Onp didn't make the same mistake as the last time. During Khan's first call, he had left the scanners to the scientists, planning to review the footage later, leading to him losing face in the following meeting.
Instead, now, Onp decided to inspect every second of the battle in real-time. The new frontline was still within the building's range, so distance wasn't a problem. Yet, the scenes that reached him made him wonder whether his eyes were lying to him.
The building's scanners recorded the entirety of the battlefield, but Onp focused only on those pointed at Khan. He also changed their settings to get a better view of his actions, and his thoughts soon vanished, replaced by a simple question.
[How]?
Onp was an experienced soldier. He was more inclined toward the political side, but that didn't take anything away from his feats. He had fought. He had served the Empire on many battlefields, but his mind couldn't make sense of the footage.
Moreover, Onp knew Cegnore well. He had studied its threats long before taking control of the building. He had also matched that knowledge with footage acquired on-site, which told him exactly how strong the monsters, the humanoid wolves, and the mutated Thilku were.
Onp even knew a lot about humans. The Empire's archives had piles of data about those allies, listing every flaw, quality, and more. Onp had studied all that, but watching Khan still gave birth to that simple question.
[How]?
How could a human move so fast? How could a soldier kill so effortlessly? How could anyone fight so many powerful enemies simultaneously and win?
Onp couldn't answer those questions, and his doubts only increased as the scanners continued to show surprising scenes. Those machines also kept track of the mana waves, but that did little to clarify his confusion.
The mutated Thilku were stronger and faster than Khan in melee combat, but he easily stopped their blows. Approaching them frontally was a suicidal move, but Khan overcame those bad odds, gaining an overwhelming victory.
As for how Khan achieved that, Onp didn't know. The mutated Thilku could react to Khan's attacks, but he was always one step ahead, making that speed useless. Besides, his knife was deadly, cutting through any protection.
Beings that would have taken an entire team to defeat fell in a matter of seconds, and Khan even played with them toward the end. However, he wasn't done yet, and Onp almost stood up when he saw him going after the humanoid wolves.
Onp could overlook that the humanoid wolves reacted to Khan's voice, but what came afterward finally made him leave his seat. The following scenes prevented him from blinking, intensifying the loud question that had filled his mind.
The humanoid wolves weren't as strong or fast as the mutated Thilku, but their battle prowess was no joke. Their beams were deadly, and their defensive spells could repel incredible attacks. Moreover, they wielded a tinge of intelligence, allowing them to cooperate.
However, nothing worked on Khan. He matched the beams' speed, and his flight pattern always prevented all the wolves from following him with their eyes.
Also, whenever the humanoid wolves were about to corner Khan, a heavy tremor swept the mana in the area, destabilizing the incoming attacks. Those moments created valuable windows Khan didn't fail to exploit, and the number of his opponents decreased whenever one of them happened.
As the battle continued, Khan's superiority became evident, but that didn't come from the fewer enemies. Half- and fully-formed spells began to appear in random places near the humanoid wolves, unleashing their might and distracting them long enough to seize their lives.
At times, the spells directly killed those creatures, and Khan didn't even bother to inspect the event. He slaughtered those monsters without deigning them with a single glance, but those small victories never appeased the intensity conveyed by his eyes.
Even after the battle against the humanoid wolves was over, Onp continued to review those scenes. He applied special filters, unique options, and more to study those exchanges from different perspectives, but his mind struggled to keep up.
An explanation eventually became evident. The scanners could check the mana in the environment, so Onp could see that the world had helped Khan. The air itself had become his weapon in that fight.
Nevertheless, that range and sheer power remained surprising. Onp had seen shamans. He had even checked records from the Empire's archives about those mysterious types of warriors, but Khan stood above anything he had read or seen. The world wasn't supposed to be that strong or influential, but the footage told him otherwise.
To add insult to injury, Khan remained a human. He had undergone mutations, but his species didn't technically change. He was also a mere third-level warrior, but his power crossed the boundaries of his status.
Onp couldn't refrain from falling back on his seat. He felt drained. Watching Khan fight destroyed the mental hierarchy of power built after serving for years. He couldn't see Khan as a third-level warrior, but the scanners weren't lying.
As hard as it was to accept the truth, Onp couldn't let himself remain bewildered. He focused on the scanners again and felt no surprise seeing Khan marching toward the remaining monsters. After everything he had seen, he was certain Khan would keep fighting.
That didn't only prove Khan's incredible stamina. It also added the final piece to an idea Onp had begun to think about since the beginning of his inspection. Khan was the strongest third-level warrior he had ever seen.
'[The Global Army has given birth to a monster],' Onp thought, calming his thoughts to focus on the issue at hand. '[The question is, how can he serve the Empire]?'
Onp quickly opened another menu on the control desk before him. A picture of Cegnore shot up in the form of holograms, displaying how little the Empire knew about the planet. The surface had long since been mapped, but most of the underground world remained unknown.
The Empire's lack of manpower had prevented a deeper exploration of the planet, but a solution was in sight. If Khan remained unstoppable, the Empire could save resources while pursuing its goals of colonizing Cegnore.
'[It's insulting to rely on a human],' Onp considered, '[But that's what he wants, and he has the strength to back up his requests].'
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Meanwhile, on the battlefield, Khan landed on the ground after the last humanoid wolf fell dead at his side. The air reeked of chaos due to the prolonged battle, and that smell invaded his nostrils, empowering the unreasonable urges running through his thoughts.
'Is there really no one who can stop me?' Khan wondered, gazing at the messy battlefield. His brain burned, but desire enveloped that sensation. He had learned to wield incredible power, but the world wasn't giving him an opponent capable of matching it.
'Maybe if I kill enough monsters, Cegnore will send someone worthwhile,' Khan considered, 'Maybe someone with actual answers.'
The desire to fight stemmed from the very power inside Khan. It wasn't unique to the chaos element either. He simply wanted a chance to use the strength he had painstakingly built over the years.
Still, the chaos element added urges of its own. It didn't only want to triumph against those weaker copies. Khan's desperation also turned into anger at the sight of so much Nak's presence. Cegnore was almost a breeding ground for Tainted animals, and Khan couldn't allow it to exist.
Strength ran through Khan's body. Relying on the symphony to fight set his brain on fire, but he was nowhere near exhausted, especially with the chaos element sending wild urges. He could still fight, and the sea of blue fur was within his reach.
Khan flew forward almost instinctively, diving directly into the enemy lines to unleash a slaughter only he was capable of. The death of the humanoid wolves had made the remaining monsters go wild, granting the Thilku army a stark advantage, and Khan's arrival deepened that feature.
The clash between the two armies didn't last long, but that period had been enough to fill the area with the chaos element. Khan found himself at home as soon as he landed among the monsters, and his new ability showed its full power once again.
The monsters felt as if they were trapped between two armies. On one side, the Thilku's organized and methodic offensive continued to push them back and create casualties. On the other, spells detonated in random areas, unleashing explosions that killed many specimens.
Anyone could see that the struggle was hopeless, but the monsters had long since fallen prey to their hunger, becoming mindless beasts that kept fighting until their last breath. That didn't take long to arrive because the Thilku and Khan attacked them from both sides, and the battle eventually ended.
As the dust created by the massive fight settled, the Thilku began to search for surviving opponents, but a figure ended up claiming their attention. A small human covered in blood stood on the opposite side of the new gorge created by the battle, and the scene at his feet kept those alien eyes fixed on him.
A sea of fur surrounded Khan. He stood in the middle of hundreds of corpses, but his gaze never lingered on them. He showed his back at the Thilku army while his eyes remained on the gorge's edge, stretching past that channel to look at the dark horizon. Even that slaughter couldn't satisfy him.
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