My Scumbag System-Chapter 377: Descent

Celeste stepped toward the circle of black flowers, her heart racing against her chest. The soft glow from their blue centers cast eerie shadows across her face.

She glanced back at the others waiting tensely behind her, catching Satori’s eyes. Something in his gaze steadied her nerves—a quiet confidence that she could handle this.

"Ice Princess, huh?" she muttered under her breath, feeling a flush creep up her neck.

Why did his little nicknames always affect her this way? She’d been called far more elegant titles her entire life by diplomats and politicians. Yet something about the casual way Satori said it made her feel...

Focus.

The flowers swayed in unison as she approached, despite no wind blowing through the clearing. Celeste focused her Aspect, drawing moisture from the air around her fingers. A thin layer of frost formed over her skin—a shield of sorts.

"Slow and steady," she whispered to herself. "Just like training."

Each step forward caused the flowers to turn their black heads toward her, tracking her movement. The temperature dropped with every inch she gained, until her breath clouded before her face. This cold didn’t bother her—it was her element after all—but its intensity suggested these guardians were far stronger than they appeared.

The knife on the pedestal gleamed under the twin moons, its blade darker than night with swirls of silver that reminded her of the First Tree’s bark. She needed only twenty more steps to reach it.

Fifteen steps.

Ten steps.

The frost beneath her feet crackled. One of the flowers bent toward her, its petals unfurling further, revealing rows of crystalline teeth inside its bloom. Celeste froze mid-step, barely breathing.

"Don’t rush," Juan called softly from behind. "They react to sudden movements."

Celeste nodded almost imperceptibly and resumed her approach with glacial slowness. Five more steps. The knife was close enough now that she could see intricate carvings along its handle—symbols like those Satori had described seeing on the First Tree.

Three more steps.

Two. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

She stood before the pedestal now, the knife just inches from her outstretched hand. The flowers had all fully opened, their glowing blue centers pulsating faster, like frantic heartbeats. Celeste took one last breath and reached for the blade.

Her fingers closed around the handle.

A high-pitched keening filled the air as every flower suddenly grew three times its original size. Silver thorns erupted from their stems, glinting like daggers in the moonlight. The ground trembled beneath her feet.

"Celeste! Run!" Noah shouted.

Celeste spun, knife clutched tight, and sprinted back toward the others. The flowers’ stems elongated with impossible speed, whipping toward her ankles. She leapt over the first, ducked under the second, but a third caught her across the shoulder, tearing through fabric and skin.

"Ugh!" She stumbled but kept moving.

The flowers converged from all sides now, their mouths snapping at the air. Jaime rushed forward, meeting the nearest one with a devastating punch that shattered its stem. Raphael followed, his hands glowing with stored energy as he released an explosive blast into the center of the garden.

But for every flower they destroyed, two more grew from the fractured earth.

"The knife!" Monica yelled. "They want it back!"

"Too bad," Celeste gripped it tighter. "We need it more."

Satori appeared at her side, his bat radiating heat that melted through floral attackers with surprising effectiveness.

"Good job, Ice Princess," he smirked, slicing through another stem. "Now stay behind me."

There it was again—that annoying flutter in her stomach when he called her that. Why couldn’t she maintain her royal composure around him like she did with everyone else? Perhaps because he never treated her like royalty at all. He challenged her, teased her, respected her strength without handling her like glass. It was... refreshing.

"I can fight too," she insisted, summoning a jagged ice spear from the moisture around them. She impaled an approaching flower, freezing it solid from the inside out.

For a moment, they seemed to be winning. Juan’s charged cards exploded against multiple targets while Noah sliced through stems with her fabric-hardened sleeves. Monica stood back, trying to communicate with the flowers, but they appeared immune to her influence.

"They’re not like the other plants," Monica called out, frustrated. "They don’t speak to the Great Root. They’re entirely the Arborist’s creation."

Celeste noticed something strange as they fought. Despite the chaos, the flowers weren’t attacking randomly. Their movements seemed to be... herding them. Pushing Satori and herself toward the center of the garden, back toward the pedestal.

"Satori! They’re—"

The ground beneath them cracked with a sound like thunder splitting the sky, reverberating through Celeste’s bones.

The earth simply ceased to exist under her feet. Her stomach lurched as gravity took hold, pulling her down into nothing.

Instinct and hundreds of hours of VHC combat drills took over. Ice formed beneath her grasping hands, spreading from her fingertips as she desperately tried to create a handhold, anything to arrest her fall. But the frozen construct crumbled as quickly as she made it, the ice unable to find purchase on the crumbling dirt and stone.

The darkness below yawned like a hungry maw, so absolute it seemed to devour the pale moonlight before it could penetrate more than a few meters. Celeste’s heart hammered against her ribs as she plummeted toward that void.

Then a strong hand clamped around her wrist like an iron vice.

Satori had caught her mid-fall, his fingers digging into her skin hard enough to bruise. She looked up to see him clinging to the rapidly crumbling edge of the widening chasm with his other hand, every muscle in his arm and shoulder corded with strain, his face contorted with effort.

"I’ve got you," Satori grunted through gritted teeth.

The absurd thought flashed through Celeste’s mind: this was the closest she’d ever been held by a boy who wasn’t a VHC-approved training partner. She could feel the heat of his palm through her sleeve, the raw strength in his grip.

"Juan!" Satori yelled upward, his voice echoing strangely in the pit beneath them. "Get them out of here! We’ll find another way!"

"But—"

"That’s an order!"

Celeste watched in horror as the black flowers began to seal the opening above them, their stems weaving together into a living barrier.

The last thing she saw was Noah’s desperate face as the gap closed completely, plunging them into darkness.