Ilman

Ilman is a gifted Niqols warrior whose devotion to Liiza first makes him Khan's romantic rival and then one of his closest friends. His emotional growth, loyalty to his species, relationship with Jenna, and dangerous evolution carry him from Nitis's academy to the allied front's final war.

Biography

Liiza, rivalry, and the academy crisis

Ilman enters the story kneeling with flowers after another rejection from Liiza. Although his persistence ignores what she has repeatedly chosen, his devotion is not simple malice: he defends her when other girls insult her and condemns the attempted arranged marriage that shaped her anger. As the academy's guide for the human visitors, he is courteous, generous with useful information, and eager for the two species to understand one another, leaving Khan frustrated by how difficult he is to hate. (Chapters 134–135)

After the catastrophic daylight begins killing Niqols and destabilizing Nitis, Ilman sees Khan sharing a rare happy moment with Liiza at a grief-stricken party. He interprets Khan as a contender and challenges him to decide who deserves to make her happy. The fight reveals both his speed and the danger of his emotion-driven certainty: his mana-loaded palm attacks inflict internal injuries, and the professors later note that a weaker student might have died. (Chapters 152–155)

Khan defeats the premise of the challenge rather than merely defeating Ilman. He argues that Ilman's protection removes Liiza's freedom, that intense feelings do not justify ignoring refusals, and that hurting someone who helps her only reduces her possible happiness. Ilman accepts the criticism with startling honesty and reports his own rule-breaking to the professors, who suspend him. The crisis thus exposes his possessiveness but also the moral directness that allows him to change once he recognizes harm. (Chapters 154–155)

Friendship, hunting, and duty on Nitis

Ilman returns during the daylight crisis by greeting Khan as a lifelong friend and thanking him for “beating some sense” into him. He has not stopped loving Liiza, but he now accepts that feelings alone are insufficient and that her happiness must take priority over his claim. His melodramatic warning that he will fight Khan if Liiza is hurt shows that the change is incomplete, yet his shame and gratitude are sincere. Rivalry becomes trust because Khan knows Ilman will say exactly what he means. (Chapters 182–183)

That new bond immediately becomes operational. Ilman joins Khan's hunting team, selects the dangerous sound-using monster as their shared target, and fights through the escalating survival campaign beside humans and Niqols. His strength, perception, and composure make him one of the students capable of meeting the crisis directly. By the last parties and farewells, he mourns Nitis's losses openly, embraces George and Khan with his characteristic violence, and treats years of separation as insignificant beside the friendship they formed. (Chapters 183–230)

Ilman's duty is never limited to a single person. The sunlight catastrophe leaves him committed to the Niqols' customs and recovery, even while he supports the human who married Liiza. Later he explains that a true Niqols follows feelings but also serves the species before celebrating. This balance—loyalty without denying individual choice—becomes the mature answer to the conflict that once drove him to attack Khan. (Chapters 215, 225, 230, and 1237)

Return to Khan, Jenna, and a new family

Ten years later, Ilman helps Zalpa search for Liiza and intercepts Khan's ship. He is not angry about Khan and Liiza reuniting; instead, he says that following their feelings is a Niqols virtue and reveals that he spent the intervening years supporting Liiza while hoping to see her true smile again. He volunteers as Khan's best man and helps conduct the marriage, while his strategic reason for accompanying Zalpa is equally serious: Nitis is still too damaged by the sunlight to afford another war. (Chapters 1232–1237)

The voyage also places Ilman beside Jenna. He treats the young Nele Tamara with protective, family-like affection, earning the title “Uncle Ilman,” and respects Jenna's warnings even when attraction develops between them. When Jenna asks him to touch her, he hesitates because the Nele's urges can overwhelm their restraint; he follows her expressed choice only after trying to protect her from that risk. The scene shows how thoroughly his understanding of love has changed since the academy challenge. (Chapters 1234, 1237, 1239, and 1251)

By the reunion on Aynor, Jenna clings openly to Ilman and calls him “Love.” They are expecting a child, intend to marry after the war, and share an intensity that their friends regard as unusually compatible. Ilman asks Khan to serve as his best man, accepts a role overseeing the Nele's migration, and promises Jenna that he will take her to Nitis. His latest domestic hopes therefore bind his Niqols identity, the Nele's future, and Khan's interspecies coalition into the same family. (Chapters 1487–1497)

Evolution and the war against True Chaos

Ilman asks to leave the migration assignment so he can fight. Khan warns that entering the evolved realm could separate him from Jenna and their child, but Ilman believes their relationship can survive the difference. His reasons are both personal and collective: he wants to protect Jenna, the Nele, and the Niqols, and he wants to fight beside Khan. After training through the Niqols' new old ways, he evolves and earns a place among the specialists chosen to face the True Chaos' Kings. (Chapters 1490–1491 and 1522–1523)

On the final battlefield, Ilman and Lord Mighty stay behind against two Kings so the elite group can advance. Khan's warning about returning to Jenna strips away Ilman's usual joking; he knows that he has a family waiting and treats the battle seriously. Facing the tree-like Scarlet Eyes King in his first true evolved battle, he initially lacks confidence and wide-area techniques, but reads the opponent's attacks through exceptional mana perception and continually reshapes his offense through precise manipulation. (Chapters 1538 and 1577–1582)

Ilman's evolved element manifests as what he calls the heart of passion. Every exchange increases his speed, power, and technical performance, eventually letting his fingers and palms damage the King's existence so deeply that surrounding True Chaos cannot restore it. The same power is a curse: the empowerment keeps escalating, overloads his brain, drives his mutated body beyond its limits, and cannot be voluntarily stopped. He kills the King only by nearly destroying himself, collapsing as the enemy crumbles. (Chapters 1581–1584)

Ilman survives. When the dispersed allied fighters reappear, he is the only member of the group unable to land under his own power, and Lord Mighty carries him on his shoulder. The source does not show his later recovery, marriage, or another formal advancement, so his final state is victory accompanied by extreme exhaustion rather than an inferred domestic conclusion. (Chapter 1604)

Appearance and personality

Ilman is a tall, extremely handsome Niqols with dark-blue skin. In his later appearances he has long red hair, glowing red eyes, and muscular arms emphasized by sleeveless clothing; his body remains visibly unchanged immediately after evolution. His polished human accent, broad smile, and gentle aura make him an effective envoy, while his red glow and heated aura increasingly externalize the passion that defines his power. (Chapters 134, 1233–1237, 1487, 1490–1492, and 1522)

He is honest, dramatic, physically affectionate, and almost impossibly intense. Those traits make him comic and reckless, but not foolish: the final battle explicitly identifies him as a genuine genius in mana-related fields, and his choices repeatedly show moral seriousness beneath his loud behavior. His defining development is learning that passion must respect another person's freedom. After that lesson, the same intensity supports friendship, species duty, romantic care, and self-sacrifice rather than possession. (Chapters 134–155, 182–183, 1237, and 1577–1584)

Abilities

Niqols mana training and martial arts

Ilman has trained with mana since youth and combines Niqols methods with human martial forms. His foundational offense uses palms, punches, kicks, and finger strikes that deliver precisely shaped force: he can project mana waves and narrow beams, inflict internal damage, generate different shockwave patterns, or redirect hostile force. The approach rewards emotional control and exact manipulation; anger limits him during the academy fight, while calm makes his speed and technique markedly more effective. (Chapters 153–155, 183–190, and 1578–1582)

Perception, manipulation, and defense

His perception reads mana, movement, terrain, and patterns inside apparently chaotic attacks. At the evolved level he uses that information to find paths through barrages, alter his mana's consistency, borrow or redirect kinetic energy, create footholds, and make his existence alternately sharp, dense, durable, or fluid enough for the immediate problem. His Blood Shield clots pale blood vessels into armor against piercing attacks, but it can reach its limit and does not remove the resulting bodily strain. (Chapters 183–190 and 1577–1582)

Heart of passion

After evolution, Ilman's individual element operates as a constant, escalating empowerment. Repeated exchanges make him faster, stronger, and more capable at whatever the battle demands, while his high-level manipulation lets that growth flow through varied martial strikes. Against the tree-like King, he progresses from destabilizing a vast constructed body to piercing the opponent's very existence, severing portions from the surrounding True Chaos and preventing immediate regeneration. (Chapters 1522 and 1580–1584)

The ability has severe and explicit limitations. It begins relatively weak and needs time and exchanges to build heat; once it escalates, Ilman cannot settle at a safe level or turn the empowerment off. His brain overloads while controlling the excess power, and even the body mutated through the new old ways is driven beyond its physical limits. His representative victory ends with the King dead and Ilman motionless, later unable to land without Lord Mighty's help. (Chapters 1581–1584 and 1604)

Relationships

• Khan: Khan begins as Ilman's rival for Liiza's happiness, but his criticism changes Ilman's understanding of love. Ilman thereafter calls him his best friend, supports his marriage, chooses him as best man, and evolves to fight in his coalition.
• Liiza: Liiza is Ilman's former arranged fiancée and long-term love. His refusal to accept her rejection initially harms her autonomy; over time, he learns to value her happiness with Khan, supports her through the decade of separation, and becomes one of her most reliable allies.
• Jenna: Jenna's trust and directness give Ilman a relationship suited to his intensity. He is careful with the risks created by her Nele nature, later becomes her partner and fiancé, and fights the final war while she is pregnant with their child.
• Doku: Doku is one of Ilman's academy-era Niqols peers and later shares the reunions around Khan's coalition. Their common history links Ilman to the surviving generation shaped by Nitis's daylight catastrophe.