Chapter 57 7:
Korr calculated the trajectories in fractions of a second thanks to his intellectual enhancement, the smart atoms doing their "Magic."
Korr performed a head sweep at the last moment, managing to avoid a series of converging shots from the left, as well as another series of shots heading toward his chest, while he passed by a series of shots converging from the right.
Literally, he tilted his torso backward while maintaining forward inertia, executing a movement that would have snapped the spine of any combat pilot.
With that maneuver, he let the plasma beams whistle mere centimeters from his face. The heat singed the tips of his hair and reddened his skin.
So much destructive power.
The second volley did not take long to arrive, aiming at the lower part of his body.
Korr responded by performing a kind of inverted spin, rotating on his own axis while ascending vertically, tracing an impossible spiral that confused his attackers' aim.
The lithari pulled the trigger where they had predicted he would be, but Korr was no longer there.
"By our ancestors, this demonic hatchling is too fast."
"His movements are impossible sir, we are in trouble!"
A group of Lithari shouted through their communicators, which alarmed the rest of the legion.
"Concentrate fire, perform field saturation, kill that demonic hatchling, noooooow!"
A certain lithari could be heard saying, one specimen twice as tall, heavily armored with a bulky and dangerous suit of armor.
He had one eye replaced by a bionic one and on his shoulder hung a plasma turret that he did not bother using against the native, since he was too fast for the suit's imperative sensors.
It was more advantageous for him to delegate the attack to his legion, while he gave the next order.
"Bring the bomb, we will keep advancing!"
Meanwhile, Korr had taken advantage of the spin to completely change position.
In that vectorial movement, he descended in a dive toward the left flank of the enemy formation.
He spun violently on himself, descended diagonally and Zaaaasssp!; a plasma shot pierced through the place where he had been barely a fraction of a second earlier.
The residual heat brushed against his left arm, causing the reincarnated native to grit his teeth.
He could not allow himself to receive too many impacts, since he was not a fully developed viltrumite.
He was not capable of enduring so many impacts.
Another group of shots intensified from different positions.
The lithari were trying to saturate the airspace, just as their leader had ordered them.
Korr accelerated even more in response, uncomfortable as it was.
The grayish ground passed beneath him turned into a blurry stain, but instead of fleeing, he ascended almost vertically.
The shots followed him, and just before impact, he let himself fall into a dive.
The movement was so sudden that several lithari completely lost the trajectory; some even accidentally struck allied soldiers because of the momentum.
Plasma explosions burst among their own ranks, and Korr took that situation as an opportunity.
Korr descended like a hawk, his eyes fixed on the heart of the first line.
There were far too many lithari, they were a legion, and from the opening even more kept coming out.
Had they surpassed the thousands?
It was very likely.
But it did not matter, he had to act.
The ground approached dangerously fast, but Korr knew his limits, so when the lines of the ground became blurry, he slowed down gradually.
During that maneuver, the lithari, confused by his momentary disappearance, began to readjust their positions.
The shockwave from his sudden braking lifted a cloud of metallic dust from the ground, creating a smoke screen that concealed his position for an instant that allowed him to recover precious seconds.
The lithari fired blindly at the cloud but Korr had already emerged from the opposite side.
He took the first handful of rocks from the sheet, inhaling deeply, suppressing the trembling of his cramped hands.
The stones, sharpened by the impact that had fragmented them, fit perfectly into the hollow of his hand.
They were perfect shrapnel for his purpose.
He aimed toward his enemies and without hesitating another second, threw with force.
The rocks shot out from his hand like the rounds of a rail cannon, propelled by the brute strength of a viltrumite.
Despite being a native, it was devastating.
His strength, added to his previous flight speed, turned those fragments into pure kinetic projectiles.
The air exploded around his arm and the projectiles disappeared as if they had been teleported, transformed into solid lightning bolts, leaving behind an incandescent trail of heat.
The first lithari line did not even manage to react.
BOOOOOOOOM!
The first impact was devastating.
A rock pierced through a lithari combat armor as if it were tissue paper.
The lithari's body was torn in half, but that was not the worst part. His armor contained a small backup reactor in the thoracic core, a secondary energy source to power the exoskeleton's servomotors used to enhance their already considerable physical capabilities.
Korr's rock struck that reactor directly.
The subsequent explosion illuminated the chamber like an artificial sun.
The shockwave mixed with the armor fragments that had not disintegrated at first and the organic remains scattered within a radius of twenty meters, reaching four other lithari and killing them in the process.
And their reactors also detonated in chain reactions.
A chain of bluish detonations ran through the entire formation.
Fragments of molten metal and limbs flew in every direction.
Some of the lithari literally disappeared from the waist up, while others were pierced together with two or more soldiers around them.
The projectile continued advancing even after perforating them.
The ground exploded behind them and when the smoke dissipated, the first line had a hole the size of a crater in its formation.
Hundreds of Lithari were annihilated in seconds.
Korr felt his stomach churn, he felt the weight of his actions the instant he saw the first fireworks of organs, metal, and blood, but he had no time to process it.
The lithari, far from becoming demoralized, doubled their fury.
The plasma shots became more erratic, more desperate, but also more numerous, far more numerous.
Korr moved, trying to imitate the maneuvers that Earth fighter pilots would have performed in his situation, his superior memory working at full capacity, concentrated on avoiding being roasted by all the enemy fire.
A shot passed grazing his left ear and another singed the back of his leg.
The pain exploded like hot oil, as if the fire became liquid and wanted to travel across the entire surface of his skin searching to penetrate his dermis.
But Korr only let out a grunt and kept advancing, numbed by adrenaline making adjustments in his head.
A third would have pierced through his skull if he had not ducked at the last microsecond; Korr was now moving by instinct.
His mind calculated the number of enemies and the trajectory of their fire, he was also calculating distances and searching for the next point of attack.
From the barricade, the children watched everything with enormous eyes.
This was... Incredible!
Like in the audiovisual projections shown by their teachers.
No.
Those projections were far too boring compared to what they were seeing with their own eyes.
Korr-add was weird, but he was really awesome.
Far too awesome!
Vespera's eyes were so wide they looked like two plates, trembling with excitement.
"I want to do it too!" she shouted excitedly, taking a few more handfuls of rocks and trying to stand up.
She wanted to make fireworks out of those four-armed creatures trying to kill them.
But the taller child, the one Korr had left in command, pushed her back behind cover again.
"No one moves!" he roared with authority.
He loved authority and had the gift for exercising it.
"Those were direct orders, whoever moves, I'll hit their head!"
At those warnings, the shortest one stood up staring at him with a frown.
"You always want to hit our heads, right, right?"
At the shorter one's words, the tall child frowned.
"You dare challenge me?" he asked.
But to the taller one's surprise the smallest one shook his head.
"It's unfair that you're the boss, I want to be one too," he complained. Then, he looked at the red-haired girl.
"Stay there, and if you move I'll hit your nose. Those are direct orders."
The other children trying to follow Vespera were surprised.
"What?"
"That's not fair!"
"But Korr-add is fighting alone, it looks fun!"
"We must not get in the way!" the taller one roared. "When Korr-add gives the orders then it will be our turn."
Vulc-an had forgotten his eternal rivalry with Kang; both stared mesmerized at Korr's silhouette zigzagging through the enemy fire.
Some even seemed excited, as if they were watching a super awesome demonstration, like a super imperial secret technique.
The taller child looked around and hardened his gaze. "Only attack if any enemy gets close. That's what Korr-add ordered and that's what we'll do."
The children nodded, remaining in their place.
As for Korr, he took a second handful of rocks, ready to unleash more death.
The lithari had scattered after the first explosion, learning the lesson, spacing themselves out to minimize collateral damage from chain detonations.