When their ship lit up with a red glow, their squad received the system prompt.
Just as they had observed before, being the designated cue ball meant they could cast defensive skills on their vessel, but each shield lasted only three seconds.
And once the strike landed, they could no longer shield the ship at all.
Rita had been watching carefully every time another ship got struck. The pattern was clear: if a defensive skill landed in that exact split second of impact, the hull took no damage. Collisions afterward still hurt, of course.
But if the shield failed, the ship warped violently on the hit, and judging from the pale faces of the students on board, the backlash wasn't just cosmetic.
Even so, if you asked the players, nine out of ten would still choose to be a cue ball.
Because the striker's goal wasn't to smash them apart, but to use them as tools, slamming other ships into the pockets—the black whirlpools at the corners.
