The mental connection with Snow grew weaker as the spaceship flew toward the space station. The vehicle accelerated before slowing down and causing a series of clunking noises during its landing. Its doors opened and revealed a bright environment filled with white light tainted only by the azure glow of the tubes that ran on its smooth dark surfaces.
Earth's air flowed inside the spaceship and brought relief to the humans' lungs. The soldiers and recruits' bodies recognized their home, but that sensation only filled Khan's mind with sadness. He remained focused on the mental connection with Snow until that portal into the Aduns' thoughts closed and transformed into nothing more than a faint dot. It still existed, but he could easily overlook it if he didn't pay attention.
A series of soldiers stood next to the spaceship and performed military salutes as Lieutenant Kintea and the others stood up. Dark-blue uniforms and white stars flashed in Khan's vision, but he barely committed them to memory. Orders also resounded, but nothing seemed able to enter his ears. His body moved, but his mind was too sore to study all the inputs that reached it.
The clanging noise that resounded after Khan jumped off the spaceship forced Khan to accept how final that moment was.. He had spent a bit more than seven months on Nitis, but everything was over now. He was back in the human world, and his thoughts hid in a dark corner of his mind to delay that realization.
Khan followed Lieutenant Kintea and the other soldiers, but he didn't study his surroundings. His eyes remained firm, but they didn't look at anything. He was a mere body empty of sensations and emotions that walked through bright and warm corridors before stopping inside a large hall. Multiple desks featuring interactive screens filled Khan's vision, but his gaze immediately went on the long glass at the end of the area.
"The interrogations will start soon!" The woman in charge of the team that had picked up the envoys shouted. "We will begin with-."
The woman stopped speaking when she noticed that Lieutenant Kintea had raised a hand, and the latter promptly explained himself. "There is no need to interrogate the others. I'm more than enough to provide a complete report."
The woman inspected Lieutenant Kintea. She didn't know if the soldier wanted to let his underlings off the hook or was simply looking to improve his value, but Khan soon claimed her attention. He had approached the window without caring that all the eyes in the hall had fallen on him.
"It's fine," Lieutenant Kintea reassured before the woman could scold Khan. "We went through a lot on Nitis. Let's deal with the report now."
The woman's gaze returned on Lieutenant Kintea, and she eventually nodded before pointing at one of the corridors connected to the hall. She watched the soldier leave, and a simple order escaped from her mouth as she moved to follow him. "Send the others to their rooms for now."
The soldiers in her team performed a military salute before approaching the envoys. Still, they soon found out that everyone was quite responsive, especially Kelly, Paul, and the two higher-ups. Rodney had remained inside the spaceship, and someone had probably already brought him into a cell, so only George and Khan didn't move immediately.
George inspected Khan for a few seconds, but he eventually decided to leave with the soldier. He wanted to be with his friend, but his mind was also a mess. He needed some time alone.
Khan inspected the world past the long window. He had initially managed to see Nitis clearly, but the dark planet became hard to notice as the space station left its atmosphere.
His palm went on the window as everything he had loved so hard in the past months grew farther away from him. The glass felt cold, good cold, but it couldn't suppress the dense sadness that was slowly filling his body.
"Your room awaits," A tall man said after waiting for a few minutes that Khan noticed his presence.
Khan ignored the soldier that had approached him from his left. He didn't care enough about the Global Army to lose those last glimpses of Nitis.
"You must come with me," The soldier insisted, but Khan continued to turn a deaf ear to his words.
The space station was fast, too fast for Khan's tastes. Nitis soon disappeared among the blackness of space, but he continued to search for the planet. He hoped that memorizing that dark spot would allow him to find it again in the future.
Khan's blatant disregard for his situation was getting on the soldier's nerves. The latter reached for the boy's shoulder, but he suddenly felt unable to move his arm. His eyes widened when he saw that Khan had grabbed his wrist.
The soldier opened his mouth to complain, but his tongue froze when Khan turned to inspect him. His cold eyes moved slowly and went from the man's face to his shoulders. The latter had a single star on his right. He was a mere first-level warrior.
The soldier had treated Khan as a simple seventeen-year-old boy, but that misconception crumbled when he inspected those cold eyes. Khan's gaze radiated a chilling calmness that sent waves of fear down the man's spine. The latter could only accept to be in front of a warrior who had far more experience than him.
"[Does-]," Khan began to speak, but he closed his eyes when he realized that he was using the Niqols' language. He spent a few seconds in silence before resuming voicing his question. "Does the room have a window?"
The soldier didn't know why he wasn't fighting to escape from Khan's grip. His very instincts were telling him to go along with that situation. He almost failed to realize that an answer had left his mouth. "No, they don't."
"I won't go there then," Khan stated as he let the soldier go. "Does this space station have a training hall?"
"Yes, but-," The soldier tried to explain that the Global Army rarely allowed the use of training halls inside the space stations due to their high consumption of synthetic mana, but Khan didn't let him finish.
"I'll go there," Khan announced. "Lead the way."
Khan began to walk toward the center of the hall, but he soon turned toward the soldier since he didn't know which corridor would lead to the training hall. The man didn't know what to do, but the slight soreness that had spread throughout his hand told him that Khan was strong enough to hurt him. That sensation and the cold eyes fixed on him eventually made him decide to go along with that request.
The two crossed many corridors silently, and the soldier didn't hold back from glancing at Khan whenever his curiosity had the best of him. That walk felt strange. The man was clearly leading that march, but he sensed that Khan was in charge.
"We are here," The soldier announced after stopping in front of a grey metal door. "You only need to-."
"I know how training halls work," Khan interrupted before taking out his phone and placing it next to the door.
The action didn't lead to any result. Khan's phone had died after the weeks spent inside the castles. The envoys had left their chargers somewhere on Nitis, and they didn't need them under the sunlight, but their devices had inevitably turned off after the constant night returned.
Khan heaved a helpless sigh in front of the unresponsiveness of his phone. He moved to his right and pointed at the door, but the soldier found himself in a pickle.
"The hall will use my Credits if I activate it," The soldier explained, hoping that Khan would give up on the matter.
"The Global Army will pay you back," Khan coldly replied.
"You can't know that!" The soldier complained.
"Then call someone," Khan ordered. "Tell them that Khan wants to use the training hall."
Under normal circumstances, the soldier would never bother his superiors over a kid, but the firmness in Khan's words made him pick up his phone. The man sent a message to the woman interrogating Lieutenant Kintea, and her answer left him stunned.
The soldier raised his eyes to stare at Khan in disbelief, but the latter didn't appear surprised to see that reaction. Khan radiated pure confidence, and he even made that aura appear normal on him.
"You are free to use the training hall as long as you want," The soldier uttered before timidly adding another word, "Sir."
Khan decided not to address that topic and waited calmly for the soldier to touch the door with his phone and press a few options. The entrance slid open, and the man performed a military salute when Khan entered the training hall.
The door closed behind Khan as soon as he tapped the metal floor a couple of times. Menus quickly appeared under his feet, but he ignored them to place his phone in the corner of the hall.
The training hall immediately started to charge the device as Khan undressed. He threw the upper part of his robe next to his phone and drew his broken knife before removing the sheathe from his waist. The Niqols had made him leave the cube on Nitis, so he didn't have anything else. Khan even took off his shoes and remained in his loose trousers before approaching the menus.
Khan was no stranger to the training programs in those halls, but everything was different now that he had become a first-level warrior. He needed to activate puppets powered by mana to test the level of his martial arts.
The training hall never stopped Khan. It allowed him to pick all the programs he desired, so he didn't hesitate to choose something suitable for his level. Clanking noises immediately resounded from behind the walls as azure shades seeped into the white light that illuminated the area.
The walls on the opposite side of the hall took a few minutes to open. Khan saw a three meters tall black puppet leaving the tubes and wires that kept it connected to the workshop. Azure lines ran across the dummy's body and revealed the presence of mana in its metal. It felt like a proper first-level warrior when he inspected the sheer amount of energy contained in its body.
Khan closed his eyes as the puppet charged toward him. It was fast, but it felt slow when he inspected it with his senses. He had enough time to muster his mana and shot forward through a simple movement that made him end behind the dummy.
The puppet immediately turned, but its quick movement revealed a diagonal cut on its oval face. Its four red eyes went dark as half of its head separated from the rest of its body and fell to the floor.
"Level four," The training hall announced.
Descriptions of the enhancements resounded in the hall, but Khan ignored them. He focused on the fact that the program had brought him directly to the fourth level, but that felt almost normal since he was far stronger than an ordinary first-level warrior.
The training hall retrieved the puppet and took a few minutes to build the next challenge, but its difficulty ended up disappointing Khan. He shook his head when he saw three dummies coming out of the workshops inside the walls.
'The program is preserving the synthetic mana,' Khan concluded in his mind.
Khan had picked a training program meant for first-level warriors, but the Global Army had set clear limits to the amount of mana that the hall could use. He didn't know if that was limited to the space stations due to their short stashes of energy, but he soon let go of his disappointment.
Facing three opponents almost as strong as first-level warriors wasn't an easy task. Khan's abilities simply happened to counter those challenges. Still, he decided to ignore those issues and focus on falling inside the unique mental state experienced in the muddy valley.
The three puppets charged at Khan. They had different sizes, speeds, and structures, but none of them was as fast as him. The first one to approach him found a vertical cut on its face after failing to catch him. The second dummy suddenly flew toward the third dummy as the metal on its side caved in, but precise kicks soon reduced their heads into a mass of wires, gears, and dark shards.
"Level six," The training hall announced, but Khan didn't hear that.
Khan's mind only paid attention to the mana in his surroundings. He felt able to smell the difference between natural and synthetic energy. Everything seemed so obvious that Khan wondered how he had failed to sense that in the first place.
The training hall soon created five puppets, and Khan moved as soon as he sensed that the flow of mana in his surroundings changed. He ducked, side-stepped, kicked, and waved his weapon without thinking. He didn't even care that his knife lost chunks of its broken blade from time to time.
The training program eventually forced Khan to rely on the [Blood Shield]. He even found himself flying around when he fell in the middle of a trap, but he never suffered severe injuries. A few bruises had appeared on his torso, arms, and mouth when he noticed that the hall wasn't sending dummies anymore.
Khan raised his eyes toward the wall and noticed the words "level ten" shining with a green light. He had completed the training program, and the debris around him only confirmed how fierce the battle had been. However, he still felt full of energy, even if some sweat had appeared on his body and a faint soreness had spread inside him.
'I guess a training program can't compare to an actual war,' Khan thought before browsing the menus to the floor to make some robots clear the hall.
Khan inspected his knife as he walked back to his phone. His weapon had initially featured a long blade, but only a sharp chunk shorter than four centimeters had remained now. He had mostly performed perfect executions of the Divine Reaper during the battle, but that didn't seem to be enough for a cracked item. His only consolation was that he had almost reached the competent proficiency level in his second martial art.
Khan was about to pick his phone, but someone suddenly knocked on the door. He used the menus to open it, and a helpless smile appeared on his face when he saw George crossing the entrance to show a bottle of booze and two glasses.
****
Author's notes: I've thought a lot about my current schedule lately. I can handle publishing so much each day, but that only if I cut away everything else from my life, so I've decided to establish Saturday and Sunday as partial breaks. I will publish 1 chapter for Chaos' Heir and 2 for Demonic Sword those days to fix eventual delays accumulated during the week, rest, or enjoy my life a little. I hope you can understand my position. By the way, today is Saturday for me, so there won't be a second chapter.
