The object slammed into Mark's shield, tearing through it like wet tissue paper. The world slowed, and right away Mark could see Chloe had been trying to reach him, but there just wasn’t enough time. For a moment it felt as though his senses were heightened to the extreme. Mark absentmindedly noted it was a bullet that had come tearing through his construct. Judging by the path of neon blue light trailing behind it, the weapon could only be benefiting from some kind of enhancement magic, and it was heading directly for his skull.
Releasing his limits allowed Mark to see the attack coming, but there was no way he could stop the bullet's approach. Mark’s rational mind knew this, but he wouldn’t just give up like that. Not until he’d exhausted every option.
Any construct he threw up now wouldn’t even be able to deflect the bullet off course.
He might be able to do so with a piece of steel, but there was no time to manifest enough material. Same with light, burning the material to nothing would take too much time, by then it would be a melted piece of slag ripping a hole through his head instead of the bullet. Mark wasn’t keen on either option.
[Telekinesis] was way too imprecise, and healing his way out of this was not his favorite option. By the looks of it, the projectile would take off Mark's head, and he was not sure if a healing spell would continue when he had no brain to direct it.
The bullet inched forward, uncaring.
Mark cast his mind out for a solution but nothing was coming to him. A new spell wouldn’t work, especially in the time he had left.
He was at a loss, and death approached.
Clenching his jaw, Mark’s lips formed a tight line as he stared defiantly ahead. A stubborn resolve burned in his mind.
He had so little time left that none of his usual options would work, so he’d try them all. Mental overload be dammed, he needed to survive for that to be a problem.
So Mark began casting.
[Sculpt Mana] was first as it was his most familiar spell, followed shortly by [Control earth]. Grains of steel smaller than filings appeared surrounded by a shield the size of a quarter.
Mark made sure to include the ‘Protect ’modifier in the metal.
[Light control] was next, flaring and moving to concentrate around the lump of lead, following it with ease as it headed Mark’s way, heating it rapidly.
Already Mark could feel the spells condensing and taxing his mind. It was hard but still manageable.
Seeing as the bullet was less than two feet away from him, Mark kept pushing.
[Telekinesis] was very difficult to land, but in a strike of inspiration, Mark used his light spell as a tracker to guide his force where it needed to go. Much like the bomb would do if it went off.
An opposing force encompassed the projectile, trying to send it back the way it had come.
Death was one foot away, and Mark was well beyond his limit.
A small disk of steel thickened into being.
Mark’s Mana had started at full, but it drained out of him now, funneled into every spell until nothing remained. Any free attribute points went directly to his Mana attribute to give him more to work with.
The force from [Telekinesis] was slowing things but not enough, and when the bullet hit the [sculpt Mana] which had been sucking up both Prana and Mana, it shattered.
The piece of steel imbued with the modifier held the longest, but even that couldn’t dissuade the pellet of death’s march. Cleaving a hole right through it.
Though by now, [Light control] had heated it enough that the impact deformed the projectile. Throwing the thing off its flight path just slightly.
Each spell came into existence for the briefest of times before being snuffed out entirely, but with each one the bullet shed some of its momentum. Now instead of it blowing off his head, it would just burrow a golf ball-sized hole through him.
Denied even the time to swallow, Mark released all the other spells and triggered [Benediction]. If he couldn’t stop it he would have to endure it, but there was no telling how this would affect him, he could just fall into a coma and never wake up again. Humans knew too little about how the brain worked and the was no telling if the spell could fix this.
Without much other option, Mark plunged the Prana into the spell, his mind straining under the weight of using so many different threads at once. He almost lost it, but had to force himself back on track.
The bullet was an inch away from Mark’s eye socket now. Dully, he realized by the shape and precision, that the shot had to have come from a trained sniper.
It was placed directly between the gaps in his helmet. Slightly skewed now thanks to his efforts, not enough that the bullet wouldn't ping around the inside of his skull like a pinball machine, but perhaps enough to survive.
Time was up. Moving out of the way was impossible, and more spells were impossible, all there was, was to endure.
Deciding that he didn’t want a blow-by-blow into getting brained, Mark withdrew back to his normal processing limits.
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The world heightened back to its usual speed and his head pounded once before the bullet entered his eyeball. Squashing the delicate nerve endings, like a child squishing a ball of playdough.
Pain speared through Mark like a hot poker, tearing through his skull and sending the world into a blur of hazy senses and aborted thoughts.
Mark thought he could feel the bullet pushing its way through him, only to discover the small lump of metal had already exited out the back of his skull and impacted the stonework behind him.
What he was feeling now was his brain – or what was left of it– catching up to reality.
Mark had expected more, but the experience was surprisingly free of pain. One of his distant lecturer's faces came into sharp focus, reminding him that the brain had no pain receptors to speak of, before the memory blurred at the edges like an old polaroid. Unfortunately, the membrane around the brain was not so lucky, neither was the scalp.
The world went dark for a moment, popping like a soap bubble, taking all his senses with it.
Mark had no idea how long he remained floating in the dark, but eventually one of his senses heightened to the extreme.
Touch. He could feel his whole body tugged downwards under the pressure of gravity, and then an itch like no other pushed its way into his eye socket.
Settling there like an angry locust, and dead set on making Mark’s day unpleasant. Mark tried to cry out but his vocal cords didn’t respond.
His hearing came back next. A piercing shout of desperation battered Mark's eardrum, followed by concrete explosively shattering as footsteps faded away.
Mark felt the locust crawling through his skull like it was a burrow, pushing its way through his grey matter multiplying as it went. The itching had begun near the exit wound, and Mark nearly went insane. His body refused to respond, so he was incapable of ripping the clusters of insects out of his wound as they chewed on his itching flesh.
There was a dull crash at the edge of Mark’s senses when he hit the ground.
The new sensation helped him tear his mind away from the ravenous invaders. In doing so he realized that the world was returning in scales of gray and black.
Mark's sight slowly focused as his brain weaved color back into the world, and a murky gray sky came into view. The itch was still evident, but it was making less and less noise.
He could also make out movement near the edges of his vision. Then Sam and Daphne came into focus, they were standing over him. Their stances were defensive, as they fought against something near the edges of Mark's vision. The area beyond was a chaotic jumble of movement and flashes of bright light. Sam's face was twisted into an angry snarl, while Daphne wore the most heartbreaking look of grief.
Mark wanted to get up and help them, no doubt Oscar had planned this, but then the mental load of what had just happened, hit him. Agony tore at both his mind and body even though the physical pain had been chased away by his spell. It was like whiplash, Mark's mind was struggling to catch up with what had just happened to him. The ground shook with short temors.
Unfortunately, Mark then discovered the next big problem, he couldn’t move a muscle. There was still this disconcerting movement in his skull that spoke of damage not yet repaired.
Jonathan and Chloe were nowhere to be seen, but the sounds of battle rang out beyond Mark's sight.
All of this had happened so fast that none of them had been able to react in time. It was only thanks to Chloe’s warning that Mark managed to react at all.
The squirming in his head had stopped and Mark realized [Benidiction] had timed out. Worse still, Mark was still unable to move a muscle. The spell had repaired the major damage but, apparently, didn't consider motor control important enough. For a moment, panic tore at Mark's frayed insides, but then he steadied himself. If one hit didn't fix everything then all it required was a more delicate hand to go over things.
Attempting to gather the Prana for a [Regenerate] reminded his brain he had already over-taxed it and sent involuntary shivers down his spine. An incessant migraine spiked through Mark, but he didn’t stop until the spell was in place. Using the act of healing to stabilize himself mentally
Somewhere nearby Mark heard Oscar's unhinged laughter, but he blocked it out.
As the spell took hold Mark began to feel the tips of his fingers returning to him, and he couldn't say he'd ever felt more relief. Sensation flowed back, and Mark was once more capable of moving his eyes, though his neck remained locked in the twisted position he had fallen.
Looking around he saw Jonathan in the distance fighting Oscar. Chloe attempted to help where she could, but she was engaged with someone Mark couldn't quite see from here. By the looks of it Jonathan was engaging Oscar with a measured pace, but there was still a level of aggression that threatened to consume him. He had learned from their previous encounter and now tested his father's defenses instead of blindly attacking, Mark was happy for him.
Tingling sensations traveled up Mark's arms and legs meeting at his spine and shooting up to the back of his neck. Muscles twitched as he tried to get them under control. Turning his head Mark tried to get his arm under him but they didn’t respond correctly.
It was only then did Mark noticed that Sam was holding a screen of air and force around them, projectiles rained down from the walls from all directions, but Sam returned as good as she got. Sending massive balls of fire spiraling toward the walls.
They were caught up in the middle of a kill zone. The silver lining was that Mark had not yet seen a second shot like the one that had taken him out. So either they weren't capable of another one or it took a while to charge up.
Mark's muscles untensed and he managed to get his leg underneath himself and slowly crawl to his knees.
The movement caught Daphne's attention and she just about left her duties as their frontline. Trails of tears had marked paths down her face, and when she saw him looking at her fresh moisture collected in her eyes.
Mark only then realized what it must have looked like to others and could only assume, that watching someone you loved get shot through the head was traumatizing at best.
Giving her a look that said everything was alright, Mark tried to get his legs under him. He was unstable but gradually strength returned to his legs.
When he stood to his full height Mark took in the battlefield in its entirety, they were worse off than he expected. Chloe was locked in combat with Oscar's bodyguard and Mark could see by the discarded sniper rifle the shot had to have come from him. Mark also noticed that the attacks raining down were from Oscar’s men.
Mark didn’t notice any of NAS’s people here, but one problem at a time.
Jonathan was dealing with Oscar, and Sam and Daphne were knocking projectiles out of the air.
The battlefield slowed but never stopped. When Oscar saw Mark a look of disbelief crossed his features before he smoothed over his frown lines.
Backing off from Jonathan he came to a stop, his stance never losing its readiness.
“Normally I admire a persistent young person, but in this case, you are seriously starting to piss me off.”
Jonathan glanced at Mark for less than a second but some of the desperation loosened from his shoulders.
A low simmering rage coiled in Mark's belly.
“Good, because Jonathan is right, we’re ending this, ending you, now.”
Mark’s Mana was in the single digits, but he still had over sixty percent of his Prana, and he brought that to bear now.
Power coursed through Mark, and Oscar pressed his lips together, a cold gleam entering his eye.