Ajax has an anxious expression. His eyes are shaking, his lips are trembling, and he's holding his breath. He had tried to stop his opponent from activating whatever trump card he had in his grasp. However, his followers had laid down their lives in order to prevent Ajax from interfering.

Now, the enemy has power. Power that doesn’t seem fake or exaggerated. Ajax has never been in a true fight before, one where opponents were equals. He remembers once or twice facing pain at the hands of those stronger than him, back in middle school. He’s never wished to fight someone who could match him, that was never his prerogative.

Then, he came here to this new world and found that few could match him. The idea of fighting someone who might be an equal is daunting to him, especially when the price of failure is death for him and all the people in this building. It feels to him like placing his luck in the hands of a coin flip. He gulps and grimaces while not taking his eyes off of his opponent.

Meanwhile, Orin feels like he's about to be disappointed by his enemy; he has no confidence in the boy in front of him as a warrior. It will be as if he's killing a powerful, brutish monster. It doesn’t seem very sporting to him. He can only behold a lack of fighting spirit, as if the boy knows he’s already about to die.

However, more so than the fact that he’s facing a powerful opponent, Ajax is frustrated by something else as well.

I need to help Dzan and Sigvor… every second I waste fighting this prick, I'm risking the third building falling without being able to do anything about it… I need to kill him quickly. I need to turn him into a solid block of ice before it's too late…

Orin starts off the fight by pointing his left hand towards Ajax. From his palm, a thick stream of red fire flies towards Ajax. Orin had thought that Ajax's attempt to change the temperature of the hallway was a cute attempt to protect this building. He can only scoff at Ajax's middle tier temperature control magic.

It isn't a poor try by any means, but it isn't enough to restrain him or the depth of his magical flames.

All Orin needs to do is to avoid making physical contact with Ajax’s skin. His ability to make his opponents freeze into brittle statues is quite amazing, worthy of regard and admiration. However, Orin has already picked up on the fact that he cannot extend his instant-freeze reach beyond that which he touches.

In this case, Orin has decided to throw his red fire at Ajax from a distance and he watches as Ajax gets engulfed in it, unable to do anything. He smirks. He just has to continue what he's doing right now while slowly shaving away at his opponent's mana resources.

Even if the boy can momentarily snuff out the flames using mana, the flames will just keep coming.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Once his opponent runs out of the mana he uses to cancel out the fire, he will not be able to regenerate anymore, nor will he be able to freeze people or objects. At that point, he will truly become vulnerable to Orin’s flames.

Unfortunately for him, Orin is unaware that Ajax's healing factor is effectively infinite. He also believes that Ajax's ability is to freeze objects rather than drain objects of their heat, a distinction that is quite crucial.

As a result, he cannot fully grasp the fact that whatever fire and heat Ajax absorbs feeds him energy directly. Energy that can enhance his senses, his speed, his reflexes, his strength and his regeneration. Finally, Orin isn’t aware of the important properties of Ajax’s body. He doesn’t need air to breathe, he doesn’t need physical sustenance, and his body is immune to all temperatures, regardless of how hot or cold.

As a result, it surprises Orin how unharmed Ajax is after being attacked by his red flame. In Ajax's vicinity, the magically generated fire is simply snuffed out even further. The fire that flew off his body towards the walls was also extinguished.

Ajax looks at Orin with impatience while trying to understand his opponent in order to defeat him faster. He does understand one crucial thing, namely that Orin's fire is not like Shaula's. Shaula is unable to throw her flames. Her fire is a direct result of the heat her body emits. As a result, she cannot throw fire without an accelerant. Yet, Orin is able to do just this. The magic he's using is allowing him to throw fire easily.

This is extremely dangerous. If Orin decides to throw fire in all directions, including areas far away behind him, Ajax would have to scramble in order to extinguish all of that fire before any load bearing walls start crumbling, burning or melting from the extreme heat.

He has to end this quickly. He sprints towards Orin and reaches out his right hand in order to grab him. Just one touch for a tenth of a second would be all that is needed to freeze fatal portions of his body. Unfortunately for him, Orin sees Ajax coming easily. He dodges him without even thinking of it, leaping several paces away while throwing more fire at his opponent.

He laughs a bit at how fast and agile he is compared to his opponent. Even if their speeds are roughly the same, one of them is an experienced battle mage who fought and killed for decades while the other is someone who received a divinely created body about a month ago.

Ajax believes that he needs to be faster as he continues chasing Orin. His desire to move faster forces his body to move faster without him even having to will it. His reflexes sharpen, his perception slows and his body acclimates to all of it in moments. Thanks to the energy that Orin himself is feeding him, he can become faster and faster during this fight.

He continues to try and catch Orin, but Orin continues to dodge. He does notice Ajax increasing his agility and speed. One advantage that Ajax has over Orin is that he doesn't need to maintain focus and concentration to the degree that Orin needs to.

Orin had drunk that special potion that allows his body to sustain this spell for so long. The difficult part is that if he loses focus of the raging mana, his body will slowly turn into a fire bomb and he will face the same fate as Karise

With that hanging over his head, he isn't in his peak fighting form as a result.