If Lisa aimed directly at the head, the heavy wind would push the bullet far to the left. The bullet would drop thirty feet before it reached the target. She had to do the math. Lisa breathed in. She watched the green numbers in her vision. She moved the barrel of her heavy rifle up. She aimed thirty feet above the water tower. She moved the barrel to the right, aiming twenty feet into the empty, blowing snow. To a normal person, it looked like she was aiming at nothing. But Lisa was aiming at the wind. She was aiming at gravity. [TRAJECTORY LOCKED.] the green text flashed in her mind. [PROBABILITY OF HIT: 92%.] Lisa put her finger on the cold metal trigger. Then, she realized the terrible, deadly cost of what she was about to do. Her heavy anti-materiel rifle was a monster. It was packed with crushed chemical flares. When it fired, the explosion inside the gun would be massive. The recoil—the backward kick of the gun—would be incredibly violent. Lisa’s ribs were completely crus

Five minutes passed. The cold was seeping deep into Lisa’s bones. Her shivering was getting worse. She was losing too much blood. “He is fast,” Lisa thought. “He should be here by now. Why hasn't he attacked?” Suddenly, her Eagle Eye System flashed a terrifying, sharp warning. [ANOMALY DETECTED.] Lisa frowned. She looked at the green text. [WIND DISPLACEMENT AT 10 METERS.] Lisa’s breath froze in her throat. “Ten meters. Thirty feet.”The assassin was not two miles away anymore. He was standing thirty feet right in front of her. He had crossed the two miles in less than five minutes. Lisa stared into the swirling white snow right in front of the concrete barricade. She saw nothing. The snow was just snow. But then, she noticed it. The snowflakes were falling in a beautiful, natural, chaotic pattern. But in one specific spot, exactly thirty feet away, the snowflakes were hitting an invisible wall in the air. The tiny white flakes bounced off something unseen, creating a faint, p

Lisa was sitting with her back against the other side of the pillar. Suddenly, her Eagle Eye System flashed a bright red warning in her mind. [THREAT DETECTED. HEAT SPIKE IMMINENT.] Lisa’s eyes snapped open. She heard a terrible, hissing sound coming from inside the solid stone right behind her head. "No!" Lisa screamed. She threw herself sideways into the deep snow. The back of the concrete pillar exploded outward. A shower of boiling hot, liquid rock and sharp stone fragments blasted into the air. The glowing purple bullet shot out of the wall and flew exactly through the empty space where Lisa’s head had been just a millisecond ago. The bullet hit a rusted car behind her and melted straight through the engine block. Lisa hit the snow hard. She rolled twice. The pain in her broken ribs was absolute torture. She cried out in agony. Hot, burning dust rained down on her. Small pieces of melted concrete burned holes in her green mechanic’s suit. She brushed them off frantically

[TARGET NEUTRALIZED. THERMAL SIGNATURE EXTINGUISHED.] The assassin lowered his heavy rifle. He stood up on the rusted water tower. He was completely confident. The machine said the target was dead, so the target was dead. He reached up to his sleek black mask. He pressed a button on the side to turn off his magical stealth cloak. He needed to save his energy reserves. The black suit flickered. Unit 4 became totally visible in the falling snow. He stood tall, looking out over the valley, thinking he had won the duel. But down in the snow, the duel was not over. Lisa reached her new hiding spot. It was a large, broken chunk of concrete that had fallen from the highway above. She dragged her broken body behind the rock. She pushed the heavy barrel of her anti-materiel rifle onto the flat top of the concrete. She pulled the heavy bolt back with her good left hand. A fresh, massive tungsten bullet loaded into the chamber. She pressed her bloody cheek against the cold metal stock. S

The bright purple light fell from the dark, gray sky. Lisa lay on her back in the freezing, deep white snow. Her chest was completely crushed. Her right arm was broken. She could barely breathe. She stared up at the falling light. At first, she thought it was a massive missile. She thought General Silas had sent a giant bomb from the sky to destroy her. But her glowing green Eagle Eye vision was still active. The System in her brain analyzed the falling light. It was not a bomb. It was a bullet. Two miles away, Unit 4, the invisible assassin, had fired his weapon. But he did not aim at Lisa. He had aimed straight up into the air. He had used an ultimate System skill. [SKILL DETECTED: HOMING MANA TRACER.] The green text flashed in Lisa’s mind. The purple bullet did not follow the laws of physics. It did not care about gravity. It did not care about the howling, forty-mile-an-hour wind. High up in the sky, the magical bullet suddenly stopped going up. It paused in mid-air. Then,