Chapter 219: 219. Just When It’s Start Getting Fun, He Choose To Act Like A Bum Again!

Apollo shut his eyes for a moment and then opened them. The activation was still going on, but the output had gone from the combat mode to a lower one.

This was the version of the system that ran when the person using it was busy with something other than fighting. And Rex could already see that Apollo had a lot of weaknesses from his mental state.

Rex thought. “I fucking knew it… main characters who act like this really need to die fast.”

“What a fucking joke.”

“Kaelira,” Apollo said. “Why would you do such a thing to her?”

“That was a Mordecai operation,” Rex said, which was true in the most useful sense available to him. “My role was information, and the execution was not mine.”

“You provided them with information about her position.”

Rex said nothing.

“You knew what they were going to do with it.”

Rex still didn’t say anything, which in Xavier’s mind was a certain kind of answer: yes, and I’m not going to make up a delightful story about it for you.

Apollo regarded him as if he were assembling a structure, meticulously gathering each fallen piece from the ground and fitting it back into place.

He understood that the framework he was constructing was one he had no desire to inhabit; however, it was the only one that could be supported by the materials at hand.

“I can’t—” He stopped. “Xavier, I can’t turn this into something I can use.”

“Do you get that? Not Kaelira, not Zeraphyra, not this.” He pointed at the city. “I can’t come up with a reason for this that lets me—”

“I understand,” Rex said.

Apollo looked at him, and Rex recognized the exact expression he had anticipated: the look of someone who had accepted that their understanding of another person had been irrevocably damaged and who was fully aware of that reality.

The activation level decreased further, which signaled a shift. The individual controlling the system within Apollo was not in a mental state conducive to pursuing combat as a clear objective, likely due to the emotional turmoil caused by the recent interaction with Rex.

Rex moved forward.

“I know you can’t,” Rex said.

The way Xavier spoke was planned, precise, and very effective. “That’s why I had to be the one to tell you.”

In four strides, he covered the last three meters between them. On the fourth stride, he teleported in front of him to unleash everything he had on Apollo.

He unleashed fire magic at full power, right at point-blank range. This was the heat-priority version that Rex had been controlling from a distance throughout the fight, but now he was using it up close, where the proximity made management unnecessary.

Apollo’s activation absorbed most of the attack, but because he was so close, more energy remained than during the eight minutes of fighting on open ground.

Then the telekinesis moved in a gravitational mode, with the focus on Apollo’s body.

This time, Apollo fell faster than the first time in the plaza because the activation was running at less than half of its previous strength and the gravitational mode was getting less system support than it had before.

Rex came down on top of him. He did not use telekinesis to soften the impact.

His own body moved with the telekinesis as acceleration instead of replacement, hitting Apollo in the order that the Foresight said would have the most effect given Apollo’s current system and physical condition.

The first initial impact struck Apollo’s left side, targeting his ribs and producing a sound that clearly indicated structural damage to bone, though it wasn’t catastrophic.

CRACCCKKK!

“AAGGHHHH!” Apollo cried out in agony.

The second impact slammed into his shoulder, disrupting the joint.

CRACKKK!

“GAGGGHHHH!!!”

The third impact drove Apollo down onto the street’s paving stones, leaving him face down as the gravitational mode activated above him.

CRAACCCKKK!

“AAAAAHHHHHH…!”

“This is for everything you did to me,” Rex said in Xavier’s voice, but he meant the opposite of what he said. “Now that you got weaker seeing me… I bet you can’t give me more satisfaction that I want, right?”

Apollo tried to push up. He really tried, but it didn’t work because the combination of the gravitational mode and the physical state he was in was too much for his depleted activation to handle.

“Grrggghhhh…! Stop…! I’m begging you, Xavier…!” He put his palms on the stone and had three inches of space before the pressure turned his effort into more force going downward.

“And this,” Rex said as he landed another blow across Apollo’s back, “is for Mordecai, who sends his regards.”

He used the gravitational mode at its highest level for a long time.

Apollo’s face was pressed against the paving stones, and he was breathing like someone who was in a lot of pain but was able to control it because he didn’t want to lose a function he still needed.

“This… isn’t… who… you are…!” Apollo continued to plead with him.

“Shut the fuck up!”

Rex looked at him from above. Then he gently put his foot on Apollo’s head, like you would when you want something to stay still instead of getting hurt.

He surveyed the western plaza, taking in the cracked stone, the shattered fountain, and the dilapidated buildings around him. “Your compassion really made me want to puke.”

In Xavier’s voice, he said, “You know what your problem is, Apollo…?”

Apollo didn’t say anything.

“You don’t want to hurt your closest friend, even though he’s done many fucked-up things to you,” Rex said. “When you saw my face, you hesitated…”

“Not because I tricked you, but because you felt something deep down. That’s why you allowed someone who saw you as an obstacle to put their foot on your head in the street.”

He pushed down a little bit.

“The ability to feel that kind of worthless thing… that is what makes you everything, and everyone here needs you to be.” He glanced down at Apollo’s face pressed against the stone. “That’s also why you’re going to lose like a fucking coward.”

He used telekinesis on Apollo’s throat and felt the specific pull of it. Apollo’s body pushed back against the constriction with everything it could spare from the gravitational pressure, which wasn’t much.

“You’re full of blessings from a goddess and backed by the collective faith of everyone in this capital,” Rex said. “And you stopped fighting because you saw a face that you cared about!”

“That’s not strength… but that’s a fucking liability wearing a hero’s costume.”

He held the pressure for another moment.

“Aggghhhhh!!! Please…!!!” Apollo begged, struggling to catch his breath.

“If you keep acting like this, I might as well end you so you won’t have to witness the last moments with your harem!” Rex smirked.

But then… the Foresight updated.

The warning had the characteristics typical of close-range ambush alerts in the Foresight. The timing window was so narrow that the difference between reacting and failing to react relied entirely on whether Rex was fully attentive at the precise moment the window opened.

He let go of the telekinesis on Apollo’s throat and moved to the left in the same half-second. A shadowy figure sent the blade through the air from the shadow of the building to his right, and it went through the space he had occupied, burying itself in the paving stone where his left shoulder had been.

Rex stared at the stone blade.

Then he looked at the shadow at the bottom of the building. The darkness there had the feel of someone who was excellent at staying in it.

“Vireth Noctyra… the Phantom Blade.” He said, “That’s the name, right?”

The shadow shifted.

Vireth emerged from the shadow at full speed, conjuring a second blade from the darkness in one seamless motion. The angle she had chosen was advantageous; she had prepared it while he was preoccupied with Apollo, waiting for the moment he was most focused on something else.

It was an ideal moment, and the execution went smoothly.

But sadly, the telekinesis was quicker.

Rex caught her at a distance of two meters using a field that was not precise but sufficient for the task. This was the broad containment version, which detected everything within its radius as a moving object and held it in place.

Vireth hit the field and stopped. The second blade she was making disappeared into the dark, just like phantom-type skills do when their source is interrupted while they are being made.

“I’ve had enough with shadow and darkness bullshit… I could clearly see you with my eyes,” Rex said.

Rex observed that she was small—not in a way that suggested weakness, but rather in a manner that indicated her training was focused on close-range precision work, as her title suggested.

She exhibited all the traits of fast-twitch muscle development, lacking any excess mass that could impede her speed.

She looked at him like someone who had just failed at something they were excellent at and was thinking about it again. “Nrgghhh…! Let go of me…!”

“Hello there,” Rex said, in Xavier’s voice, and picked her up.

“Xavier…! Why…?! Why would you do this?!” Verith asked.

“It’s because… I love causing destruction like this.” Rex laughed. “Seeing all of your faces… it feels its own desire in me.”

“And now… It seems you’re going to be his final push to release everything,” Rex said, casting a sly grin at Apollo.

“Chop, chop, you useless apostle of life…”

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