My Charity System made me too OP

Kaelith's fists were slower now—not from fatigue, but from intent. He was letting Leon see them, daring him to block, daring him to think.

Leon's pulse raced. Every trained instinct screamed at him to fall back into rhythm, to reset the cycle, to measure and respond—but that was exactly the trap.

Kaelith wanted him thinking.

Leon threw the thought away. No counting. No reading. No echo.

He stepped in.

Kaelith grunted in surprise as Leon caught his wrist mid-swing—not to throw it, not to redirect, but to hold it there and drive his head into the warlord's nose.

Bone cracked. Blood sprayed. Kaelith staggered back a single step—just one—but in this fight, one step was everything.

Leon surged forward, fists hammering into Kaelith's guard, elbows cutting past it, knees driving into the warlord's hip and thigh. It was ugly, graceless, and entirely outside any tempo the Shell Reverb could recognize.

Kaelith laughed through the blows, the sound wet and jagged.

"Yes—! Yes! You finally fight!"

He caught Leon's collar, dragged him forward, and their foreheads collided again—both men's armor plates cracked fully this time, shards scattering across the floor.

Leon felt something hot in his chest—not anger, not pride—just a pure, singular drive to end it.

The Fifth Pulse stirred.

It wasn't calculated. It wasn't timed. It simply happened—a raw surge from the core of his being, bursting out in a wave that wasn't shaped for elegance or control.

The blast took both of them off their feet.

Leon rolled, came up to his knees, breath tearing in and out of his lungs. Kaelith was down on one knee, blood dripping from his nose and mouth, one arm hanging uselessly—but his grin… his grin was wider than ever.

He spat blood onto the arena floor.

"Good. You've got a piece of the Throne in you after all."

Then he stood.

The fight wasn't over.

It was about to get worse.

Kaelith straightened, his broad shoulders rolling back as if shaking off the damage. The broken arm didn't heal—but it didn't slow him either.

Leon's eyes narrowed. No stance. No guard. Kaelith was just there, towering, breathing like a furnace.

Then the air shifted.

A heavy pressure settled over the arena—not the kind of killing intent Leon had felt from other fighters, but something deeper. It was like the ground itself had decided that moving was no longer allowed. His knees wanted to bend, his lungs fought for each breath.

Kaelith's voice was low, steady, and absolute.

"This… is Sovereign Core."

It wasn't an aura that flared or burned—it weighed. Every heartbeat felt like it was happening under a mountain.

Leon's instincts screamed at him to activate Shell Reverb, to search for an opening, but his mind faltered under the pressure. Kaelith wasn't moving faster. He wasn't even striking harder. He was simply… more.

The warlord stepped forward, each footfall making the floor groan. Leon tried to match the movement, but his muscles resisted like he was wading through stone.

Kaelith's unbroken arm swung—not a blur, not a feint, just a slow, heavy arc. Leon barely blocked, but the impact still sent a tremor through his bones. His defense felt like paper.

"This is what it means to hold a Throne," Kaelith said, pressing in with the weight of an empire. "No tricks. No tempo. Just rule."

Leon grit his teeth. His Fifth Pulse burned in his chest, wanting to flare again, but it was unfocused—wild. Against this kind of dominance, he knew it wouldn't be enough to just hit harder.

He would have to break Kaelith's rule.

And right now… he didn't know how.

Kaelith kept advancing, the gap between them shrinking as if distance itself were giving way to his will.

Every step crushed Leon's breathing rhythm, every glance pinned his movements in place. The arena walls felt too close, the air too dense, and his thoughts too slow.

If I can't move… I can't win.

Leon's Shell Reverb trembled—not from weakness, but from being forced into submission by something it had never been tested against. Kaelith wasn't suppressing his power; he was imposing reality.

The warlord's next strike was as plain as daylight—no speed, no deception, just inevitability. Leon twisted to avoid it, but the pressure dragged his body half a beat too late. The blow clipped his shoulder, and even that glancing hit jolted pain through his ribs.

"Still standing," Kaelith noted, eyes steady, as if Leon's resistance was a curiosity rather than a threat. "Good. But you will kneel."

The words weren't shouted—they resonated. They sank into Leon's chest and wrapped around his will, tugging it down toward the ground. His knees wavered, not from fatigue but from the command.

Leon's pulse thundered in his ears. Shell Reverb's layers sparked one after another—Tripart Echo, Absolute Return, Karmic Loop—yet all felt muffled, smothered by Kaelith's Sovereign Core.

Then… a flicker.

It wasn't power—it was discord. A subtle lag between Kaelith's steps and the pressure he projected. Leon's mind caught on it like a hook in deep water.

His Sovereign Core is an unbroken field… but it's still built on rhythm. If I can fracture that—

Kaelith stepped again, his shadow falling over Leon.

Leon inhaled sharply, letting the Fifth Pulse's unstable core brush against that rhythm. The moment the two touched, the pressure warped.

Kaelith's brow furrowed for the first time.

Leon straightened against the weight, eyes sharp. "If your rule is absolute… then I'll be the rebellion."

And the arena floor trembled—not under Kaelith's will this time, but under Leon's.

Kaelith's gaze sharpened, the faintest flash of teeth in a grin that was half challenge, half respect."You'd break a Throne just to stand?"

Leon didn't answer—he moved.

The Fifth Pulse rippled outward, not as a clean wave but as jagged shards of force, tearing through the invisible lattice of Kaelith's Sovereign Core. The air around them fractured like glass under strain, pressure fluctuating between crushing weight and sudden, dizzying lightness.

Kaelith stepped in to restore his dominance—Leon was already there, disrupting the step before it could land.Another step—another fracture.

The rhythm was no longer Kaelith's. It was a battlefield of shifting beats, spikes, and stutters.

The warlord's strikes came heavier, faster, trying to reestablish the flow, but Leon met each one with mismatched returns—sometimes before the blow, sometimes just after—forcing Kaelith to fight in broken time.

"You think chaos will save you?" Kaelith roared, swinging a massive hook.

Leon ducked under it, his voice low and unshaken."No. But it will stop you from ruling me."

The Fifth Pulse swelled again, and this time Leon didn't just fracture Kaelith's rhythm—he inverted it, forcing the warlord's own pressure back toward him. For a heartbeat, Kaelith's knees bent—not in submission, but in genuine resistance.

The arena roared at the sight.

Kaelith's grin widened into something wild. "Good… then I'll show you what happens to rebels."

He slammed his heel into the floor, and the Sovereign Core flared—not as a steady weight, but as a storm, every ounce of his rule condensed into a single, obliterating step toward Leon.