The first man, the one banging on the door, collapsed instantly as a bullet hit straight into his forehead and the two men behind him were hit in the jaw and nose, while one of the men standing to the side got hit in the hip and fell over and the other was struck in the chest collapsing and bleeding out on the ground and well counterfire began.
But Joseph did the exact opposite of what he was supposed to do.… he stepped out of the door calmly, like nothing unusual had happened, like there were no bullets tearing apart the house impacting everywhere around him, nah, he simply walked out as if it was just another ordinary day, standing there with the sun on his face, breathing in the air, feeling almost ecstatic in a way that only made sense to him.
[System Notice: You are not immortal.]
"Indeed, I am not." He glanced to the side at the cars where the remaining gang members had taken cover and that was the answer why he was so comfortable.
They were firing blindly in every direction, no aim at all, just spraying bullets in panic. Some of them had automatic weapons, kicking back so hard that they were shooting up in the sky then at the house or Joseph.
"They are more like living targets than real danger." Joseph whispered as he crouched and grabbed one of the guns next to a dead body finishing what he had started.
On the left side, one of the men he had shot in the hip was still alive, bleeding out, watching Joseph with wide, terrified eyes, and Joseph did not wait long. He ended him instantly as well as the other guy who was shot in the chest and then he looked toward the fools hiding behind the cars.
They continued firing mindlessly, shooting at nothing, while Joseph moved with surreal calm, walking straight across the road and then along the sidewalk, moving to the blind side of a car across the street and they had no idea and one by one he took them down.
He killed five of them and he was right about them running away like dogs, because the last two of them who were behind another car just straight up started running down on the street while still just blindly shooting back striking houses, even the road itself.
"There is no way I can hit them from this far away." Joseph whispered to himself and the System was right, he was not a sharpshooter, but he didn't need to be one as he raised his finger. "Blood Art: Arrowhead."
As he said it, a small drop of blood appeared at the tip of his finger, then shot forward, forming an arrowhead and striking the first man directly in the head, literally blowing it up, and then the arrowhead continued flying and struck the second man in the chest, tearing straight through him and leaving a big-ass hole as his body collapsed.
"Fuck… did I put too much power in it again?" He realized immediately that if the police or anyone else arrived, the scene would be impossible to explain… one man's head blown apart, the other ripped open in the chest, so he needed to do it. "Blood Art: Coffin of Hell."
As he activated it, a thick drop of blood formed at the tip of his finger and surged outward, wrapping around the two bodies. In an instant, the blood rose from their wounds and then their bodies disintegrated completely, the flesh, the blood all of it sucked into the crimson vortex until nothing remained on the ground.
[System Warning: You do not have enough Mana.]
Well, he felt it himself. His whole body trembled slightly, and the lightheadedness and the blurry vision became worse, but there was still two more bodies inside the house, and their presence was a risk as their pale bodies and drained bloods would immediately point to a System user, but before going back inside, he crouched and grabbed some of the gang members' guns and magazines, taking them and then back inside he activated his Skill again and consumed their bodies too, but he fucked up.
[System Notification: Mana Deprivation detected.]
It was the worst part of the System.
Mana Deprivation was not what people imagined from games or anime. It was not just feeling tired, not just faint or weak.
It was an entirely different torment, but at the same time he knew he couldn't let it happen inside the house. If he collapsed there, someone would find him, someone would discover everything, and the risk was too great. So he forced himself further.
"Blood Art… Gate of Pain." He had no idea where the Skill had teleported him, what city, what street, even what part of the country, but he didn't care nor could.
He had fallen fully into it. Into the raw torment and agony of Mana Deprivation.
"I am here again." Joseph whispered to himself as he drifted in the endless darkness of his own mind, feeling once more the slow and painful torment of Mana Deprivation wrapping around.
Mana Deprivation was not just exhaustion or temporary weakness, it felt almost like a punishment placed upon those who believed their new power made them untouchable. After the first victims experienced it and survived long enough to describe the horror of it, most System users quickly learned to restrain themselves, carefully managing their Mana and avoiding unnecessary skill usage whenever possible.
At least, the majority of them did. Joseph was never one of those people.
He had already fallen into Mana Deprivation five times before, each time pushing his body and mind beyond their limits because he refused to hold back when his life was on the line.
And now he was experiencing it for the sixth time and it also meant that now this torment was the worst of all as Mana Deprivation is not only a physical suffering where the body became weak, but a psychological torment that slowly dragged a person into the darkest parts of their own mind.
Every regret, every mistake, every cruel action, and every moment where someone had hurt another person would return again and again, playing inside the victim's mind like a cruel loop that refused to end, forcing them to watch and relive those memories until they began to question themselves and their own worth.
For some people it showed the moment they abandoned someone who trusted them, for others it showed the moment they chose violence when they could have chosen mercy, and for many it simply showed the small selfish actions that slowly built the person they had become.
And now, as Joseph floated once again inside that endless darkness.