My Scumbag System-Chapter 385: Ashes to Ashes to... Glowing?

The elemental advanced, and I noticed something. Where my attack had split it, the internal structure was visible for just a moment before the flames sealed it over. Vines. Charred wood. And at the very center, something that looked almost like a seed pod, glowing with that same crimson light.

Core. It had a core.

Kill the core, kill the monster. Basic Gate logic.

Problem: the core sat buried inside a walking furnace that could melt my bat and my face in approximately equal measure.

I looked at Celeste, who could barely stand. At the tunnel behind the elemental, our only escape route. At the carved symbols on the walls that were still glowing with that silver light.

Wait. The symbols.

I’d seen similar markings in the river chamber. The First Tree had them too. They were part of the Garden’s foundation, the underlying structure that predated even the Arborist’s collection.

And they were reacting to our presence.

"Cel. Those carvings. Can you freeze them?"

She blinked at me, struggling to focus. "What? Why would I..."

"Just trust me!"

The elemental’s mouth opened. Fire gathered in its throat again.

Celeste threw her remaining energy at the nearest wall. Ice spread across the glowing symbols, and the moment the frost touched them, the silver light flared bright enough to hurt.

The entire chamber shook.

The elemental stumbled, its flames flickering wildly as the symbols rejected the corruption of the Arborist’s creation. This thing was a failed avatar, a puppet made from stolen biomass. The Garden itself recognized it as wrong, as something that didn’t belong in the sacred space.

And I was more than happy to help with the eviction notice.

I lunged while it was distracted, bat held low and point forward like a spear. Ember surged through the metal, hot enough that the air around it ignited. I aimed for the chest, for where I’d seen that seed pod core earlier.

The elemental tried to dodge. Too slow.

The burning bat punched through its torso, and I felt resistance as the metal contacted something solid buried in the flames. The core. I twisted, hard, feeling the pod crack like an eggshell.

The creature’s scream finally had sound.

It grabbed my arms, and agony exploded across my skin where burning vines wrapped around flesh. The smell of cooking meat filled my nostrils. My meat. Being cooked. On my own arms.

I screamed back at it.

Then I channeled every ounce of heat I could summon directly into the bat, into the core I’d impaled, and let Ember burn so hot it went from blue-white to something that made the air scream.

The seed pod detonated.

The explosion threw me backward. I hit the wall hard enough to crack stone, my vision going white from pain. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Celeste shouting my name.

When my eyes finally focused, the elemental was gone. Just ash and fading embers scattered across the frozen floor.

And my arms looked like I’d stuck them in a deep fryer.

"Satori!" Celeste dropped beside me, her hands hovering over the burns but not touching. "Don’t move. Don’t..."

I laughed. Couldn’t help it. The sound came out broken and slightly unhinged, but hey, I’d just killed a walking bonfire with a baseball bat. I’d earned some hysteria.

"I’m fine." Complete lie. My arms were ruined, the pain so intense it wrapped around into something almost manageable through sheer absurdity.

"You’re not fine! Your arms are..."

"Crispy. Yeah. Noticed." I forced myself upright despite every nerve ending screaming. "We need to move. That thing made noise when it died. Other things probably heard."

She stared at me like I’d grown a second head. "You can’t possibly..."

"Watch me."

I made it approximately three steps before my legs decided they’d had enough of my bullshit and gave out entirely.

Celeste caught me before I could eat stone. For someone who’d just emptied her mana reserves, she had surprising strength.

"You’re impossible," she muttered, maneuvering me back against the wall in a sitting position. "Sit. Don’t argue. Just sit."

I sat.

She knelt in front of me, examining my arms with the detached focus of someone trained in crisis management. The burns covered me from wrist to elbow, the skin already blistering in places.

Without the System connection, I had no healing factor. No convenient regeneration. Just regular human tissue damage and the promise of infection if we didn’t treat this properly. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

"I’m going to try something," Celeste said. "It might hurt."

"More than they already do?"

She didn’t answer. Just placed her hands on either side of my right forearm, barely touching the ruined skin.

Cold spread from her palms. Not the killing freeze she’d used against the elemental, but something gentler. The temperature dropped around the burns, and the constant scream of damaged nerves faded to a dull roar.

I watched her work, watched the way she bit her lip in concentration, the way her silver hair fell forward to curtain her face.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

She glanced up, surprised. "For what?"

"Not leaving me to become barbecue when you had the chance."

A small smile tugged at her mouth. "I considered it. Briefly."

"Yeah?"

"Then I remembered you’re the only one who knows how to get us out of here." She moved to my left arm, repeating the process. "Also, Noah would kill me if I came back without you. She’s developed concerning opinions about your survival."

The ice numbed the worst of the pain, leaving behind a bearable ache. I flexed my fingers experimentally. Everything still worked, even if it hurt like hell.

"Your bodyguard has a crush on me. Noted."

Celeste’s expression went carefully neutral. "I didn’t say that."

"You didn’t have to." I grinned despite the pain. "Anyway, thanks for the impromptu first aid. Very princess-like of you."

"Stop calling me that."

"Make me, Ice Princess."

She glared, but her hands remained gentle as she finished treating my burns. When she pulled back, I could see the exhaustion written across every line of her face. We’d been awake for close to twenty hours, fighting for our lives, and she’d just expended what little energy she had left to keep me functional.

I stood, testing my weight. My ribs protested but held. The burns throbbed with every heartbeat, but I’d live.

"Come on." I offered her my ruined hand. "Let’s get out of this death trap before something else decides to say hello."

She took it without hesitation, her cold fingers wrapping around my charred skin in a grip that should’ve hurt but somehow didn’t.

Together, we limped toward the tunnel.

Behind us, the ash from the defeated elemental began to glow again, faintly, like dying embers that refused to accept their extinction.

I didn’t look back.

Some things you just didn’t want to know.