They Called Me Trash? Now I'll Hack Their World

Chapter 297: The Day Of Judgment [4]

The sheer mass of the swarm blotted out the violet sky entirely, casting a terrifying, suffocating shadow over the ruined lecture hall. Hundreds of winged beasts plummeted toward us, their jaws unhinged, raining down like a localized meteor shower of flesh and fangs.

"We can’t hold this position!" Tobias yelled over the deafening screeches. He stepped forward, his wooden staff glowing with a fierce, concentrated heat. A complex crimson magic circle materialized in front of him.

"Flame Lance Volley!"

Dozens of searing fire spears erupted from the circle, tearing into the front lines of the diving horde. Flaming beast carcasses plummeted into the courtyard below, but for every one Tobias shot down, three more took its place.

"There are too many!" Kyle roared, stepping in front of a group of paralyzed noble students. He swung his heavy broadsword in a wide, brutal arc, slicing a diving gargoyle cleanly in half. Black blood sprayed across his doublet, but he didn’t stop moving, kicking the twitching remains away.

Emma gritted her teeth, her eyes blazing with sheer focus. She pushed her hands forward, expanding her dome of solid light into a massive, shimmering barricade across the collapsed wall. The beasts slammed into it like hail against a window, their claws screeching horribly against the light magic.

"My barrier won’t last against this kind of force!" Emma shouted, a bead of sweat tracing down her pale cheek. "The floor is failing!"

She is right. The stone beneath our boots was groaning, webbing with deep, ugly fractures from the sheer weight of the monsters piling against her shield.

A stray beast managed to squeeze through a gap in the shattered window frames. It lunged straight for Tobias’s blind spot.

Before I could even shift my footing, Sira blurred past me. The silver edges of her twin daggers flashed in the dim light. In one fluid, brutal motion, she sidestepped the creature, sank both blades into its neck, and violently wrenched them outward, nearly decapitating it.

"Don’t just stand there, Jin!" Sira snapped, kicking the dead beast off her blades. "We need a path out!"

I reached over my shoulder and gripped the hilt of Oathstorm. The blade hissed as it cleared the scabbard, natively humming with a bright, crackling blue lightning affinity. But I didn’t need a localized shock, I needed raw, destructive spread.

I channeled my mana core, forcing my Dark Lightning affinity directly through the conductive steel of the sword.

The bright blue sparks violently inverted, turning into jagged, pitch-black electricity that crawled up my arm and wrapped around the blade like a dark viper.

I stepped up beside Emma’s barrier, gripping Oathstorm with both hands.

"Emma! Drop the shield on my mark!" I ordered. "Three! Two! One! Drop it!"

Emma instantly severed her mana connection. The light barrier shattered into fading golden sparks.

The horde poured in.

I swung Oathstorm in a massive, horizontal sweep.

[Rolling Thunder - Overcharge!]

A roaring tidal wave of dark lightning exploded from the blade, devouring the entire collapsed opening of the lecture hall. The dark electricity arced violently between the incoming beasts, cooking them from the inside out in a blinding, thunderous flash.

The concussive blast blew the front line of the horde backward, creating a brief, three-second window of open air.

"Move!" I roared, pointing toward the heavy wooden doors at the back of the class. "Everyone into the corridors! Evacuate to the ground floor!"

Panic erupted. The remaining students scrambled over overturned desks and shattered inkwells, shoving each other to escape. Tobias, Kyle, Sira, Emma, and I fell in at the rear.

We burst out of the lecture hall into the third-floor corridor. It was a bloodbath.

Tapestries were burning. Stone statues were smashed to pieces. Students were running in every direction, screaming as smaller demons broke through the arched windows, tearing into the stragglers.

"Keep moving! Don’t stop!" Tobias commanded, firing short bursts of wind magic to knock away approaching monsters.

We fought our way down the twisting, blood-slicked stone hallways, moving as a tight unit. Kyle took the vanguard, using brute strength to bash through the lesser beasts, while Sira darted through the flanks, her daggers a blur of lethal precision. Emma stayed glued to my side, projecting localized light shields to deflect stray magic attacks, while Tobias and me picked off targets from mid-range with sharp arcs of dark lightning and flames.

We finally reached the grand central stairwell. The massive spiral stone steps led directly down to the ground-floor exit.

"We’re almost clear!" Kyle yelled, his chest heaving as he started down the steps. Tobias and Emma followed right behind him.

Sira and I were the last ones at the top of the landing, covering the rear as a pack of six-legged beasts rounded the corner behind us. I raised Oathstorm, preparing to cast another Rolling Thunder, when my Combat Analysis passive suddenly flared with a terrifying, blaring warning.

The ceiling directly above the stairwell buckled.

CRACK!

"Look out!" Sira shrieked, diving backward onto the landing.

The vaulted stone roof completely caved in. A massive, heavily armored demon, towering twelve feet tall, wielding a molten iron warhammer, crashed straight down through the ceiling like a meteor.

The demon slammed directly into the middle of the grand staircase, right between me and the others.

The impact was catastrophic. The entire middle section of the stone stairwell completely disintegrated, exploding into a cloud of blinding dust and jagged shrapnel. The shockwave threw me hard against the top floor railing, the breath completely knocked from my lungs.

Below, Kyle, Tobias, and Emma were violently tossed down to the second-floor landing, narrowly avoiding the falling slabs of marble.

"Jin!"

Through the thick, choking cloud of dust, I heard Emma scream my name. It wasn’t her usual composed, sweet tone, it was a raw, frantic shriek of pure desperation.

I forced myself up to my knees, coughing through the pulverized stone. The staircase was entirely gone, replaced by a massive, fifty-foot drop. Standing on the remaining debris below, the massive hammer-wielding demon slowly rose to its feet, letting out a guttural roar that shook the walls.

Across the gaping chasm, down on the lower landing, Emma was fighting violently against Tobias, trying to push past him to run back up the crumbling, unstable ledge toward me.

"Let me go!" Emma screamed, her eyes wide with terror as her light magic flared uncontrollably. "Jin is still up there!"

"The stairs are gone, Emma! It’s going to collapse!" Tobias yelled, physically dragging her backward while Kyle raised his sword toward the massive demon now blocking their path.

I dragged myself to the edge of the shattered landing. Sira was on one knee beside me, wiping a streak of blood from her temple, her daggers held in a reverse grip.

We were completely cut off.

"Tobias! Kyle!" I roared down the shaft, my voice cutting through the chaos. "Get her out of here! Take the eastern service stairs to the courtyard! Do not wait for us!"

Emma looked up at me, her face pale, reaching a hand out as if she could bridge the massive gap with light magic alone. "Jin! No—!"

"Survive!" I ordered, my eyes locking fiercely with hers.

Before she could fight back any further, the massive demon swung its molten hammer, smashing into a supporting pillar and forcing Tobias and Kyle to drag Emma down the lower corridor to avoid the collapsing rubble.

The dust thickened, entirely swallowing them from view.

I stood up slowly, tightening my grip on Oathstorm as dark lightning began to crackle down my forearms. Sira stood up beside me, spinning her daggers with a sharp, dangerous exhale.