The red minigun paused for a second, as though trying to observe the scene in front of him. Sam had already ducked behind a counter, taking cover. However, Kairos decided to take off his glasses and strain his eyes to remain open.
Sam panicked when he saw that Kairos was still standing out in the open.
“Take cover! That thing has far too much firepower!”
Kairos did not listen. Instead, he grit his teeth and continued to channel mana into the fireball.
“Don’t worry. I will be fine.”
The fireball continued to slowly expand, causing some of the nearby clothes to start smoking.
As for the minigun, it continued to stare at the scene in front of it, almost like it was trying to comprehend what exactly was in front. Kairos fully intended on taking advantage of the lack of response, and was confident he would be able to dodge if it did begin firing with the one second of warning he would get.
The fireball expanded to a diameter of one meter, then two.
Despite it becoming so large, Kairos still felt like he could make it a decent amount bigger, and that it took less than a third of his total mana capacity to cast.
But then, Kairos suddenly felt his head go blank.
He could feel his waist getting torn in two along with an unbelievably loud blaring sound. Kairos instinctively knew what this meant, and was prepared for it.
Right when this pain came, he let loose of the fireball and threw his body to the side. Just a moment later, that blaring sound of gunfire ensued.
The bullets shattered the glass windows and pierced through the fireball cleanly. They then smashed against the structure that held all the clothes, sending them flying and spinning up into the ceiling. The bullets were far from weak, that was for sure.
However, while the bullets pierced through the fireball, it was unable to hinder the momentum. And as such, the fireball continued forth, though some of it was being ripped apart.
A deafening explosion ensued, sending out rushing flames from the point of impact, causing most of the clothes to catch on fire. On top of that, strong gusts of wind threw those clothes on fire across the store.
Kairos immediately threw the clothes he was carrying away, but it didn’t help that much given there were several sets of burning clothes drifting down towards him right now. He was tempted to get up in order to avoid them, but if he did that, he would be torn apart by the bullets.
The minigun was ripping through the store, scattering plaster and whatever else the walls were made of all around the place. Thankfully, it only chose to shoot at waist level instead of going lower, else they would have to do more than just lay down to dodge.
Kairos clicked his tongue as he realized that the fireball he sent out wasn’t able to kill the thing. As for the flaming clothes, he was initially a little anxious, but quickly relaxed. A large beam of water suddenly shot towards the roof, hitting it with a loud thump, though the sound was drowned out from the gunfire.
Its initial momentum was quite frightening, but most of it was dispelled after it hit the roof and scattered across the place, putting out most of the fires.
Kairos was splashed with some of the water which made him feel uncomfortable, but at least it put out the burning shirt that was on his leg.
He shot a glance towards the source of the water, his dad, who gave him a small smirk despite the unfavorable situation.
Kairos sighed and began considering his options.
It seemed that the fireball wouldn’t work, and even if it did, the time it took to charge was too much. That left the pulse spell, but he would have to get up close to the minigun.
Kairos looked down at the black carapace he brought with him and decided he could try it. But while the black carapace was definitely sturdy, he wasn’t sure if it could stand the bullets for long considering the destructive power.
With that, Kairos decided to continue lying down on the floor and advance with the black carapace in front as insurance.
Like this, he went onwards almost like a snake. However, due to the width of the black carapace, it frequently got caught on the various debris that was thrown about from all the destruction earlier.
Kairos frowned and pushed through forcefully. It wasn’t any trouble to make it through, but it definitely delayed him. Though he wasn’t all too concerned since it seemed that the minigun was still only shooting at waist level for some reason.
There should still be plenty of time.
But as though that thought was a jinx, his father shouted.
“Shit! We have to get out of here!”
Kairos furrowed his brows and looked behind him, about to ask. But he soon shut his mouth as he saw the reason for it.
Turns out, the minigun wasn’t just randomly firing. Or at least, it just so happened to have some other use.
The bullets were able to pierce through the walls, and along with the extremely high firing rate, the wall was gradually being destroyed.
In other words, the top of the building was going to fall over soon enough as there was nothing to support it. Kairos cursed under his breath, wondering if he should continue forth or try to break out the side of the wall and escape.
The adrenaline running through his body made it hard to focus on logical thinking, but he forced himself to do so anyway.
Perhaps if he thought about the most likely way to survive, his mind would jump towards escaping. However, he was focused on finding a way to kill this thing.
If the building collapsed, then it would also interfere with getting closer to the minigun once more. Frankly, Kairos really didn’t want that thing to continue firing, wanting to stop it as soon as possible. For one, it may begin focusing on the grocery store, and even if nobody was harmed, most of the food would be ruined.
On top of that, that sound could attract monsters.
He wasn’t afraid of the smaller ones, but the problem was that most smaller ones seemed to avoid this area.
Only monsters big enough to not fear whatever was making them afraid would come here, and that loud sound acted like a flare.
With that in mind, Kairos decided to rush in, while holding the black carapace in front of him.
The minigun was just about to finish tearing through the walls, but froze in place for a second when Kairos popped up. Right after that moment of hesitation, the minigun snapped towards him and began firing.
Kairos immediately felt a strong force bash against his arm, threatening to snap it off directly. He tilted the black carapace to the side so that the bullets would ricochet off instead of directly smashing against him, but the force was still overbearing.
The black carapace held on, but it was trembling violently as a few cracks formed on its side. As though the situation couldn’t get any worse, the building began collapsing. Although the minigun was no longer shooting the wall directly, what remained was unable to keep it up.
The building first teetered, letting out a loud metallic creaking sound before falling over entirely, coming down towards the minigun.
Kairos grit his teeth and arched his back, using all his strength to move forwards just a little bit faster. Suddenly his head snapped upwards as he raised one hand up towards the building coming down on him.
With a bang, the pulse spell was released, shattering the wall, giving Kairos a gap.
Right afterwards, the building slammed down onto Kairos, and the minigun just a few meters in front of him. They were abruptly sent into darkness from the lack of the sun, but the light from the fire of the minigun continued lighting up the place.
Considering it was now all of nothing, Kairos began gathering all the mana he could towards the palm of his hand, preparing the pulse spell.
He pushed forwards against the minigun. There were now visible cracks on his black carapace, showing that it could break at any moment now. However, it had already done its job.
Kairos had gotten next to the minigun, and his hand was trembling violently from the excessive mana gathered in his hand. It held almost all the mana he had left and was just pretty close to its maximum power.
Though he hadn’t cast it yet, just the chaotic rumbling of mana in his hand let him know that it was going to be powerful.
The black carapace shattered into pieces.
But Kairos knew this would happen.
He lunged to the side before raising his hand towards the minigun.
It was glowing so brightly, that it was as though another sun was next to him.
Kairos narrowed his eyes.
“Die.”
Everything seemed to fall silent, but only for a moment.
A thundering explosion ensued, followed by a relentless rumbling sound.
The ground shook violently.
The wind blew.
And the darkness was pushed away, revealing the bright red sun.
The building around Kairos was blown away, smashed into tiny pieces, and thrown in every direction. Along with that, a massive crater had formed underneath him, with countless cracks snaking across the pavement.
As for the minigun, it was launched like a cannonball. The barrel was severely deformed along with the shield, bent like a wrinkled piece of paper.
It slammed into the grocery store, firmly planting itself in one of the aisles.
The other people in the group had gotten near the entrance, trying to help, so the minigun had landed quite close to them.
All of them looked at the scene in front of them with widened eyes.
Nicole trembled as she took in a deep breath.
“That was amazing!”
Everyone seemed quite excited.
However, Kairos still had a big frown plastered across his face.
After casting a mana spell at nearly full power, there was a strong sense of vertigo, one that threatened to take his consciousness the moment he stopped concentrating.
Kairos immediately realized why this was the case.
While his magic was enhanced high in order to cast this devastating spell, the rest of his body was not strong enough to sustain it. After all, it seemed like the actual casting process was closely tied to his body.
Even if he wanted to focus more on magic, he should at the very least increase his endurance along with it. That way, the burden suffered from casting such a spell would be decreased.
But all of this wasn’t the reason he was frowning.
As bad as the situation was, he was not in any lethal danger right now, so it would be a rather petty thing to be upset about at this point.
No, the reason why he was frowning…
Was because he didn’t get a system notification telling him that he killed the minigun.
In other words, it survived.
Kairos tried to force his voice out, but was having difficulty. So instead, he pointed towards the minigun, prompting the others to look as well.
Tori laughed.
“Yeah! We saw! It was pretty damn cool.”
Kairos shook his head as a mouthful of blood burst out of his mouth. The others immediately shifted from smiling to concerned expressions.
Chase furrowed his brows.
“Are you alright?”
With a heavily distorted voice, Kairos yelled.
“RUN AWAY!”
The group panicked and started to look around, wondering what threat they were supposed to run from. Only Chase connected the dots together quickly before dashing out of the way from the minigun.
Seeing as the rest of them still hadn’t gotten the message, Kairos tore his throat to scream once more.
“IT’S STILL ALIVE.”
Expressions of fear appeared on everyone’s faces as they turned back to the minigun.