Chapter 61 11:
The impact was devastating.
Korr-add tore through the first defensive line as though the soldiers were paper puppets.
His right shoulder, sharpened by the angle of attack, embedded itself into the torso of a lithari and split him into two symmetrical halves.
The hot, thick blood bathed his face until it dried in an instant, but he did not stop.
Korr kept advancing.
The lithari farther away had barely managed to anticipate the sudden linear trajectory, attempting to raise improvised shields, but Korr tore through them all the same.
His knee met the sternum of one alien, pulverizing it into a cloud of bone splinters, among other merciless ways of finding a horrifyingly gruesome death.
Some were decapitated by the mere brush of Korr's outstretched fingers; others watched their limbs tear away like fly wings, and the luckiest were simply hurled dozens of meters away by the shockwave of his passing.
When Korr finally stopped, he had torn through more than 700 lithari in less than two seconds.
His body, however, paid the price for his actions.
His knuckles, the ones he had used as spearpoints in the final impacts, had been skinned raw.
The flesh hung in strips, exposing the metacarpal bone, white and clean, like a tiny skull.
Blood gushed forth in torrents, staining his hands crimson.
His chest and back, exposed to the continuous friction during supersonic flight, displayed third-degree burns.
The uniform had fused with his epidermis in certain areas, creating repulsive scabs that cracked with every breath.
Korr wanted to scream, wanted to cry, he was furious and for one moment he thought of longing for the eternal rest of death.
But he had achieved his objective, And only because of that did he refuse to reconsider that final thought.
The largest lithari, the bionic-eyed leader, lay several meters away, thrown aside by the collateral impact.
His armor was dented, his plasma turret hung from a loose cable, and blood poured from his mouth.
The cube, blessed be fate, remained intact. Barely three meters from where Korr had ended his charge.
"Damn demon! Damn you and your entire race! If the universe will not punish you, then I shall bring justice for every life you have stolen throughout the centuries!"
Korr heard the leader's curse as he spat in his direction while attempting to rise, as much as his rebooting armor would allow him to.
But he paid no attention to his words, it no longer mattered whatever the Viltrumite race, his race, had done.
He simply could not allow the children to die.
"You... won't... reach it..." Korr gasped with determination, even as he felt the world spinning and pounding around him.
His temple throbbed like never before, and he could feel blood beneath his right eyebrow.
The disconnection was momentary for a fraction of eternity.
He literally lost consciousness, though only briefly.
His limit had almost arrived, no, he had reached his limit some time ago.
He was only pushing beyond it at the cost of destroying his own body.
During that instant, Korr floated in a void without pain, without sound, and without awareness.
Only he existed, suspended within the inexorable blackness and the distant echo of his own heart beating.
But cruel reality returned violently, awakening him from his trance in the most merciless way possible.
Zaaaassss! Zaaaassss! Zaaaassss!...
A dozen shots dragged him back into consciousness.
The first struck his left shoulder, right where the previous wound was still oozing.
The plasma disintegrated what remained of his uniform and carbonized the exposed flesh.
The second hit his side, piercing the skin and scorching his ribs.
The third, the worst of all, struck his right thigh and kept going, carving a bloody furrow until it exited through the back.
Korr screamed for only a moment, until he forced himself to close his mouth, biting his tongue and injuring himself in the process.
The pain was so immense that his brain chose to ignore it.
He fell to his knees, or rather collapsed, while his suit, or what remained of it, smoked and disintegrated.
But he did not die, nor did he lose consciousness.
The adrenaline, that damned companion which had transformed into his guardian angel, flooded his bloodstream once again.
His pupils dilated, his heart accelerated its rhythm, and his brain began reorganizing sensory information in order to filter out the pain.
Korr staggered back to his feet, his right leg threatening to collapse beneath his own weight.
The lithari who had shot him had regrouped during his assault, preparing another barrage.
But the nato would not give them that opportunity.
Instead of fleeing, Korr threw himself to one side, rolling over his healthy shoulder just as another burst of plasma transformed the ground where he had been into a smoking crater.
His bloodied hands searched the terrain for something, anything that could serve as a weapon, until they found it.
He could barely glance at it from the corner of his eye, but he recognized immediately what it was.
It was a large piece of metal, twisted and sharp, which must once have belonged to the armor of some disintegrated lithari.
It was roughly a meter long, with an irregular edge that resembled a natural serrated tooth.
It could not even truly be considered an improvised sword, but rather a club with teeth.
But it was the best he had compared to his bare fists.
Korr gripped it with his right hand, feeling the improvised edge threaten to cut into his palm.
"Damned... Damned sons of bitches, come for me!" He had wanted to whisper a curse, but the rage inside him was so immense that what escaped instead was a war cry disguised as blasphemy.
The lithari needed no invitation and attacked in response.
The first charged at him with a plasma axe, the weapon whistling through the air, but Korr did not even bother dodging.
He simply spun on his axis, using his Viltrumite speed to appear behind the attacker before the axe had completed its arc.
The piece of metal, swung without technique, struck the lithari at the nape of the neck.
Crack.
The alien's skull caved in like an aluminum can, helmet and all.
Blood burst forth in torrents, mixing with fragments of bone and brain matter.
The body fell to the ground in an agonized contortion before becoming still, but Korr did not stop to witness its final breath.
Two more lithari came from his left flank, their plasma cannons spewing fire indiscriminately.
The nato vanished before the projectiles could reach him, appearing behind them once again. The improvised metal traced a horizontal arc, slicing through the air with a deadly whistle.
Both heads rolled across the ground almost simultaneously, their expressions still frozen in surprise.
Korr moved like a phantom sprinter.
It was as though he existed in one point and by the next instant was no longer there.
The lithari fired blindly, trying to guess his position, but he was always one step ahead, lost within the slaughter.
He appeared here, reaped a life, disappeared. Appeared there, mutilated another body, and disappeared.
It was a carnage.