Khan struggled to understand for how long he fell. His proficiency with the Lightning-demon style had stepped on the competent level, granting him incredible agility and ability to preserve balance. However, he couldn't deploy those skills when the ground shattered as soon as his feet touched it.
The underground world of the regions filled with tunnels was incredibly frail. It turned out that only the surface had retained a stable structure, but everything under it had the same texture as thin glass. A simple impact was enough to make large patches shatter into countless pieces.
Khan failed to find a stable foothold multiple times as everything around him crumbled. Waterfalls made of dirt and ground fell together with him and clouded his vision. His eyes burnt, but he forced himself not to close them. He was worried about his situation, but he also hated how he couldn't get to his girlfriend falling only a few meters from him.
Liiza's glowing eyes also ended on Khan as the waves of frail ground submerged them and brought them deeper into the region. Worry and confusion filled her face, but the currents of terrain eventually led her far away. The same happened to Khan and the other Niqols. The dark soil creates proper rivers that flowed into different directions and divided the group.
It didn't take much before Khan felt unable to see anything. Complete darkness filled his burning eyes. The dirt had forced him to close them at some point, but they still hurt as they tried to disperse the soil that had tainted them.
His body continued to move with the river of ground, but he changed direction from time to time. Khan wasn't sure what could cause that massive amount of soil to twist, but the impact with a firm surface made him gain a vague idea of his situation.
The flowing ground tried to squash Khan on the firm surface, but his body was strong enough to oppose that intense force. The prolonged contact allowed him to understand the nature of that tough wall. He could sense sharp rocks tearing open holes in his robe and cutting his back. It became clear that he had hit one of the solid parts of that chaotic underground structure.
His physical strength didn't allow him to break free of that suppression. The ground gained the same texture as steel as it continued to press him on the rocky wall. Khan spent entire minutes in that position, and breathing grew harder as time passed.
Thoughts on the layout of the underground structure appeared in his mind as he struggled to dig space where his nose could breathe. It seemed that the Tainted animals that had ravaged the area had left a few parts intact. Khan wondered whether those parts were too tough to pierce, but he didn't linger too long on those ideas.
Cuts continued to open on his back as his body bent back and forth in a desperate attempt to clear the path for his mouth or nose. Khan breathed, but that air was never enough to satisfy his lungs. He soon felt lightheaded, but everything around him resumed to move at that point.
The river of terrain flowed again and dragged Khan deeper into the underground world until he slammed on another solid surface. The ground falling above his head and on his injured back tried to squash him, but everything stopped moving before the situation could become too dangerous.
Khan remained still until he confirmed that everything around him had stabilized. He didn't feel any unstoppable force pressing him down, so he did his best to dig his way through the ground that had accumulated above him and straighten his position.
His movements generated loud noises that made him freeze. Khan didn't know how stable his situation was, so he wanted to approach the digging slowly. However, he couldn't avoid causing a mess whenever he moved the ground above him.
His hands eventually reached a spot where stale air could flow over them. Khan rejoiced at that sensation and hurried to make the rest of his body escape that pile of terrain. His dirty head eventually came out, but his muddy eyes didn't give him the chance to see much.
Khan pulled his entire body out of the ground and found a stable foothold before straightening his position. He had yet to clean his eyes, but he preferred to prioritize his footing. He was useless without it.
The ground under his soles was far from stable, but it was enough for his martial art, and Khan didn't need anything else. He could finally focus on his eyes, but nothing about him was clean enough to clean them after the journey underground.
The back of Khan's robe was already in pieces, and blood had even tainted it in multiple spots. Tearing it apart and patting it to remove the soil lingering on its surfaces didn't take much. He soon obtained a relatively clean fabric that could clean his eyes.
His vision slowly returned as he wiped his eyes clean. Khan found himself inside a tall and large tunnel made of smoot and cold rocks. Multiple holes appeared on the ground, walls, and ceiling, and he even found a relatively large opening right above him.
Khan was standing on a three meters tall pile of terrain that had fallen with him through the large opening. The ceiling was at ten more meters above him, which basically made it unreachable, and the rest of the tunnel didn't feature enough handholds that could make him reach that hole.
'I can't go back from there,' Khan quickly concluded as he lowered his head to check that the pile of soil didn't betray his feet.
Nevertheless, a few black figures entered his vision when he glanced at his uncovered waist. Khan didn't notice them before because he had regained his vision only when his eyes were already on the environment, but it became impossible to miss them now.
Khan saw a series of worm-like creatures attached at the lower side of his waist. His hands shot before he could even consider his situation, and sharp pain spread through his body when he forced them to separate from his skin.
Each worm left behind a circular bleeding wound. Those creatures turned out to be leeches, and Khan didn't hesitate to remove all of them. They felt rough and dry when he touched their soft bodies, and a simple squeeze was enough to squash them to death.
Many circular bleeding wounds appeared on Khan's waist after the process was over, but he didn't feel satisfied yet. His hand went on his back, where he found a few more leeches attached to its lower part. His shoulders and upper part seemed clear, but he still checked them multiple times since his eyes couldn't reach those spots.
His search didn't end there. Khan checked his face, neck, and armpits, but he found other leeches only when he went over his legs. Multiple leeches were sucking his blood there, and he crushed them in an instant.
Khan felt dizzy after he confirmed to have killed all the leeches on him. The circular wounds continued to release blood that accumulated on the pile of ground under him and worsen his condition. Still, a peculiar scene appeared in his vision before he could take care of himself.
Multiple leeches came out of the terrain under him and started to suck the blood that had tainted it. Khan immediately understood how those creatures had managed to enter his clothes so easily. He had found their natural habitat.
Khan suppressed the urge to jump out of the pile of soil and took careful steps to reach the rocky floor under him. That surface appeared stable and firm. It even felt able to endure his kicks, but he didn't test that idea.
More leeches continued to come out of the pile of terrain and surround the wet patches created by Khan's blood. They appeared hungry but also weak. Moreover, their movements were slow once they came out of the ground.
Those weak creatures couldn't be the reason behind that messy underground structure. Yet, Khan could guess that a mutated specimen might be strong enough to pierce the terrain if the transformation went in the right direction. The only issue to that idea was the sheer size of the damage suffered by the underground world. He didn't know if a single monster had enough time to dig so much.
'Is there more than one monster?' Khan wondered as vague ideas appeared in his mind.
Khan's calculation used the worldwide crisis to determine the eventual appearance of the leech monster. Those few weeks didn't seem enough to create that deep underground structure, but he didn't dare to make too many assumptions. He knew how the mutations worked, but Nitis' fauna wasn't part of his expertise.
His mind suddenly spun as his dizziness intensified. Khan had to support himself to the rocky wall until his condition forced him to sit down. He didn't like to be so close to the pile of soil and the leeches, but he needed to meditate quite desperately.
Khan closed his eyes and led his mana flow throughout his body. Something strange immediately appeared while he kept track of the movements of that energy. He saw a foreign substance filling his circular wounds and forcing them to remain open.
Khan had to wash those spots with his mana a few times before his body expelled the foreign substance. His wounds could finally start to close at that point, and his condition immediately started to improve.
A chilling scene unfolded in his vision when he opened his eyes. Khan looked at the pile of terrain as soon as he came out of his meditative state, but the rocky ground attracted his attention. The leeches were crawling toward him, and some had even almost reached his knee.
Khan immediately stood up and started to stomp on those creatures. He killed all of them, and a faint annoyance filled his mind once he was done. Squashing the leeches didn't help him at all. He was still stuck inside that dark tunnel.
'These things are troublesome,' Khan cursed in his mind.
The leeches were weak, but they seemed able to hide from Khan's senses. His sensitivity to mana was useless against those opponents, and his agility also appeared unable to bring him out.
The memories of his fall reappeared in his vision as Khan thought about his situation. A large chunk of the region had shattered. Snow could surely fly down the hole and pick him up. Yet, he had to reach a spot where the Aduns could find him.
Moreover, Khan had another issue to handle. He didn't fall on his own. The desire to find Liiza was already filling his mind, but he managed to spare some thoughts for Doku, Azni, and the other Niqols. Except for Zaliha, they had all treated him as one of them. That alone said a lot about their character.
Khan tried to recall the direction of his fall before picking a path. The tunnel stretched on two sides, but he couldn't forget where the river of soil had brought Liiza. He quickly turned to his left and advanced slowly, making sure to check the stability of the ground in front of him and dodge holes.
The area was completely silent. Only the faint noise of ground falling somewhere that Khan couldn't see reached his ears.
Khan moved forward, paying extra attention to every unstable spot that he found. Everything appeared lifeless around him, but the tunnel didn't hesitate to prove him wrong.
A piece of frail ground at his side burst to release multiple leeches while he walked past it. Khan had already noticed that spot, but that sudden event took him by surprise. Luckily for him, he wasn't the type to freeze in those situations.
A kick reached the leeches before they could reach his face, and a loud noise followed the perfect execution of the technique. His sole was big enough to touch all of those creatures, but only some of them suffered a direct hit. However, the energy released during the ability made all of them explode.
That was Khan's first real attack against a living being after the improvement of his proficiency level. The effects of his kick ended up being incredible. The blow wasn't only faster and smoother. It even carried a power that he had never managed to express before.
The tremors generated by his perfect execution had been enough to squash the leeches, and Khan could only rejoice at that sight. He had been initially worried that his martial art might not suit those creatures, but those thoughts disappeared now.
That strange event happened two more times before the tunnel enlarged into a vast underground area that featured an actual river that flowed near a rocky wall. Dark waters filled its violent currents, but something else quickly attracted Khan's attention.
Khan saw patches of blood on the ground on the opposite side of the river. Bloody marks with the shape of a hand also tainted the rocky wall next to them. Those traces were even fresh, and Khan didn't hesitate to follow them.
The marks led Khan in front of a cavity connected to that large area. A pair of white lights appeared at the bottom of the cave when he crossed its entrance, but disappointment filled his mind at that point. He could immediately understand that those eyes didn't belong to his girlfriend.
"Khan!" Azni exclaimed as she suppressed a faint lament. "Help me out. I can't reach all of them."
Azni's condition became clear when Khan reached her. The girl had forsaken her robe. She was in her pants and sports bra, and many bleeding circular injuries filled her dark-blue skin. Still, she wasn't flexible enough to reach three leeches that had attached themselves to the center of her back.
Khan held Azni from her shoulder and ripped the leeches while squashing them in his grasp. The girl groaned and made sure to adjust her bra since the creatures had pulled away part of it, but she quickly thanked Khan afterward.
"Let me check your back now," Azni exclaimed as she grabbed Khan's shoulder.
"It should be fine," Khan explained while turning to show his back. "I checked many times before."
"But it's full of cuts!" Azni shouted.
"The fall wasn't gentle for me," Khan voiced a faint laugh, but a third presence suddenly appeared in the range of his senses.
Khan turned his head toward the entrance while Azni continued to check his back. Liiza's figure soon appeared in front of the cave, but her complexion appeared far from fine. She was pale, and her torn robe had turned dark-red after the fall and the blood loss.
"Liiza!" Azni exclaimed in a worried tone when she noticed her condition, but Khan's eyes widened when he saw the intense emotions running through Liiza's confused gaze.
Anger flashed on Liiza's face. Everything felt vague in her vision, but she could recognize Azni clung to Khan's bare back. She was almost naked too, and a misunderstanding formed in her confused mind.
That emotion made her focus long enough to point her hand at Azni and gather her mana, but Khan didn't let that sudden event surprise him. He had already understood that something was off, so he shot forward and bent her arm upward.
A shard of ice shot out of Liiza's fingers and stabbed the ceiling. The rocks couldn't even try to stop that attack. The areas around the pierced spot even started to freeze.
Azni's eyes widened in fear before anger filled her expression and her loud voice filled the cave. "[What are you even doing?! You could have killed me]!"
However, confusion soon made its way among her anger as Azni continued to inspect that scene. She didn't initially find anything wrong with Khan's rapid reaction, but something started to fell off.
Liiza didn't say anything when Khan grabbed her forearm and bent it toward the ceiling. Her anger even vanished from her face after Khan started explaining the situation through words whispered softly.
Khan sounded as if he were justifying the previous scene, and Liiza kept bending her head toward his chest before retracting it whenever she managed to focus.
Azni couldn't help but notice how they appeared completely at ease in that situation. A strange idea slowly appeared in her mind when she thought about her two companions, and disbelief slowly appeared on her face.
Azni didn't know Liiza's habits, but she had been at the center of the incident that had granted an Aduns to a human for the first time in history. That human ended up sneaking out of the parties early even, and Doku had told her how he had found the other recruits complaining about Khan's constant absence at night.
"No way," Azni whispered as she jumped happily toward the two and started inspecting their faces.
Azni appeared as the happiest Niqols in the world, and giggles even escaped her mouth when she saw the couple diverting their gazes at the same time.
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Author's notes: The chapter came out almost 3000 words long lol.