Ajax is held in Shaula’s arms on the bed. His wounds are rapidly healing. His toga has been shredded and it can no longer cover his body.

His forearm is in the process of regenerating itself. First, the bones of his forearm, wrist, and hands form along with the stabilizing tendons. Then, muscle starts adding itself in layers of fibres onto the bone.

His skin will then envelop his arm and finish the healing process.

The men before the two of them, Ajax and Shaula’s enemies, are reloading. Their first volley didn’t work. Now they have to try again.

They aim for Shaula this time while Ajax is in the midst of restoration.

One of them has almost finished reloading.

Shaula looks at them with a predator’s gaze, her senses and perception of time extended to the maximum.

Fury.

She sees the men before her in a tunnel. She cannot even see Ajax anymore. She lets him go gently on the bed.

He notices her motions.

“Wh--”

Shaula rises from the bed in a quick motion.

The archer in the centre appears to be the leader. He has finished reloading. This is the one who shouted at his men to aim at her while Ajax is incapacitated.

The one who led them here to mutilate Ajax’s body in an effort to wipe his existence from the face of the world.

They tried to take him from her. Her only reason to continue living here.

Sin.

Shaula sprints towards them. She makes a slight curve arc. She dashes to the left side of their shield formation.

The centre archer tries to hit her with an explosive arrow.

It nearly grazes her right shoulder but misses. It strikes the window frame.

The window shatters blasting broken glass towards to the ground below. Their room is currently on the third floor of this summoning facility.

“Shaula!!”

Ajax sees something wrong.

The other two archers have already finished reloading. They raise their crossbows to fire point blank at Shaula, still sprinting towards them.

In Ajax’s haste to protect Shaula by trying to enter the battle together with her, he unconsciously absorbs even more energy from the room.

The floor and air of the room reaches a temperature where even Chlorine gas would freeze, where ethanol would freeze.

Far colder than even the coldest temperatures in the south pole back on his home world.

His healing escalates even faster. His forearm regenerates cleanly and his chest is closed. No scars, no evidence that he was ever hurt. His vitality reaches a new peak.

The men, however, immediately notice the extreme cold temperature. Their armour has a magical homeostasis effect that had been protecting them from frostbite. But now, even their armour cannot protect them.

Their skin will freeze in minutes.

At the very least, they hesitate to fire, their minds shaken with confusion.

“Shit!! They’re using ice magic!?”

Shaula reaches the leftmost shield bearer first. Shaula, without feeling the slightest sensation of cold in this room, digs the fingers of her left hand into the large, circular shield.

She makes use of her heat ability to mold the shield into a more malleable grip. She then flips it towards at the other shield bearer, knocking him back slightly and surprising the archers.

“What kind of fire magic is that!? These shields--”

Their shields are made of a metal known on Omicron as celestial iron.

This is actually an alloy made by mixing iron and titanium. A light-weight and extremely strong metal with a high melting point.

On earth, this alloy would be used in early-era space shuttle plating, replaced by more efficient materials in the modern age.

On Omicron, Shaula has gripped it strongly, affecting its very shape and hardness by her scorching heat, without even breaking a sweat.

The leftmost archer and the rightmost archer step forward while the middle archer steps backwards to reload.

“Cover fire!!”

They fire their arrows towards Shaula after quickly acclimating to the new freezing conditions of their battlefield.

“Wh-What the fuck!?”

Shaula digs her scorching grip into the thicker chest armour of the leftmost shield bearer (now shieldless) and pulls him towards her. She uses his body as a shield against the two explosive arrows, already fired.

“AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!”

The back of the shield bearer’s armour shatters and the concussive force and heat of the blast creates a large second-degree burn on his skin, while damaging his vertebrae.

He screams in agony.

Ajax moves. His shredded makeshift toga falls off and he runs naked.

He sees Shaula in a difficult position against three archers and one remaining shield bearer and sprints towards the rightmost shield bearer still holding his shield.

The rightmost shield bearer, slightly dazed from Shaula’s molten shield volley, notices Ajax charging towards him at a breakneck swiftness. He raises his shield frantically.

Ajax touches the shield with his right palm.

Consume!

Ajax devours the heat of the celestial iron shield. Then, with his left hand he strikes the shield and destroys it as if it were a cheap glass plate.

The left arm of the shield bearer holding the shield is also shattered. Ajax has instantly consumed the heat of that arm because it was the arm holding the shield.

“AAAAIIIIIIEEEE!!!”

Ajax then touches the torso of the screaming and confused shield bearer, sapping the heat from it and freezing the surface layer of the skin on his chest.

Ajax is careful this time not to kill the man but an attack like this can have a lasting impact on a person. If healing magic didn’t exist on this world, Ajax would have just completely disabled this man.

Ajax doesn’t consider this and continues fighting for his and Shaula’s life. Ajax kicks the shield bearer to the right with his left leg, trying to get him out of the way now that he’s been incapacitated.

The shield bearer is knocked out when he hits the wall.

“NNNNNHHHHHH!!”

Shaula removes the chest plate of the shield bearer she’s holding in her grip by turning it to liquid metal. The heat of the melting chest plate broils the skin of the shield bearer’s chest and causes cardiac arrest.

The leftmost archer switches to his long sword in preparation for a short range battle with Shaula.

Shaula throws the partially molten shield bearer towards the leftmost archer.

The archer bats him away, being slightly pushed back from the force of his ally’s body.

“Shit!! AAAAHHH--”

Shaula uses this gap in his stance to throw a large chunk of molten celestial iron, made from the shield bearer’s chest plate, directly at the vertical slit helmet of the archer.

The thrown mound of celestial iron melts through the vertical slits of his helmet and strips the skin and muscle off of his face. The man backs away in screams of terror at the pain of his face melting.

He falls unconscious from this horrific agony.

Ajax is currently dealing with the rightmost archer. The rightmost archer switches to a battle ax in his left hand, throwing away his crossbow.

He aims for Ajax’s head in a downward chop from above, using both hands for maximum force.

Ajax blocks the strike with his right arm resulting in his forearm and wrist being vertically cut through. His enhanced strength is enough to prevent the ax from continuing to his skull.

Ajax tries to apply his power in a slightly weaker manner this time.

“Fuck!!!! What the fuck did you--”

With the ax still in Ajax’s right arm, Ajax consumes the heat of it. The ax freezes as if dipped in liquid nitrogen. The arms of the ax man holding the battle ax also turn to ice.

Ajax kicks the rightmost ax man with his left leg and bare foot forward towards the door.

The ax shatters. The frozen arms of the man, still gripping the ax handle in Ajax’s right arm, separate from the man’s shoulders as he’s pushed back.

“AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”

The man trips over the body of Archbishop Andal as he falls to the ground, armless and unconscious from the shock and pain of his ordeal.

Ajax shakes off the metal still in his right arm and the arm itself heals up in two seconds.

Now, him.

Shaula rushes forward to the middle archer, the only one left in the battle.

The archer raises his reloaded crossbow in his left arm towards Shaula’s body a few feet away, but Ajax reaches him first and tries to wrestle the crossbow away.

The archer now fires his arrow towards Ajax’s left shoulder.

Impact.

Ajax’s left arm is severed at the shoulder.

“AHHHHH!!! Fuck!!”

Ajax falls backwards to the floor feeling a sharp pain, which is soon replaced by a sensation of regeneration as his left arm repairs itself.

“You fucking prick!!”

Shaula grabs the archer with both hands on the sides of his head holding him firmly. He attempts to grab his weapon at his side but--

The leader of their group falls to the ground.

Ajax sees it.

The helmet on his head falling off like bright-red, wet clay. His face scorched with the skin melted off. Only a skull remaining.

Although neither of them can see it, Shaula’s attack has turned his brain to glass.

Oh... oh my god... Shaula, you...

Ajax sees a brief smile on Shaula’s face. Satisfaction.

Shaula is prepared to kill for the two of them. Even in the middle of this battle, Ajax has only acted to incapacitate.

If more men come then... they’ll all be killed... by us...

Ajax rises to his feet, his arm completely regenerated and functional.

He sees the only course of action remaining to the two of them. Escape.

“Whoa!? What are you doing!?”

Ajax picks up Shaula with his left arm holding her head and back and his right arm holding her legs. He is still completely nude.

A princess carry.

Ajax runs.

“Hey!? Wait, that’s--”

Ajax leaps.

Shaula... doesn’t care anymore. She feels... happy. While Ajax is holding her in his arms, she feels the warmth of his embrace. She also feels an outpouring of vitality coming from Ajax.

She feels about as wonderful as before she went to fight Gratia, when she woke up. This feeling distracts her from what Ajax is doing.

Ajax lands.

He continues running still holding Shaula in his arms.

“Whoa!?”

He jumps again upwards.

“Holy shit!!”

He lands again.

He places Shaula on the ground, standing.

“Wh-What was th-that all about?”

Ajax had just picked up Shaula after defeating all of the enemies that came for them and escaped through the shattered window. He leapt forward through the window, falling three floors and landing on the ground, on his feet without missing a beat.

Then, Ajax had run towards the high walls surrounding the facility they had woken up in, without looking back. He jumped over these defensive walls, still carrying Shaula landing on the other side.

“Shaula, if we stay there, we’ll only result in more of them dead. I... I don’t want to get hurt anymore. I don’t want to hurt anyone else... The only option right now as I see it is...”

Ajax looks forward. Before him stands a thicket of trees. Extremely tall trees.

Ajax grabs Shaula’s left hand in his right.

He runs forward towards the trees with Shaula in hand.

Leaving so much pain behind, Ajax and Shaula move forward into this new world.