HDXD: Omni Harem System-Chapter 244: A Really Bad Situation

Smoke and snow blanketed the battlefield in a choking shroud, the air filled with the ragged screams of wounded students.

The sound was sharp and piercing, cutting through the muffled silence of the storm.

Moca stirred, her lashes fluttering open to a sky torn by unnatural colors. Snowflakes drifted downward, their purity tainted by streaks of ash, while above, a dark aurora bled across the heavens like some cursed wound in reality itself.

"Ahhh!...

She gasped, her chest convulsing as a violent cough wracked her frame. Dust and the metallic taste of her own blood filled her mouth, dribbling down her chin as she groaned.

"Cough...Cough!!...

Her voice was ragged, weak. She tried to rise, but the world lurched beneath her. Her limbs trembled and she collapsed back into the snow, agony searing through her like fire.

When her gaze dropped, her stomach twisted. Her right leg dangled by torn flesh, little more than shredded meat clinging to bone.

But even as horror clawed at her mind, the limb began to knit itself back together. Flesh wriggled like living threads, bone cracking and reshaping, muscle weaving itself in place.

The regeneration was grotesque, fast, almost unnatural, but extremely quick.

The realization hit her, whatever had struck her was recent, powerful enough to nearly obliterate her body in an instant.

She glanced at herself and nearly recoiled.

Her arm was missing.

Her right eye was gone.

Inside, she felt the dust of shattered bones grinding together.

Still, her body refused to die.

In a matter of seconds, it pulled itself back from the brink, bones reforming, flesh stitching, organs mending.

"Why… why am I this injured?"

She whispered, more to herself than to anyone else.

Her ears rang sharply, a deafening high-pitched scream, until they too repaired themselves. Then sound returned, sound she wished she hadn't heard.

Screams.... Agonized, desperate cries tearing through the battlefield.

"She is bleeding out! Somebody, we need a healer!"

"It hurts...it hurts!"

The chaos stabbed into her senses all at once. Moca staggered, scanning the world around her. What she saw turned her breath to ice.

Everywhere, front, behind, all sides, was in ruin.

The ground was cracked open as though the earth itself had been torn apart by claws.

The cabin that once stood firm now had a massive hole ripped through its side, teetering precariously on a jagged rise of stone thrust upward by the quake.

The earth looked like it had been shattered by some colossal force, fractured lines running in every direction.

Within a three-hundred-meter radius, every tree had been ripped from its roots, snapped and scattered like broken toys.

Bodies littered the snow, students twisted, mangled, and silent. The sheer number made her heart plummet... More than half… gone.

Her own clothes were tattered and scorched, her right breast hanging on display streaked with blood and dirt.

Her wounds had healed, but the devastation around her was not so easily erased.

As her vision swam, a voice reached her ears, soft but cutting through the storm.

"Mo~~ca…

She turned sharply.

There, leaning against a jagged outcropping of stone, stood Rex.

...or what was left of him.

The dark-skinned young man uniform was nearly gone, shredded to expose his scarred, bloodied torso. His left arm hung at a broken angle, his right leg riddled with splinters of rock.

Only one shoe remained, the other foot bare and torn. Blood trickled steadily down his side, staining the snow in growing blotches.

His face was battered, one eye swollen shut, the other flickering faintly with stubborn fire.

And yet...he smiled.

Even as his body failed him, he smiled, before his knees buckled and he collapsed into the snow.

"Rex!"

Moca staggered toward him, her voice breaking with both relief and fear.

"What the hell happened to you? No...what the hell happened here?"

Rex's breath rattled, each inhale strained.

He lifted his good hand weakly, as if trying to wave away her panic.

"I… I don't know."

He admitted hoarsely.

"Something hit us... Something powerful. It was like the world itself tore apart, as a massive earthquake hit us with full force. One strike, just one, and everything shattered."

"Earthquake, shockwave… sent everyone flying. Totaled the whole area…

His body convulsed, and he groaned.

Ahhh...shit… Everything hurt's right now."

Moca clenched her fists seeing his condition, the guy was brag off, but he was pretty chill all things considered.

As such she replied.

"I-I see… but you...you're still alive it would seem! Are you okay?!"

A bitter chuckle left his throat, blood flecking his lips, and pouring down his mouth.

"No... Far from it. But… I'll manage."

He tapped his broken hand faintly, where a faint, glowing threads of light pulsed from the bracelet on his hand.

"The Nanomites… they're working... Slow, but they're healing me. Wounds are closing… bones knitting back together. Just need… time. Until then…

His head lolled back against the rock, his voice dropping to a low whisper.

"…I'm tapping out."

Moca stared at him, jaw tight, the distant screams of survivors echoing in the snowstorm around them.

The battlefield was hell.

And whatever had caused it was still out there.

Still at that moment her heart skipped a beat in fear.

As her head suddenly snapped up, her crimson eye narrowing as a chill far sharper than the storm itself crawled over her skin.

The metallic tang hit her nose, thicker than iron, heavier than rust.

Blood Astrum…

She whispered to herself as she sense an approaching presence, her voice was low, and fearful.

Her body stiffened, as her gaze locking on the trembling horizon was evident.

"That monster… it's here... Shit."

Before Rex could respond to Moca's sudden panic, the battlefield itself began to change.

Through the smoke and snow, the blood spilled across the field began to rise from the wounds of the dead student and cultist alike.

It didn't freeze from the cold though; nor did it seep into the shattered earth.

Instead, it floated upwards all going to one spot as thick streams of it began rising like serpents into the air.

The sight made the survivors cry out in horror, but Moca only stood still, watching.

The blood rose higher and higher, swirling into a colossal whirlpool above. Within moments, it twisted and spread, forming a massive portal of blood that stretched nearly forty meters across, as rift in space was created using blood as conduit.

And then...they came.

From the scarlet gateway, titanic forms began to descend. Slugs, massive and grotesque, their skin coated in jagged crystalline growths of ice.

Their very breath exhaled frost that bit through the storm itself. The ground cracked and froze where their presence touched, radiating a killing cold.

Rex's one good eye went wide, his body trembling against the rock he leaned on.

"N-No… no, no, no…

His voice broke.

"We're all going to die."

The fear in him was raw, heavy...but Moca only sighed, brushing a lock of her bloodstained hair from her face.

With no other choice, she reached into the inner fold of her uniform and pulled out something familiar.

In her hand shimmered a single thick droplet of blood, almost glowing in the dim light.

'If I used this, I will only have one left... Still it's better than dying here.'

With no other choice.

She be t down to meet Rex, as she thrust it toward him.

"If you want to live...eat this."

Rex recoiled, staring at the bead as though it might bite him.

"What the hell is that?!"

"Don't worry about it."

Moca replied flatly, her gaze never leaving the portal above.

"All you need to know is that it will bring you back to peak condition. Your body, your stamina, everything. Take it... Like right now."

Rex hesitated for only a heartbeat longer before his survival instinct crushed his doubt. He grabbed the droplet, and swallowed it whole.

It burned going down, searing fire flooding through his veins. His body arched, every nerve screaming, then, just as suddenly, the pain ended.

He could feel his wounds closing, broken bones realigning, torn muscle mending. His strength surged back, his lungs filled with fresh air, and the fatigue that had nearly buried him in the snow evaporated.

"W-What… the hell is this…

He muttered in amazement, flexing his hand as blood returned to his frozen fingers.

Before Moca could answer to not question her about it, another voice cut through the chaos.

"Well… looks like you're not dead yet, huh?"

Both turned.

Kael stepped from the smoke, his dark cloak torn and dusted with ash.

Across his face ran a deep gash, a brutal scar cause by flying debris, but otherwise than that he was mostly uninjured, as he stood tall, blade in hand.

"Kael…

Rex breathed.

Kael's gaze shifted from the portal to Rex, then to Moca, then back to Rex.

"If you're back on your feet, then tell me...what is the plan, strategist?"

His tone was sharp, and urgent.

Rex clenched his jaw, forcing his fear down as the massive slugs continued to descend.

"There is only one option."

He said, his voice steady.

"Evacuation. We can't win this fight head-on. If anyone survives, it'll be because we buy them time."

Moca folded her arms, nodding faintly.

"This I agree with Fine. And I think I can help."

She pressed her palm into the snow, shadows erupting from beneath her fingers like liquid night.

Dark shapes began to rise, faceless figures stepping into existence, clones made from shadows.

"Normally I can summon a hundred… but with how many are left, ten should be enough."

Her voice was quiet, pragmatic.

The shadow clones bolted immediately, rushing to gather the scattered survivors, their forms weaving through the smoke and snow.

Rex tightened his fists, watching them move. His newly restored body thrummed with energy, but the pit in his stomach only deepened. "

"Then we hold this line."

He said grimly.

"Whatever comes through that portal… we buy them every second we can to save the survivors."

The sky roared as another cryokinetic slug slammed into the earth, its freezing body crawling across the battlefield.

Kael raised his blade, snow whipping around him.

"Then let's make those seconds count shall we ladies."

"Fuck you Kael."

Rex spit, as he extended his hand outwards to his side, and similar to how Magic Sword Priscilla behave with Adam, a silver spear suddenly flew from the rubble, and flew right into Rex hand.