Chapter 183: Desperate Defense

Due to Rein's weakened state, the analysis couldn't provide him with the user, nor could it tell him the stats. However, the identity of the one standing before him was confirmed shortly after, by the girl he had just defeated.

"G-grandmaster..?" She uttered, struggling to regain her composure in the presence of her master.

Rein saw a faint smile grow on the mouth under the hood, then laugh softly.

"Hee hee, you're useless to me now Bella," she laughed, and without another word of explanation, she held out her hand.

From there, an immeasurably powerful force could be felt beginning to form at her palm, a shadowy ball appearing, which distorted the very space around it, a clump of mass so dense that it had its own gravitational force. 

She sent this compact ball of space flying towards Zane and Bella, though it was going quite slow, warping the very air in its wake, and distorting the walls and floor as it passed.

"H-hey! Dodge that!" Rein yelled though Zane wouldn't comply. "You fucking idiot!" Rein once again angrily yelled, then put his hands on the ground, erecting a sturdy wall of earth in front of the two.

However, that proved to be of little obstacle to the ball, completely warping the wall around it, decimating a hole through it with ease.

At that moment, many choices appeared in Rein's mind, however, two main ones stood out to him. He could either run away, ensuring his survival, but sacrificing Zane. But as soon as he thought of that option, the look on Chloe's face if she found out that he let her brother die popped into his mind.

And with that, he activated memory flip once again, this time, taking the Spring of Stacey George, the one who was on Reggie's team in the dodgeball tournament back during school.

Inverted Effect: Allows the user to rip a hole through time, sending any non-living object back depending on the speed at which it entered the hole.

He wasn't sure if this would work, but it was his only hope at stopping the unstoppable force that approached. He jumped in front of them, and just in the nick of time, he activated the Spring, forming another time-distorting in the palm of Rein's hand. Slowly, the ball went through the spherical figure in Rein's hand, draining him of most of his energy, making him spit out copious amounts of blood, the process almost destroying him from the inside out of shear strain.

After the grueling process, the pain yet lingered as the grandmaster sounded a curious mumble, then began laughing.

"You reflected that back into my energy!" She happily yelled as Rein panted heavily, blood dripping from his chin as he looked up at her, her face still not visible.

"But, oh no! It looks like your energy's all used up!" She pointed out.

She was right. Rein looked at his energy reserves, his eyes beginning to haze in tire.

Health: 400/3000 (CRITICAL CONDITION!) (SLOW REGENERATION…)

Energy: 1/1500 (CRITICAL CONDITION!) (SLOW RECUPERATION…)

"Hmm… Should I let you live…" She pondered, pacing back and forth on the stairs, Rein still barely standing. "I wish I got to fight you without those things on you," she pointed to the glowing artifacts still on Rein's body. "But whatever!"

Once again, she began charging a ball of darkness in the palm of her hands, this one greatly larger than the other one. To stop this one, Rein would need all of his energy, and the artifacts removed, but even then, he wasn't sure if that would even be enough.

"HEY!" Rein used the rest of his energy to shout to the man behind him. "Pick me up and get us out of here!" He commanded, basically telling him to abandon Bella.

After a moment of hesitation, he reluctantly complied, apologizing to the blue-haired girl before standing back up and reaching for the immobile white-haired boy.

"Na-ah!" The grandmaster playfully remarked, suddenly rendering them both unable to itch a muscle, trapping them under some sort of gravitational force.

At this moment, Rein truly thought it was the end. There was absolutely nothing he could do. His entire body couldn't move, nor could anyone else, and an unstoppable force was slowly approaching him.

The grandmaster threw the ball of shadow, and this time, it was moving much faster than before. Even at the final moments, Rein didn't give up. He squeezed out the last bit of energy he had, and more, somehow tapping into some unseen reserves. Somehow, the brown belt around his waist suddenly popped, reverting his defense stat back to normal as he held his arms in front of his face as the ball of shadow collided with it.

For a few seconds, Rein was able to hold it off, however, his power was waning. After a few more seconds, his power reserves were all used up, and even in his final stand, he couldn't defend.

However, a sudden flash of light struck down from the sky, or the ceiling in this case. A slicing bean came down, cutting a line clean through the ball of shadow in front of Rein, effortlessly dissipating it into nothingness.

As Rein regained the view in front of him, he saw a red-haired man in a brown trenchcoat standing in front of him, his tachi held to his waist, veiled in a mysterious yellow aura.

"Yu…suke…" Rein uttered, struggling to keep his balance.

"Stand down for now, kid. I've got this."

When he heard those words, Rein's mind shut off, going unconscious as he collapsed on the floor.

He suddenly awoke in a familiar white void, where he saw his system, Versys, sitting in front of him.

"Hey there, Rein."

"What..?"

"Looks like one of those artifacts came undone. Most of your system functionalities should be back online now, and your senses are back to normal. Oh, and we can also communicate like this now."

Even though this was a world between mind and matter, Rein put his hand on his head, then sat down, letting the exhaustion melt away as he sighed in relief.