...
{3rd Pov}
Her eyebrows twitched with frustration as she clenched her fists.'If only I had a weapon… something that could erase an opponent's existence entirely. Not kill them. Erase them.'
The thought lingered in her mind like a curse. However, before she could dwell on it further, Subaru gently raised a hand and placed it on her head.
"Gloria, that's enough for now. Rest inside my soul space," he said with firm resolve, his expression calm yet serious. "I'll handle what's next."
Gloria blinked, hesitating for just a moment, before nodding in acknowledgment. Without another word, her body dematerialized into glowing particles, retreating into the depths of Subaru's soul space.
Now left alone to face the monstrosity that refused to die, Subaru exhaled and raised his hand slowly.
In that moment, hundreds of invisible floating hands materialized around him—like a ghostly army awaiting his command.
These were not his own Invisible Providence hands, which allowed him to phase through matter.
Instead, these were derived from Sekhmet's Authority of Sloth—an ability he had copied and adapted and served to him on a silver platter.
Unlike the Shadow Hands which he could only summon in limited numbers and exerted two to three tons of force, these Shadow Palms—as he named them—were vastly superior in raw power even if they couldn't phase through the matter.
Each individual palm had the strength to exert seven tons of crushing force, and with nearly a thousand of them floating around him, the air grew heavy under their collective presence.
As Reinhardt's body began to reconstitute once more—flames forming organs, bones solidifying again, clothes reappearing like a cruel reset—Subaru acted instantly.
He accelerated forward, his foot launching him off the cracked ground, and punched Reinhardt mid-materialization, not giving him the chance to stabilize his form.
The blow hit with such overwhelming force that Reinhardt was hurled into the sky like a rocket, his incomplete body trailing particles of light and blood behind him.
Within seconds, the two of them were hundreds of meters above ground. Subaru, not waiting for momentum to drop, followed immediately, kicking off the air using precise bursts of mana propulsion and reached Reinhardt mid-air.
Then it began.
The Shadow Palms around Subaru swarmed like a coordinated hive. They converged on Reinhardt from all sides, moving with brutal precision. One palm crushed a shoulder joint. Another bent a knee in the opposite direction. Two more seized his arms and twisted them until the bones split.
Crunch. Snap. Tear.
Every limb of Reinhardt's body was being twisted, crushed, folded into impossible angles. His ribs caved in, blood sprayed from his mouth as multiple palms punched straight into his torso. Several wrapped around his skull, compressing it slowly, gradually grinding it down. Despite his strength, he was being overwhelmed, contained, and compacted.
Reinhardt's figure, once powerful and noble, was being condensed into a gruesome mass no larger than a football. A grotesque, pulsing sphere of broken bones, shattered organs, blood, and crushed meat floated in the air—held together entirely by Subaru's brutal force and willpower.
Reinhardt, for the first time, felt something alien to his existence—helplessness.
And that was when OD Laguna, the divine regulatory mechanism of the world, finally deemed the situation critical.
[Divine Protection of Divine Might has been acquired!]
[Divine Protection of Godspeed has been acquired!]
[Divine Protection of Invincibility has been acquired!]
A series of world-shaking notifications echoed through the ley-lines of existence, and Subaru instantly felt it. The atmosphere changed. The mana in the air trembled as if in fear.
From within the crushed sphere, light erupted.
Reinhardt resurrected. Again.
But this time, it was different. The power emanating from him was no longer simply immense—it was godlike. His new Divine Protections acted as multipliers to everything: his strength, speed, durability, awareness, regeneration.
In mere seconds, his body not only reformed, but shattered the grip of the shadow palms with an explosive pulse of energy.
BOOM!
Every one of Subaru's shadow palms was blown apart in a violent burst of air and force. Reinhardt hovered mid-air, orange flames flickering across his body, and for the first time, his calm demeanor was gone.
His eyes burned with unfiltered hatred as he locked onto Subaru, no longer viewing him as an enemy to be judged—but a monster to be annihilated.
They were both suspended in mid-air. Subaru, using telekinetically-enhanced flight via Psychic power.
Reinhardt, calmly walking on the air itself, supported by yet another Divine Protection he possessed.
The moment hung in silence—and then it broke.
Subaru launched forward again, this time faster, stronger, more focused. He was using not just magic, but Ki and Aura in perfect synergy, weaving reinforcement spells into his body's core. The result?
A punch carrying a force equivalent to five thousand tons crashed into Reinhardt's chest.
But this time, Reinhardt didn't get blown away.
Instead—he caught Subaru's punch.
His hand gripped Subaru's wrist tightly, the impact shockwave rippling out, shattering nearby clouds and splitting the sky with an ear-splitting sonic boom.
And then… something unexpected happened.
Reinhardt's triumphant expression twisted.
His eyes widened.
His entire body… began to crack.
It started from his shoulders, then spread through his chest, down his spine, through his legs—until his whole body splintered like shattering glass.
And then, he exploded.
Gore, blood, chunks of muscle and shattered bone fragments burst outward like a firework of flesh, raining down from the sky.
...
'Not gonna lie... this bastard is a fucking cheat,' Subaru thought bitterly as he floated over the scorched battlefield.
Despite the fact that Subaru hadn't even tapped into his full strength yet, Reinhardt had managed to completely stop his last attack.
And that alone spoke volumes.
In their previous exchange, Subaru's strike had turned the Sword Saint into little more than a pile of pulverized gore. But now? Now Reinhardt was holding his ground, fighting back harder, and lasting longer. It was unreal.
It was bullshit.
That's exactly why Subaru decided it was time to escalate things—to stop playing around and use something that bypassed all conventional defense, something even Divine Protections couldn't block.
The Authority of Dichotomy.
An Authority he had acquired directly from Typhon, and one of the most terrifying tools in his arsenal.
The moment Subaru landed on the devastated, cracked, and molten landscape—barely resembling anything that could be called a battlefield anymore—he activated it.
Reinhardt, who had just been resurrected yet again by OD Laguna, and had grabbed his hand froze.
For the first time since their battle began, Reinhardt van Astrea showed something on his face that no one in the world would ever believe if they hadn't seen it with their own eyes.
Fear.
Pure, unfiltered, soul-wracking fear.
Then came the pain.
Subaru's Authority of Dichotomy functioned on a cruelly precise principle. It inflicted pain and mental breakdown based on two key elements:
How much one had sinned.
How much guilt one carried inside.
And Reinhardt—despite being seen as a hero, a savior, a living legend—was not immune.
In Subaru's eyes, Reinhardt was a sinner. A man who had tried to kill Beatrice, someone Subaru considered more than family. That act alone was unforgivable.
But that wasn't all.
Reinhardt himself considered his very existence monstrous.
Deep within, he still harbored guilt over what he had done in his past—especially the incident where he stole his grandmother's Divine Protection during a crucial moment, an act that directly contributed to her downfall.
That guilt remained, buried beneath layers of resolve and strength, but Subaru's Authority dug it out like a scalpel exposing nerve.
And since Authorities trumped Divine Protections, the pain inflicted was unstoppable.
Reinhardt felt his bones breaking, not physically, but conceptually. His blood boiled within him like magma. His nerves screamed as if every single fiber of his body was being set on fire from the inside out. It was torture beyond anything he'd ever experienced.
Even if it only lasted a second before he died again, that moment of pain left scars. Psychological ones. It broke something inside him. Something that wouldn't heal just by resurrecting.
And right now?
Subaru was enjoying himself.
He was having a goddamn field day.
He didn't even give Reinhardt the chance to call back his Dragon Sword Reid, in the same way Thor could summon his Mjolnir. Subaru made sure of it.
Every time Reinhardt resurrected, Subaru was already right there, waiting.
He would touch Reinhardt immediately, activate the Authority of Dichotomy again, and Reinhardt would die.
Over and over.
"This is for hurting my Betty, asshole," Subaru muttered as he slapped Reinhardt's face, shattering his entire body like fragile glass under pressure.
Reinhardt's body ignited with an orange glow once more—OD Laguna's resurrection effect kicking in. His form returned, fully restored.
"This is for making her cry," Subaru said coldly, and with nothing but a tap of his hand, Reinhardt's body crumbled again, reduced to nothing before he could even scream.
And so the cycle repeated.
Resurrection. Pain. Death.
Reinhardt, the legendary Sword Saint, who was revered across the lands, cried.
He cried in pain. He shouted in rage. His hatred for Natsuki Subaru burned like wildfire.
With every death, every resurrection, that hatred only grew.
When the twenty-ninth death came, Reinhardt did something different.
He prayed.
Not to a god. Not to anyone spiritual or divine.
He prayed to the very mechanism that governed this world's balance.
To OD Laguna.
'Give—'
'—Me—'
'—Strength.'
OD Laguna heard him.
The divine mechanism that dictated the balance of power, which governed Divine Protections, responded.
It had watched this fight long enough.
And it could no longer tolerate Reinhardt's defeat.
Not just because he was its champion—but because Subaru, a man who was never meant to win, was warping causality itself.
So OD Laguna did what it was never supposed to do. It created new Divine Protections.
In real time.
Divine Protection of the Stitched Body has been acquired!
A new Divine Protection that allowed Reinhardt's body to remain physically whole even when shattered—preventing complete destruction.
Divine Protection of the Undead Body has been acquired!
A power that let him remain conscious and semi-functional even when technically dead—granting him partial control over his form after being killed.
Divine Protection of Divine Sacrifice has been acquired!
The most dangerous of them all. It burned down every other Divine Protection Reinhardt possessed—sacrificing them as fuel to empower his base physical stats and regeneration to absurd levels.
Reinhardt resurrected again.
Subaru moved as usual. He touched him, triggering the Authority of Dichotomy.
Immediately, Reinhardt screamed. Blood oozed from every pore of his body. His nerves still burned. His organs throbbed like they were being twisted with iron hooks.
But this time... he didn't shatter.
Even though the pain was still there. Even though death still hit him.
Reinhardt's consciousness remained intact.
He was dead, but awake.
And now... he was more dangerous than ever.
To be continued...
(A/N: Man some people really get at nerves, I gave a lot of proof, the strongest of which was QNA where Tappei said Reinhardt would have trouble destroying a country in one blow. However he said he trusts translations more than me and AI, when the translations are unofficial.
QNA? Official.
Maybe I am too emotional, or stuck up in such things. Yeah definitely, I should have blocked him the moment he started spewing nonsense. He is a fanatic, and no one has a good end with a debate with them.
So yeah if you meet someone like him, do block them. They will eat up your time, for example I had time today but because of the debate I lost all the time. Three chaps gone...
ANYWAY GIVE ME POWERSTONES!
Also we are at very good part in Patreon! So you can join it for just 2.5 dollars for 5 chaps!)