As A Mafia Boss, I Refuse To Be An Extra - Chapter 256: Channel Shot
Chapter 256: Channel Shot
The creatures kept coming.
Always more of them, emerging from fog in endless waves, climbing over the corpses of their own dead without hesitation or concern.
The defensive circle was failing.
Students were dying.
The Imperial heirs had nothing left to give.
And in the sky above, thunder continued booming like funeral drums marking the end of humanity’s next generation.
As all seemed to be the end, as the final collapse appeared inevitable, as the last threads of hope frayed and prepared to snap completely–
Damian’s Aura shifted.
Not dramatically, not with any visible announcement, just a subtle change in the dark crimson Aura surrounding his body as telekinesis activated with precision he’d been practicing for months.
His feet left the mud.
Rising slowly, steadily, his ascent barely noticeable at first among all the chaos and screaming and death.
He went higher.
And higher.
As high as his telekinetic control could manage while maintaining stability, needing distance, needing perspective, needing to see the entire battlefield laid out beneath him like a tactical map.
The rain hit his face as he rose above the formation, wind whipping his hair, thunder cracking close enough that he could feel the electricity in the air.
From this vantage point, he could see everything with perfect clarity.
The defensive circle – barely ten meters across now, a tiny island of desperate humanity in a sea of monsters.
The remaining students – pressed together, many already given up, most injured, all exhausted beyond what their bodies should be capable of enduring.
The Imperial heirs – those legendary fighters who’d killed hundreds each, now reduced to using basic skills, their incredible bloodline skills completely depleted.
And the creatures.
Thousands of them.
A horde so vast it defied belief, surrounding the formation in layers upon layers, white eyes gleaming in the darkness, knife-claws ready to tear and rend, all of them pressing inward with patient hunger.
They could wait.
They had time.
The humans were trapped, exhausted and broken.
Victory was inevitable.
Damian closed his eyes, blocking out the visual horror, focusing inward instead of outward.
Salazar’s voice echoed in his memory, the lesson from weeks ago replaying with perfect clarity, every word sharp and distinct.
[“Level Three takes that principle further. The bullet doesn’t just harvest Aura – it compresses space itself around the projectile.”]
Damian’s breathing slowed, became controlled, his entire focus narrowing to a single point of absolute concentration.
He could see it in his mind’s eye – the demonstration Salazar had given, the impossible shot that had defied every law of physics Damian understood.
Damian’s Aura began changing, the crimson energy becoming denser, more focused, condensing around his body and especially around his gun.
[“The impact damage increases exponentially because you’re not just delivering kinetic force – you’re delivering spatial rupture.”]
His eyes remained closed, but his perception extended outward, feeling the positions of everything below him – allies clustered together desperately, enemies spreading in all directions like a cancer.
[“The key is understanding that space isn’t fixed. It’s flexible, malleable. Your Aura can fold it like paper if you have the will and control.”]
Damian opened his eyes.
They glowed crimson in the darkness, brighter than they ever had before, his entire being focused on a single shot he’d only successfully executed twice in practice.
His gun rose, barrel pointing north where the bulk of the horde pressed thickest.
“Channel Shot.”
His voice was quiet, almost casual, the words barely audible over the storm.
BANG!
The recoil was nothing like normal firing.
The gun bucked in his hand with force that would have broken a normal person’s wrist, his entire arm going numb from the discharge.
The bullet left the barrel and reality screamed.
The air itself cracked and shattered wherever the projectile passed, broken glass sounds spreading outward in waves, space folding and compressing around the Aura bullet.
The bullet moved silently through the rain, but as it traveled, it began sucking Aura from the surrounding environment – pulling energy from the dense ambient Aura of the incomplete dimension, feeding on the very atmosphere, growing more and more compressed with each meter it covered.
The gun rotated in Damian’s hand, barrel now pointing east.
BANG!
Another discharge, another wave of spatial rupture spreading through the air, another bullet beginning its journey of consumption and compression.
His weapon was smoking now, metal visibly warping from forces it was never designed to contain, cracks spreading across the barrel and chamber.
South.
BANG!
The gun’s handle shattered, pieces falling away, the remaining structure held together by Damian’s Aura alone.
West.
BANG!
The weapon disintegrated completely the moment the fourth bullet left the barrel, metal fragments scattering in the wind, Damian’s hand empty except for lingering crimson Aura.
Four bullets traveled through the storm in four different directions, each one harvesting Aura from the dimension itself, each one becoming more and more compressed as spatial principles folded reality around them.
They moved like hungry ghosts, invisible to normal sight, detectable only by the trails of shattered air they left in their wake.
Damian’s consciousness tracked all four simultaneously, his willpower guiding their trajectories, keeping them on course even as they curved around obstacles and bent through folded dimensions.
****
[The Defensive Circle – Seconds Before Impact]
Edrin had stopped giving orders.
What was the point?
His mind had run every possible scenario and they all ended the same way – total annihilation within the next five minutes.
Maybe less if the creatures decided to rush all at once instead of their current patient pressure.
His swords hung loose in his grip, rain washing blood from the blades, his entire body trembling from exhaustion and the knowledge of imminent death.
Around him, other students had reached the same conclusion.
A girl was praying, words in a language Edrin didn’t recognize, her voice breaking with sobs.
A boy had dropped his weapon entirely and was just staring at his hands, muttering about how he should have listened to his mother.
Another student – Noble family based on the crest – was screaming challenges at the creatures, his voice raw from overuse, clearly preferring to die fighting rather than waiting for the end.
The Imperial heirs were scattered around the formation, all of them showing exhaustion that went beyond physical.
This was the exhaustion of having given everything and finding it insufficient.
Of having powers that would be legendary in normal circumstances and discovering they meant nothing against overwhelming numbers.
The creatures were closing in for the final assault, their white eyes gleaming with hunger, their knife-claws ready to tear and rend.
This was the end.
Edrin knew it with absolute certainty.
His tactical mind had accepted it.
All that remained was experiencing the actual dying part.
Then–
A voice cut through the storm.
Quiet, almost casual, but carrying clearly despite the thunder and rain and screaming.
“Channel Shot.”
