(MNIBP)Chapter 53 - Sacrificing a limb

The Highlands, New Jersey, USA.

Ben's P.O.V.

[”It’s not as if we’ve got many options there. We’re only three people and there’s only one entrance.”] She replied before letting out a helpless sigh. None of the two men responded as they were busy examining the group of guards flooding the surroundings in order to find the culprit for the previous disturbance. Of course, that meant that they would quickly reach their location, setting a time limit to their decision-making.

Narrowing his eyes, the raven-haired knight suddenly mentioned. [”I think there’s only one way to go.”] [”The hard way?”] [”The stupid way?”] The Redhead and blond-haired man asked. Rolling his eyes at Clint’s semi-joking remark, he stated. [”Yes. We need to go through the front and eliminate as many as we can to be safe. To be fair, without their guns, they’re not much of a threat, no matter how many come at us.”]

[”Speak for yourself, Knight.”] Hawkeye retorted before adding. [”But you’re right. Besides that Fourth-Level guy, I can deal with the rest, easy. The problem is that we don’t know how much damage those Chitauri rifle knock-offs they carry do.”] Turning his head to the side, his gaze met Black Widow’s, the latter visibly hesitating on how to proceed. Risk injuries and death for an unknown result, or retreating safely and having a hypothetical try in the future?

Those kinds of decisions were never easy, especially when it came to people you cared about. He thus made it easy for her to choose the ‘best’ option. [”We’ll go full frontal. I’ll act as the meat shield. With my physique and armor, I should be fine as long as I don’t get hit in the heart or head. Hawk, you’ll act as the long-distance cover. Don’t stay too far behind, though. I might need you to protect me against ambushes. Widow, you’ll act as the ambusher for our team. Aim for those guards in the surroundings while we act as the bait.”]

Crossing her arms under her chest, she tilted her head and asked playfully. [”Are you staging a coup, Knight?”] Chuckling briefly, he shook his head while responding. [”I know about my capabilities the best, so let me make that decision, alright?”] Staring into his eyes for a second, she then replied while lifting her hands mid-air momentarily. [”Do it your way then. I’ll follow your lead and act like my namesake.”]

Nodding his head, the silver-eyed knight chose to selectively ignore the fact that Black Widow had cannibalism tendencies, especially toward their mates and siblings, and instead remarked. [”One other thing. Try to destroy their hearts. It may be the key to preventing their corpses from turning into a nuclear explosion. You know, in case we kill too many of them.”]

[”That’s where the source of their energy is located, right?”] The blond-haired man asked. [”Exactly. You both ready?”] The armored knight questioned the other two before turning toward a team of four guards unknowingly walking in their direction as the two assented. [”Well... Let’s get to work, shall we?”] As the last words left his lips, his hands which were previously empty had his heavy gun and his short sword in his left and right hand respectively.

With a strong push of his right leg, his body seemed to teleport in front of the four enemies who froze briefly in surprise at his sudden appearance. Unfortunately for them, that sort of reaction would prove lethal 100% of the time if one were against a faster and stronger opponent, and the following events aptly proved it. With his Divine Sense deployed, the silver-eyed knight coated his short sword with his inner energy before stabbing it through the chest and heart of one of the two vanguards.

While his right hand was busy, his left had the gun aimed at the other guard’s heart before instantly pulling the trigger once. Due to their First Level Strength, the other two armed men in the back were able to start moving their rifles in his direction while he was busy dealing with the vanguard. However, he was far from worried about them. After all, he was not alone.

Two simultaneous bangs were followed by two brief whistling sounds before a bloody hole appeared on each of the two guards’ torsos, extinguishing their previously vibrant but unstable life sources. With a quick scan, Grey Knight confirmed his previous hypothesis. [”Grey Knight, here. The plan worked. The energy sources disappeared completely. No apparent risk of explosion.”]

As the words left his mouth, he quickly rolled on the ground to avoid a few energy beams coming from the cave opening’s direction. None of them hit their mark, though a few came very close. Now that the enemy was aware of his location, he had to keep moving or he would get ganged upon.

He thus started dashing left and right, hiding behind small trees and sparse bushes, using his Divine Sense and superhuman brain to anticipate the shots’ direction, while from time to time using the defensive spell he recently learned: ‘Five-Cycle’. The latter was basically the defensive pendant of his offensive spell, ‘Extreme Elemental Drill’. By using his inner Five-Elements energy to create a disk-like construct, it could be used as a shield to disintegrate any incoming attack.

At least, that was the goal. Unfortunately, similar to his Five-Veil spell, he had not had much time to practice it, and thus, its defensive strength was barely average and was mostly used to slow the shots flying toward him before they would systematically break apart. The other downside was that he could not make it big enough to protect his entire body with one shield, forcing him to calculate the impact’s location before placing it there.

Nonetheless, it was good enough for his current situation, giving him ample time to dodge any energy beam that could potentially injure him. He was also able to notice something. [”Grey Knight here. Most rifles are only as strong as our own guns, so our armor should be able to tank them. Only that Fourth Level guy has a stronger rifle. If you can even call that cannon-sized abomination a rifle.”]

His last sentence was laced with frustration as he had to roll again to avoid the brief but massive beam that would have made, at least, a head-sized hole through his torso if he had not dodged out of the way. ‘Thank God it’s not a continuous beam, or I’d be completely toast.’ He thought as his mind was split into paying attention to his environment with all of his senses hyper-focused on the task, taking down with his firearm any careless guard who entered his sight, and planning his route to the enemy position while acting as a distraction for his two teammates.

‘If only I could use my shield to deflect those huge beams...’ It may have been because no one but that Fourth level guard could truly injure him, or maybe, it was carelessness. Whatever the reason may be, however, the result was the same. While his mind lost its focus for a split second, it created a lapse in his previously ‘perfect’ movement pattern.

If it was against a normal opponent, then that mistake would have no real consequences. Unfortunately, his current opponents were anything but normal, and they did capitalize on that opportunity. With his focus returning, he felt the top right of his chest being hit by a few energy beams, which halted his momentum, despite causing no injury. ‘Fuck!’ He thought as the next wave of attacks arrived right after the previous one, this time with the head-sized beam aimed at the center of his chest.

With his current unbalanced stance, there was objectively no way for him to not get hit. And, with its power, it would probably punch a big hole through his chest which was less than ideal if one wanted to live normally. Or live at all, for that matter. That being said, he was not about to give up entirely. Too many things to experience and too many people relying on him. No way!

Matching his determination, his body started secreting an Adrenalin-like substance before circulating it all over his body, which boosted all of his faculties, and among them his brain process. ‘Of course!’ He thought in a split-second as the ‘perfect’ solution surfaced in his mind after taking into account everything around and about him.

Having a ‘God-like’ perk with his current cultivation base gave him many options, especially since his powerful regeneration made it almost impossible to have any permanent injury, besides the ones that would kill him instantly. The answer was thus very easy. Moving his left arm slightly to the right, it found itself in the beam’s way, but not before five stacked shield-like energy constructs appeared from thin air between his upper limb and the energy beam.

His preparations done in the blink of an eye, he gritted his teeth to brace against the incoming pain while doing his best to move his body out of the way. Instantly, the energy projectile went through the ‘weak’ shields, breaking them apart with almost no energy loss, as if they were made from air. The second layer was the armored plates placed everywhere over the full-body black suit located underneath.

This time, going through the plates drained a sizable chunk of the ‘arrow’‘s reserve. It was not enough to stop its momentum, however. The next layer was also insufficient, leaving his arm at the mercy of the searing beam. The damage it caused to his limb was considerable, vaporizing his skin and muscles despite using his internal energy to chip as much strength from the beam.

His bet paid off as his arm bones were not broken through. They ‘only’ had cracks all over their lengths and seemed ready to crumble with a simple touch. At that point in time, his upper body was completely out of the way while the energy projectile was almost out of energy. Moving his arm out of the beam’s way, he then rolled to the side, while still coating his left arm with his internal energy to protect it from breaking apart completely.

[”BEN!!!!!”] [”PARKER!! RUN FOR COVER!!”] Having escaped death by the skin of his teeth, or, in this particular case, the skin and muscles of his arm, Grey Knight’s extreme focus relaxed enough to allow his mind to register the shouts resounding from the coms in his helmet. It was not what caught his attention, however. Instead, it was the fact that with a last short sprint, he would reach the cave entrance where guards were shooting at him. Between going forward and retreating, the decision was made in a split second.

Since he was so close, he did not hesitate to throw his drill spell as many times as he could to take out or at least distract as many guards as he could. What helped him was the fact that the surroundings were void of people since they had all been dealt with by his teammates. The rest of them of those still breathing were hiding and shooting from behind the metallic barricade at the entrance of the cave.

As his body flew over the barricade at a speed too quick for his opponents to follow, he noticed that there were only three guards left. The Fourth Level female guard, who took out his arm, and two ‘random’ Third Level male guards. The rest of their colleagues were scattered on the ground, completely lifeless. [”I’ll be fine! Quit yelling in my ears!”] He calmly stated in his coms, doing his best to portray confidence and bear the agonizing pain coming from his left forearm and hand.

The injured knight then stopped paying attention to his two worried teammates and focused instead on how to deal with the three people surrounding him. As the woman with a ridiculously big firearm entered his sight, his face switched from indifference to extreme coldness. Despite the anger festering in his heart, however, his body did not even slow down, twisting and turning to avoid the shots fired in his direction.

At that point, two energy drills instantly appeared in the air before being thrown toward the weaker male guards who, because of their close proximity to the projectiles, did not have time to avoid them. The result was two massive holes going through their chest, extinguishing their lifeforce immediately.

Done with the two annoyances on the side, the silver-eyed knight turned his entire focus on the terrified woman in front of him, the one who was an inch away from taking his life earlier. The idea of such a weak person having almost robbed him of everything fueled the already raging anger in his heart, prompting him to do something his instructor always warned him to avoid: Let his emotions control his actions.

His entire body thus reflected his inner emotion, with his right leg moving into a low kick, destroying her left kneecap, which made her crumble to the ground while screaming in agony. His anger was not sated, though, and his right leg lifted again before falling heavily on the woman’s right knee, destroying it as easily as the other. Not paying attention to the symptoms of shock appearing all over her body, he was about to continue venting his feelings on her when Natalia’s voice and presence pulled him out of his disturbed state. [”BEN! ARE YOU OKAY?!!”]

Turning his head toward the redhead who was only a few feet away from him, Ben felt lost for a second. ‘What came over me?’ Was the thought that appeared briefly in his mind as he stood there watching his friend shoot the crippled female guard while cursing at her dead body for a brief moment before running to his side. As her eyes fell on his ‘bone’ arm, she fell silent. Despite being slightly absent-minded, he did notice a few shivers wracking her body before she visibly calmed down and declared.

[”We need to retreat. The mission is too dangerous for our current power level.”] Pausing for a second, she softly added, with concern audible from her tone. [”I don’t want to lo...”] [”Parker!”] Clint suddenly interrupted her words while sprinting to their side.