My Eros System Grants Me Infinite Romance Routes-Chapter 199: Fifteen is Enough...

Rina didn’t wait for a countdown.

She crossed the sanctum with four powerful strokes, ducking under the Tidecaller’s guard to wrap her arms around his torso from behind.

With her hands locked across his chest and her feet braced against the base of his tail, she funnelled every ounce of her succubus-enhanced strength into the hold.

The guardian’s reaction was immediate.

He reached back, trying to grab her, swinging his trident around at an angle that couldn’t quite reach. His tail coiled and thrashed, the displacement wave rolling through the water hard enough to push Akira back two feet.

Rina held.

"Do it," she said through gritted teeth. "Now, while I have him."

Akira looked at Ayaka. "How long do you need?"

"Thirty seconds to build the charge. Another ten to release it." She was already moving toward the outer wall of the sanctum, putting distance between herself and the guardian. "Get clear. Both of you."

"Rina can’t get clear and hold him at the same time."

"I know." Ayaka met his eyes. "She takes the blast. So do you if you stay close."

Rina’s voice came through strained but clear. "I heard that. I’m aware. Go."

The Tidecaller was working methodically through the problem of removing her. He tried one grip after another, using the trident for short, controlled jabs rather than full swings.

He didn’t panic; he was too old and too familiar with these waters for that.

Instead, he simply treated her as an irritant to be solved, one attempt at a time, and eventually, one of those strikes was going to connect.

Akira moved to the wall opposite Ayaka. He drew upon Shirayuki’s essence... not a full manifestation, as the heat would drain her too quickly, but enough to pull her icy essence into his hands.

"Shirayuki, directional shield... facing the guardian."

Her voice came quiet in his chest. "I can hold it for fifteen seconds after the detonation. Not longer."

"Fifteen is enough."

Ayaka pressed both hands flat against the sanctum wall, her head down and fingers spread wide. The water around her began to warm visibly, shifting and distorting like the air near a heating element.

Tiny bubbles formed along her skin and rose toward the surface. The demonic energy she pushed into the environment wasn’t a focused attack; it was total saturation. Heat bled into every molecule of water in the enclosed space, steadily building toward a dangerous threshold.

The Tidecaller felt it. His head came up, yellow eyes finding Ayaka across the chamber.

"What are you doing," he said. It wasn’t a question... more like a warning.

"Something you won’t like," Ayaka said without looking up.

He lunged toward her with Rina still attached to his back. The sudden movement nearly dislodged her; her grip slipped from his chest to a single arm, and her feet lost their brace point on his tail.

Scrambling to reposition, she used the momentum of his lunge to swing around and lock her legs firmly around his torso instead.

It slowed it, yes, but still didn’t stop it.

Akira activated Phantom Step, crossing the ten-metre gap instantly and coming in from below.

The Tidecaller was moving horizontally, but Rina was still clinging to his back. Akira drove the Voidfang into the exposed shoulder joint, discharging void energy directly into the gap from underneath.

The guardian’s right arm went partially numb. The trident wavered.

But his left hand closed around Akira’s ankle.

The squeeze was different this time from the crushing grip of the first grab. The Tidecaller’s water essence flowed into the contact point, and Akira felt pressure building inside his ears and behind his eyes.

It was a targeted version of the ability, far more precise than the room-wide whirlpool.

Focused pressure crush. Localized.

His vision strobed as blood immediately began to leak from his nose; his capillaries simply weren’t built for the intense pressure the guardian was exerting on the water around his head.

"Akira." Ayaka’s voice came in tight. "Ten seconds."

He couldn’t answer. His free hand found the guardian’s wrist, then he released a second discharge using Voidfang, sending void energy directly into the grip. The pressure stuttered, but it didn’t break.

"Eight."

Rina shifted her entire body weight backward, pulling the Tidecaller’s centre of mass off balance. It didn’t free Akira but it disrupted the guardian’s concentration for about two seconds.

Two seconds was enough for Akira to get one full breath into his lungs and hold it.

"Akira, get your shield up. Now."

He pulled everything Shirayuki had given him into a directional barrier made of compressed ice essence, creating a wall between himself and the centre of the room, angled to cover as wide an arc as the reserves allowed.

Ayaka released the charge.

The water didn’t explode. Instead, it became something else. In a fraction of a second, the demonic energy Ayaka had built converted the entire sanctum into a mix of boiling water and steam. The pressure spiked instantly across every surface.

The sound was enormous, louder than an explosion

The ice shield took the worst of it. Akira felt it shatter behind him, felt the heat through the fragments, felt the shockwave pick him up and throw him into the far wall hard enough that the stone cracked under the impact.

He hit and didn’t move for a moment.

The water around him was cooling rapidly now, the released energy dissipating, steam condensing back. The bioluminescent growth on the walls had gone dark. The sanctum was very quiet.

He pushed off the wall.

His ribs, which were already cracked from the earlier grip were worse. Each breath had a specific, unpleasant quality to it. His ears were ringing. The Voidfang Gauntlet had a visible scorch mark along the wrist.

He looked toward where the Tidecaller had been.

The guardian was on the floor of the sanctum. Rina was ten feet away from him, not moving.

"Rina."

Akira crossed the distance.

She was face down in the water, the burns along her arms and back were visible even through her jacket. The blast had hit her directly, with nothing between her and it.

Her aura was barely present, just a faint flicker of violet at the edges that pulsed once when he touched her shoulder and then went still.

No pulse under his fingers at her neck.

"No." He turned her over. Her face was slack, eyes closed, lips slightly parted. "No, Rina..."

He started compressions. Chest, counting, the water making everything slower and more resistant than it should be. Ayaka appeared at his side, drained and moving carefully, one hand going to Rina’s forehead.

"Her essence is almost gone," Ayaka said. "The blast burned through her reserves. She’s not..."

"She’s not dying." He kept the compressions going. "Rina. Come on."

[GUARDIAN DESTROYED]

[WARNING: GATE CLOSING IN 90 SECONDS]

[ALL OCCUPANTS MUST EXIT]

Akira didn’t look at the notification. "Ayaka, take the Tidecaller’s core. Do it fast."

Ayaka moved to the guardian’s body which was still dissolving, the Gate’s mechanics reclaiming it, and extracted the essence core. Behind her, cracks were forming along the sanctum walls, indicating that the pocket dimension was beginning to fold.

Akira bit into his own wrist.

Deep enough to bleed freely, the essence-rich blood clouding the water around his hand. He pressed it to Rina’s lips and pushed; not just the blood but the essence behind it, forcing it into her system the same way he’d done it before, the direct transfer that bypassed every normal boundary.

"Drink," he said. "Rina. Drink."

[GATE CLOSING IN 60 SECONDS]

The first response was her fingers. A twitch, barely there.

Then her throat moved, swallowing, the instinct engaging even through unconsciousness. He felt the pull as her system started taking what he was offering, drinking the essence with the desperate efficiency of someone who had been running on empty.

Then her eyes opened.

It wasn’t focused on anything, just open... the violet glow was faint and unstable, her pupils blown were wide, but it was open.

"There you are," he said.

She grabbed his wrist with both hands and drank harder.

[GATE CLOSING IN 30 SECONDS]

"Akira." Ayaka’s voice was sharp. "We have to go. Right now."

He got one arm under Rina’s shoulders, got her moving. She couldn’t swim properly but she was conscious enough to kick, to help.

Ayaka took her other side. They moved toward the ascending corridor, the sanctum breaking apart behind them, stone slabs dropping soundlessly into the dissolving water.

[GATE CLOSING IN 10 SECONDS]

Above them, the exit portal shimmered, revealing the drainage shaft and the gray morning light of the real world beyond.

They drove upward through it with two seconds to spare.

The Gate snapped shut behind them like a door slammed by a strong wind.

They came out of the drainage shaft in a heap, soaked and bleeding with Rina barely conscious between them.

Akira got his feet under him first and when he looked up, he paused.

Satomi was backed against the harbour wall twenty feet away, one hand raised to hold a containment barrier between her and Ayame?

"What’s she doing here?"

The exorcist had her silver dagger out, her cross blazing, and was pressing forward with the focused intensity of someone who had found exactly what she’d been looking for.

Akira didn’t think. He activated Flow State, crossed the distance in one Phantom Step, and drove two fingers into the nerve cluster at the side of Ayame’s neck.

Ayame dropped.

Satomi lowered her hand slowly, dissolving the barrier, breathing hard, and looked down at the unconscious exorcist on the dock.

The harbour was silent except for distant cranes and the water lapping concrete.

"She appeared out of nowhere few minutes after you all went under," Satomi said quietly. "She’s obviously tracked one of us here."

Akira looked at Ayame’s relaxed face, younger-looking than she ever let herself appear awake. The silver cross had gone dark when she went down.

Rina coughed behind him, Ayaka holding her upright.

He looked back at Satomi. "What do we do with her?"