My Scumbag System-Chapter 296: My Scumbag, The Human Shield

The world had become lead.

Natalia felt every ounce of that impossible weight pressing down on her shoulders, her spine, her very soul. Her telekinetic barrier, a shimmering dome of purple light, groaned above the pile of unconscious bodies she was protecting. Juan lay face-down in the black water, his datapad floating beside him like a tombstone. Raphael’s kinetic aura had fizzled out the moment the gravity doubled, and now he sprawled across Aaron’s equally unconscious form. Hikari’s perpetual smile had finally vanished, replaced by slack-jawed stillness.

The Argent Sentinels were worse. Most of them weren’t moving at all.

How long can I hold this?

Her mana reserves screamed at her. The Cryo-Lich Ring on her finger pulsed with desperate cold, but even its enhancement couldn’t offset the sheer pressure bearing down on her psychic construct. Sweat rolled down her face and mixed with the blood dripping from her nose.

Five. Only five of them were still standing. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Isabelle leaned against her spear like an old woman using a cane, which would have been funny if Natalia wasn’t terrified out of her mind. Green wind spiraled around the queen’s body in a desperate counter to the crushing gravity, but even that legendary Aspect was struggling. Isabelle’s wine-red hair hung limp and soaked with black water.

Emi knelt at the edge of Natalia’s barrier, her hands glowing with that familiar pale green light. The healer’s face had gone gray with exhaustion, her sapphire hair plastered to her skull, her antenna strands drooping like wilted flowers. She wasn’t healing wounds anymore. She was just keeping hearts beating.

And then there was Soomin.

The shy country girl was gone. In her place stood something out of myth. Two tails of ghostly white flame fanned out behind her transformed body, her pink hair now snow-white, her gentle blue eyes blazing with feral intensity. She moved like water, like lightning, like a predator that had stopped caring about survival and started caring only about killing. Blood ran from a dozen cuts across her arms and face.

The fox spirit was fully in control.

And finally, standing at the center of it all, was him.

Satori Nakano.

Her idiot. Her scumbag. Her King.

He stood in waist-deep black water with that stupid baseball bat resting on his shoulder, blood running from his nose and staining his teeth. The gravity that had crushed everyone else barely seemed to register. He just... stood there. Grinning like a lunatic at the thing that was going to kill them all.

The Abyssal Nerve floated in the center of the cathedral chamber like a nightmare given form. Bioluminescent jelly. Pulsing veins of darkness. Tendrils of obsidian light that whipped through the air with lazy inevitability. And at its core, that crying child-face, its empty eyes watching them with ancient hunger.

VRRRMMMM-CRACK.

The stone floor beneath Natalia’s feet splintered. She felt her barrier buckle.

I can’t hold this. I can’t hold this I can’t hold this I can’t—

Soomin moved first.

The Fox exploded forward in a blur of white and blue, all nine tails streaming behind her like war banners. Her claws were extended, her fangs bared, a sound coming from her throat that was less human scream and more animal fury.

"SOOMIN, NO!"

Natalia’s warning came too late.

The entity didn’t even acknowledge the attack. It simply pulsed. A wave of black mana expanded outward like a heartbeat, and Soomin hit that wave like a bird hitting a window. The impact was sickening. Her small body ragdolled through the air and slammed into a pillar with enough force to crack the ancient stone.

She didn’t get up.

Her tails flickered. They winked out like candles in a storm until only a single tail remained, weak and guttering. A whimper escaped her throat, high and wounded.

"Soomin!" Emi’s voice cracked. "She’s—"

"Focus on the barrier!" Isabelle’s command snapped through the chaos.

Green wind gathered around her spear until it looked less like a weapon and more like a concentrated hurricane. Isabelle’s red eyes blazed with the fire of someone who refused to die kneeling.

"Fujin: Piercing Gale!"

She threw.

The spear screamed through the air, trailing emerald destruction. It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was everything a recommended student with S-Rank potential could muster.

And it wasn’t enough.

Natalia watched the weapon slow down. The gravity field stripped away the wind enhancement like peeling skin from fruit. By the time the spear reached the entity, it was barely moving. It bounced off the creature’s gelatinous body with a pathetic plop and sank into the black water.

Isabelle’s face went white.

No. No no no.

Natalia reached out with her mind. She had to grab that spear. Had to pull it back. Had to give Isabelle another chance.

Her telekinesis touched the weapon.

Her head split open.

At least, that’s what it felt like. White-hot agony lanced through her skull as the gravity field fought her power. The spear was only twenty feet away, but it might as well have been on the moon. Everything was too heavy. Her thoughts. Her mana. Her hope.

We’re going to die here.

We’re actually going to die.

The monster rotated slowly, its child-face scanning the survivors with that horrible empty gaze. It was choosing. Evaluating. Deciding who to kill first.

Its attention settled on Emi.

The healer.

The one keeping everyone alive.

No.

A tendril condensed from the entity’s mass. Not the whip-like appendages it had used before. This was different. Solid. Dense. A spear of living darkness aimed at the girl with the sapphire hair and the gentle heart.

Emi saw it coming.

She froze.

Her healing aura flickered. Her hands dropped. Her eyes went wide with the terrible understanding of someone who knew they were about to die and couldn’t do anything to stop it.

"EMI!"

Natalia screamed the name, but she couldn’t move. The barrier. The unconscious bodies. If she dropped protection now, the gravity would crush them all.

She was trapped.

Helpless.

Forced to watch.

The tentacle launched.

And Satori stepped into its path.

He didn’t shout. He didn’t warn anyone. He just moved with that casual, infuriating grace that made it look easy. One second he was ten feet away, the next he was directly between Emi and death.

He didn’t even try to block with his bat.

He took it with his body.

THWACK-SQUELCH.