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C494 Poisoned

The world in Khan's eyes spun, and his balance grew unstable. He felt on the verge of fainting, but more retches took control of his stomach and made him puke again.

Khan's stomach was basically empty, limiting his retches to mere spitting. His saliva still carried those odd violet shades, but they eventually disappeared, and the same went for the puking urge.

The weight on Khan's chest eased, but the dizziness remained, and his gaze grew unclear. Tunnel vision fell on him, but he could still notice the spreading of the purple marks on his hands. He forced himself to look at his open uniform too, where he saw that his torso was full of similar spots.

The symphony added details, giving Khan a vague idea of his condition. The odd color in his saliva cleared any doubt. His body had rejected the antidote, triggering the opposite effects.

Khan could feel the foreign mana flaring inside him. The poison was showing its effects, and his body appeared unable to contain them. A sense of weakness even arrived, and Khan swayed to his left as his balance gave in.

As soon as Khan's left arm peeked out of the trunk's cover, a corrosive bullet landed on his elbow, making him lose his grip on the knife. The weapon fell into the mud as pain filled his mind, bringing enough clarity to push him back into the tree.

A purple-red flare engulfed the dark-green liquid, erasing it before it could do too much damage. Khan even tore away the broken sleeve to check the injury. It wasn't too deep, but his grip felt shaky and weak. Even flexing the arm was troublesome. The Feicox had hit him well, probably taking out his left hand from the rest of the battle.

The dizziness returned as the pain waned, and Khan took a deep breath to muster the entirety of his concentration. He slightly crouched forward and eyed the small hole in front of him before snapping his right hand at it.

A bullet flew into that spot, but Khan's limb ended up being faster. The knife returned to his hands while the corrosive liquid dug through the mud. He had retrieved his weapon, but the sense of weakness returned stronger than ever, forcing him to lie on the trunk.

'Don't faint,' Khan cursed as the weakness intensified. 'Don't you dare faint.'

Khan's body didn't listen to that order. He was burning. He had to use the entirety of his concentration to remain on the trunk, but his mind was shutting down.

"Don't faint, dammit!" Khan shouted, slamming his injured elbow on the trunk. The wave of pain that followed brought clarity, temporarily awakening him.

Khan lay the back of his head on the trunk as grunts and gasps left his mouth. He could feel the weakness returning and attempting to remove his clarity, but that window gave him the time to think.

"[Jenna, help me]," Khan ended up whispering in the Nele's language, and the mana in the environment moved to comply with that request.

Khan's eyes widened as a trail appeared inside the symphony. The mana wanted him to go deeper into the forest, toward a nearby spot his senses could barely reach.

Moving felt hard, but Khan still mustered all the available strength to straighten his position. He slid on the trunk to help him stand up, and resolve fell on his expression as mana, both outside and inside his body, flowed toward his legs.

An inhuman sprint unfolded, and bullets flew on the path Khan crossed. Nothing hit him, but a sudden surge in his dizziness made him trip and crash in the mud. The wet ground couldn't disperse his momentum, so he slid and rolled on himself until his back landed on a tree.

A loud grunt left Khan's mouth as he hurried to his knees, but no bullets flew at him. It seemed that he had left the Feicox's range with his last sprint, so his eyes went on the symphony to follow the trail it conveyed.

After a few seconds, Khan's gaze fell on a green bush in the distance. The symphony wanted him to go there, but he felt too weak to walk, so he crawled through the mud until he reached his destination.

Khan grabbed the bush and pulled to bring himself closer. It turned out that the symphony wasn't targeting that plant. The mana had led Khan to the bluish flowers hidden behind it.

Jenna had taught Khan how to make potions and ointments, but he didn't have the strength or time to perform those arts. He put the knife in his left hand while his right reached one flower, pulled it out of the ground, and sent it into his mouth.

Khan munched, uncaring of the mud lingering on the flower's roots. The plant's texture was too elastic, so he eventually forced himself to gulp everything. His stomach was weak, but the Slums' habits kicked in, making it accept that uncommon meal.

The foreign mana screeched when the plant's properties spread through Khan's body, but that single meal wasn't enough to defeat it. The bush still hid two bluish flowers, and Khan didn't hesitate to seize them to eat once more.

The second meal had a greater effect on the poison and stopped its expansion. Yet, it didn't fix Khan. It only stabilized his symptoms without solving any of them.

Khan remained weak, with tunnel vision and precarious balance. The purple marks were still there, and he had yet to leave the poisonous fumes. He didn't know if he could get infected again.

The mission was another problem, but Khan accepted that he was in no condition to complete it. He crawled past the bush to lie on the tree behind, and his knife returned to its sheath while he drew his phone.

'Two hours,' Khan thought while setting the alarm. 'No more.'

The phone returned inside Khan's pocket when he closed his eyes. His consciousness faltered, but he still put himself in a meditative state to let his mana handle his condition.

The meditations always made the time pass faster, but Khan felt to have spent less than a minute in that state when the alarm rang. He drew his phone to check whether he had committed a mistake, but the numbers on the screen didn't lie. Two hours had passed, but the purple marks were still there.

The marks weren't the only lingering symptom. Khan still felt weak and feverish, but the world had stopped spinning. He could also retain some clarity without hurting himself.

'The Dridie,' Khan thought while using the trunk behind him to get back on his feet.

Khan's balance was still slightly off, but he could stand and run, which was enough for mere plants. The symphony even told him that the lake area had retained its desolate state during the past hours. He could still complete the mission if he hurried.

Khan drew his knife, but the grip on his left hand felt too weak and flexing his arm hurt. He had to switch palms to hope to perform the Divine Reaper decently, but another problem arrived.

A kick brought Khan in the air, and a second stomp tried to make him cross the crowns. However, his foot pierced the invisible mana, failing to provide a foothold and interrupting his flight.

Khan lost his balance and crashed headfirst into the mud. He had fallen from a considerable height, but the soft ground had deadened the impact. The cold wetness that spread on his face also brought some comfort and allowed him to ignore the faint soreness in his limbs.

'I can't fly in this state,' Khan quickly accepted while standing up again. His balance was too off to allow his most advanced technique.

Mud ran over Khan's face while he took deep breaths. He would normally wipe that dirt away, but the coldness it released felt nice, so he left it there. Meanwhile, his senses reached for the symphony to locate his targets and prepare a suitable route.

'Six flowers,' Khan thought, and a tinge of mana left his body to fuse with the environment and empower his sprint.

Trees flashed in Khan's tunnel vision. He always felt on the verge of crashing into them, but his figure managed to slip by, eventually arriving in front of familiar spiked plants. The Feicox noticed him, but he ran past them before they could shoot.

Three flowers exploded during Khan's passage, and bullets flew after him. However, he used the tree directly in front of him to run toward its crown and dodge them.

The Feicox adjusted their aim as their corrosive liquid dug through the trunk, but Khan flung himself toward them, diving directly toward one of those dangerous plants. A descending kick landed at its base, destroying its branches and killing the two flowers on them.

The kick was so violent that mud splashed in every direction, creating a hole in the ground. Still, there was another flower, and Khan's landing gave it a chance to aim properly.

A corrosive bullet flew toward Khan, but he limited himself to throwing his knife at it. The weapon was incredibly sharp on its own, so it pierced the dark-green liquid and reached the scarlet flower behind.

However, the knife's edge was too thin to take care of the entire bullet. The latter continued to fly forward, hitting Khan on the right side of his chest.

Khan held back a shout. Pain invaded his mind, creating the urge to get rid of the new injury. Yet, he couldn't release his mana so close to the Dridie, so he jumped away and crashed on the ground before sending purple-red energy to his chest.

The chaos element destroyed the dark-green liquid, and exhaustion tried to take over Khan, but he didn't let himself rest. He struggled to his feet and approached the Dridie to check the area. A few buds had appeared during his meditative session, but his kicks destroyed them and the branches underneath.

Khan fell to his knees at that point. He was still burning, and the dizziness had never vanished. The sense of weakness was there too, but the empty area brought some reassurance. He couldn't see any Feicox in his surroundings. Only the tiny Dridie had remained.

'Come on,' Khan cursed in his mind while crawling toward his knife. 'Just a bit more.'

Khan retrieved the knife and supported himself on a trunk to stand up. He wasn't getting any worse, which was good, but he needed to rest, and the forest wasn't the place for that.

The barrage of chaos spears had removed most of the mud and slimy water, so Khan could cross what remained of the lake without faltering. His tunnel vision got in the way, but the symphony helped him find his old tree, and a series of deep breaths happened when he reached its base.

Khan stored the knife and jumped on the tree's trunk, running over it to reach its crown. His backpack was still there, and he retrieved it before leaping and doing his best to slow down his descent.

The mud helped soften the landing, but Khan still fell on his butt. His balance was too unstable to perform acrobatic feats, but the backpack remained safe in his arms, and the mission's end finally appeared in his view.

Khan crossed the lake again before taking out the extractor. Placing it on the small Dridie activated its functions, which made it dig into the mud to seize the plant, its roots, and part of the ground underneath.

Once the process was over, Khan put the extractor inside the backpack and secured it on his back. He had lost Derek's device, but the path was nearby. He only needed to reach it to find his way back home.

'I did it!' Khan couldn't help but exclaim in his mind. That mission had pushed him to his limits, and he couldn't wait to return to a safe place.

Yet, a splattering noise suddenly spread, and a drop fell on Khan's face when he lifted his head. The forest also awakened once again since the rains had arrived.

To be continued