Everything was on fire. Even Khan's mind burnt while he remained on his knees and stared at the gory scene. The monster was dead, but the hunting groups had to pay a steep price to win.
Multiple trails of thin smoke came out of the ground. Khan could often see a Niqols or a human at their base. Most recruits had fallen unconscious after the recent attack, but their skin didn't stop burning. A single monster had almost taken out two entire classes on its own.
'Dammit,' Khan couldn't help but curse in his mind when he inspected the state of his body.
The last acceleration had created multiple burns on his front. They had fused with the injuries caused by the lightning bolt, which gave Khan a reddish and feverish appearance.
Khan's consciousness and strength dwindled as his position grew unstable. He felt on the verge of falling forward, but he called upon all his remaining power to bend backward and let his back hit the ground.
His injuries felt cold while they remained exposed to the stale air inside the forest. His uniform had disappeared during the battle, but he couldn't remember when that had happened.
His mental barrier surged and crumbled cyclically. The burning sensation was too intense, so Khan rarely managed to keep the pain away for more than a few seconds.
Khan managed to hear hurried steps around him whenever the mental barrier was up. He had long since closed his eyes, but his sensitivity to mana and ears allowed him to gain a vague understanding of his surroundings even in that situation.
Muffled orders reached his ears. Khan heard Paul and Chief Alu's voices, but the pain that filled his mind made him lose part of their words. The two leaders were managing the battlefield and tending the injured, but Khan couldn't understand the various details of that process.
A cold sensation suddenly spread on Khan's left arm and made him tense his body. That feeling had arrived when he was busy rebuilding the mental barrier, so he had been too surprised to remain calm.
"Don't move," Paul's voice reached his ears while he opened his eyes and saw the soldier sitting next to him. "This should make you feel better in no time. I believe only your hand will take a while to heal."
Paul was spreading a dense half-transparent ointment over Khan's injuries. He took the substance from a big cylindric flask placed next to him and carefully applied it over the entirety of Khan's torso and legs.
"You must let your skin absorb the lotion," Paul explained. "Don't move for a few hours. Try to sleep if you can."
Khan nodded, but a snort resounded in his mind when he saw Paul grabbing the flask and leaving him. Sleeping wouldn't make him stay still at all.
The cold sensation that filled Khan's front appeased the burning sensation and made him able to endure it without the help of the metal barrier.
His condition seemed to improve as the minutes passed. Only his left hand and waist continued to annoy him, but the rest of his body began to feel better in no time.
Khan did his best to help the lotion with his meditation. Two hours went by quickly while he spread mana through his body and aided the healing process. However, his skin had yet to change color by the time he opened his eyes. It was still red and full of burns.
'I guess this relief is part of the lotion,' Khan sighed in his mind as he tilted his head left and right to inspect the area.
The corpse of the monster wasn't next to him anymore. Only the puddle of blood released by its broken head had remained at his side. Some Niqols and humans in the distance shared his condition as they waited for their bodies to absorb the lotion.
Khan even noticed Paul going over a few Niqols sitting next to trees. Their different species didn't stop him from applying the lotion to their charred spots, and the aliens accepted the treatment after Chief Alu confirmed that it was harmless.
Two more hours had to pass before Khan's body absorbed the lotion. His skin felt slightly numb when he forced himself to sit on the ground, but pain still spread from his left hand and the long horizontal burn on his waist.
'I'm a mess,' Khan sighed at the sight of his red skin.
It would take him at least a full day to recover, but his annoyance didn't only come from the time that he would lose to get better. The many injured humans and Niqols generated doubts in his mind. He couldn't help but feel that sending those recruits against the monster had been a bad decision.
"You shouldn't be up," Chief Alu announced while approaching Khan. "Rest is the best medicine. Allow your mana to heal you. Paul, Liiza, and the other Niqols have told me what you did. I'm actually envious that you belong to the human species now."
Chief Alu wore his gentle smile during the entirety of his speech, but Khan didn't know how he could appear so relaxed after most of his underlings had suffered injuries.
Khan's mind was still too messy to give birth to a polite answer. He felt that he would complain just like his father did with the inept soldiers if he opened his mouth.
"I'll make sure to tell my superiors about your feats," Chief Alu continued. "Who knows? They might finally decide to bring the relationship between our species to the next step."
The foul feeling that Lieutenant Kintea had managed to originate returned after he heard those words. Khan knew that the outcome of the hunt should make him ecstatic, but he couldn't feel happy after witnessing the monster hurting so many recruits.
Yet, Khan still grunted as he placed his right hand on the ground and stood up to perform the iconic bow of the Niqols. Chief Alu revealed a surprised expression when he saw that gesture, but his smile soon returned as he proceeded to reply with the same salute.
Chief Alu left to assist the other wounded at that point, and Khan remained still to inspect the battlefield once more. A dark figure eventually captured the entirety of his attention and almost made him fall into a daze.
Liiza was helping Paul and Chief Alu with the wounded. She attended the recruits from both species, and she showed no hesitation in front of their gruesome injuries when applying lotions and bandages.
Liiza had the chance to glance at Khan when she switched patients. He even believed that she had seen him from the corner of her eyes. Yet, it was clear that she was holding back from staring directly at him.
Khan moved his gaze away quickly. He didn't want to be the reason behind the shattering of her self-restraint. He didn't want to take risks even if his desire to rest on her lap seemed to be stronger than the pain released by his hand.
George, Sonia, and a few recruits who had suffered superficial injuries eventually entered the battlefield while carrying large flasks and provisions. They seemed in charge of relocating the camp, and they couldn't help but smile when they saw that Khan was on his feet.
George put down the flasks and unsheathed his sword while showing a wide smile. He had found his blade, but its color had changed. Its sharp edges had been pale-silver before, but they were completely black now.
Khan showed his charred palm and pointed at it with his other hand. George gave the thumbs up at that scene. It seemed that the blade had endured part of the lightning bolt that had spread through Khan's arm, and George was clearly glad about that outcome.
The messy battlefield filled with wounded recruits, loud groans, and a few cries was something that Khan didn't want to endure. Those scenes only made his desire to talk with Liiza increase, so he preferred to walk back to the previous gathering point and resume his meditation there.
Khan walked slowly. He felt tired, and the sudden movements made his many burns hurt again. Yet, he felt better after a while.
The path back to the previous camp was relatively straightforward. Paul and the others had left clear tracks, and Khan had even gained a general idea of his position after the hunt. The familiar empty spot soon unfolded in his vision, but his mind suddenly sensed a dense mass of mana past it.
Khan let his curiosity guide him. The mana in the distance didn't move, so he knew that it didn't belong to anything dangerous. He walked past the empty spot and among the trees until two figures appeared in his eyes.
The first figure was easy to recognize. It belonged to the monster that Khan had killed a few hours ago. The mana inside the corpse had fused with its dead flesh by then and had made it safe to handle even for normal humans.
Instead, the other figure made Khan's expression grow colder. It had a human shape, but a brown blanket covered the entirety of its body while it lay next to the monster's corpse.
Khan had already seen George and Liiza, so no worries appeared in his mind. However, he still walked toward the corpse and gave voice to a grunt while he bent to lift the blanket.
Glenn's face soon appeared in his eyes. The boy's expression was peaceful, but the scent of charred flesh came out from under the blanket and made Khan cover its face again.
His mind then sensed a familiar presence nearing him from behind. Khan straightened his position and saw Paul walking toward him while wearing a complicated expression.
"The others still don't know about it," Paul revealed as his eyes fell on the corpse covered by the blanket. "I tried to restart his heart, but nothing worked. The medical bay in the camp might have done something more, but…."
Paul fell silent, and Khan didn't say anything either. The two simply stared at the brown blanket. Silence could be deafening at times, but they didn't want to hear anything else now.
"Was this really necessary?" Khan asked. "Is this the best that two intelligent species can do?"
"Don't start questioning your orders now," Paul sighed. "That's a slippery slope, and I'm not only talking about your position in the army. It helps to separate your mind from all of this."
"What exactly is this?" Khan asked. "I thought we were here to reinforce the relationship with an alien species."
"Today's events did that," Paul explained. "You did that. Glenn did that. His death will bring humans and Niqols closer. He will be a hero of our species."
"He was only a kid," Khan whispered. "All of them are."
"They stopped being kids when they enlisted," Paul replied in a cold voice. "Our mission on Nitis is delicate. We can only go along with what the Niqols say and rejoice if we gain something out of it. This opportunity might make you believe that we are special, but the Global Army wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice all of us to grow closer to the aliens."
"A relationship founded on blood and corpses," Khan commented.
"Don't be dumb," Paul snorted. "Do you have any idea how many experts have blown off their own limbs to perfect the stable martial art in your hands? The same applies to everything connected and unrelated to mana. Blood is the most valuable currency in the universe. It's only a matter of being willing to use it."
"How are the others?" Khan asked while his mind absorbed Paul's words.
"They are mostly fine," Paul sighed as the faint anger from before vanished. "A few weeks of meds and meditations should be enough to bring everyone back on their feet."
"Has Captain Erbair already announced the break?" Khan asked while turning toward Paul for the first time during their conversation.
"She has yet to receive the message since the network is unstable here," Paul explained. "Still, I believe she'll give a few weeks off from the lessons."
A tinge of warmth spread through the coldness that had filled Khan's mind. He couldn't help but think about Liiza when he heard about the break. His desire to talk with her was so intense that it almost made him forget about his injuries.
"Focus on resting now," Paul ordered when he saw Khan lowering his gaze back on Glenn. "Get that hand patched up and sleep. We'll stay here at least another day, so get a new uniform from the backpack. You can't stay like this."
Paul's words reminded Khan that his uniform had almost completely disappeared. He only had a few rags covering his pants, but everything else had vanished. His shoes even had a few holes that revealed his toes.
