Page 82 of Taming Chaos

Malhak.

Amanhiel.

Those were the names they called him as he ripped into the Bartharran horde, but now he was Malhak in name only, because they fought him with renewed fervor, having apparently decided to take back that title.

It didn’t matter. Every time a new challenger stepped up to face him, he dispatched them with savage efficiency. Get out of my way. The time for negotiation, for talk—that was long gone.

Torin’s fury knew no bounds. These deaths brought him no regret, no remorse, no soul-searching.

He just wanted his mate back.

That was all.

His one-in-infinity; the soul he’d been waiting to meet his entire life… against all odds he’d found her, and they had snatched her away.

For what?

He would not delay long enough to find out.

Torin strode ahead and got smashed in the chest by a bolt of plasma. It threw him back. He stood up. Strode forward. Got shot again, and again, and again. His exo-armor weakened under the force of the sustained plasma-fire. He raised his arm and fired, once, twice, three times, picking off three Bartharrans.

As quickly as they fell, they were replaced by others.

Torin growled in frustration.

Pain crawled over every inch of his body and dug a deep, excruciating tunnel that burrowed into his chest, his spine, and his head. He could no longer gather the cold veil. It had been replaced with fire; white-hot anger that scrambled his thoughts and made his movements wild and uncontrolled.

All his training deserted him.

Get her back! It was all he could think of.

The Bartharrans had formed a defensive barrier; a wall of bodies, a fortress of golden flesh. They raised their guns to shoot him again, and this time, Torin moved differently.

He ran alongside the wall, digging his claws in whenever a storm of plasma threatened to throw him back.

And bit by bit, he advanced, anchoring himself to the wall and firing back when he could. He ignored the damage to his armor, which was starting to look patchy. Even though the Bartharran guns were inferior—probably sourced from Ephrenian traders—Callidum-impregnated nano-armor couldn’t sustain repeated plasma blasts.

A bolt of plasma seared the side of his face, burning away part of his helm. Torin felt the flesh of his cheek, mouth, and eye burn away, only for his nanites to instantly swarm into place and mend the damaged tissue.

Keep moving!

The intense healing and regeneration forced the nanites to sacrifice the integrity of his exo-armor. That’s why his legs were injured next, the plasma fire burning through the flesh of his thighs. Torin was engulfed in his own personal hell, wave after wave of excruciating plasma savaging parts of his body. His nanites were in overdrive, consuming flesh where they could, replacing tissue in critical places.

Torin had been in countless battles. He’d been injured many times, and he’d been subjected to the most cruel, excruciating experiments, but he’d never experienced pain like this. Several times, he almost passed out from the sheer agony of it, but he kept going.

Nothing could keep him away from his Persephone, nothing. Perhaps if he’d had time on his hands, if he hadn’t been so desperate, he might have been able to figure out a more strategic approach, but he was deathly afraid of what the Bartharrans might do to his mate if he didn’t reach her in time.

Even Kaiin, the death god, wouldn’t be able to stop Torin from dragging himself out of the infernal Nine Hells if he had to.

The Bartharrans fired another devastating round of plasma, but it didn’t matter, because Torin had reached them.

Summoning strength from a place he didn’t know existed, he forced himself to move. He was more beast than man now, surrendering to his most primal instincts as he took the line of Bartharrans down, shooting two of them point-blank in the face, digging his claws into throats. Blood sprayed everywhere, and his nanites rose to the surface, hungrily absorbing the crimson splatter.

The Bartharrans fought back, hitting him with fire and sword in the places where his armor grew ragged and thin. Torin took one of the blades that was pointed at him and turned it against his attacker. He lashed out, losing himself in a red haze of anger.

And then suddenly, there was only one.

One Bartharran left.

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