Ajax holds the sword in his hand and freezes it to an extremely cold temperature, trying to extract as much heat energy as he can out of the sword. Within half a second, a white layer of frozen air about a millimeter thick forms on the surface of the sword blade.

This should be cold enough.

Ajax then makes a fist with his right hand and smashes the sword in his left hand as hard as he can. The sword itself shatters into several pieces as if it were dipped in liquid nitrogen and smashed with a hammer. Orin watches in shock as the metal so easily fragments.

He is a mage and as such is familiar with what temperatures need to be generated in order to freeze and shatter metal, as well as the magic capable of generating those temperatures. The fact that Ajax is able to do this so easily makes him feel unsettled. He raises his guard high while trying to see what Ajax is trying to attempt.

He also doesn’t cease attempting to throw more flames at Ajax at the very least to annoy him and make him frustrated. However, Ajax pays it no mind as he picks up the shattered pieces of his sword and extends his cold reach slightly further into his surroundings.

Less than fifteen of the metal pieces that Ajax had broken from the sword blade are good enough for what he's trying to experiment with. Ajax gathers seven of these super chilled metal pieces into his left hand.

These should make good bullets.

He stares at Orin for a second. He sees a glimpse back into his childhood. The last time he played catch with his dad was maybe in the last year of middle school. His dad had been adamant about the fundamentals of a good pitch. They had watched baseball games together. They had gone to a local batting range to both practice pitching and hitting.

Why didn't I play catch with him during high school? Dad didn't even need me to join the high school baseball team, he just… wanted to spend time with me. It was fun, wasn’t it? Why didn’t I have more fun… with him?

Ajax’s eyes water as he pushes those thoughts away from his mind. He's not on earth right now. He's in this world where he has no choice but to fight in order to protect those around him. His father may not be here right now to cheer him on, but he’s there in spirit. He’s never going anywhere.

Orin looks at his enemy with confusion at his nonsensical action, having missed one very important thing. He had seen Ajax's speed and agility which nearly matched his own. Yet, he had not been properly introduced to the depth of Ajax's exquisite strength.

Ajax launches a pitch towards Orin and throws the seven pieces of the sword as if they were buckshot pellets. It is partway through the pitch that Orin realizes his complacency. He tries to dodge Ajax's trajectory. However, unlike Ajax's sword play, his pitch is something well practiced and, in this world, extremely powerful.

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He can only perceive in horror as the sword shards enter his body. They're faster than arrows or crossbow bolts. To Ajax, his pitch sent his projectiles faster than speeding bullets. He could even hear the sound of his projectiles breaking the sound barrier. These aren't just bullets anymore. It's more like he's somehow made his right arm into a railgun.

One of the shards enter Orin's right arm, carving out a chunk of his bicep. Another shard hits his bare right shoulder, destroying it, though not fracturing his shoulder blade. The last two hit his right peck and the ribs below, though his lung isn't punctured. Each of the shards fly straight through Orin's body and create exit wounds.

Ajax feels a sense of satisfaction as if he had just struck out a major league batter. Not every projectile hit the mark, but that was the point of using a buckshot approach rather than firing each bullet individually.

Orin had been able to dodge to his left and protect his left side. However, Ajax was aiming for his torso in the first place and he got a direct hit. He can actually see the blood fountaining from his body, although it doesn't seem that he hit any major arteries.

The burning man grits his teeth in pain as he fights for control of the raging mana within his own body for a moment. He feels an aftershock due to this and lets out a lot of white flame as a result. Ajax sees the bright white flame engulf the hallway and tries frantically to absorb it by using his powers.

These flames create even more smoke than the red flames so it makes Ajax believe that these flames are much hotter than the red ones.

Orin feels a chill run down his spine as the moment of chaos passes. He grits his teeth as his mind flashes with the sight of human bodies disintegrating into an incendiary weapon. He does not want such a wasted fate, like the one that Karise had faced. He doesn't want to die today. He wants to win against his opponent, kill everyone in this building, and live to fight another day.

It might be a selfish aim but he knows that he can make it happen. He isn’t so weak as to die to this pathetic, inexperienced child.

The white fire he had released had given him an opportunity to prevent Ajax from locking down on his target. However as quickly as it came, the white flames dissipated. Orin clutches his perforated chest and breathes heavily as he sees Ajax gathering more metal shards to pierce him with.

This kid… what monstrous strength!

Orin was lucky not to die immediately to what Ajax had attempted. He doesn't want to get killed right now so he does the most logical thing: he runs away while hiding his escape in even more fire. As he runs, the white flames he emits hide his body making it hard for Ajax to see where he is. Without line of sight to Orin, Ajax throws the remaining sword shards at Orin in a wide area.

He tries to pick up even the smaller ones and throws them down the flame obscured hallway. As he does so, he ensures that he's not accidentally throwing projectiles through the hallway walls and into apartment units. He really doesn't want to kill someone accidentally.

Within seconds, Ajax runs out of projectiles and hurries to extinguish the flames in front of him. With little more than a wave of his hand, the white flames that were trying to crawl along the hallway walls dissipate as he runs forward.

However, he finds that his opponent has run away from him into the stairwell access.