Marvelous Martial Arts (A Marvel Story)

Author’s Note: Sorry, I couldn’t post yesterday since NovelPhoenix doesn’t have scheduled chapters.

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Bloody Mary looked intimidating, her bloodthirst currently being broadcast to any nearby minds. And yet, Mason only felt excited as he grinned, asking, ”Asking for round two? Can’t promise I’ll be as gentle this time.”

She screamed, and with a wave of her hand, whatever remained of the limo was sent flying at Mason. The car flew fast, but Mason felt it ahead of time since he had his Divine Sense focused on her, so he easily stepped aside.

Still, the car crashed into the office with a thunderous boom, caving in the door and half the wall.

Mason tried to close in, but several fire tendrils lashed out at him, completely blocking him off and forcing him to retreat. At the same time, a machine gun hurtled over to Bloody Mary.

Mason chuckled, ”That’s cheating,” and dove behind one of the walls under construction. It was only about half as tall as a man, but the bricks stopped the bullets just fine. And when Bloody Mary was done firing, Mason tore a chunk off the wall with a flex of his hand and threw it at her.

It must have been easily fifty kilograms, yet it was thrown at the speed of a baseball. Bloody Mary tried to stop it with her psionics, but it only slowed it down and still hit her.

A chunk of her chest armor was dented, and although it was immediately bent back under her telekinesis, Mason still heard her take a sharp breath. That must have hurt.

Leaping over the waist-high wall, Mason rushed at Bloody Mary, yelling with his unchanged grin, ”Catch me if you can!”

Bloody Mary shrilled, five fire tendrils whipping out from her. They waved erratically, her mental state in such disarray that her intent alone was not enough to predict them precisely. However, Mason also possessed inhuman reflexes and speed, so he managed to cross the attack with a well-calculated jump.

Seeing him rapidly close the distance between them, Bloody Mary rapidly reloaded her gun, fishing the magazine out of her dead henchman telepathically, but bullets were much easier to dodge as she actually aimed with them.

Finally, with a scream, she resorted to Typhoid Mary’s earlier tactic, that of blasting everything in front of her with fire.

Mason did not doubt for a single moment that even he would get cooked through and through by it, but since he was already expecting it, it was much easier to counter.

He started by throwing a small rock he had hidden in his palm at her knee. She might be protected by metal armor; it was made from a limo. Moreover, she had torn it into many pieces to fit it around her body, so the metal had lost all its structural integrity. Finally, because of simple physics, the armor had to be thinner around the joints.

The result? The rock punched a hole through the armor and blew her kneecap apart.

Even in Bloody Mary’s crazed, unstable state, she screamed out from the pain, suddenly forced to take a knee. Both of her hands lowered as a result, allowing Mason to leap over her, barely dodging the orange inferno she projected.

Just as expected, it was not only hotter but went further and in a larger arc. All that was meaningless, though, since it completely missed Mason.

But as Mason was falling, ready to deliver the final blow, his Divine Sense picked up on something strange. Mary intended to do something, but he could not tell what. Or rather, he did know what the intent was, but not what it would result in.

Erring on the side of caution, Mason abandoned his thoughts of attacking, preparing to bounce away the moment he hit the ground instead.

Beneath him, Bloody Mary’s voice lost some of its mania to exhaustion as she screamed out, ”Die, you filthy man! Storm of Vengeance!”

Much like earlier, Mason felt Bloody Mary’s spirit shrink on itself. Except that it was not spread out over a large area; it was already struggling to be contained within her body. And she was shrinking it further.

The already unstable mind of the woman started breaking in real time as it condensed even further down, converging into so small a size it became impossible to sense even for Mason. However, the raw power contained within it was more than enough for him to sense.

Mason thought about stopping her, which would probably mean killing her before she could unleash it, but then changed his mind. It was not out of a sense of guilt; this Bloody Mary had already killed several of her men and probably had a bloody history.

However, sensing the sheer power that was on the verge of exploding, Mason saw an opportunity. He had awakened his Essence and Breath through mortal danger, and at the moment had no clues on how to awaken his Spirit. However, here he was facing a potent psionic explosion.

He did not have much time to think either, so as he landed next to her and saw the metal armor around her had fallen to the ground, he turned her way and slapped both of his hands on both sides of her head, holding it firmly.

For the first time, Bloody Mary finally showed fear as Mason stared into her eyes, grinning savagely as he steeled himself. As he felt her Spirit reach its limit, the light behind her eyes dimming like she had been lobotomized, Mason closed his eyes and entered a meditative trance.

Then, her Spirit exploded.

Exploded was the perfect word for it, as the moment her Spirit reached the point of becoming a sort of singularity, her spiritual energy finally could not be contained any longer, the particles colliding with each other like they would in a nuclear reaction.

Of course, even in his state, Mason could sense none of that, only that there was one final moment of silence as he entered his meditative state, a moment of absolute clarity, before the explosion.

The spiritual storm expanded nearly instantly, and Mason realized he had underestimated it. If nothing were to be done, it would probably extend over half a block before stopping. He did not even have the time to feel relieved at stopping it as he forcefully contained the explosion.

In the matters of the Soul and the Spirit, Mason might just be the foremost expert in the world, having lived for over eighteen years as an intangible spirit in this body. During that time, he had trained it extensively and also learned to manipulate it.

Once he had taken over this body, it was hard to make proper use of his Spirit because his existence had become grounded in the physical world, but now that he was faced with the psychic storm, it suddenly returned to him.

It was like the sense of touch. When holding out one’s hand over nothing, it was hard to feel anything without wind. Only when one placed their hand on something would their sense of touch become clearer.

It was the same here. Through his Spirit’s interaction with the psychic storm, it suddenly became much clearer.

That did not help much with the defending, but it allowed him to contain the storm. Some of it still slipped out, though, forming a five-meter radius of death. Whichever henchmen had managed to survive so far had their minds shattered by the storm.

And standing in the very middle of it, Mason bore the brunt of it. It felt like his Spirit was being pulled from every direction, in an attempt to tear it apart. Almost like his Spirit had been placed in the middle of a Rasengan, with currents of force attacking randomly.

But Mason’s Spirit was abnormally powerful. He certainly did not reach the level of the strongest telepaths on the planet, but he still possessed a certain rigidity that allowed him to hold on.

Except that the storm was not some instantaneous thing. Instead, as the seconds passed, it attempted to continue expanding, and as Mason held it down, it increased in intensity.

It quickly became evident to Mason that simply facing the storm head-on was not going to work, and he was going to be worn down before it would.

As he thought of a solution, Mason was reminded of something. The old man- what was it that he said… that he should stop meeting strong with strong?

A stubborn part of Mason was tempted to push this, to stick with his tactic to the very end, but Mason was smarter than that. To meet strong with soft…

Mason felt a sudden sense of epiphany as he carefully manipulated his Spirit. Since Mason had little to no control over his spiritual energy, he had to use his Spirit directly to surround the psychic storm. He had spread his Spirit out in a sphere, containing the storm within.

The storm winning was the only possible outcome, really, spreading out his Spirit and thinning it out.

He had done so because he wanted to protect their surroundings, so he did not regret his decision, but with hindsight, he did not need to block it out completely, only funnel it away from the population. If he had left a gap at the top, then the storm would have been only half as impactful, with most of it dispersing.

Now that he had shaped his Spirit into that sphere, though, morphing its shape without tearing it apart would be nigh impossible.

And yet, Mason’s gut told him to try.

Maybe trusting that gut was not the smartest thing to do, considering it was what had gotten him in this situation in the first place, but he still decided to go with it.

His body remaining still in his extreme focus, Mason did what should have been unthinkable and tore a hole into his own Spirit, right at the top.

Instantly, the storm that had been brewing inside reacted. It was not a directed force; it was a storm that followed the path of least resistance, and with an opening appearing, all that spiritual energy surged, blowing out into the open sky like an erupting volcano.

The experience was far from pleasant for Mason. On the contrary, that was easily the worst pain he had felt in both lives and singular afterlife. The pain was not comparable to anything he had ever felt either, as it came directly from the soul being torn.

It was a pain that came from the deepest part of his being.

And yet, at the same time, it came with a sentiment of relief. That bubbling spiritual energy had been wearing his Spirit down, and the sudden release had considerably lightened the pressure he felt.

And more importantly, Mason felt a faint sense of unshackling. Like a dam cracking at the base, the fissure slowly going up, inevitably shattering the whole thing one day.

Mason felt a flicker of doubt at the sensation, doubting whether it was the sensation of his Spirit awakening, or if it was simply being torn apart. If there was one thing he was sure of, it was that he was going at it in an unconventional way, but unconventional was the name of the game as far as he was concerned, wasn’t it?

So, Mason stopped worrying, placing unwavering faith in himself and soldiering on through the experience.

The storm only lasted for a few more seconds once it found its release, the vast majority of it dispersing into a cloud above before disappearing. Only a small part of it remained on the ground level, and somehow, returned to Bloody Mary.

Or maybe it would be more accurate to call her Mary by this point, as she had already fallen unconscious, which was far more than she should have been able to hope. To summon that storm, she had literally detonated her Spirit, which meant death for anyone. Brain death, to be precise.

But as if guided by some superior force, a small part of her exploded Spirit returned to her body and was forcefully turned back into what it once was. It was only a shadow of what it once was, but even now, Mason could feel she was recovering.

It was frankly quite an absurd power, even if she remained in a coma for years, and Mason was pretty sure it would not come to that.

Of course, even in the face of such an absurd power, Mason was more focused on the changes going on within him.

To sum it up in a few words? That ‘Storm of Vengeance’ had given him some pretty severe indigestion.