Chapter 59 9:
The air inside the dorymathos had turned into a blazing furnace, yet the situation was far from over.
In fact, the conflict had reached such a point that both sides...
Even though Korr-add floated at mid-height, his chest expanding and contracting with an irregular cadence, he could not stop even for a single second to breathe.
One exhalation later, his eyes caught the movement and the burning lights longed to lick at his body.
There, beyond the tide of lithari bleeding out across the gray plain, one small group in particular had begun to stand out even more.
That small team of Lithari was breaking away from the main body, while the rest seemed intent on providing them cover.
There were many armored silhouettes, perhaps 500, perhaps more, maybe double that.
All of them were protecting something at the center.
And upon noticing said anomaly, Korr felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
Why are they splitting off? What was their purpose?
This complicated things for him.
His mind processed a multitude of possibilities in fractions of a second. During an attack, no squadron belonging to any military entity would simply abandon the front line of a battle like this for no reason.
In a battle, this could only mean two things; either they were fleeing, or they had an objective more important than the fight itself.
And those lithari did not seem like cowards according to what his eyes saw.
For every one of their fallen, another 10 fired with even greater fervor.
They were deranged.
His hands, still clutching the sheet loaded with fragments, trembled slightly.
Dodging a barrage of projectiles that nearly roasted his abdomen.
He could feel the burning in his muscles through his fingers, he was exhausted, but he could not allow himself to lower the intensity.
Slowing down even for a moment would mean mortal danger for him.
He clenched his fingers until his knuckles paled and forced himself to endure a little longer, long enough either to finish off those enemies or until some instructor saved his hide.
His prayers would not help him in these moments, he was not even in any condition for divine intervention.
He had to get himself out of his own predicament, and he did.
Without thinking further, the Viltrumite dove straight toward that dissident group.
The remaining sheet billowed behind him like an improvised war banner, as though he held the imperial flag in his hands.
The rearguard lithari saw him coming immediately, which only heightened their panic further.
"Sir, the nato changed trajectory! He's coming toward us!"
"WHAT?!" The leader of the group did not even turn his head despite his surprise. His bionic eye blinked with a crimson flash as he barked out an immediate order, quickening his pace.
"Perform total saturation, do not let him get close!"
And then hell unfolded once more.
Thousands of plasma cannons, belonging to the soldiers still left standing, spewed their unrestrained fury toward the sky.
The incandescent beams wove a web of death so dense and intricate that it looked like a luminous stroke floating within the chaotic reddish gloom.
Korr saw the wall of fire advancing toward him and knew he would not be able to pierce through it, not directly at least.
At the last moment, he curved his trajectory at an angle that would have liquefied the steel of any ship, veering to the left with a suddenness that made even his own vertebrae crack.
The plasma passed so close that his uniform smoked along the right side, yet he had to force himself to ignore the carbonizing smell.
"Damn it!" he spat, while violently ascending to avoid a second wave.
But he could barely even inhale or exhale, for the lithari did not cease.
They fired and fired, creating overlapping layers of anti-air fire, each denser than the last.
Korr zigzagged between them like a fly, but he knew that could not last.
So he searched through his ammunition supply.
With a swift movement, he plunged his right hand into the sheet and extracted a handful of fragments.
The improvised projectiles rested in his palm like seeds, ready to plant death among those four-armed aliens below.
Without thinking twice, he hurled them with all his strength.
BOOM!
The first impact was as expected, one rock pierced through the armor of three lithari who happened to be lined up together, their bodies tearing apart in a grotesque choreography of gray flesh and molten metal.
The second fragment struck the reactor of a fourth soldier, and the ensuing explosion swept away another dozen.
The death unleashed in simultaneous succession was horrifying, but Korr did not wait to see the results.
He grabbed more rocks, as many as he could, and hurled them in a furious barrage.
The projectiles tore through the air like railgun rounds, each one loaded with the brute force of a Viltrumite in full flight.
The lithari fell in rows, their armor perforated like paper, their bodies reduced to a crimson mist that stained the atmosphere of the dorymathos.