The force of the flames leaving Orin’s body has an effect on Ajax. It pushes him backwards. For just a moment. However, Ajax’s immunity to fire and heat is absolute. After facing the full brunt of the attack, he simply escalated his cold power to snuff out all the flames flying directly towards him.

Before his eyes, the flames dissipate completely and he can see his enemy in midair flying towards the end of the hallway without his left arm and without his leg. Ajax is nearly out of energy but the blue fires fed to him by his opponent provided him with just enough power for one more attack. His mind accelerates once more.

He sees Orin's detached left arm on the ground still grasping his mana blade. The blue flames had tried scorching apart the arm, but the blade still remains. The blade has not dissipated yet. Ajax picks up the blade as fast as he can, a movement that would appear nearly instant to most people. Orin’s flames melted away most of the sword hilt and turned the mana blade into a very useful shape.

Ajax clutches the thin javelin in his right hand and his hand bleeds. He turns his eyes to see Orin having landed on the ground already. He imparts total focus into his actions in order to ensure that this last movement works.

If he can do this, he will have killed Orin finally and move on to his next task, namely, saving Dzan and Sigvor. However, he knows that killing the enemy isn’t enough. If he just leaves the man where he is while he dies, he will transform into an incendiary weapon. He needs to get close enough to freeze him as well.

Ajax throws the remaining mana construct like a javelin towards Orin’s contorted form. Orin sees the bluish green sword flying towards him as if it were a grand holy spear and opens his eyes wide in horror.

His torso is pierced by the javelin, his left kidney and stomach destroyed completely.

"Aaaaaah!!"

Blue flames fly out of the new wound in Orin’s stomach. Even now the man isn’t dead. Ajax watches as the man clutches the blade in his stomach and tries to remove it. He has a deranged grin on his face. Ajax grits his teeth in anger. The enemy was like a cockroach, he was so tenacious. He had used his full power against the man and he still wouldn’t give up.

He just kept trying to live. It would be inspiring if the man were anything but a psychopathic murderer.

Why won't he fucking die!?

Ajax runs towards Orin in rage and frustration. He needed to see the man’s death. He needed to see the moment the terrorist froze solid. He couldn’t allow him to remain alive any longer. The world was wrong so long as he remained alive. He hates the man. He hates him and is filled with a burning desire to see him dead.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

However, at this moment, his rage gets the better of his rationality. Ajax misunderstands what it means for his energy to fully run out.

Partway through his furious sprint towards his opponent, he finally runs out of strength. Every last bit of vitality in his body dries up. However, he is still in motion. His superhuman momentum keeps him careening forward. Without his reflexes keeping pace with his current velocity, he loses his footing.

As a result, Ajax trips and tumbles forward like a marionette with its strings cut.

The only thing he can think to do is protect his head by shielding it from the floor with his hands and arms. This action is all that prevents his head from splattering open across the hallway floor like an overripe watermelon.

Ajax's crumpled body keeps pushing forward by its original momentum, making him tumble over and over. His neck twists too far and his ribs crack repeatedly. His spinal cord ruptures. His arms break in multiple places.

When his forward momentum is finally arrested, his tumbling stops and he slides across the hallway floor to a bloody terminus.

At his stop, he vomits onto the floor. However, that is not just due to his tumbling, but also because his skull has fractured, leaving him with a severe concussion. He was able to protect his head from being smashed apart, but not from being injured.

Both of Ajax's legs and arms are broken, his ribcage is nearly unraveled, his hips are shattered, and his jaw is dislocated. He vomits again as the pain of his hips, chest, and pelvis in particular cause him to wish he could simply faint.

Yet, he cannot fall unconscious by his very nature.

As soon as Ajax landed in his mangled state, his concussion went away. His healing factor prioritized his mind and brain matter before all other concerns. The concussion itself had lessened his pain slightly, but only for a few moments. Once his skull and its inner contents were autonomically repaired, he felt everything once again in its full brunt.

The agony lasts much longer as well, considering that Ajax had tried to use his body's total reserves in order to defeat Orin. His healing factor is mostly an autonomous process that his body undertakes, one that he cannot consciously slow down. Yet now, it is significantly more protracted because of how little energy he has left within himself.

It will take him a couple minutes at least for his body to fully regenerate even if he does absorb the heat within his surroundings. He won't be able to stand up for at least a minute either. Once again, he considers why he found himself here in the first place.

Was it worth it to do this? To be the hero? If he knew he would pay his price in pain, rather, in hellish torment, for attempting to stop a massacre, would he still have willingly paid it? He would like to think he would, but his mind is interrupting his rational super ego with a barrage of suicidal thoughts.

In this moment, his mind screams at him to let him die than continue to experience his current state for even a second longer.

His enemy was still there. He was still moving forward in an effort to make sure that Ajax’s needs were fulfilled.