Battle Harem of the Heavenly Sword

Suddenly golden fireflies came out of the ground and swarmed each of the devoted. They were extremely fast like lightning, the fireflies were also ethereal and thus could neither be evaded nor destroyed.

They slammed into each devoted's chest, and bit by bit golden chains appeared from each of them. The chains continued to slowly increase in length from all fifteen devoted, everyone assaulted by the fireflies found their bodies unable to move.

They could only stare in defeat as the Manticore successfully nailed them in place. The fifteen ends of the chains then entered the Manticore's chest and connected themselves to its heart. When it did the devoted's bodies could once again move but curiously none of them did.

Within each devoted's mind, the same message alert popped out.

- Alert: The host has been bound by rank [SSS] skill [Astral Gyve] -

- Alert: [Astral Gyve] - All bound targets would have their HP and Calibers drained by the stat difference ratio difference of Caster's STR per second. This skill is bound to the host's soul, it cannot be dispelled, paused, or destroyed until the caster remains alive. -

- System recommendation: Terminate [Astral Gyve] caster immediately. -

Frank, who saw the messages, looked at Rilu and stood in silence. The crimson cage needed only a few more minutes to close. If the devoted wanted, they could run out before it did. Yet going outside while [Astral Gyve] existed would be incredibly stupid.

Despite being part of Starfall, Frank never cared about any of the other devoted. Rhyne fostered a culture of competition among her subs. Due to it being impossible to love everyone equally. She instead rewarded the best of the best with her time and affection.

Like in all competitions, the more people were interested the harder it is to win. Even if Rhyne gave an hour a day to each devoted and husband. They would have at most seven hours a week with their dominator. This was an ugly truth about harems.

People who think love can be equal among its members are fools. A person only has one body thus the more members there are, the less time each would get. While ideally, they would split to kill Hiro and Patches in two groups, no one trusted each other enough to leave Patches.

Fearing that their "allies" would intentionally delay killing the beast to allow the others to die, they all remained present. Not one of the fifteen system users wanted to gamble their lives on the naive hope that everyone would do their best.

What mattered most was getting back to Rhyne in one piece. Frank knew even if he commanded them, no one would leave thus he didn't even bother trying.

Subs were selfish in general, no one intentionally wanted to share their lover with everyone else. Yet they could not control their dom should they wish for more partners.

Battle fatalities became the only legal way to remove subs who ranked above you in battle harems. Anything else would earn the ire of your dom, betrayals among subs were as normal as breathing in ones with above 10 members.

A young woman's voice then started to speak while everyone waited. "From this moment forward I will take command of the devoted. I know everyone wishes to perform well to gain Rhyne-sama's affection.

"But as commander let me remind you all, each of you holds a part of her power and has given Stat dowries in turn." Rilu walked forward and took point, yet continued to lambast her men.

"Even if you are the only one to survive, how much would Rhyne-sama lose if the rest of us died? Should all devoted aside from you die today would you become number 1? Dumb bastards.

"There still exists four spouse ranks none of us could ever hope to win against. Dreaming of monopolizing the dominator is both a fallacy and an impossible reality. Wake the fuck up!

"Our dominator expects only one thing of us. Absolute devotion. This is why we are called devoted. Rhyne-sama's request is clear. Eliminate the transmigrator, and that is what we will do! Nothing else matters! I want three Battlestars! Form up! NOW!"

Seemingly broken out of their delusions of grandeur, the devoted meekly formed battle formations. A Battlestar was another of the Savior's tactical doctrines. They are essentially tactical battle formations that looked like pentagrams, which required five members.

The principle for the formation is simple, each Battlestar had a tank, one melee fighter focused on STR, another on AGI, one range fighter, and one mage.

The formation came to prominence during large-scale battles or monster subjugations. The formation had one rule, follow your role till you die. This extreme instruction allowed inhuman precision in coordinated tactics during battle.

This allowed members to focus on the task at hand. Battlestars had named the roles for each member. Everything from how to move, act, and what to take note of were defined in the battle doctrine.

A tank would be called an [Anvil] and be the one to bear the brunt of the damage and protect his group. The STR melee fighter called the [Sledge] would lead the assault. The AGI fighter called the [Hammer] would attack either in concert or opposite the Sledge to maximize damage.

The range fighter called a [Chisel] would serve as the star's watchman to ensure the formation does not get surrounded. The [Chisel]'s second role is to distract the target or create openings for the [Sledge] and [Hammer]. A mage called the [Forge] completes the formation. They are to use support magic or offensive spells depending on what is needed.

The positions were all tools used in blacksmithing, where supposedly the formation creator got the inspiration from. Rilu as a heavy hitter naturally took the [Sledge] position in the first star, Frank became the [Forge] of the second due to being a mage.

Hiro who noticed the command and authority of Rilu knew that once again she lied to him. She was neither a newbie nor an outcast. Her demeanor and ease in rebuking them indicated she led them for quite some time.

Resolving himself to kill her the next time they meet, Hiro focused on learning as much as he could from the battle doctrine of Starfall. Unknown to him Rhyne and her four husbands grew famous as one of the strongest Battlestars to ever exist.

She chose the name Starfall as the princess knew how powerful the formations were. Following this inclination, her entire harem became versed in the formation. Thus they were flexible in that they could form up at a moment's notice even when mixed with other groups.

Starfall became famous for fielding more than two dozen battle stars in chaotic melees. When Starfall joined the battle. Battlestars en mass would smash into the enemies with Rhyne's star at the forefront.

To this date, Starfall never lost any war they took part in. Their group overturned common sense and annihilated armies by the thousands. And now Patches and by extension, Hiro would fight three of the strongest Battlestars that normally served as Rhyne wingmen.