บท 18: Hello, Mark Vanitas

Slam!

The Anima ignored the useless iron pole and grabbed Mark by the shirt, slamming him into the ground. It brought him up and turned around before throwing Mark through the wall of the skyscraper!

Crash!!

They were on the twentieth floor, so Mark was sent flying into the air without any place to land! Mark floated in the air, wondering what he could do about a monster like this. Why in the world was it attacking him alone? There were more than twenty superhumans here, and the ant-headed monster was ignoring all of them and going straight for him. In fact, it was even ignoring all the people they saw. Mark thought that he would have to be protecting people as they fought, but there was no need because the only person that the ant-headed Anima was interested in was Mark!

Mark turned to the side and saw a streak of lightning running across buildings and coming towards his location at an insane speed! He immediately knew that it was Lightning Rider and Yellow Phantom coming to help him! If he could just hold on for a few more seconds, then they could reach him and get this bastard off his back! Mark didn't know why the ant-headed anima was so focused on killing him, but he knew that if the three of them worked together, they could hold it off until reinforcements arrived!

[Mark! Focus!]

A voice shouted from Mark's ear, and Mark was brought back to the fight as a shadow fell over him! Mark's eyes widened as he looked into the sky and saw that the ant-headed anima was holding onto a large section that it had broken off from the skyscraper! This bastard was trying to throw a house at him! Mark looked around in desperation and tried to see if there was anything that he could use to defend himself, but there was no place for him to use as leverage to get out of the way! He was literally a sitting duck as he fell from the sky!

SCRREECHH!

Woosh!!

The building was thrown at Mark with a loud screech, and Mark could only cross his hand in front of his face and hope for the best!

Slam!

BOOM!!!

The building slammed into Mark with intense force, and a great tremor passed through the entire city as both Mark and the building crashed into the ground! There were miniature earthquakes generated by the impact, and this caused some of the buildings in the area to begin crumbling and falling!

SCRREECH!!

The ant landed on top of the building with Mark under it and screeched loudly as it released even more of its power! A large wave of energy spread across the city, freezing all the humans in place and making all the superhumans shiver from the oppressiveness of the power! This was the strength of a Calamity class monster! This was something that could not be handled by mere A ranks! This was a true monster!

All the people in the world who were watching the news were silent as they saw the extraordinary display of strength that the Calamity class just showed them! It was something that they couldn't even comment on! Even the reporter who was in charge of providing commentary on the news was completely silent as she just watched the Calamity class screeching in victory!

There was a dread that filled all of them as they didn't see GHOST moving anymore! It was finally sinking in for them that what they were watching was something that they could not even fathom! GHOST has always won against any monster he faced, and even though he was very elusive and didn't give any interviews or join any guilds, he was still loved by many because he was always protecting them! But there was no way GHOST would be able to survive against a monster like this! He was no longer even moving, so they were sure he was dead!

Under the rubble, Mark was no longer moving as the weight of the building on top of him threatened to crush him! He could only think that he was going to die here because there was no way he could win against something like this! Mark's life slowly began to flash before his eyes, and there was only one thought that constantly played over and over in his head.

'I wish I kissed Arit when I had the chance this morning.'

If Mark knew that he was going to be fighting against a monster that was hell-bent on killing him by any means necessary, then Mark would have just bit the bullet and kissed Arit! How the fuck can he die without even kissing her once!?

Ping! Ping! Ping!

Mark blinked in surprise as he heard a pinging coming from somewhere inside his head. That sound! Mark knew that sound! He hadn't heard that sound in almost four years, but he could still remember the pinging sound that could only come from his system! Mark's heart was beating at a mile a minute as he quickly opened the tab that he closed earlier today and saw all the different messages that he missed!

[System functions Recovering…]

[Time Elapsed: 4 years: 1 day: 10 hours: 32 minutes: 15 seconds…]

[Time remaining: 0]

[Cannot awaken system. System Functions are being recalibrated. System functions are being recalibrated.]

[System Awakening… Awakening Complete.]

[Does the user wish to activate the system? Yes/No…]

[If no choice is picked, system functions cannot resume functions. The system will move into standby mode until an option is picked.]

[Standby mode activated]

After these messages passed some new messages started to come up below them!

[User has suffered major physical damage. Estimated probability of winning the battle in the current state: 1.2%]

[System has concluded that this is an unattainable task.]

[Due to the gravity of the situation, standby mode has been automatically deactivated.]

[System Functions Restarting… System Function Restarting… System Functions Restarting.]

[Superhero System Restarted Successfully.]

Mark felt a massive surge of energy fill him as the system finally came back online, and Mark couldn't stop the mad grin that spread across his face as each cell in his body radiated extreme power! Mark felt like he could take on the entire world in his current state! And he would win!

[Parsing Constitution. No residual damage found.]

"Hello once again, Mark Vanitas. Has it already been four years?"

"!"

Mark blinked in surprise and looked down in shock as he saw that he was no longer under the building. He looked around him, and he saw that he was standing in a bright blue area in the sky! There was no ground under him, but when he stomped his feet, he could feel solid ground under it!

"You don't want to do that! You could fall from there and head straight back down! I don't know about you, but I think a fall like that will definitely end with your death!"

Mark stopped stomping immediately when he heard this, and he looked up to see a boy floating in front of him. The boy was wearing blue shorts and a red shirt, and he had a cap over his white hair! This was Sozin! The god of Games!