Gon's Harem System
Chapter 199: An angry attack

Chapter 199: An angry attack

He opened his mouth, trying to shape the right response, something biting, something to reassert control of the moment, but the boy spoke again, quicker this time, not giving Gon the chance.

"Guess I’ll dial up the power a bit now," he said breezily, as though adjusting a volume knob, as though pain was just a mild inconvenience.

Then, with deliberate slowness, the boy straightened his spine. He winced, barely, but his expression didn’t change.

That grin only deepened. He looked taller now, somehow. Bigger. As if shaking off the injury had peeled back a layer of performance and revealed something rawer beneath.

And then it happened.

A sudden, sickening movement stirred beneath his clothes.

From under his tunic, from the folds of his sleeves, even from the tops of his boots, they came. One after another, snakes began to slither out from his body like nightmares pulled into daylight.

The first one dropped from his sleeve with a wet plop, hitting the sand and coiling instantly. Then another, and another, until it was like his entire body had become a nest.

The creatures poured out in waves, writhing, twisting, hissing, green and black and glistening in the sunlight, their scales shimmering like polished armor.

Some were thin and whip-like, their movements so fast they blurred; others were thick and heavy, their bodies rippling with corded muscle.

Gon took a single step back, involuntarily. His eyes darted from snake to snake, counting without meaning to.

One. Two. Five. Eight.

Eight snakes now coiled around the boy in a tight, menacing ring, tongues flicking, heads swaying with hypnotic rhythm. They moved in sync with him, as if connected to the rise and fall of his breath. Living armor.

The boy tilted his head, his pink hair swaying gently in the breeze, and grinned wider, his teeth white against the crimson smear across his cheek.

"Let’s see if you can handle this," he said.

His tone was almost playful. Almost. But underneath the lightness, buried beneath that sing-song lilt, there was a dark edge, like a razor tucked into velvet.

Gon’s hand tightened on his sword hilt, knuckles whitening. His heart pounded in his chest, louder now, matching the slow, deliberate sway of the snakes. Each beat echoed in his ears like war drums.

The boy stepped forward, slow and deliberate, the hissing of the snakes around him now silent, as if they, too, were holding their breath.

His boots crunched softly against the sand, blood still trickling from his wounded side, though he seemed not to notice.

His eyes, sharp and glittering, stayed locked on Gon like twin daggers. There was no more grin this time, no trace of the charming menace he’d worn like a mask.

"This time," he said, his voice low and oddly calm, "there’s no room for surprises."

The words carried weight, like a spell uttered in a forgotten tongue, final and cold. Then, without another breath of warning, he lunged.

The movement was a blur, almost too fast to follow, his cloak snapping behind him, sand exploding in his wake. Gon reacted on instinct, twisting his body just in time, the air splitting beside him as the boy’s strike missed by mere inches.

A gust of pressure skimmed past his cheek, and Gon could feel the heat of it, close enough to burn.

He didn’t have time to recover.

The boy came again, a second lunge even faster than the first.

Gon moved to dodge, shifting his weight to one side, but something felt off. Too smooth. Too clean.

His heart dropped.

It wasn’t real.

The second strike hadn’t been a follow-up, it was bait. A trick. A shadow cast to force Gon into the open.

And then came the real attack.

It swept in from the opposite angle, sudden and vicious, a flicker of movement low to the ground, aimed not at his chest but at his legs. A serpentine motion, all speed and venom.

Gon barely managed to twist his body mid-dodge, throwing himself sideways with a grunt, his arms flailing as he fell.

His side scraped harshly against the sand, grit digging into his skin through the cloth of his tunic.

Pain sparked, sharp, stinging, but he ignored it. He hit the ground hard, breath knocked from his lungs, and rolled instinctively, coming to a crouch with his sword still clenched tight in his hand.

A beat passed. Dust settled.

The boy’s voice came again, maddeningly steady.

"You’re doing it again," he said, walking slowly toward him, face unreadable. "Running instead of fighting."

There was no mockery in his voice this time. No arrogance. Just a quiet certainty. And somehow, that made it worse. It was a judgment. A sentence. A truth Gon didn’t want to hear.

Something in him snapped.

Heat surged up his spine, hot and immediate. His hand trembled, not from fear, but from something deeper. Rage, pure and searing, clawed its way into his chest and exploded outward.

He wasn’t running.

He wasn’t a coward.

Mana flared in his veins, crimson and wild. It raced through his limbs like fire licking through dry parchment, thrumming with power and fury.

His fingers closed into a tight fist around the hilt of his blade, the pulse of magic spreading outward. His eyes locked on the boy, no fear, no hesitation.

He activated Crimson Pulse, and then he let it go.

The spell tore from him like a wave breaking through a dam. A bolt of red light surged from his hand, bright as flame, streaking across the arena with a roar that echoed against the stone walls.

It lit up the air between them in an instant, a blinding arc of raw power.

The boy barely had time to react.

The pulse struck him square in the chest, lifting him off his feet with the force of it.

His body flew backward, limbs flailing, his expression frozen somewhere between disbelief and pain.

He hit the ground with a thud, skidding through the sand before coming to a stop in a crumpled heap.

Silence fell.

He lay there, groaning faintly, dazed eyes blinking up at the sky.