My SSS-Rank Grim Reaper System

Chapter 278: THE FRENZY

[Silent Threshold — Combat Zone — 4:23 PM]

Current Status:

- Raven: HP 0/74,000 | F3 active (521 units + 12 golems) | Left shoulder disabled | Conscious on the ground

- Jessica: HP 14,200/41,000 | F6 active

- Seraph: HP 0/68,000 | Conscious | F2 active

- Kira: HP 8,900/52,000

- Emily: HP 0/61,000 | Unconscious

- Maya: HP 0/44,000 | Unconscious

- Fallen Angel: Level unreadable | 10 total cuts

---

The angel retreated three meters.

Alex saw it.

Two scythes in his hands—the crimson one in his left carrying F1’s edge, the fully formed violet one in his right, with F4’s channel compensating for the broken bone. F7 provided direction. All three Fragments occupied the same body without fighting for space because the seventh kept them in order without being asked.

This was what the original Reaper had done in Cycle 42.

The angel had retreated three meters.

And then the original Reaper had advanced.

Alex advanced.

---

The angel didn’t wait for contact.

It raised its right hand, and the Plane of the Gods responded—not the Eastern Isle this time. Something different. Something coming from the plane itself rather than the territory beneath their feet.

Six shapes materialized in the air.

Not creatures. Not golems. Constructs from the Plane of the Gods shaped like weapons—spears of white light, each three meters long, without points because they didn’t need them. Only mass, speed, and the authorization of the Gods behind every one of them.

"Kid," Grim said.

The first spear arrived before Grim finished the word.

Alex crossed both scythes.

The black edge from the plane between life and death cut the spear of light in half. F1’s crimson edge cut through the second half before it touched the ground. The other five spears arrived in the same second. Alex moved three steps to the right, both scythes sweeping in a horizontal arc, and four vanished in the strike.

The fifth grazed his left shoulder.

HP: 21,400 → 19,800.

The angel materialized twelve more.

---

Alex didn’t dodge them.

He cut them down.

One scythe, then the other, a ninety-degree turn, all twelve spears gone in four seconds. The ground beneath his feet was covered in white light that dissolved into the spiritual plane without leaving a physical mark.

The angel watched him.

It materialized twenty-four.

Alex cut them down in six seconds.

"It can’t maintain this pace," Grim said.

The angel wasn’t slow—the constructs appeared with the speed of something carrying direct authorization from the Plane of the Gods. But every spear Alex cut with the black edge from the plane between life and death stayed gone.

It didn’t reconstruct.

It didn’t return.

The plane between life and death possessed a natural resistance to the Gods’ authorization.

Every cut was permanent.

---

The angel stopped launching constructs.

It closed the distance in two steps—wings folded, right fist carrying the force of something that had stopped Raven cold twelve minutes earlier.

The fist struck Alex’s chest.

Alex took it.

HP: 19,800 → 12,400.

And didn’t retreat.

One step sideways. The crimson scythe drove into the angel’s right side—the eleventh cut, across the torso where Seraph’s earlier wounds still hadn’t completely closed. The violet scythe intercepted the angel’s elbow before the second strike could land.

The angel pressed into the block.

Alex felt the bone in his right wrist shift in a direction it wasn’t supposed to move.

HP: 12,400 → 9,100.

He released the violet scythe.

With his left hand—the crimson scythe, F1’s edge, the flame that couldn’t consume the weapon because the weapon itself was the Reaper—he drove the blade into the angel’s left thigh.

The twelfth cut.

Blood of an impossible color spilled across the ground.

---

The angel disengaged.

Four meters of distance. Wings spread. Watching Alex with an expression that wasn’t fear—it was something else. Something the angel hadn’t shown until now.

Actual calculation.

"It’s recalculating," Grim said. "It no longer sees you as a bearer that needs to be eliminated. It’s evaluating you as a threat."

Alex retrieved the violet scythe from the ground with his right hand. F4’s channel compensated for the broken bone. Not perfectly—the wrist was bent at an angle it should never have reached.

HP: 9,100.

The angel had twelve cuts.

The angel retreated another meter.

---

From the ground, Raven saw that step backward.

It wasn’t the first time she’d seen someone retreat during a fight. She’d spent years in hunter guilds, on expeditions where half the team returned and the other half were counted afterward. She knew what it meant when something with the physical advantage voluntarily took a step back.

It meant the advantage had been recalculated.

The 521 units and 12 golems of F3 still stood around the perimeter—the ones remaining after those the angel had destroyed had reconstructed themselves and returned to position. F3 still responded to her even while she lay on the ground with zero HP.

It always responded.

It was the only part of this that didn’t need her to stand.

Her left hand remained over her abdomen.

Not because of the pain. She’d experienced worse pain in the last forty minutes.

For another reason.

Raven looked at Alex.

Alex stood twelve meters from the angel with nine thousand HP, two scythes, and an angel that was retreating from him.

Good, Raven thought. Good.

---

The angel materialized forty-eight constructs simultaneously.

Not spears this time.

Nameless shapes—fragments of the Plane of the Gods with physical consistency, each roughly the size of a human torso, launched from every direction at once.

Alex couldn’t cut them all.

He didn’t try.

F7 altered the ground beneath two of them—the earth rising three centimeters at the exact moment of impact, changing their trajectories. The crimson scythe cut six apart in a leftward arc. The violet scythe blocked three coming from the front.

Sixteen hit him.

HP: 9,100 → 0.

---

The system took half a second to process it.

Alex remained standing.

HP: 0.

The number was correct.

His body should have fallen.

Physics should have dragged him to the ground with fractured ribs, a broken wrist, and sixteen simultaneous impacts from constructs of the Plane of the Gods.

He remained standing.

"F7," Grim said.

Not as an explanation.

As an observation of something even Grim had never seen before.

F7 at one hundred percent corruption with active direction. The seventh Fragment—the one carrying the original Reaper’s memories, the one the guardian had waited centuries to transfer—was doing what it did when it had sufficient reason to do so.

Changing what should happen.

HP: 0 → 0.

The number didn’t change.

The body ignored it.

Alex raised both scythes.

---

The angel didn’t materialize any more constructs.

It closed the distance—wings folded, direct speed, no projectiles. Its right shoulder slammed into the center of Alex’s chest with enough force to punch through half a meter of stone.

Alex took the hit.

The impact pushed him back two steps.

And he cut.

The crimson scythe swept toward the angel’s neck—not deep. The angel twisted at the last instant.

The thirteenth cut.

Shallow.

Across the left side of its neck.

But the angel had moved to protect itself.

"It’s being careful," Grim said. "It hasn’t been careful once until now."

---

Three minutes of combat at zero HP.

The angel knew.

The system recorded it—and whatever the angel used to read its opponent was recording it too.

The Fragment bearer should have fallen ninety seconds ago.

He hadn’t.

The angel had thirteen cuts across its body and continued retreating meter by meter. Constructs from the Plane of the Gods dissolved against the black blades without reforming, while the seventh Fragment altered reality just enough to keep its bearer standing at zero HP.

The angel retreated five meters.

Wings open.

The posture of something recalculating in real time.

Alex didn’t advance.

He stayed where he was.

HP: 0.

Two scythes.

F7 providing direction.

All three Fragments functioning without conflict.

Waiting.

---

"What’s he doing?" Kira asked from the flank.

Kira had 8,900 HP and her katana in her right hand. Her amber eyes tracked the angel.

"The same thing the original Reaper did in Cycle 42," Grim said.

"What did the original Reaper do?"

"Waited for the angel to decide."

The plaza fell silent.

The angel stood with its wings spread, thirteen cuts across its body, blood of an impossible color pooling beneath its feet.

Alex waited.

"Decide what?" Kira asked.

"Whether this was a fight it could win," Grim said.

---

The angel spoke.

Not in any language Alex understood—the language of the Plane of the Gods, the same one it had used upon arriving.

Grim translated in real time.

"’Impossible. The bearer has zero HP.’"

A pause.

"’The seventh Fragment is altering the outcome.’"

Another pause.

The angel looked down at its own hands, then at the thirteen wounds that weren’t closing as quickly as they should. Blood continued dripping onto the ground.

"’The plane between life and death should not possess enough resistance for this.’"

Alex said nothing.

"’But it does.’"

---

The angel folded its wings.

Not completely.

It was the gesture of something partially lowering its guard to communicate.

Alex recognized it.

He’d seen the same movement in smaller fights, with creatures intelligent enough to recognize a temporary pause.

"’How many more does he have?’" Grim translated.

Alex needed a second to process the question.

"Fragments," Grim clarified. "It’s asking how many more Fragments you have."

Four total.

F1, F4, F6, F7.

F6 was with Jessica.

The other three were active.

"Three active," Alex said. "One with my team."

Grim translated.

The angel didn’t answer immediately.

When it finally spoke, it was only one sentence.

"’Four is not seven.’" Grim paused. "It says four isn’t seven. The original Reaper had all seven."

Alex looked at the angel.

"The original Reaper never had all seven," he said. "He built the Threshold with four."

---

The silence lasted four seconds.

The angel with its wings partially folded, thirteen cuts across its body, blood staining the ground.

Alex with zero HP, two scythes, and a body that refused to fall because F7 had sufficient reason to keep it standing.

Behind Alex: Raven on the ground with F3 active. Kira on the flank. Jessica with F6. Seraph still standing at zero HP. Emily and Maya unconscious but breathing.

The angel looked at all of them.

Then it spoke.

"’The mission cannot be completed under these conditions,’" Grim translated.

A pause.

"’The bearer has concrete reasons.’"

Another pause.

The angel looked specifically at Raven, lying on the ground with her left hand pressed against her abdomen.

"’He had them before this battle began.’"

---

The angel rose into the air.

Not a combat maneuver.

A direct vertical ascent, its wings spreading completely overhead.

Three meters.

Ten.

Twenty.

Alex raised the scythes.

"It’s not coming back down," Grim said.

The angel reached thirty meters, its wings extending horizontally. It looked down at them.

Blood of an impossible color remained on the ground where it had stood—the earth stained, but the angel itself already beyond their reach.

"’I will return when the bearer has all seven,’" Grim translated.

A pause.

"’Or none at all.’"

The angel flew north.

Its true speed—not combat speed, but the speed of something traveling between destinations.

Within twelve seconds, it was a speck on the horizon.

Within twenty, it was gone.

---

Alex dropped the scythes.

Not deliberately.

His hands simply opened.

F1, F4, and F7 withdrew simultaneously—not all at once, but gradually, like water flowing back into a container.

The Reaper’s attire unraveled.

The crimson and violet scythes vanished into the spiritual plane.

HP: 0.

His body processed everything it had ignored for four minutes.

The fractured ribs along his left side.

The right wrist with the bone sitting in the wrong position.

The left shoulder where the angel’s construct had grazed him—far more damage than a graze now that F7 was no longer holding him together.

The internal bleeding caused by the angel’s shoulder strike during the second minute.

Alex dropped to his knees.

Then pitched forward.

His hands struck the ground.

The posture of someone whose body had finally begun collecting its debt.

---

"Alex."

Kira reached him first.

Her hand landed on his right shoulder—not the left. Kira had tracked his injuries throughout the entire fight and knew which side was worse.

"I’m fine," Alex said.

HP: 0.

"You’re at zero," Kira said.

"I’m still talking."

"F7 kept you standing at zero HP for four minutes."

"Yeah."

"Do you have any idea what that means for your organs?"

Alex didn’t answer.

Kira pulled out her field kit—not the emergency one, the actual trauma kit SSS-trackers carried for exactly this scenario. She drove a stabilization needle into Alex’s neck before he could object.

"Stay still," Kira said.

Alex stayed still.

---

Jessica reached Raven’s side.

Raven remained on the ground with F3 active. The 521 units and 12 golems stood motionless around the perimeter, waiting for an order. Raven’s eyes remained open, fixed toward the northern horizon where the angel had disappeared.

"F3 is still active," Jessica said.

"I know," Raven said.

"Can you shut it down?"

"Whenever I want."

Jessica nodded.

She pulled the medical kit from her jacket pocket and began examining Raven’s left shoulder—the strike from the angel that had reduced her HP to zero.

"Your abdomen?" Jessica asked.

Raven looked up.

"Fine," she said.

Jessica didn’t ask again.

---

Seraph reached Emily.

Zero HP, knees hitting the ground with the effort of crouching, hands searching for a pulse at Emily’s neck.

A pulse.

Her ribs were moving.

She was breathing.

Seraph remained there, fingers against Emily’s neck, counting her breaths.

One.

Two.

Three.

Regular.

---

"It’s gone," Kira said aloud.

Not as a question.

"It’s gone," Grim confirmed.

F7 had completely withdrawn from Alex’s channels. The presence of the seventh Fragment—the same presence that had kept Alex’s body standing at zero HP for four minutes—was silent again.

Waiting.

"’The mission cannot be completed under these conditions,’" Grim repeated, quoting the angel. "That’s what the angel from Cycle 42 said before leaving to wait."

A pause.

"And the original Reaper used the time that wait gave him to build the Silent Threshold."

The forest was still.

Fallen trees.

Blood of an impossible color staining the place where the angel had stood.

"How long did the Cycle 42 angel wait?" Jessica asked without looking away from Raven.

"The record doesn’t say," Grim replied.

"Estimate."

"The Threshold took three years to build."

Silence.

"Three years," Kira said.

"The original Reaper had four Fragments when he began," Grim said. "The same number Alex has now."

---

Raven shut down F3.

The 521 units and 12 golems vanished from the perimeter simultaneously—not one at a time, but all at once. Within a single second, the Eastern Isle’s spiritual plane was empty of F3 constructs.

The silence afterward felt different.

Raven released a breath she’d been holding for some time.

Her left hand remained over her abdomen.

"Raven," Alex called from the ground four meters away, with Kira working on his right wrist.

Raven turned her head toward him.

"You okay?" Alex asked.

Raven looked at him.

"Fine," she said.

Alex’s eyes moved to Raven’s left hand—to her abdomen, and the position she’d maintained throughout the entire fight even when she hadn’t had enough HP to remain standing.

Raven didn’t explain.

Alex didn’t ask.