He also feels rage. Pure anger and fury. Even while being at this speed, Orin might have subconsciously understood his first strike. He curses himself for allowing the fight to drag on long enough for his opponent to be able to get to know his style of combat.
When Ajax lands several paces past Orin's fallen body, the burning man is already off the ground and running in a mad dash towards the direction where Ajax had leaped from, this time not daring to look at him.
Ajax runs after him again and finds an opportunity as Orin trips over one of the footprint craters that Ajax had left behind while he was running at him. Orin falls forward and before he can pick himself up off the ground, Ajax reaches him and crushes his ankle by stomping on it with his right foot.
Ajax feels immense satisfaction at having finally found a point of contact between himself and Orin's body. His frost travels up the left leg of the enemy. He feels like victory is finally his. If nothing else, his opponent has lost one leg and is rendered immobile. Regardless of what else may happen, he would still find victory.
As the frost rapidly creeps up his leg, Orin does the only thing he can think to do, simply off of his strong desire to win this battle and live. He also seeks victory for himself and his own cause of human supremacy. He breaks off his left leg at a point right below his knee.
Ajax's power would freeze someone solid within half a second yet Orin was able to react in a tenth of one. The boy watches in shock at his opponent snapping off the frozen leg through a force of sheer will. Ajax can heal from such injuries. Orin cannot. He stands frozen for a half second at the display of human strength he just witnessed. Sometimes it amazes him that humans like him and humans like this man are even part of the same species.
What kind of life must he have lived for him to be willing to do that to survive? If only someone like him was doing good for this world instead of trying to ruin innocent lives…
The bleeding stump remaining gushes out thick black blood and Orin feels a blinding pain from having his left leg severed. He didn't do this with any possibility in mind that he can win against his opponent. He believes that he's about to die right now but he won't stop fighting to live. The moment he surrenders, he will lose his place in the true heaven.
His mind loses control of the raging mana within his body and, all of a sudden, the thick black blood that flows out of his leg explodes into blue fire. Ajax is blinded by the bright blue flames and is pushed back just slightly from the force of the exploding blood.
Ajax tries to prevent Orin from getting away by blindly reaching out into the overflowing blue fire towards his left leg. If he can just grab his enemy, he can finish the job. Even if he can't freeze his head, the burning man will certainly die if his legs, hips and torso are partially frozen. However, by the time he gets close enough to grasp at his opponent, he only feels the ground of the hallway.
He absorbs the blue flames in front of him and finds that Orin is gone and only fires hotter than the surface of the sun remain in the hallway around him. Not only are the flames directly in front of him but they're engulfing the hallway all the way towards the stairwell exit. The exit that Orin had been running towards is broken into pieces and burning.
Ajax frantically runs towards the stairwell while absorbing all of the blinding blue flames in this hallway. As soon as the flames appeared they disappeared, thanks to Ajax's superhuman speed.
Orin can hardly understand what is happening. When his blood exploded, blue fire erupted from his left thigh as well. These blue flames threw him through the hallway and straight into the stairwell door, crashing through it. If Ajax had seen what Orin looked like, he might have been reminded of a rocket ship or a jetpack.
Ajax had Orin in his grasp and Orin was unable to react to his movements at that point. He would have been killed if Ajax had been able to reach him that time. Of course, the blue fire pushing him through the hallway in flight was not something that Orin had consciously done.
His raging mana had been provided with an opportunity to run wild thanks to Orin losing control over it.
Having lost control, his overflowing and exposed blood had directly transformed into blue fire a fifth of a second after he cut his left leg off from his frozen calf, ankle and foot. Not having control of his mana, feeling anger and pain so suddenly from having his leg severed, and finding himself about to die made his mana run hotter and wilder than it had before.
However, as a result, right now Orin doesn't have control of his body which is still flying in midair, pushing him upwards. As a result, the fire being thrown from his left leg keeps pushing him upstairs like a ragdoll tied to a firework. He finds himself regaining control over his mana only when he is right in front of the burning stairwell entrance to the floor above the one he was just maimed on.
Ajax extinguished the flames in the hallway below and entered through the broken stairwell, just in time to see the tail-end of this cartoonish development. He might have laughed if not for the fact that Orin's blue flames had already managed to open up holes in some of the hallway flooring and walls he had just passed
Orin feels pain in his body but most of his bones aren't broken. He flew with the mana sword still grasped tightly in his hand. He harshly wrestles control over his raging mana while gritting his teeth but finds the control trying to slip away more and more now.
His nerves feel like they're on fire. His mind might disintegrate at this rate. In order to regain mastery over the mana within his body, he uses a quick healing spell to stop both the bleeding in his severed left leg, as well as the blinding pain that is emanating from that wound.
As he finally breathes in relief at the passing of his pain, he returns to a state of terror. He has to get away from the monster. He has to flee. He still doesn't understand where his opponent is getting all of his energy, but all Orin can do now is flee.
