Khan ended up on the trajectory of four punches that forced him to cross his arms and activate the [Blood Shield]. He had managed to take one of Lieutenant Pouille's opponents by surprise, but his sneak attack had revealed his position, allowing one of the Stal around the group to target him.
The impact with the four punches flung Khan back. He didn't have the time to plant his feet on the ground, so the attack pushed him in the trajectory of the Stal that Lieutenant Pouille had just killed. The alien fell on him, forcing his momentum to an end.
The Stal that the Lieutenant had previously pushed away had noticed Khan's actions. An angry growl came out of its two heads as it decided to deal with the impaired human before turning toward its other opponent. The same went for the aliens that had gathered around the group since Khan now stood in the open.
The aliens never reached Khan since Lieutenant Pouille charged toward his previous opponent and slammed his palms on its side. The attack was more effective from that position, and the soldier also had the chance to use his full power on a single target. The Stal ended up leaving the ground and flying for a few meters, allowing Khan to push the corpse away while retreating on that now safe path.
Chaos quickly fell on Khan and the Lieutenant again. The former saw Stal stepping on their companions' corpses to reach their opponents quickly, but the situation had changed now that his leader didn't have multiple strong aliens against him. Khan could slash his way through the many limbs that tried to hinder his escape while Lieutenant Pouille took care of opening a path.
Khan could feel himself flowing among the waves of mana. He almost forgot that he was in control of his body. He ducked, jumped, and slashed depending on the hindrance that appeared on his path, without ever forgetting to follow the mass of energy radiated by his superior.
Blood spread his view, and growls filled his ears as the escape continued. Khan struggled to keep track of the limbs severed with his knife, but a refreshing sight eventually unfolded in his eyes. He finally saw the remains of the initial barrier and the rest of his platoon farther away. Those soldiers had taken position next to the moving camp, and they had their rifles ready to fire as soon as they had clear shots.
Khan had lost sight of Ian and one of the other soldiers. His group had shrunk, but his mind didn't have any room for those worries. Lieutenant Pouille suddenly changed the direction of the retreat to move behind the nearby building, but that meant more battles.
A Stal tried to approach Khan through a frontal charge, but it vanished from his view since Lieutenant Pouille made an alien fly in its path. Khan couldn't relax yet since another Stal approached him from his left and forced him to slide on the ground while waving his knife upward.
The alien had stretched its arms toward Khan and had tried to follow his movements, but it lost one of its hands when the knife flashed. The sharp pain didn't interrupt the Stal's charge, but it forced it to lift its limbs out of fear.
Khan spun on himself while straightening his position to stab his knife on the Stal's left side and lift it until the mana around it lost its power. The alien found a long and deep cut after Khan retracted his weapon. It still wanted to charge at its opponent, but a sense of weakness quickly filled its body and made it fall to the ground.
Delia tripped over the corpse, but Khan was the perfect handhold to prevent her from falling. He found the woman on him while he was in the middle of turning toward the Lieutenant, and the event didn't slow him down. He simply decided to jump back and carry his companion with him.
Delia only needed a second to restore her balance and leave Khan. The two found three Stal closing on their position, but they were too big to attack them at the same time. They ended up obstructing each other assaults, wasting the tiny window caused by Delia's fall.
Khan used that chance to duck past the thick limbs and slash a torso open. The three aliens tried to follow his movements, but that only hindered their movements further since he was too small for those tall beings.
Delia voiced a high-pitched cry during that moment of confusion. The mana that accompanied the spell scared Khan and made him interrupt his attack. He even covered his ears before that soundwave could reach him, but that mana turned out to be harmless to him.
The same didn't go for the three Stal. The alien with the open torso saw more blood bursting out of its injury, while the other bleed from their eyes, ears, and noses. The first Stall directly fainted, while its companions fell in an intense confused state.
The confused Stal fell prey to their instincts. They waved their arms left and right while they waited for their senses to regain some clarity, but Khan and Delia didn't waste that chance.
Khan couldn't approach his opponents from behind due to the other aliens gathering in that position, so he limited himself to open two deep cuts on the closest Stal's legs. Instead, Delia studied the messy attacks of the other Stal before pulling one of its arms at the right moment and disturbing its balance.
Both Stal ended up on the ground, and their huge bodies hindered their companions. Khan and Delia could finally chase after Lieutenant Pouille and resume their escape.
Bullets started to fill the battlefield as soon as the entirety of the human group reached the building. Khan and the others focused on pushing the aliens back into the exposed areas so that their companions could gun them down. Azure projectiles flashed non-stop in the area, but the soldiers never stopped kicking, punching, and launching spells to repel the Stal.
The enemy platoon finally shrunk to a point when Khan's group could see the end of that mission. Some Stal had accepted that they couldn't remain in the open and had found cover behind other buildings, but many had fallen under the rain of bullets. Others had died due to the bombs, and the retreat had also killed a few of them.
Victory felt incredibly close, but none of the soldiers dared to lower their guards. Still, Khan eventually found himself with no Stal to fight since Lieutenant Pouille was enough to push most of them in the open.
Khan finally had the time to inspect the battlefield. Clara, Delia, Lieutenant Pouille, and the man that he didn't have the time to know were around him. Ian and the other two soldiers were nowhere to be seen. Khan could only guess that the corpses in the area were hiding them.
A small group of Stal was hiding in the building on the other side of the exposed area, but they were no threat to Khan's group. None of them was as strong as Lieutenant Pouille, so he could disregard them.
Other aliens were still approaching Khan's group from behind, but they also lacked warriors capable of dealing with Lieutenant Pouille. A few structures had suffered some damage due to the bombs and the vehicle, but they all seemed operative. Khan couldn't see the anti-aircraft gun from his position, but it couldn't be too far away. Everything was going perfectly, but his eyes suddenly widened in astonishment.
The many bullets flying across the battlefield and the various discharges of mana prevented Khan from sensing events too far away. However, he felt unable to miss the sudden appearance of a series of presences.
Tall bodies full of mana appeared in each building of the settlement. They were so numerous that Khan managed to sense them among the chaos created by the small battles around him and the many bullets. He could easily connect those presences to the Stal, but he couldn't explain how those aliens had remained hidden for so long.
The issue wasn't purely linked to his sensations. The Stal were simply too big, so the settlement couldn't contain many of them. The number of aliens that Khan's group had seen seemed already able to fill those buildings.
Khan knew that those reinforcements had just arrived in the settlement, but that didn't happen through teleports. He would have sensed them otherwise. The only possible explanation involved underground passages directly connected to the buildings, but that created a discrepancy with the intel about the Stal. In theory, that species wasn't intelligent enough to rely on such battle tactics, and they would have never remained hidden for so long during an enemy attack.
Khan could still believe that the new troops had required a few minutes to reach the settlement after receiving an alarm, but their joint arrival felt too coincidental. The aliens had appeared at the same second, even if the buildings were in different positions.
Lieutenant Pouille didn't need Khan's warning to notice the new wave of Stal that had appeared in the settlement, but he shared his stupor. Still, it was up to him to give orders, and the situation left him with only one option.
"Retreat!" Lieutenant Pouille shouted before the rest of his underlings could notice the incoming Stal.
The Lieutenant immediately moved past Khan and the others to appear in the area invaded by flying bullets. He put his arms forward and discharged mana multiple times to make sure that no projectile landed on his body. Khan followed closely behind him, and the other soldiers disregarded their confusion to chase after their superior.
A few bullets exploded in front of Lieutenant Pouille and filled the group's surroundings with azure light before the soldiers in the safe spot understood that their allies had appeared in their line of sight. Only a few confident marksmen decided to continue firing, but they remained stunned when they saw many figures hurrying past the covers or outside the buildings.
A new platoon of Stal had appeared out of nowhere, but the soldiers didn't fall prey to their worries. They were in a safe position, and their camp was right next to them. They only had to take a few steps to return inside their habitation, so they continued to fire at their enemies to open a path for their allies.
Even those who didn't have a good aim decided to join that assault. A few bullets ended up flying in Lieutenant Pouille's direction, but he handled them with his spells. Drops of sweat had covered the soldier's face, hands, and uniform, but he didn't hold back his attacks. Still, it was evident that the effort was bringing him closer to his limits.
Everything changed again when part of the ground behind the camp opened to reveal large platforms full of Stal. Lieutenant Pouille couldn't help but hesitate for an instant at the sight of those new troops, but he didn't give up. He knew how powerful the moving quarters could be, so he continued to do his best to reach it.
Nevertheless, the ground under the camp suddenly opened to allow the passage of another platform. The Stal standing there raised their thick arms and worked together to tilt the huge structure until it turned upside-down. Even the soldiers in the safe spot lost hope when a small platoon of aliens replaced their quarters. They couldn't understand how the situation had gone south so abruptly.
The soldiers stopped firing, and Lieutenant Pouille halted his retreat. The aliens were everywhere, and they even advanced to encircle the human group. HQ had sent them to fight a platoon, but they had an entire battalion around them now. That scene didn't leave room for hope.
Khan soon remained the only one who still inspected the environment to find possible escape routes. He couldn't give up on his life so easily. He had suffered too much to die on that planet.
His inspection didn't give promising results. He could use his speed to take by surprise one of the weak spots in the encirclement, but he would remain in the open afterward. He had a chance to outrun the strongest Stal in the area, but some of them had rifles, while the others could always seize them from his companions.
The faint hope to survive that crisis was enough for Khan. He didn't care how slim his chances were as long as he had a shot. Yet, the Stal didn't advance after completing the encirclement. They remained still and turned only when another hole appeared on the ground among them.
The humans on the scene also gazed at the new platform rising among them, and pure astonishment filled their faces when they saw a group of Stal with a Guko in their lead. The latter quickly jumped off that secret elevator to point the screen in its hands toward the soldiers.
The inspection lasted for a whole silent minute until the Guko voiced something in the Stal's language and returned to its platform. The Stal then took out large handcuffs and black sacks from their backpacks before approaching the humans.
