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{3rd Pov}
"So, regardless of whether that body is a re decoy or truly his real form, it matters not. I must punish you for being a suspect in aiding a Sin Archbishop who has burned the capital to ashes. Lady Beatrice, hand him over to ."
With no hesitation, Beatrice's eyes flared with determination. "EL MINYAAA!" she shouted as dozens of crystallized mana stakes erupted from her hands, hurtling fiercely toward Reinhardt.
Reinhardt swiftly unsheathed the spare sword he always carried—a backup weapon he kept in case Reid, the Dragon Sword, remained unsheathed as it often did.
With practiced ease, he dodged a barrage of incoming attacks, deflecting others mid-air in precise, calculated movents, the steel singing each ti it t crystallized mana.
anwhile, Beatrice, with Subaru's unconscious body floating beside her, activated her flight magic. She urgently tried to nudge him awake through their spiritual contract—probing not only Subaru himself, but also the other spirits who were still silent, locked in unconsciousness.
No matter how hard she tried, there was no response.
Her thod of flight wasn't like the conventional flying magic used by other mages. Beatrice possessed an extre affinity toward Yin Magic—100% pure affinity, to be exact.
Despite this limitation, she was still capable of using other elents, albeit at a reduced efficiency, hovering around 20% affinity for most of them.
The only elent completely out of her grasp was Yang Magic.
That said, Beatrice never learned the traditional Wind Magic techniques used to fly. Instead, she had developed her own workaround—by casting Murak, a Yin-based spell that reduced her body's gravity, and combining it with Wind Magic to achieve controlled aerial movent.
It wasn't elegant, but it worked.
However, this improvised form of flight was significantly slower than Roswaal's mastery of Wind-based aerial spells.
Worse yet, in her current state—without access to her Door Crossing or any teleportation-based magic—she couldn't escape Reinhardt, not by speed or space-hopping.
That left her with one option.
She had to fight the Sword Saint head-on—and win.
With that resolve hardening inside her, Beatrice soared through the air, creating so distance from her opponent, then took a sharp banking turn. Subaru's body floated behind her like a limp shadow. As she whipped around, she summoned a flurry of spells.
"El Minya!" she cried, unleashing dozens of crystallized mana stakes, launching them at Reinhardt with precision.
But she wasn't done.
"El Shamak!" she yelled, pouring massive quantities of mana into the spell.
A dense, swirling torrent of dark clouds burst forward, enveloping Reinhardt completely. He had been in the middle of dodging and cutting down the El Minya barrage, but the unexpected veil of darkness engulfed him faster than he could react.
'I don't know how resistant he is to magic, but El Shamak is one of my most potent abilities. It should disorient him, even if just for a mont!' Beatrice thought, her hands trembling as she channeled more mana.
El Shamak wasn't just an upgraded version of Shamak—it was a completely different tier of spell.
It not only robbed the target of vision, but severed all five senses: sound, sll, touch, taste, and spatial orientation.
Even heat and pain were rendered aningless under its effects. For most, being caught in El Shamak was like being hurled into a sensory void.
That was how it should have been.
Beatrice used the montary cover to widen the distance between them. She needed ti—ti to prepare her high-tier spells, to analyze his defenses, to think. Her eyes narrowed with cautious hope.
'If that worked… I might have a chance to overwhelm him before he can recover—'
Her thoughts were cut short.
With an explosive bang, the center of the dark cloud burst apart in a shockwave of searing wind pressure.
The cloud was scattered like ash in a storm. Reinhardt erged from the remnants, completely unscathed.
His spare sword shimred in the air, having just cleaved through the magical mist as though it were re smoke.
Beatrice's heart dropped.
She had vastly underestimated him.
Reinhardt had been entirely immune to the effects of El Shamak—not just resistant. Thanks to his Divine Protection of Anti-Magic, spells like Shamak and its advanced forms had no impact on him whatsoever. And that wasn't the only safeguard he possessed.
He had a Divine Protection for each elent, providing a massive 80% reduction in effectiveness.
Beatrice who just rembered the Divine Protections Reina, now knew her counterpart possessed the sa Divine Protections and had realized in horror that even if her spell had landed cleanly, its effects would have been near useless.
He also had divine protections that negated or weakened non-magical elental attacks, making close combat equally ineffective.
Worse, there were divine protections that minimized the chances of surprise attacks succeeding—protection against ambushes, traps, and feints. It ant Reinhardt was nearly impossible to catch off guard.
'Just how many Divine Protections does this man have?! He's basically cheating!' Beatrice ntally scread, gritting her teeth.
But despite that power, despite the ease with which he could've dodged or countered her attacks using his Divine Protections, Reinhardt hadn't. Instead, he had deliberately chosen to face her head-on.
Why?
Because he didn't want collateral damage.
He didn't want to risk innocent lives.
Subaru—at least, the version from this tiline—had already burned down nearly half the capital. The central districts, marketplaces, and heavily populated areas were now charred ruins, engulfed in flas. Death tolls were still unknown, but everyone knew it would be catastrophic.
The area Beatrice and Reinhardt were now fighting in was part of the remaining, unscathed half of the capital. Most of the citizens had been evacuated, and others—those with strength or courage—had stayed behind to help battle the fires and evacuate stragglers. But that didn't an the place was empty. A stray spell could still kill soone.
Reinhardt was furious.
His rage burned inside him like a star, and it showed in his eyes. However, it was not the kind of reckless rage that made people lose control. No, Reinhardt's fury was sharp, focused, and cold.
She realized she couldn't afford to make any more mistakes. Every spell she cast had to count. Every second she bought had to be used wisely. Because this was Reinhardt Van Astrea.
And if she didn't defeat him now—
She wouldn't get another chance.
"El Vita!" Beatrice shouted sharply, instantly casting the advanced Yin magic.
The surrounding air trembled as she amplified Reinhardt's gravity by dozens of tis in an instant.
Any ordinary person—even many extraordinary ones—would have been reduced to pulp, crushed into unrecognizable gore under the weight of their own body.
Their bones would snap, their organs rupture, and they'd collapse into a pool of blood without ever knowing what hit them.
But Reinhardt? It barely slowed him down.
El Vita, unlike traditional debuff-type spells such as Shamak, didn't rely interfere with perception or consciousness.
It directly manipulated the physical environnt—a form of magical pressure more akin to a natural force than a typical enchantnt.
That was why it even affected Reinhardt at all.
However, his Divine Protection of Darkness Nullification kicked in, drastically weakening the spell's effectiveness.
With 80% of Yin magic's potency nullified, the gravitational pressure beca more like an inconvenience than a lethal threat.
Undeterred, Beatrice pressed forward.
"Ul Shamak!" she shouted, her voice trembling slightly from the strain. A sphere of absolute darkness manifested in front of Reinhardt. The mana condensed and collapsed upon itself, forming a localized black hole, an abyss that devoured everything within its radius.
And Reinhardt? He didn't flinch.
He simply swung his sword—a regular sword, not even Reid—and cut through the black hole.
It dissipated.
His blade, however, crumbled into useless shards from the stress.
If Subaru were awake right now, he'd be absolutely losing it, He'd scream about Reinhardt cheating again. Like, how the hell do you slice through a black hole with a damn sword?! And not even a divine sword! Just a plain old common weapon! That's complete bullshit!
Beatrice gathered her breath, her face pale.
"Al Minya!" she roared, releasing another high-tier Yin spell. From her position mid-air, she launched a barrage of Minya stakes made of crystallized magical energy. She saw an opening—Reinhardt had lost his weapon.
But then he reached for the hilt of the Dragon Sword Reid.
For the first ti, the divine sword trembled.
The attack drew closer, the stakes nearly upon him, but Reinhardt's Divine Protection that reduced the chance of being hit by surprise attacks activated. With fluid speed, he unsheathed Reid just in ti and clashed against the incoming barrage.
Sparks flew. The pressure shook the air.
But then—
'Al Shamak!' Beatrice thought, casting another spell simultaneously. She whispered it, not aloud, blending it seamlessly into her ongoing offensive. A separate layer of reality unfolded silently. She was creating a new dinsion altogether—an inescapable void.
Her head was pounding. Her Gate and mind scread in agony from overuse. She was already using Wind and Vita magic to keep herself and Subaru afloat mid-air. Then she unleashed the strongest variant of Al Minya to strike Reinhardt, while simultaneously weaving the most potent version of Shamak.
And she pulled it off.
By the ti Reinhardt repelled the barrage and noticed sothing felt off—it was already too late.
He was no longer in their dinsion.
Beatrice's trap had worked.
His Divine Protection of First Sight, which enhanced his reactions to unexpected attacks, didn't help. That blessing only gave him a better chance of reacting to ambushes—not a guarantee. And this ti, the nature of the attack made it physically unavoidable.
To make matters worse, Reinhardt had never been hit by Al Shamak before. He didn't even know a spell like that existed—one that could trap soone in an entirely separate dinsion. That unfamiliarity crippled the effectiveness of his Divine Protection of Second Coming.
And so, Reinhardt Van Astrea—the Sword Saint, the strongest man alive—was finally struck and removed from the battlefield.
Beatrice gasped for air. She hovered in place, her body trembling violently. Spirits didn't usually pant.
They didn't overheat or sweat, and they had innate resistances to extres of temperature and exertion.
But Echidna had designed Beatrice with several human-like traits to make her feel more relatable—to feel real.
Right now, all those features were on full display.
Her shoulders slumped. Her legs felt like jelly despite floating. Her small chest rose and fell in rapid succession as she clutched Subaru tightly.
'He is gone... I actually won... I beat him!' she scread internally, eyes wide with disbelief and pride.
"Betty has protected her contractor!" she declared proudly, voice shaking from the strain. She looked down at Subaru, still unconscious, still silent.
He couldn't hear her. He wasn't there to praise her. But she didn't care. The fact that she was able to protect him made her feel whole.
But fate wasn't done with her yet.
The sky above her cracked.
A terrible, thunderous sound like glass breaking across the cosmos tore through the battlefield.
'No... no no no NO!' Beatrice scread in her head, spinning around, her entire body freezing in place.
Reinhardt erged.
He stepped through a space fissure, calmly—as if nothing had happened. The Divine Sword Reid glowed brightly, a pale, almost holy light radiating from it.
"If not for Reid, I would have been trapped forever," Reinhardt said, his voice cold and detached. "I didn't want to go this far. But now... I have to stop holding back."
Then he charged.
Beatrice's heart dropped. Without hesitation, she flung Subaru's unconscious body away from her.
"STAY AWAY FROM MY SUBARU!!!" she scread, her voice raw and wild. She summoned a rapid swarm of Minya stakes and hurled them with everything she had left.
But it wasn't enough.
Reinhardt's sword flashed.
It cleaved through her tiny body like a hot knife through butter.
Her stomach was split open. Her upper and lower halves separated instantly.
Beatrice fell to the ground. Subaru's body hit the dirt nearby with a dull thud.
"S-Su... baru..." she whispered weakly. Bloodless, spirit-born agony coursed through her. She tried to crawl, dragging herself across the battlefield toward him.
But she was fading.
The contract was breaking.
Her very existence, tied intimately to Subaru's soul, was disintegrating.
Reinhardt, expression blank, ignored her completely. He walked past, eyes locked on Subaru. Fury radiated off him now—controlled but burning.
As the contract faded, Subaru felt a jolt.
It was like being stabbed in the soul.
The montary pain cascaded through his entire being. It hit every one of his spiritual connections.
And then his eyes snapped open.
In an instant, he was on his feet.
His body reacted before his mind did.
There were too many questions. Where was he? What was going on? Why was soone who looked like a male version of Reinhard glaring at him?
But then—
He saw Beatrice.
Or rather, her upper half.
Her lower body was missing.
She was lying in a pool of magical essence, her small hand reaching out to him, her expression desperate and fading.
Ti slowed.
'Why... why is my Betty like that?' Subaru thought, eyes wide. 'Why is her lower half gone?! Why is she dying?! WHAT HAPPENED TO HER?!'
He instantly activated his Authority of Lust.
His vision changed.
He could see the essence of Beatrice's body surrounded by a dark, suffocating aura—the sign of imminent death.
He willed it to change.
The aura shifted to green.
His rage surged.
'Who did this to her?! Who the hell dared to hurt my Betty?!' Subaru's eyes locked onto Reinhardt.
The man had been staring coldly at him—until now.
Suddenly, Reinhardt's expression shifted. His eyes widened.
Subaru didn't care.
There was no ti to demand answers. No ti to figure out what this twisted version of Reinhard was doing here, or why he looked like a genderbent Reina. All that could wait.
He teleported in an instant.
He appeared at Beatrice's side, cradling her upper body gently, holding her close to his chest.
Then—
He teleported again.
They were gone.
To be continued...
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