My Scumbag System-Chapter 291: The Sunken Necropolis and Its Unscheduled Management Change
Celeste’s stomach heaved. Her instincts screamed at her to save the child even as her brain recognized the trap. The monster was a psychological predator, using their own empathy as a weapon.
"FORM DEFENSIVE PERIMETER!" Julian’s voice cracked on the last word. "SHIELDS UP! SHIELDS UP!"
Aaron planted his feet and activated his graviton anchor, making himself as immovable as a mountain. The front line braced behind him, weapons raised, spells charging.
The Angler looked at them with its empty socket eyes.
And it laughed.
The sound wasn’t audible. Celeste felt it in her bones, in her teeth, in the spaces between her thoughts. A vibration that said, in no uncertain terms, you are prey.
Then it opened its mouth and screamed.
The sonic wave hit them like a physical force. Celeste threw up her ice shield, felt it shatter instantly, felt the pressure slam into her chest and send her tumbling backward through the knee-deep water. Around her, the team scattered like leaves in a hurricane.
Aaron Sanders, the immovable object, the unbreakable wall, flew across the chamber and crashed into a pillar with a sound like thunder. His armor, the heavy plating that had cost more than most people made in a year, crumpled like aluminum foil. He slid down the stone and didn’t get up.
Their tank was down. Their formation was gone. Their plan was meaningless.
"ATTACK!" Julian screamed from somewhere behind her. "WHY AREN’T YOU ATTACKING? DO SOMETHING!"
Celeste pushed herself to her knees, ice forming around her hands. Monica was beside her, vines already snaking toward the monster. Kenjiro had somehow kept his feet, his katana drawn, wind swirling around the blade.
Marcus, the eager young man who’d wanted so badly to prove himself, heard Julian’s order.
He charged.
"MARCUS, NO!"
Celeste’s warning came too late. Marcus ran toward the Angler with his sword raised, his face set in the determined expression of someone who’d seen too many movies and not enough real combat.
The monster’s jaw unhinged.
It moved faster than something that large should have been able to move. Faster than thought. Faster than hope.
Snap.
Half of Marcus was there. The other half was gone. His legs stood for a long moment, held up by momentum and denial, before they toppled sideways into the black water.
Celeste heard screaming. It took her a moment to realize it was her own voice.
"RETREAT!" Julian shouted. "FALL BACK! FALL BACK TO THE CORRIDOR!"
But there was no retreat. The Angler blocked the entrance. The only exits were deeper into the chamber, toward passages they hadn’t explored, toward dangers they didn’t know.
Kenjiro moved.
He was the only one still fighting. Wind gathered around him as he launched himself at the Angler, his katana trailing green light. The blade bit into the monster’s side, carving a wound that sprayed black blood.
The Angler screamed again. Not the sonic weapon this time. Just pain. Pure, animalistic agony.
Its tail whipped around.
Sarah never saw it coming. One moment she was backing toward the wall, her staff raised in a defensive posture. The next moment she was flying through the air, her body bending at an angle that human spines weren’t designed to accommodate.
She hit a pillar. She slid down into the water.
She didn’t come up.
Two deaths. Less than thirty seconds. Students who’d been alive and breathing and full of futures that would never happen now.
Celeste’s mind went blank. White noise. Static. The same numbness that had protected her through years of VHC functions and diplomatic dinners, through Seraphina’s constant surveillance and the pressure of being the nation’s darling.
It wasn’t helping now.
Move, she told herself. Do something. Anything.
Julian was backing away. His face had gone pale, his sapphire eyes wide with terror that stripped away all his aristocratic composure. He grabbed Monica’s arm and shoved her toward the monster.
"Do something! Use your plants! Hold it off!"
Monica stumbled, nearly fell. Her amber eyes were wide with shock.
He was sacrificing her. Using her as a distraction so he could escape. The golden prince of the Argent Sentinels, the future of the Hunter aristocracy, was going to let his teammate die so he could run.
Something snapped in Celeste’s chest.
Ice erupted from her hands, not in spikes or shields but in a wall. A massive barrier of frost that stretched across the chamber, putting itself between Monica and the Angler. The cold bit into Celeste’s core, draining her mana faster than she’d ever experienced. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖
"GET BACK!" Her voice cracked. Broke. Sounded nothing like the calm princess she was supposed to be. "EVERYONE GET BEHIND ME!"
The remaining team scrambled toward her position. Monica. The few survivors whose names Celeste couldn’t remember through the fog of panic. Kenjiro landed beside her, blood dripping from a cut on his forehead, his turquoise eyes steady despite everything.
"That wall won’t hold," he said quietly.
"I know."
"Your mana is almost depleted."
"I know."
"When it breaks—"
"I know."
The Angler approached her ice barrier. It moved slowly now, savoring the moment. The child-shaped lure dangled in front of its face, still crying, still begging for help.
"Please," it sobbed. "It hurts so much. Please save me."
Celeste’s wall cracked.
The monster’s claw punched through the ice like it was tissue paper. Shards exploded outward, cutting Celeste’s cheek, her arms, embedding themselves in the water around her feet. She tried to reform the barrier.
Nothing happened.
Her mana was gone. Completely depleted. She had nothing left.
The Angler loomed over her, blocking out what little light remained. Its empty eye sockets somehow managed to convey hunger. Its jaw opened, revealing the concentric rows of teeth that had ended Marcus so quickly.
So this is it, Celeste thought. The panic had faded, replaced by a strange calm. Dying in a wet hole for a guild that doesn’t care. For a sister who’ll probably use my death for political leverage.
She closed her eyes.
I wonder if Nakano would have been interesting.
She waited for the end.
The sound came from above.
Not a shout. Not a spell. Not a battle cry or a dramatic entrance speech. Just a single word, spoken with the absolute authority of someone who expected reality to obey.
"SEVER."
Celeste felt the air displacement more than she heard it. An invisible blade of force slammed into the Angler’s arm, the one reaching toward her face.
The limb didn’t just cut. It sheared. Separated at the elbow like someone had drawn a line through existence and erased everything on one side. The massive claw, big enough to crush her entire body, toppled sideways and splashed into the black water.
Black blood sprayed across Celeste’s white combat suit. Hot. Reeking of corruption and ancient death. She felt it soak through the fabric, felt it run down her face in rivulets that mixed with her own blood from the ice cuts.
The Angler howled.
The sound was worse than the sonic weapon. This was genuine agony, the scream of a predator that had just learned it wasn’t at the top of the food chain.
Celeste opened her eyes.
Standing on a crumbling balcony above them, bathed in the sickly blue glow of the monster’s lure, was Satori Nakano.
He held a baseball bat in one hand, casual as anything. His other hand was still extended from whatever technique he’d just used. Water dripped from his red hair, and his combat suit bore the evidence of his own battles, stains and tears and marks of violence.
But he wasn’t looking at the Angler.
He was looking at Julian.
The golden prince cowered in the corner of the chamber, half-hidden behind a pillar, his face a mask of terror that stripped away every pretense of nobility and superiority. He looked like what he was. A scared boy who’d never faced real consequence. A fraud.
Satori’s team appeared behind him. The wind girl with wine-red hair. The smoke illusionist. The blonde berserker. The girl with the massive flail. All of them looking down at the catastrophe that had been the Argent Sentinels’ proudest formation.
Satori’s eyes finally moved to Celeste.
And then he smiled.
"You dropped something," he said, gesturing lazily toward Julian with his bat. "Your dignity. And about half your team."
The Angler chose that moment to lunge at him.
It was the last mistake it ever made.
