Ajax finds his first target. He easily hears a group of humans walking through the second floor or third floor of the building he has started with.
"...I needed was the escort, to deal with any–"
He pays attention to their conversation. From what he's heard so far, it doesn't seem like all of them are going to detonate themselves. A female voice had asked the male voice not to sacrifice himself, to let them do it for him.
So, there's only one bomb, one bomber? No, it could just be a misdirection, they must know others are listening in on them as it is, right? Better… *sigh*, better safe than sorry.
Ajax’s physical strength and speed are heightened, his reaction speed even more so. To his own mind, his body moves slowly and precisely, though he is in fact moving faster than 300 kilometers per hour.
The reason his reaction speed is so much more elevated is because he doesn't want to trip while he continues towards his targets. One wrong step and he could fall, just like the few times he had done so within the forest of the blue trees. At the speed he is moving, he could really hurt himself. Imagine his body moving towards a wall at 300 km / h.
Wouldn’t his head break open like a watermelon?
When I first came to this world, I was afraid to go even sixty kilometers per hour in a forest… at least what I think was sixty. Back then, I had Shaula watching out for me… Right here, right now, it's only me. No fucking this up.
He is much more acclimated to his body now than when he first got to this world. He's run often over the past few weeks, at breakneck speeds as well. However, he should pull out all the stops right now, especially when the lives of every man, woman and child in this apartment building depend on him and his success.
He moves up the stairs silently towards the second floor, or at least as silently as one can move going at that speed.
"...You will all join me in the true heaven. But, not today.”
Ajax can hear the voice of the old man speaking as he runs up the stairs. His perception of time makes the voice sound very slowed down, a bit annoying but he doesn't wish to complain.
They're all on the second floor. They're planning to destroy the load bearing structures with their suicide fire. These fuckers…
He quietly opens the door to the second floor and enters a long hallway with no corners. There are several doors on each side of the hallway, where he knows several demihumans live. He can hear many heartbeats in each apartment unit, however most of them are relatively calm.
Nobody has even noticed the group of humans walking in this hallway outside their homes, trying to end their lives.
He sees the group of committed terrorists, his eyes focusing on them in an enhanced tunnel vision. There are twelve of them. Everyone but an old man, the man he heard speaking, is staring forward, their backs turned towards Ajax. The old man doesn't have a view towards Ajax either.
Without wasting time, Ajax sprints at his highest current speed towards them, approximately 350 kilometers per hour. His reaction speed allows him to easily control the sound of his footsteps. He's not perfectly silent, but they would not be able to perceive the sound of his footsteps in time to interfere with his following actions.
One of them turns around in surprise, the person right at the back of the crowd closest to Ajax. He's about to open his mouth to warn his friends.
How did he… Well, whatever.
Ajax simply reaches his hand out and touches the man's face, freezing him and his entire body solid. He feels the energy of the man being consumed by his body. It feels different from the energy he received from that nameless woman right before she was about to explode. It makes him think that perhaps he's not one of the ones who have bombs implanted within.
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Knowing that the man he froze will hit the ground in about one second, Ajax weaves his way through the crowd towards the man claiming to be the bomb. Even though his speed is so high, his agility is not in any way subpar.
He had heard the old man, his target, drink something and say something about a sacrifice that he was going to make. Though Ajax wonders if it's a weirdly convoluted trap, it's not like he's going to leave any of the others here alive. He should be able to move and react faster than earlier, when he had failed to prevent mass casualty.
Still, Ajax didn't freeze any of the other members except the one who saw him, because he has to spend a certain amount of time to freeze each of them as solid as they need to be. He needs that time for his primary target.
They would be next, anyways.
Ajax finally reaches the old man. He's so fast, so silent, that the man doesn't comprehend Ajax's hand over his face. Within a few milliseconds of Ajax making contact with his skin, his brain is frozen solid. Within 0.8 seconds, his body and head are frozen to a temperature just above absolute zero.
Ajax turns to face the rest of them.
***
No, no, no…
A woman is running down a hallway.
Why am I here… why did I get myself into… fuck, fuck, fuck!
She was standing in the back as Loman talked with Tavoj in preparation for his sacrifice. He was in the middle of imparting his last words. Then, someone… something… touched his face. He was frozen solid before anyone could react or do anything to help him.
Then, the woman, Winny, had heard the man standing next to her fall to the ground, his body shattering into dozens of frozen chunks. She had not even seen that happen. Yet it did.
That was all it took for her to decide she needed to run. She hears screaming behind her, a monster fighting her friends. Although most of them have already died by his hand in the past few seconds, she knows that a few of them have fast acting body strengthening spells.
They're the ones able to resist him for a few more seconds.
Shatter.
But even they hit the ground, their feeble resistance buying only three or four seconds each. Winny has to escape. She has to tell the others in the Twin Moons about this. She has to inform them.
No, she just has to live! Unlike her brothers and sisters who are more devoted to the project of the Twin Moons, she's a new member. She has passed their initiation, but she hasn't faced the horror of true combat. The terror of an unwinnable, futile confrontation.
She has never faced off against a terrifying force coming to kill her, with no way to fight back. This is not a warrior's death, this has no honor… This is a refutation of her very life, not a way to reach the true heaven. She's not a Twin Moons member anymore, she is simply someone who wishes at this moment not to die.
All the screams behind her finally stop. Her blood starts to burn in her veins. If the others are any indication, she has only one or two seconds of life remaining. She can only hope he hesitates because she's running away from him and not facing him in combat.
However, there is another option.
One of the doors in front of her opens. She sees a young beastkin boy peek his head out of his apartment residence, perhaps to see what's going on in the hallway. The woman can only believe it to be a miracle, an act of God.
I… I can live!
She rushes to grab the child. He's just a few paces ahead of her. He can be her hostage! If this monster behind her is the man who Loman was speaking about earlier, then he's soft towards the vermin races!
Winny gets within two paces of the boy and feels a cold hand enter through her back, right through her heart. As she stands there dying, her body prevented from falling due to the arm impaling her, she hears a cold voice.
"What… What were you able to do? Huh? What were you about to do to that… No. I'm sorry."
She feels the man's other hand touch her head softly, a few words spoken in apology.
"I'm not like you. I can at least offer you a painless death."
Her head and body are frozen solid in front of the eyes of the demihuman boy. He immediately heads back inside his home and closes the door behind him. He’s traumatized but alive.
Ajax breathes a sigh of relief. The boy was never in danger, Ajax had seen the woman running towards him and killed her before she had the chance to do anything. He's only annoyed that he let his anger get in his way and gave her seconds of unnecessary pain. There is no need to kill her as if he's a beast.
He is a man and he will give others death like he has promised he would. He immediately starts running towards the second building he has to deal with.