Beast Gacha System: All Mine

Ruby forced herself forward, one halting step at a time, her crutch sinking into the mud with every other stride. Her leg had never healed right since the certification camp’s last controlled rift exercise, as the healer had told her to rest and she had refused.

Rest was for people who had time, after all. Rest was for people who weren’t trying to prove something. She gritted her teeth and pressed on, her white priestess robes splattered with mud and the black ichor of corruption that would never wash out.

The goblins came in waves. Thousands of them. They boiled out of the controlled rift like ants from a disturbed nest, their small, twisted bodies covered in the same sickly black veins that marked all corrupted creatures.

Their eyes were hollow sockets leaking black sludge. Their mouths were too wide, too full of needle-teeth, and they chittered as they charged.

The hunters had set up a perimeter around the rift, a ring of steel and claw and focused firepower, while the goblins broke against it like a tide against a seawall.

Ruby raised her free hand. Golden light erupted from her palm, a beam of concentrated shield that swept across the front line of charging goblins. Where it touched, the corruption backed away.

The goblins screamed with a high, piercing sound that was almost childlike, and dissolved into ash. Beside her, Isabeau mirrored the gesture, her own beam weaker but steady.

Arzhen would come.

Ruby believed this with absolute certainty. She had built her entire identity around being loved by him these past few years.

She had forced herself this far, through the pain, through the exhaustion, through the doubts that had begun to creep in during the long, silent nights when no word came from the Vasiliev estate.

He should have heard the news by now. The rift was controlled but dangerous, a certification exercise that had escalated beyond its initial parameters, and she was here, at the center of it, being brave and beautiful and everything he had always told her she was.

He would come. He always came when she was in a pinch. This was just another plan of his. Another way of showing the world that Ruby was worth saving. Nothing personal. It couldn’t be personal.

She stumbled. Her crutch caught on a root, and she pitched forward, her purification beam flickering out as she threw her hands out to catch herself. The mud was cold and wet against her palms.

The goblins were still coming and the hunters still shouting. And for one long moment, Ruby lay in the dirt and wondered if this time, she had finally pushed too far.

"We can do this, Ruby! Come on!" Isabeau’s voice cut through the chaos, bright and earnest, completely unaware of the darkness coiled in her partner’s heart. She extended her hand, her smile wide and her own robes just as stained, her own face just as tired. "Just a little more! We’re almost through!"

Ruby took her hand. She let herself be pulled up. She adjusted her crutch and summoned her shielding beam once more, aiming it not at the goblins this time but at the line of corrupted victims being hauled toward the priestess camp on stretchers.

Hunters, mostly. Men and women who had taken wounds during the battle, whose bodies were already beginning to show the first black veins of infection.

Ruby looked at them and felt nothing but contempt. How unworthy they were of her power. How pathetic. They had one job, to protect her and the priestesses, to hold the line, and they had failed.

Now they lay on stretchers, moaning and twitching, expecting her to save them. Expecting her divine protection to wash away their mistakes.

She cleared most of the corruption anyway. Not because they deserved it. Because it was her duty and Arzhen would expect it.

Because the cameras that documented these certification trials would show her standing over the wounded, her golden light pouring into their unworthy bodies, her face serene and benevolent. She smiled for the cameras. She always smiled for the cameras.

The battle ended as all battles did. Slowly, then all at once. The last wave of goblins broke against the hunter perimeter. The rift was sealed by a team of specialists who moved in with equipment that finally stitched reality back together.

The corrupted victims were stabilized. The casualties were counted.

Ruby limped back toward her private campsite, her crutch leaving deep furrows in the mud, her body aching in ways she would never admit.

She was nearly at her tent when she heard them. Two hunters, standing just beyond the canvas flap of the supply tent, their voices low but not low enough.

"—can’t believe it. Anton Vasiliev is alive. After all these years."

"Right? The press conference is all over the news. He’s suing his own son for attempted murder. Arzhen Vasiliev. That Arzhen Vasiliev."

"You think it’s true? You think he really tried to kill his own father?"

"Don’t know. But if Anton is back, the whole Vasiliev empire is going to be turned inside out. Arzhen’s done, man. Finished."

Ruby stopped walking. Her crutch sank into the mud and stayed there. The hunters’ voices continued, but she didn’t hear them anymore. Anton Vasiliev was... alive? A press conference. A lawsuit. Arzhen—her Arzhen—accused of attempted murder?

Arzhen would be done soon. No longer the heir to an empire. No longer the man who could save her. No longer coming...?

She stood there for a long time, alone in the dark, her white robes streaked with mud and corruption, her golden light nowhere to be seen.

No.

This was not the end. She must retreat. Regroup. There had always been a plan B. There had always been a backup, a safety net, a man waiting in the wings who would catch her if Arzhen ever faltered.

That was how she had built her life. Layer upon layer of adoring men, each one a shield against the possibility that the last one might fail. She was Ruby. She was beloved. She was never without options!

Nikolas. Yes, Nikolas Delanivis. He had always admired her. Even when she was with Arzhen, even when she made it clear that her heart belonged to the Vasiliev heir, Nikolas had lingered at the edges of her life.

He was wealthy and connected. He was the son of Dorian Delanivis, whose family had built its fortune on trade routes that spanned continents.

In times like these, when Arzhen was faltering, Nikolas would scoop her up and carry her away to safety. He had told her as much, once. If you ever need me, Ruby, I’ll be there.

She straightened her spine. She would contact him tonight. She would—

"Oh, speaking about rich people’s fathers," one of the hunters outside the supply tent said cruelly. "Did you also hear that Nikolas Delanivis’ father... Dorian, is he? He got attacked recently by some unknown people? He’s dying, I heard."

Ruby’s blood went cold.

"That’s what you got from provoking the Edengolds." The second hunter snorted. "They’re nothing anyway, kek. So arrogant yet so weak."

What...?

Even Nikolas was...