Gacha Harem System

The moment she laid eyes on the beam, Rashka dove to the side.

However, she wasn’t fast enough as part of the beam slammed into her shoulder, the grazing contact enough to detonate against her armor and send her tumbling sideways across the arena floor.

She rolled with it, converting the momentum to come back to her feet with her shield already rising to cover her head.

But she’d already miscalculated, Lukas wasn’t in the air above her anymore.

He’d already landed while she’d been sent flying, and now his foot slammed into her back before she could even realize he was behind her, the kick sending her forward and off her feet again.

She was airborne when he fired at her.

The beam tore through the gauntlet, heading straight for her exposed back.

This was the biggest opening he’d seen since the start of the fight.

Then it curved.

Lukas watched it happen with his eyes widening as the beam bent to the side, as if guided by an unseen hand.

The beam curved, before slamming directly into Rashka’s shield as she twisted in the air to present it.

The explosion hit the shield, and she was thrown to the ground, skidding a few feet before rolling back to her feet with her shield already positioned.

He immediately understood what had just happened.

She’d used her second skill, [Taunt].

This was a skill that redirected incoming attacks towards the user and away from allies. One of the ways a [Knight] pulls damage to themselves instead of others.

And when paired with [Iron Wall] like she just did, it meant she could absorb whatever she redirected.

The combination made her the closest thing to a tank in this tournament.

He frowned. This was his fault. He should’ve just stuck his sword in her back instead of kicking her.

He would have done it, if not for the fact that he’d felt her shield again in that split second, his instincts warning him that if he did that, he’d be in great danger.

He had chosen to listen, and that meant he’d prolonged the fight.

He sighed. Maybe he needed a different approach. Or maybe he just needed to face whatever the shield was hiding directly.

With his mind made up, he dashed towards her again.

This time, Rashka stepped forward to me.

She stabbed at him, a direct thrust aimed at his chest, and he turned his forearm to deflect it, the sword scraping across the surface of his gauntlet.

In that same instant, she drove her shield into his chest, the bash sending him stumbling backwards.

She tried to take advantage of his unstable balance, swinging towards him.

A small smile appeared on his face as he caught her sword with his gauntlet, his fingers closing tightly around the blade.

Then he yanked.

She stumbled forward, pulled off balance by her own weapon, and he twisted his body, using her momentum to flip her over his shoulder.

She slammed into the arena floor, the force of her landing cracking the stone under her.

He was already pointing the gauntlet at her exposed breastplate before she had even finished landing, as he’d been charging the beam for the past few seconds.

"Let’s see you block this," he snarled as he fired.

The same tingling sensation he’d been feeling from her shield moved through his skin in that same instant, but this time, he’d already decided to see it to the end.

He immediately activated [Wing Fortress].

All four of his wings erupted from his back and wrapped around him in an instant, the golden feathers closing just as two things happened at the same time.

The first was the beam detonating on Rashka’s exposed torso.

The energy of the explosion rippled through the armor’s surface, the concussive force snapping two ribs and caving the metal inwards.

She was sent skidding across the arena floor, leaving a long scrape in the stone.

And the second thing that happened was the function of her shield activated automatically.

What no one knew was that throughout the tournament, every attack that had landed on the shield and negated by the [Iron Wall] had been absorbed into her [Item], stored for exactly this purpose.

And right now, Lukas had triggered it.

The kinetic energy released in a single wave, the blast moving towards Lukas before he could even realize what was going on.

The attack slammed into his wings, and even through the powerful defense wrapped around his body, Lukas still felt it.

The only way he could describe it was that it felt like being struck by a mountain.

His wings compressed under the impact, the feathers tearing as the structure of the skill fractured under a load it had not been designed to absorb alone.

He left the ground.

He didn’t count the bounces. All he was aware of was the floor hitting him repeatedly, and a few seconds later, him stopping.

Then he felt the blood, running down his body from all the cuts that had opened in the patches where the kinetic force had rippled through his wings.

As for his wings, they were now tattered, and their form flickered in his back as the skill was barely maintaining its form.

To make matters worse, most of the feathers were gone or bent at wrong angles.

He coughed, and blood splattered from his mouth. He could already tell something was wrong inside of him.

He turned his head to see Rashka slowly rise to her feet, her right hand pressed to her damaged ribs.

On her left hand, she gripped her shield tightly.

Her eyes, now visible through the visor, were fixed on him with cold assessment. She was evaluating whether he could still fight or if this was a ruse.

His vision blurred, forcing him to blink a few times before they stabilized.

Inside him, he could feel that a few of his ribs had snapped, his collarbone was broken, and his left arm, the one with the gauntlet, was also broken somewhere between his elbow and his shoulder.

He pressed his right hand into the arena floor and pushed, rising to one knee.

Rashka watched him.

His vision swam again, taking a few seconds longer before stabilizing.

And in that moment, he knew.

If there was ever a time to bend the rules he’d set for himself, it was now.