Gacha Harem System

A/N: I have no excuse.

***

The moment Akira’s light went out, and the shards of the broken ball rained down on them, Lukas and Melody moved.

Their sun balls scattered before either of them had finished the thought.

Lukas’ light shot high into the sky and towards the right, streaking away from his shoulder like a bird.

While Melody’s light went low and to the left, skimming the floor and coming to a hover behind a column.

Something cut through the air where each light had been hovering an instant earlier.

Even if they couldn’t see it clearly, they could tell that whatever it is was small and fast, missing its mark by inches.

"Brighter!" Lukas snapped.

They fed the sun balls mana together, and the twin spheres flared from a soft glow to a bright white blaze.

Light slammed through the gallery, striking every wall.

In that instant, the whole space lit up at once as the light was reflected from every surface, and somehow amplified it.

And there they were, exposed for them to see.

Crystal Bats.

More than they could count with their eyes.

Most of them hung from the ceiling far above in clustered ranks like frost on a cave roof, while the rest filled the air between them, flying silently.

Each one was the size of a hunting hound, its body a lattice of clear and blue crystal.

If one stared closely at its wings, they’ll notice that they were as thin as blown glass and stretched between struts of the same.

Their eyes were like black holes in their skulls, and in the dark they’d been almost invisible, looking like they were part of the ceiling.

But in the light, they were everywhere, and they were already diving.

"Scatter!" Karrakas roared. "Don’t bunch up. We’re one target like this! Move!"

Nobody needed to be told twice.

The formation broke apart as Melody threw herself to the right, her mace already swinging.

Akira dashed towards the fallen debris, while Karrakas dropped behind a column with his bow up, arrows already flying before his knee touched the floor.

Percival, still in the middle, simply stood there, and Lukas had no time to grab him.

Because the first bat was on him.

It came in from above and ahead, its wings folded, making it look like a spear of blue crystal falling from the sky.

Lukas saw it late and did the only thing there was time for. He stepped towards it.

The poleaxe came downwards, swinging from the right to the left in one long slash, the hammer face leading.

His whole body turned behind the haft, and he met the bat in the air.

Smash!

The impact ran up his arms like he’d struck a wall.

The bat shattered, its body caving in on the hammer face, and then it burst in a spray of glittering fragments.

There were hundreds of them, ringing off the columns like flung gravel and skittering across the floor.

[You have killed an E-rank Crystal Bat]

For half a second, the swarm seemed to pause. Then it screamed.

The sound came from every direction, creating a shrill, layered shriek that stabbed at the ears.

It went on and on, rising, and Lukas felt it in his teeth. He hadn’t even known the crystal beasts were capable of making loud sounds.

Every bat in the gallery had turned towards him.

He could feel the way the whole swarm’s attention swung and locked, and the streams that had been wheeling aimlessly overhead came at him in a single mass.

"Shit," he cursed, before raising his hand.

A [Hex Shield] snapped into place above him, the dark plane of cursed energy shimmering into being a foot over his head.

The first bats hit it a heartbeat later. Then more and more, until a hail of crystal bodies slammed into the barriers he’d erected so hard the air shook.

The shields held for a moment, then it cracked, spider webs racing across its surface, and shattered into black wisps.

But Lukas was already gone.

He’d been moving the instant the shield went up, dashing to the side, and the bats that had broken through his barrier slammed into the empty floor.

Some pulled up in time, while others hit the crystal ground at full speed and burst on impact, killing themselves in a spray of shards.

Lukas didn’t stop to enjoy it. He planted his feet, brought the poleaxe up, and set it spinning.

The weapon was heavy, but light in his hands. It whirled around him like the propeller of an airplane, the hammer face and axe blade trading places faster than the eye could follow.

The bats rushed towards him, but every bat that came inside the circle of its reach was shattered into shards.

Before long, his weapon was shearing wings away and bursting bodies. Soon, fragments filled the air around him like sleet.

More came anyway. They came in waves now, screaming, and they were learning.

Half the swarm broke off from the frontal assault and swung wide, wheeling around the columns to come at him from behind.

He didn’t turn, or even spare them a glance.

Two [Hex Shields] slammed into place at his back, one above the other, and the bats hit them a second later.

He felt the impacts through his connection to the shields, and kept his eyes forward and his weapon spinning.

A second later, the shields behind him cracked, and he renewed them without looking.

The bats kept hurling themselves against the shields, until one managed to slip through.

He felt the gap in his shields the instant it opened, with a shield collapsing a half-second before its replacement formed.

He didn’t see the bat come through it, but he heard it.

His left hand immediately came off the poleaxe and shot backwards.

His fingers closed on crystal and he caught the bat by the throat, its wings beating against his forearm, and its faceted jaws snapping an inch from his wrist.

It weighed almost nothing to him.

Without wasting a second, he turned on his heel and threw it as hard as he could, into the face of another bat diving in from his front.

The two struck each other in the air with a crack, and they both burst into shards.

As the shards scattered around him, he looked up.

The beasts showed no signs of slowing down.

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