone slabs, proof that he had not imagined it.
"Sokka?" he called again, his voice echoing in the silence.
He walked toward the entrance with quickening steps until he was outside the sanctuary. The beach stretched before him, illuminated by the sun, but there was no trace of Sokka.
"Huh? What's going on?"
That was when he noticed it. The Staff of Sonum was no longer where it had fallen. The corner of the sanctuary where it should have been, beside the cracked slab, was empty. Aang scanned the ground, searching for the golden gleam among the shadows.
"But it was just here a moment ago…"
A sudden blow to the back of his neck made him stagger.
The world went black before he could finish the sentence. His knees buckled and his body fell forward, but it never touched the ground. Beneath his feet a spatial vortex opened like a hungry mouth, and Aang disappeared into it. The vortex closed with a snap, and the sanctuary was left completely empty.
In a hidden underground cave, water dripped from the stalactites with a constant, hypnotic rhythm. The grotto was illuminated by a strange bluish glow that emanated from a pool at its center, a spring of crystalline waters that bubbled gently.
Katara, lying unconscious in these strange waters, suddenly stirred. Her fingers curled over the damp rock and her eyelids trembled. The wounds Taga had inflicted on her were healing slowly, forming scabs.
She was about to wake.
But just then a spatial vortex opened beneath her body. It sucked her in an instant, swallowing her along with a bubble of water. The same happened to the others. One by one, the members of the Avatar team disappeared from the cave as if they had never been there.
Katara's eyes snapped open.
Sunlight warmed her face, and the air smelled of freshly cut grass and the distant smoke of chimneys. She sat up slowly, propping herself on her elbows, and blinked in confusion.
She was on the outskirts of Republic City. Her friends lay around her, still unconscious but with their chests rising and falling in the rhythm of breath.
"Huh? Wait…" Katara scanned her friends' faces, counting them mentally. "Aang?"
She leapt to her feet, spinning in place. Sokka, Zuko, Toph… they were all there. All except one.
"Aang!" she cried, her voice breaking.
The wind answered her with an empty silence.
Deep within the lion turtle island, Noah sat cross-legged on a flat stone slab. The walls of the grotto were covered in crystals that emitted a faint purple glow, and the air was dense and warm, charged with elemental particles that floated like stardust.
He closed his eyes and concentrated.
Inside his body, the chakra began to converge toward his abdomen. Every strand of energy that flowed through his meridians withdrew toward the center, abandoning their usual channels, until not a single drop of chakra remained circulating through his body. His meridians were left empty, like dry rivers under a summer sun.
Then he took an acupuncture needle and drove it deeply into his forehead. The needle pierced the exact point where the central meridian connected the soul to the energy channels, blocking it completely. The spiritual power that emanated from his soul was sealed, unable to flow into his meridians.
Noah exhaled slowly. Then he waited.
Life force, unlike chakra or spiritual power, was generated naturally in every living being. It did not depend on will, meditation, or any external factor; it simply sprang forth, like water from a spring. With his meridians empty and his spiritual power blocked, Noah allowed the life force to slowly fill those deserted channels. Hours passed. The life force accumulated in his meridians, winding along the same paths once occupied by chakra.
When his meridians were completely filled with life force, Noah began the second phase.
Using the energybending he had learned by observing Aang, he began to manipulate his own life force.
He completely altered the vibration frequency of his energy, copying the nature of Aang's life force.
The Avatar's life force was harmonized with all four elements at once—a unique anomaly in the world—and Noah replicated it note for note, like a musician reproducing a symphony after hearing it only once.
An hour passed. Then two. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his fingers trembled slightly, but he did not stop until the last strand of his life force vibrated in perfect harmony with the pattern he had memorized.
Then, with the same precision with which he had driven it in, he removed the needle from his forehead. The blockage vanished and his spiritual power flowed freely once more. He then released his chakra, which returned to his meridians like a flooding river, mingling with his newly harmonized life force.
Noah opened his eyes and looked up at the cave ceiling.
"Now I can act comfortably for a few hours."
He stretched with a crack of bones. His chakra would take a few hours to adapt to the change in his life force and mutate accordingly, and he was in no hurry.
He opened a portal with a gesture of his hand and appeared on the beach. The midday sun shone on the white sand and the crystalline waters. The palm trees swayed in a gentle breeze, and the sea lapped the shore with a hypnotic murmur.
Noah lay down on the sand, hands clasped behind his head and eyes half-closed against the sunlight. It was a good day to do nothing.
But then he frowned. In the distance, floating on the water, he saw something. Twisted metal fragments, splintered wood, torn sails. The remains of the Renegades' airships rocked on the waves.
"Are those the remains of the Renegades?"
Noah narrowed his eyes, and his vision sharpened. It was not only scrap floating in the water. There were also bodies. Some face-down, others face-up, rocked by the waves like broken rag dolls.
"Those fools. You have to know when to retreat. Otherwise, unbridled greed only leads to death."
Noah sighed and adjusted himself on the sand, seeking a more comfortable position. The sun warmed his skin and the sea breeze ruffled his white hair. He shook his head, pushing the spectacle of the floating corpses from his mind, and closed his eyes.
After all, the life and death of those men was none of his concern.