SSS-Ranked Trash Hero: I Was Scammed Into Being Summoned-Chapter 66: The 28 Seconds

The sixteen knights were not just soldiers anymore. They were meat shields. They knew it, and so Hiroshi knew it.

Sir Gareth led the charge. He didn’t use a skill. He just threw his entire weight against his shield, trying to pin Hiroshi against a pile of rubble. Behind him, the other knights formed a semi-circle, their spears thrusting forward in a desperate rhythm.

"Hold him!" Gareth screamed. "Twenty-five seconds!"

Hiroshi’s reaction changed. Until now, he had been a machine of pure destruction, hitting everything in his path. But as the three heroes began their transformation, Hiroshi stopped the forward pressure. He took a step back. Then another.

He tilted his head, watching the glowing triangle where Kenji, Aria, and Marcus stood. The purple light in his eyes flared. It wasn’t fear. It was anticipation. He wasn’t trying to stop the ritual. He was waiting for it to finish.

He began to move, but not to kill. He moved like a ghost. When a knight stabbed at his chest, Hiroshi simply swayed his hips, letting the spear point pass an inch from his shadow skin. When another knight swung a mace, Hiroshi ducked low, the weapon whistling through the air where his head had been a second before.

"He’s... he’s playing with us," one knight wheezed, his lungs burning.

Suddenly, a blur of grey and black shot across the room.

Elias had moved.

He had been watching from the sidelines, recovering his breath, but seeing the heroes begin the Avatar process changed his mind. He knew what an Avatar was. He knew that if those three finished their transformation, they might actually stand a chance. And if they stood a chance, he might actually survive.

Elias didn’t use a shout or a flashy skill. He slid into the gap between two knights, his short blade coated in a thin, vibrating edge of aura. He aimed for Hiroshi’s heel, trying to sever the tendon.

Hiroshi didn’t look down. He just lifted his foot, letting the blade strike the stone floor instead.

Elias didn’t stop. He twisted his body, spinning into a high kick aimed at Hiroshi’s neck, and then followed up with a series of rapid stabs. He was almost level 200 naturally, and his technique was leagues above the knights. He was a professional killer, and he was moving at his absolute limit.

Hiroshi dodged every single strike. He moved with a terrifying economy of motion. He didn’t jump or run; he just shifted his weight by a few inches, making Elias miss by the narrowest of margins.

"Don’t stop!" Elias hissed at the knights. "Keep him busy! If he gets bored, he’ll kill us all before they’re ready!"

The knights redoubled their efforts. They didn’t care about their lives anymore. They threw themselves at Hiroshi’s feet, trying to trip him. They grabbed at his shadow tendrils with their bare hands, even as the dark energy burned their skin to the bone.

"Twenty seconds!" Gareth yelled, his voice breaking. He had lost three fingers on his left hand, but he was still holding his shield.

In the center of the room, the transformation reached its first peak.

The air around Marcus began to burn. He was the vessel for Soleth, Lord of Light and Justice.

It started with his skin. The tan, weathered skin of a priest began to peel away, but there was no blood underneath. Instead, there was solid, glowing gold. His muscles expanded, tearing his white robes into rags. His eyes didn’t just glow; they became two miniature suns, emitting a heat so intense that the stone floor beneath him began to turn into red-hot glass.

Marcus screamed, but the sound wasn’t human. It was the sound of a thousand bells ringing at once. A massive, four-armed silhouette appeared behind him, made of pure, blinding white fire. This was Soleth. As the god will pushed into Marcus’s body, the priest’s hair fell out, replaced by a crown of floating golden spikes that drifted around his head.

"Fifteen seconds!"

Next was Aria. She was the vessel for Aqualis, Lady of Water and Healing.

Unlike Marcus’s violent heat, Aria’s transformation was silent and terrifyingly cold. Her body didn’t grow larger; it became fluid. Her skin turned a deep, translucent blue, like the bottom of a frozen ocean. Her hair grew long, flowing upward as if she were underwater, turning into a river of liquid silver.

Wounds that she had taken from the magical backlash earlier didn’t just heal—they vanished as her flesh turned into a high-pressure liquid. She wasn’t solid anymore. She was a humanoid shape made of water that was so dense it could cut through steel. Around her feet, the blood on the floor didn’t just sit there; it was purified instantly, turning into clear, freezing water that spiraled around her like a protective shield.

"Ten seconds!" Gareth was down on one knee. Only eight knights were left standing.

Finally, Kenji’s transformation took hold. He was the vessel for Vermis, Lord of War and Strength.

If Marcus was light and Aria was water, Kenji was pure, unadulterated violence. His transformation was the most painful to watch. His bones began to snap and reset, growing thicker and longer. His fingernails turned into black iron claws. From his back, two massive, skeletal wings made of rusted swords erupted, tearing through his armor and skin.

His face changed the most. His jaw unhinged, growing rows of serrated teeth. A third eye opened in the middle of his forehead—a blood-red eye that saw only targets. He didn’t glow; he bled. A thick, dark red mist began to pour from his pores, smelling of old iron. This was the fog of war. In his hand, the broken hilt of his sword began to grow, the metal knitting back together into a jagged, massive executioner’s blade that hummed with the weight of a thousand fallen armies.

"Five seconds!"

Elias was the only one left near Hiroshi. All the other knights had been swiped away. Sir Gareth lay ten feet away, his chest caved in, staring at the ceiling with glazed eyes. He had bought the time. He had done his job.

Hiroshi stopped dodging.

He stood in the middle of the room and looked at the three monstrous figures standing in the triangle.

Marcus was now seven feet tall, his gold skin pulsing with the light of a god.

Aria was a shimmering phantom of blue water, her presence making the air too heavy to breathe.

Kenji was a demon of war, his red mist filling the back half of the chamber.

The three of them raised their heads at the same time. The air in the room didn’t just vibrate; it shattered. The remaining stone pillars crumbled into dust. The roof of the underground chamber groaned as the weight of three gods pressed against the ceiling.

But there was a price.

Elias could see it. As the golden light, the blue water, and the red mist grew stronger, the physical bodies of the heroes were withering. Marcus’s gold skin was cracking because his human frame couldn’t hold the sun. Aria’s liquid form was leaking mana into the air, her life force being used as fuel. Kenji’s red mist was made of his own blood.

They were dying to become strong.

Hiroshi didn’t look impressed. He didn’t look scared. He looked... satisfied.

He raised his shadow blade. The purple light in his eyes became a dark, swirling storm. The shadow body he wore began to grow as well, the tendrils thickening until they looked like the legs of a massive spider, anchoring him to the floor.

"Three seconds," Elias whispered, backing away slowly. He didn’t want to be anywhere near what was about to happen.

"Two."

"One."

The ritual was complete.

The three heroes stepped forward. They didn’t move like people anymore. They moved like forces of nature. The "Avatar" state was fully active. For the next few minutes, they were the strongest beings on the planet.

Kenji let out a roar that shook the very foundation of the earth. He swung his jagged red blade, and a wave of compressed air and blood sliced through the room.

Marcus raised his golden hands, and a beam of pure light, thick as a tree trunk, hammered down from the ceiling. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Aria pointed her finger, and a high-pressure jet of water, capable of carving through mountains, shot forward.

The three attacks converged on the spot where Hiroshi stood.

The explosion was so bright that Elias had to cover his eyes. The sound was so loud it felt like his heart had stopped. The entire chamber was swallowed in a mix of gold, blue, and red energy.

When the light faded, the middle of the room was a crater.

But as the dust settled, Elias saw something that made his blood run cold.

Hiroshi was still there. He had used his shadow tendrils to form a cocoon around himself. The cocoon was charred and dripping with water, but it was opening.

Hiroshi stepped out of the shadows. He looked at the three gods standing before him. For the first time, a small, twisted smile appeared on his face.

"Finally," the voice whispered. "Something worth killing."