Blood flowed down Khan's arm and tainted his white sleeve. The shadows that enveloped the two-headed dog dispersed as life abandoned its eyes. The monster didn't have the chance to bite its prey since death arrived in a mere instant.
Khan voiced an annoyed groan as the monster fell to the ground. He supported himself on the tree behind him to sit and point a foot on the corpse. The bloodied hand and knife released an awful noise as he pulled them out of the creature's mouth, but his ears were growing used to hear that.
Weakness filled most of his body. Khan had gone through a beating before losing most of the mana inside his flesh. He felt the desperate need to sleep and meditate, but the chaos of the battlefield still raged around him and kept him awake. Still, the state of the fights turned out to be quite reassuring.
Kozh and Vakha had long since gained the upper hand on the telekinetic monster, and Ilman could join them after Khan took care of the creature with the shadows. The last mutated specimen couldn't last long against the joint assault of the three students.
Meanwhile, Ezinet had taken care of the Tainted animals converging on the lake. The pack had about thirty members busy patrolling the area, but the girl could defeat them easily. Her palms were too deadly for creatures that didn't undergo mutations, and she was even too nimble for them.
Khan didn't feel the need to recover in a hurry. His companions could take care of the remaining enemies by themselves. Also, he had killed two monsters on his own, so he deserved some rest.
The Niqols took care of the remaining animals quickly. The telekinetic monster was troublesome, but Ilman ended up being too fast for its annoying ability. The rest of the Tainted dogs stopped trying to invade the area after their leaders died.
"[You are a real warrior]!" Ilman laughed while approaching Khan after the battle ended. "[I thought I would be closer to your level. I've never been so wrong in my life]."
"[Don't shout]," Khan complained. "[Let me sleep for a bit]."
"[Nonsense]!" Ilman shouted while crouching to put his shoulder under Khan's armpit and forcing him to stand up. "[You must go back to the camp and celebrate this victory]."
Khan was too tired to shake Ilman off, and he felt no desire to argue against his dramatic mindset. He was willing to agree with everything the Niqols said as long as it made him shut up faster. Yet, a doubt appeared in his mind after hearing those words.
"[Won't you come back to the encampment]?" Khan asked as the three Niqols gathered around Ilman and him.
"[I'm afraid that I have yet to atone for what I did]," Ilman explained while shaking his head. "[The Niqols' regulations and my guilt don't allow me to come back]."
Khan didn't say anything. He let Ilman help him walk through the woods until he felt strong enough to move on his own. The atmosphere around him was pretty happy since the hunt had been successful, and he felt able to join that mood after a while.
Ilman wasn't too bad when the topic didn't involve Liiza. He was loud and unreasonable but also extremely honest and reliable. Still, Khan liked how he couldn't return to the camp just yet. His problems would only increase otherwise.
The three Niqols from the first year were still at the edges of the woods when the hunting team came out. A simple exchange of smiles and proud cries was enough to notify them about the mission's success, but they still spent time questioning each student to obtain clear reports.
Ilman and the other Niqols didn't even try to hide Khan's achievements. He actually had to correct them at times to avoid exaggerations. His fame among the aliens was already incredible, so he wanted to prioritize the accuracy of the reports to benefit future plans.
"[I will see you soon]," Ilman announced when Khan and his three initial companions prepared themselves to jump on their Aduns. "[We are some of the best warriors among the students, so the professors will honor us with the harshest hunts]."
"[Don't make me do all the work next time]," Khan joked as he jumped on Snow's back.
"[You need to stop improving then]," Ilman laughed, and the group departed quickly afterward.
The encampment was only a few hours from the woods, so Khan preferred to handle the matter about his mana during the travel. His body almost completely recovered by the time the sea of tents appeared in his vision. He still felt sore in many spots, but the weakness that had filled him after touching the shadows had dispersed.
The encampment was relatively empty. The hunt didn't take long, and the woods had even been nearby, so Khan's group could return before lunchtime. The four couldn't even find a cauldron brewing booze at that hour, so they decided to get some food and rest until everyone returned.
Khan had slept in a tent picked randomly in the last week. He didn't want to be among the ostracized recruits, especially since Kelly would only annoy him, but he also preferred to avoid being at the exact center of the encampment.
The Niqols partied too hard for someone who couldn't even spend time with his girlfriend. Khan would only risk losing control of his actions if he spent night after night listening to the happy couples around him. The situation didn't improve too much in his current tent, but he could avoid random Niqols ending up inside it by mistake.
'I guess I'll be seventeen tomorrow,' Khan thought as the screen of his phone lit up and allowed him to check the date.
Khan and the other recruits had left the chargers provided by the Global Army in the academy when the crisis started, but the arrival of the daylight had made them superfluous. Their phones would never turn off since Nitis always had light now.
Memories of the last year crossed Khan's mind as he removed the dirty robe and wore one of the new ones that the Niqols left in each tent. A lot had changed in that short period. He almost couldn't believe how he was living in the Slums only a while ago.
The first year in the Global Army had made Khan experience a lot. He had learnt how to wield the magical energy called mana, but he had also gone through terrible events. Istrone alone could make kids of his age abandon the battlefield forever, but he was still there, fighting in the frontlines as if it were the most normal thing to do.
A smile eventually appeared on his face. Khan had believed that happiness would have forever been out of his reach after coming back from Istrone, but Nitis had proven him wrong. That cold planet could make him feel warm even in its darkest moments. He felt intense love and affection even as everything around him turned upside-down.
Khan couldn't see his girlfriend, but she was fine and shared the same intense love. He felt annoyed about that separation and their situation, but she was usually there, mere tents away from him. That was enough for now.
Rodney had tried to kill him, and some of the recruits even hated his behavior. However, Khan had found true friends among them and the Niqols. Even Ilman had turned out to be relatively okay in the end.
The duality of his life was almost hilarious, but that was fine as long as he remained able to experience that happiness. Khan felt to understand Lieutenant Dyester's teachings very well now. He was in the middle of a global crisis, and a lot tried to go against his situation, but those struggles didn't make him unable to appreciate everything he had.
Even the Global Army didn't feel too bad when Khan considered everything he had gained from that despicable organization. He had seen alien worlds, obtained friends, a loving girlfriend, and he had become strong.
Everything Khan had learnt had helped him shape his feelings. He had gained the chance to vent some of his desperation and pain. He had managed to exploit it to grow stronger than his peers, but it was clear that his current level wasn't nearly enough in that dangerous universe.
The Niqols had soldiers who could vanquish entire packs made of monsters with abilities, but they still feared the daylight and its consequences. Meanwhile, Khan barely had enough power to join specific hunts.
Khan felt the need to be stronger to protect what made him happy. The Nak would probably require even more from him, so he couldn't settle for a few kicks and some knife attacks. He needed proper magic.
'I need to make it work,' Khan thought as he finished dressing up and sat at the center of his small tent.
The final lesson of the training for his element was perfectly clear in his mind. Khan had committed the execution of the Wave spell to memory in the last period. He knew how the expert in the program unleashed that incredible power, but he had always failed to replicate it even after practicing hard.
Khan stretched his hand forward and activated the mental barrier. His mind grew cold before the mana inside it moved according to the flow used by the expert in the training program.
The Wave spell expressed destruction, so Khan thought about the vivid memories of the Second Impact to imagine that meaning. He wanted his mana to express the same power that the fall of the Nak spaceship had discharged in the Slums.
Mana gathered on his right palm as Khan focused on the vague theory behind the Wave spell. He knew that the chaos element required a personal approach, but that was hard to find when he lacked basics. Imitation was his only path for now.
Azure energy covered his hand before its shades changed. The mana gained a pale red-purple color as it started to tremble, and Khan's eyes sharpened as he forced himself to intensify those effects. The air in front of his palm seemed to twist at some point, but everything suddenly dispersed.
His palm stopped glowing for no apparent reason. Khan lost control of his mana even if he didn't commit any mistake. The failure didn't hurt nor inflict damage to his flesh, but he failed to perform the spell anyway.
No curse resounded in Khan's mind. He had experienced that failure countless times already, and he had grown used to feeling lost in front of that event by then. In theory, his execution was perfect, but he remained unable to perform the Wave spell. He didn't even come close to creating the destructive energy described in the training program.
Khan had already considered fusing what he had learnt about manipulating mana with that training, but the two approaches appeared opposite at their core.
The training program stated how Khan had to cut away his feelings to control the chaos element, while the Niqols' teachings required emotions to manipulate the nature of the mana. Those paths stood on completely opposite fields, so he preferred to rely on the human ways since he had more experience there.
Moreover, the Niqols had a strange approach to spells. Liiza's ice didn't only come from the mana inside her mind. She needed to apply a special influence on the environment to make sure that it replicated the effects that she set.
Khan lost track of the passage of time as he continued to practice. He didn't have anything to do for the rest of the day, so he immersed himself in his training. The tests with the Wave spell only used his mana even, so he never reached his limits since his mana core continued to refill his brain with energy.
His training went on for hours until steps resounded outside his tent. Khan initially ignored that event, but he quickly stopped his practice when he sensed three familiar presences walking directly toward the entrance of his habitation.
It didn't take much before Azni, Doku, and Liiza entered the tent. Khan's eyes widened when he saw their bloodied robes and stern expressions, but he relaxed a little since the Niqols didn't seem injured.
Still, the Niqols didn't let his confusion end there. Doku threw a series of flasks full of good booze in front of Khan as Azni sat in front of him. Her boyfriend made sure that the tent's entrance was sealed correctly before taking his place next to the girl and opening one of the bottles.
"[I'm really drunk today]!" Doku shouted after taking a single sip from the flask. "[I can't trust my eyes anymore]."
Khan frowned, but his eyes widened when Liiza crossed the two Niqols and jumped on his lap. Khan shot a confused gaze toward her, but his mind went blank when her cold lips fell on his mouth.
"[Such good booze]," Doku continued to shout in an obvious forced tone.
"[Why is he shouting]?" Khan whispered when Liiza raised her face.
"[It's better like this, trust me]," Azni commented while patting Doku's shoulder. "[This idiot needs to convince himself that everything is happening inside his mind to lie to our superiors. Don't worry. He had to do something similar with me when we got together]."
"[When you temped me until I ignored my position as squad leader]," Doku complained before taking another long sip from the flask as soon as his eyes ended on Khan and Liiza.
"[I didn't know I made you so unhappy]," Azni pouted.
"[Azni]," Doku pleaded when he realized that he had misspoken, and the couple started bickering under Khan and Liiza's surprised gaze.
"[What are you doing here]?" Khan eventually asked while turning to look at his girlfriend.
Liiza's hands were on his cheek, but she slowly moved them on his back as she wrapped her arms around his neck. They slowly slipped inside his robe and caressed his bare skin while she bent her head forward and showed her brightest smile.
"[Did you really think that I would have ignored your birthday]?" Liiza responded in a loving tone. "[I asked Azni for her help as soon as I found a chance]."
"[My birthday is tomorrow]," Khan teased, but Liiza promptly tapped his forehead.
"[Don't be picky now]," Liiza said in a pleading tone. "[Hold me tightly. We don't have much time, and I have been cold for an entire week]."
****
Author's notes: It's pretty late, so I'll deal with Demonic Sword now. The second chapter for Chaos will arrive after those three, so I guess 6-7 hours.