Orin had thought of a proper counter to Ajax's pitching strategy; he does the easiest thing he can do. He sends fire outwards in all directions to obscure his body and then flees once again, knowing that Ajax will not allow him to get too far away. He looks back while running towards the other end of the apartment building hallway, towards the stairwell.
He sees Ajax running through the left behind flames as if he were a boulder tearing apart the surface tension of a pond.
Orin watches in irritation as the fire his enemy sprints through dissipates nearly instantly. The boy simply snuffed it out with a thought once again, the walls, floor and ceiling of the hallway barely even having the time to char.
Ajax runs towards him at a breakneck speed with an aggravated expression. He feels like he's being led around so easily by this terrorist in front of him. He can tell that his opponent is familiar with what pushes him to act a certain way.
He feels manipulated. The bigger concern is that without meaning to, he's fallen into a hostage situation. Orin is running away while using the entire building and its residents as reason enough for Ajax to follow him while leaving behind any other concerns. Ajax just can't think clearly when he can tell that lives are on the line every time he allows Orin to leave his line of sight.
He's far out of his depth here and he knows it. But, he's still a smart young man. It isn't as if he has no options.
Orin hears the jingle of coins behind him. While he runs, he can tell that the boy is preparing to throw his coin pouch at him.
The boy takes out half the coins from his pouch and prepares to swing hard. Orin’s blood runs cold as his mind flashes with certain earth and ice magic spells. There are such spells using solid material that can do devastating damage to a human being even while only using pieces of ice and rock the size of fingernails.
Shit, he's too close!
In a burst of focus while turning to face the incoming projectiles, Orin raises his sword while covering it with blue flames. The brilliant fires are conjured from his hands and travel up the blade edge with ease. Gripping the sharp weapon in both hands, he slices through the air vertically in the direction of the incoming coins.
"Hah!!"
He cannot see their flight path but he knows they're aimed directly towards him. So, Orin attempts to create a buffer of flame and heat pressure to force the coins to fly slightly off course and away from his center mass. This buffer is the wave of blistering heat produced by his sword slice.
Heat that is twice the temperature of the surface of the sun.
Ajax pitched the coins so fast that they flew at twice the speed of sound. Luckily for Orin, his desperate movement was fast enough and powerful enough to have an effect. Several coins moved into safer trajectories. Due to the exceptional heat of his blue flames, his mana sword behaves like a real physical construct and melts partially along with some of the coins that flew towards him.
The bright blue flames that covered his sword signify the maximum power at his disposal and there is a requisite cost associated with using them. Outputting those flames at full power continuously for a single minute would empty his mana pool completely.
However even while using the blue flames, Orin isn’t completely undamaged by Ajax’s attack. Two of the coins strike his left shoulder, one hits his right knee while three others almost afflict a fatal wound to his head. In lieu of blowing a hole in his skull, the three coins grazed him while cutting his scalp open.
One of those three even scraped the left side of his skull directly, carving a line into the bone. The force of the projectiles isn't enough to make him pause, but his left shoulder is bruised badly and his right knee cap feels to him as if it's been hairline-fractured.
What's worse yet, Orin has no time to catch his breath. He is still being forced to dodge the outstretched arms of his opponent who is running after him in an attempt to grab his body and freeze him to death. Ajax makes swipe after swipe which Orin has to desperately dodge while his body is screaming in pain.
The bluish-green sword in his hand is useless currently as a deterrent. The crazed look in his opponent's eyes makes him truly fear as well. The only saving grace is that Orin understands Ajax's movement patterns quite well. Even if he cannot match him in true speed, he can see the attacks coming even while in this state.
As he dodges, Orin keeps a firm grasp of his mana situation to reduce the chance of him degenerating into an incendiary.
Ironically, this time's sudden pain had not been so bad for him. He's already acclimated himself to the sensation of battle.
Orin grits his teeth and rather than backing away this time in order to regain his footing, he opens his mouth and blows out white flames directly at Ajax's head in an attempt to blind him. He appears like a dragon at this moment.
Unfortunately for him, the flames don't seem to be working and they don't stick around for long. He doesn't know how but even with lowered visibility, his opponent is still able to reach out to him and nearly grab him, over and over.
That's enough!!
Orin desperately needs his weapon back to full strength, not its current melted and deformed state. It's not sharp enough right now, even though it has already rehardened. If he were to swing it at Ajax it would be more of a bashing weapon than a slicing one.
So, Orin imbues an immense amount of mana into his melted sword, and within half a second it restores itself to its original, ultra-sharp edge. If he was given a moment to catch his breath, he wouldn't have to pay such a high mana cost, but he's getting frustrated at his opponent's determination and desperation.
