Shadow Husband:I Have a Hidden SSS-Class System-Chapter 39: THE REAVER

The Void Reaver moved faster than anything that size should.

One instant at the gate. The next, its armored fist was three centimeters from Rama’s face.

He activated [Void Step] on pure reflex, teleporting fifteen meters backward. The Reaver’s strike hit empty air—and the shockwave alone shattered windows for two blocks.

"Spread out!" Yanto commanded. "Don’t cluster! It wants us grouped!"

The assembled forces scattered immediately. Seven S-Ranks took high positions. Players formed mobile strike teams. Hunters established firing lines with long-range skills.

The Reaver stood in the center, unhurried, assessing them like a butcher examining cattle.

"Interesting," it said, that grinding-stone voice carrying despite the chaos. "More organized than the previous engagement. You learn quickly."

It raised one hand.

Reality twisted.

Twenty Hunters screamed as void energy wrapped around them, lifting them into the air. Their bodies began to dissolve—not burned, not crushed, simply unmade at the molecular level.

"No!" Sekar moved instantly, her S-Rank aura flaring to maximum. She struck the void energy with pure mana, disrupting the effect.

The Hunters dropped, gasping, alive but traumatized.

The Reaver turned its attention to Sekar. "S-Rank. Non-System user. Impressive power for your limitations."

It attacked her specifically.

Sekar met the Reaver’s strike with her blade. The collision created a thunderclap that cracked the street beneath them. She held for three seconds—then was thrown backward through a building.

"Sekar!" Rama started toward her.

"I’m fine!" Her voice came through comms, strained but functional. "Focus on the entity! I’ll rejoin in thirty seconds!"

The Reaver didn’t give them thirty seconds.

It moved through the battlefield like a force of nature. Each strike killed or disabled. Each step left void-corrupted ground that burned anyone who touched it.

Rama activated [Champion’s Aura], the golden light spreading to all allies within range.

[ALL ALLIES: +20% COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS]

The boost was immediately noticeable. Players hit harder. Hunters survived attacks that should have killed them. S-Ranks moved with enhanced coordination.

But it wasn’t enough.

The Reaver adapted faster than they could capitalize. When they attacked from range, it phased intangible. When they attacked close, it released void pulses that disabled anyone within ten meters.

Three minutes into the fight, they’d lost eight Hunters and two Players were critically wounded.

And the Reaver hadn’t taken visible damage.

"We need a new strategy!" Ratna called out, her phantom blades dissolving uselessly against the entity’s armor. "Nothing’s working!"

Rama’s mind raced. The Herald had been vulnerable when they attacked its dimensional anchor. Did the Reaver have the same weakness?

He activated his Champion authority, forcing his System to analyze the entity despite the compatibility issues.

[ANALYZING...]

[VOID REAVER STRUCTURE: COMBAT-OPTIMIZED]

[DIMENSIONAL ANCHOR: REINFORCED - CANNOT BE DIRECTLY TARGETED]

[WEAKNESS DETECTED: SUSTAINED COORDINATED ASSAULT MAY DEPLETE ENERGY RESERVES]

[ESTIMATED TIME TO DEPLETION: 47 MINUTES]

Forty-seven minutes of sustained assault against a Level 89 entity.

They’d be dead in ten.

"We can’t win through attrition!" Rama shouted to everyone via comms. "New plan—we don’t try to kill it. We contain it!"

"How?" Yanto demanded while dodging a void tendril.

"The gate it came through is still open. If we can force it back and seal the gate, we buy time!"

"That’s impossible," Chen Wei said. "You can’t force a void entity anywhere—"

"Then we make it impossible to stay here!" Rama turned to the four champions. "Adi, Lina, Kenji—with me! Everyone else, harassment and survival! Keep it busy!"

The three new champions joined Rama as he sprinted toward the gate. Behind them, the Reaver was engaged by every S-Rank simultaneously—seven of the world’s strongest Hunters attacking in perfect coordination.

It held them off effortlessly.

But it was distracted.

Rama reached the gate, feeling the void energy radiating from it like heat from a furnace. This close, his System screamed warnings about dimensional instability.

"What’s the plan?" Adi asked, his Champion authority active and reading similar data.

"Gates are two-way portals. Energy flows both directions. If we can reverse the flow—make energy push outward instead of inward—it’ll create pressure that forces anything nearby back through."

"That’s theoretically possible," Lina said, her Champion specialization apparently including dimensional mechanics. "But the energy required would be massive. We’d need to channel—"

"Four champions worth of power," Rama finished. "Exactly what we have here."

"This will drain us completely," Kenji warned. "We’ll be useless for the rest of the fight."

"If this works, there won’t be a rest of the fight." Rama positioned himself at the gate. "On my mark, channel everything into the gate. Hold nothing back."

They formed a circle around the portal, four System Champions combining their power for the first time.

Behind them, the battle raged. Sekar had rejoined, her armor cracked but her strikes still devastating. The S-Ranks worked in rotation—tag-team assaults that prevented the Reaver from focusing on any single target.

But bodies were falling. Hunters and Players both, overwhelmed by void energy or crushed by the Reaver’s physical strength.

"Now!" Rama commanded.

Four champions released their full power simultaneously into the gate.

The effect was immediate and catastrophic.

The portal’s energy reversed violently, creating a dimensional vacuum that pulled at everything nearby. Debris, vehicles, bodies—all drawn toward the gate with irresistible force.

Including the Void Reaver.

It staggered, its massive form pulled backward for the first time.

"More power!" Rama shouted, pouring everything he had into the reversal.

The other champions did the same, their MP bars plummeting to zero, their bodies shaking from the strain.

The Reaver fought against the pull, its armored claws digging into the street, tearing up concrete and asphalt as it resisted.

But four champions at full power was more force than it could overcome.

Meter by meter, it was dragged toward the gate.

"Everyone clear the area!" Yanto ordered. "Get away from the portal!"

The remaining forces retreated to safe distance as the dimensional vacuum intensified.

The Reaver’s voice boomed across the battlefield. "Clever, Champion. But temporary. We will return. Stronger. More numerous. This world will fall."

"Not today," Rama gasped, his MP at five percent and dropping.

With a final surge of combined power, the four champions forced the Reaver through the gate.

The entity vanished into the void.

Rama immediately shifted his power from reversal to sealing, using the last of his MP to destabilize the gate’s structure.

The portal collapsed with a sound like reality breaking.

Silence fell over downtown Jakarta.

Rama collapsed to his knees, completely drained. Around him, Adi, Lina, and Kenji did the same—all four champions at zero MP, barely conscious.

Sekar was at his side instantly. "Rama? Are you—"

"Alive. Just empty." He looked around at the battlefield. Bodies everywhere. Wounded crying out. Buildings destroyed. "Casualties?"

"Counting now," Ratna reported grimly. "But it’s bad."

The final count came in minutes later.

Fourteen Hunters dead. Three Players dead—killed in the initial assault before they could adapt. Twenty-seven critically wounded.

And they’d won by forcing a retreat, not by actually defeating the entity.

"It said they’ll return," Budi said, limping over from his defensive position. "Stronger. More numerous."

"I know." Rama forced himself to stand despite his exhaustion. "How long until we can fight again?"

"The four champions?" Yanto checked their status via his Trusted Companion interface. "Twelve hours minimum before you’re combat-ready. Twenty-four to be fully recovered."

"And the entity?"

"Unknown. But if the pattern holds—" Yanto pulled up data. "Herald attacked, we fought, seventy-two hours later the Reaver came. If they maintain that acceleration..."

"The next attack could be in thirty-six hours," Sekar finished. "Maybe less."

"With an even stronger entity," Chen Wei added. "Level ninety-five? A hundred?"

Nobody answered because they all knew the truth.

If a Level 100 void entity came through, they’d lose.

Period.

No strategy, no coordination, no champion power would be enough.

"Then we need to accelerate everything," Rama said. "More champions. More training. More coordination. And we need solutions we haven’t considered yet."

"Like what?" Ratih asked.

"I don’t know. But we have maybe thirty-six hours to figure it out." He looked at the assembled survivors—exhausted, wounded, traumatized, but alive. "Rest in shifts. Medical priority to critical cases. Everyone else, we regroup in six hours for emergency planning."

The forces dispersed to their tasks—treating wounded, clearing debris, recovering bodies.

Rama stood in the center of the destruction, Sekar beside him, and stared at where the gate had been.

They’d won by running away.

Next time, running might not be possible.

Six hours later, Rama sat in Eternal Bond’s war room with his core leadership—Sekar, Yanto, Budi, Ratna, and the seven S-Ranks.

Plus one unexpected addition.

Director Hartono had arrived thirty minutes ago with a military general and a government minister.

"The truth is out," Hartono said without preamble. "The void entity attack was recorded on hundreds of phones. Social media is exploding. The government can’t contain it anymore. People know something catastrophic is happening."

"Good," Rama said. "We need public support anyway."

"Public support comes with public panic," the minister said sharply. "We have riots starting in three cities. Religious groups claiming it’s the apocalypse. Militias forming to ’protect’ against aliens. It’s chaos."

"Better chaos with knowledge than death in ignorance," Rama countered. "Tell the public everything. Gates. Void Lords. Three-year countdown. All of it."

"That will destabilize—"

"We’re already destabilized! We just fought a Level 89 entity that killed seventeen people and destroyed four city blocks!" Rama’s voice was hard. "The old world is over. Accepting that is the first step to surviving the new one."

The room fell silent.

Finally, the general spoke. "What do you need from the military?"

"Integration. Your forces, our knowledge. Combined training. Shared command structure." Rama pulled up the Legion Protocol data. "We have a System feature that can grant your soldiers enhanced capabilities if we can create ten champions. Right now we have four."

"How do we make more?"

"The Worthiness Trial. Thirty days of hell that might kill the participants but grants incredible power to survivors." Rama looked at the general directly. "I need volunteers. Soldiers willing to risk death for a chance at becoming champions."

"I’ll send you a thousand."

"I need quality over quantity. Send me your best. Your most determined. Your survivors." Rama paused. "And send me your commanders. Because when the Legion Protocol activates, we’ll need leaders who can coordinate a thousand enhanced soldiers in combat."

The general made notes. "Done. What else?"

"Research. The Architect had eight years of void entity data. We’ve distributed it, but we need analysis by your best scientists and strategists. Find weaknesses we’re missing."

"You’ll have full access to our R&D divisions."

Sekar spoke up. "We also need international coordination. The next attack might not be in Jakarta. It could be Singapore, Tokyo, Los Angeles—anywhere. Every nation needs to prepare."

"The UN is calling an emergency session in forty-eight hours," the minister said. "You’ll be expected to brief the Security Council."

"I’ll be there." Rama stood despite his exhaustion. "Is there anything else?"

Hartono cleared his throat. "One more thing. The association has been tracking global gate activity. The increase isn’t linear—it’s exponential. At current rates, we’ll hit critical mass in eighteen months, not three years."

The room absorbed that like a physical blow.

"Eighteen months," Yanto repeated. "That’s... not enough time."

"Then we work faster." Rama’s voice was steady despite the fear. "We’ve survived two attacks. We’ll survive the third. And the fourth. And however many it takes until we’re strong enough to win permanently."

"And if we’re not?" the minister asked quietly. "If we can’t get strong enough?"

"Then we die fighting instead of cowering." Rama looked at each person in the room. "I’m System Champion. The first. I was chosen because the System thought I could lead humanity through this. I intend to prove it right."

He dismissed the meeting, watching as people filed out to their various tasks.

Sekar remained behind.

"You’re putting a lot of faith in the System’s judgment," she said.

"I’m putting faith in us. The System just gave me tools." He pulled her close. "How are you holding up?"

"Terrified. Exhausted. Barely functional." She rested her head against his chest. "But I’m here. We’re here. That’s something."

"It’s everything."

They stood together in the war room, holding each other, drawing strength from the contact.

Outside, Jakarta began recovering from its second void attack in seventy-two hours.

And somewhere in the void, the next entity was being prepared.

Stronger. Faster. Deadlier.

But Rama had learned something important from these two fights.

They could be beaten.

Not easily. Not without cost. But beaten.

And that meant humanity had a chance.

However slim.

However temporary.

A chance was all they needed.

Rama’s System chimed quietly with a new message.

[ANALYSIS COMPLETE: VOID REAVER COMBAT DATA]

[NEW INFORMATION UNLOCKED]

[WARNING: PATTERN DETECTED]

He opened the file, reading quickly, his heart sinking with each line.

Then he called everyone back to the war room.

Because what he’d just learned changed everything.