Supervillain Idol System: My Sidekick Is A Yandere-Chapter 517: The Havenridge Incident (Part 9)

Chapter 517: Chapter 517: The Havenridge Incident (Part 9)

The fall finally began to shallow.

Not gently—nothing here did—but the rush of air shifted, pressure changing as the abyss widened into something closer to a floor than a fleshy vine.

Don and Starboy dropped side by side, bodies angled forward as they tore through the last stretch.

Vines lashed out from the walls, thicker here, heavier—one final span stretched from one end of the expanse to the other, corded and dense, pulsing faintly as it flexed.

Don didn’t hesitate.

He clipped it with his shoulder first, tearing a channel through the surface, then finished it with a brutal follow-up—BOOM~—his fist ripping straight through the core.

The structure burst apart, green fluid spraying outward as the vine snapped and recoiled, chunks peeling away and falling with them.

Above, the chamber rumbled.

The drowned echo of Elliot’s voice carried down through the shaft, broken by fresh collapses—as more stone tore loose and followed them.

Chunks of rock began to rain down.

Starboy swerved hard, burning what little light he had left to slip between falling slabs, his shoulder grazing stone as he passed. Don punched through one outright, shattered another with a telekinetic shove that sent fragments spinning away into the dark.

They were close now.

Don’s eyes locked forward. The bottom was buried—layers of debris piled high where the ceiling had fed the fall, stone compacted into a jagged mound that blocked the way forward.

"There’s a lot of debris!" Don shouted over the roar. "Prepare to smash through!"

He twisted midair, planting a boot against the wall as they passed. The impact cracked stone—and he used it like a launch pad, driving himself forward harder, faster. His dominant arm drew back, muscles coiling as he aimed for a fault line already stressed by the collapse.

Starboy gritted his teeth.

Sweat ran down his temple, eyes burning as he forced his body to respond. His glow flared brighter for a moment—thin, strained—but it carried him forward just enough to keep pace.

Don hit first.

His punch landed dead center at the weakest point.

BOOOOM~!

The debris pile detonated outward.

Stone shattered under the force, blasting apart in a violent spray as dust and fragments filled the space. The impact sent a rolling shock through the cavern floor, scattering rubble in all directions as the blockage collapsed inward on itself.

Dust swallowed everything.

Starboy squeezed his eyes shut as the blast washed over him, sound flattening into a single thunderous roar. He heard Don land hard—followed by more debris skittering across stone.

"It’s safe to land!" Don shouted through the haze.

Starboy slowed, teeth clenched as his light faded away completely. He dropped the last few meters and hit the ground beside Don, boots sliding over grit as more rock continued to fall from above—TKTKTK~.

He straightened fast, chest heaving.

"We need to move," Starboy said, scanning the dark.

Beyond a short distance, there was nothing for him. No depth. No shape. Just black.

He looked at Don.

Don wasn’t looking back yet.

He turned slowly, eyes sweeping the area, tracking sound, motion, air—making sure nothing was already closing in. Only then did he pause, head tilting slightly as his attention fixed on a narrow direction off to the side.

"There," Don said, already stepping forward. "This way. Fast."

Starboy followed without slowing, even as stone came down behind them and crushed the ground where they’d stood seconds earlier. He wanted to ask questions. Wanted to snap something sharp back at Don’s urgency.

He didn’t.

He knew why Don had moved the way he did. That was what bothered him.

’I should’ve caught it too,’ Starboy thought, jaw tightening.

His breathing was heavier than he liked. Not ragged—but close enough to annoy him. He eased it down by force, shoulders loosening as he pulled air in through his nose, out through his mouth.

Superhuman or not, fatigue still crept in. Muscles remembered strain. The mind lagged a half-step behind instinct.

And Don hadn’t.

That fact sat wrong in his chest.

He didn’t want to admit that someone like Don could still be ahead of him after all this. So he said nothing, just pushed forward and let his pace smooth out again.

Don noticed anyway.

He felt the shift in Starboy’s steps. Heard the change in rhythm behind him. Filed it away without turning—because something else had already claimed his focus.

They moved.

Fast at first. Then steadier.

The expanse stretched far wider than it had looked from above. They covered ground—kilometer after kilometer—boots crunching over broken stone, the walls pulling farther apart the deeper they went. The farther they got from the collapse point, the less the world responded.

The rumbling faded. Elliot’s distant screaming thinned until it was barely there at all.

Then even that vanished.

No crawling.

No dripping.

No wind scraping through cracks.

Nothing answered their movement.

Starboy swallowed.

His ears strained, picking up only his own steps and Don’s ahead of him. It felt wrong. Like the space itself was holding its breath. His chest tightened despite himself, heart thudding louder than it should have.

Fear crept in sideways.

Don slowed.

Starboy matched him automatically, gaze lifting as a shape emerged ahead—huge and uneven, rising out of the dark like a buried boulder. Its outline didn’t sit right. Too smooth in places. Too warped in others.

"Is it a way out?" Starboy asked, voice low. "What is that?"

Don didn’t answer.

He reached into a pouch at his side and pulled free a spherical light ball, its casing scuffed and stained. He tossed it forward.

The device hit the ground, bounced once, then lifted—hovering as it flared to life.

Light spilled outward.

It wasn’t a rock.

It was ice.

A massive slab of it, thick and clouded, stretched up and outward. Frozen inside stood Frostbite, blood smeared across her arms and ice armor, hands raised in front of her chest, palms open as if she’d been caught mid-cast.

Behind her—partially obscured by frost—was Charles.

One wing was gone.

The stump was ragged, darkened beneath the ice. His face was drawn and pale, eyes half-lidded, body slumped but not quite still.

Starboy’s breath paused. "What the hell happened?"

Don didn’t answer him either.

His eyes tracked movement.

Frostbite’s gaze shifted first—barely perceptible, but there. Charles’s eyes followed a second later, slower, weaker. Both of them were looking past Don.

To the right.

Don’s left.

Don turned.

Whatever he saw made his eyes widen.

Starboy felt it immediately. The change in Don’s posture. The way his shoulders set.

"What is it?" Starboy demanded.

Don didn’t look back. "How long," he asked, voice tight, "will it take you to get them out of that ice?"

Starboy blinked. "What? Why—"

"How long?" Don snapped.

That made Starboy take a step back. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Don didn’t sound angry.

He sounded worried.

"Five minutes," Starboy said quickly. "I think. Frostbite can make her ice insanely hard, it’d—"

"Never mind," Don cut in. "Just start."

Starboy brought his hands together, light beginning to gather between his palms. "Don," he said, eyes flicking back toward the dark, "what is it?"

Don swallowed.

"I don’t know what you can call it," he said quietly.

Then, lower—

"But it’s coming. Fast."

As the words left his mouth, Starboy felt it.

A faint tremor under his boots.

Not from above.

From somewhere far ahead—

deep within the dark.