Chapter Two Hundred Forty-Eight: 'The Battle at the Border...'

Hector had to admit, Lord Abbas wasn't looking too good. His suit of mechanized armor was cracked and crumbling in a dozen different places, and tendrils of both smoke and steam were leaking out everywhere.

Not to mention the blood all over him.

Still, though, it wasn't as bad as it had been after that encounter with the Salesman of Death. Large chunks might've been missing, and yeah, it kinda looked like a giant shark had taken a bite out of his shoulder or something; but at least Abbas was able to stand up.

That was good. Because thinking about who could've done something like this to the freaking Sunsmith, of all people...

Well, it wasn't comforting.

That inbound missile had been a real problem-and-a-half to deal with, too. They probably wouldn't have even known about it if Worwal hadn't warned Levinox. And without Dimas Sebolt's help flying and Garovel's help aiming, Hector doubted he would've been of any use in that situation.

In fact, he was certain he wouldn't have.

The thing had been so damn fast. Dimas, flying at his max speed while also carrying Hector, had only been able to provide the two of them with a window of a couple seconds to attack.

But somehow, they'd managed it, via a combined barrage of gravitic bullets and iron slugs launched via Hector's orbital technique.

It was a pretty fucking intense experience, actually. Hector had never flown that fast through open air before. The Scarf had been going nuts with the howling air currents all around him. So much information pouring into his brain at once. Too overwhelming to be very useful.

But a part of him wanted to give it another try. Maybe he could get the hang of it.

And he had a feeling that in this fight, he might just get that chance.

Worwal informed them that their opponents were Bloodeye and the Man of Crows and that Bloodeye had some kind of strange transforming power, but there wasn't enough time to swap more intel than that.

'I sense them,' said Garovel.

'As do I,' said Iziol.

Hector had wanted Garovel to retreat underground, but the reaper insisted on tagging along for observational support. Hector hadn't been too pleased about that. Sure, Garovel had turned out to be correct in helping him take down the missile, but that didn't change how risky the whole thing was.

And now that they knew precisely who they were up against, Hector was even more uncomfortable.

'Garovel, you need to fall back,' thought Hector in the intervening seconds.

'Too late for that, buddy.'

Was it really, though? 'Go underground. Now.'

'No.'

Hector grit his teeth and wanted to argue. He didn't get the chance, because an ear-piercing gunshot rang out from a short distance away.

One of the Rainlords was there, nestled behind a large rock with one of the largest rifles Hector had ever seen.

"That's a hit on Crowe!" the man called out.

Hector looked toward the horizon and saw the black swirl of birds there. At this distance, he couldn't tell if the shot had done much.

The gunman was Dimas' cousin, Rolando Sebolt. As Hector understood it, he was actually older than Dimas by about fifteen years, so the soul power that he must've been pushing into that giant weapon was probably quite potent.

Lord Abbas still went over to him, though, and laid a hand on the massive scope. "Do it again," he said in his Valgan accent.

Rolando gave him an acknowledging nod, and then Abbas blasted away from the ground, rocketing back up into the sky again.

'We'd better stick with him,' said Iziol.

Salvador Delaguna stepped closer with Matteo right behind him. "We'll head to that northern hill there," he said, pointing. "Send one of 'em our way if you want help up close. Otherwise--" He pulled out another heavy rifle from a duffel bag, though it wasn't fully assembled yet. "--we'll provide cover."

"Understood," said Dimas, and he gave Hector a look that seemed to be assessing whether or not he was ready to be carried off by gravity again.

Covered in full armor, however, Hector couldn't exactly answer with the expression on his face. Dimas must've come to the conclusion that he was indeed ready, because the Lord of House Sebolt did not waste another moment and launched away from the ground with Hector in tow.

It was a good thing he didn't have a problem with motion sickness. Holy shit.

They soared almost straight up, then arced toward the direction of the enemy. Roman was keeping pace with them as well, though Voreese was not with him. She had stayed by the car with a few others, mostly reapers, including Levinox.

Hector's grip on his shield tightened as they drew closer. It was probably his best hope of surviving this battle.

He wanted to keep his mind clear, but in a background thought process, he couldn't stop thoughts from manifesting.

Bloodeye and the Man of Crows. Very high-ranking Abolishers. Not top tier threats like Ivan or Jercash or Gohvis, perhaps, but they were probably on a similar level to the Marauder of Calthos, whom Hector had encountered at Dunehall.

That guy had been kind of overshadowed at the end of the day, but he definitely hadn't been a pushover. He'd taken on Zeff, Asad, Melchor Blackburn, and Xuan Sebolt all by himself.

Sure, there'd been extenuating circumstances, as Melchor and Xuan had still been exhausted from their own clash at Marshrock, but it was hard for Hector to just put all of his concerns out of his mind.

Because now they were facing two such people.

And in another thought process, Hector kept reevaluating their combat strength. On the ground, they had Salvador, Matteo, Rolando, and one other gunman in Rico Sebolt. Rico and Rolando were something of a duo, from what Hector had seen.

In the air, they had Dimas, Roman, Abbas, and himself. And that last one was pretty debatable, regarding aerial combat.

All things considered, this wasn't the most fortunate of match ups. If Abbas fell or was otherwise incapacitated, even briefly, then someone might just die.

Or they all would.

So more than anything, their role here was to support Abbas, Hector felt. They had to keep him alive, no matter what. Which meant they needed to keep Bloodeye and the Man of Crows separated. Whatever their powers were, they would be weaker in isolation; and allowing them to attack Abbas together was one of the worst-case scenarios.

But that was exactly what was happening when they finally caught up.

There was barely any time to process what he was witnessing. So much was going on at once. New enemies with new powers to assess. Everyone zipping back and forth in midair, wrestling and clawing at one another, throwing explosions and punches and explosive punches. Fire and lightning and acid and smoke and blood spraying everywhere in midair.

Perhaps now more than ever, the parallel thought processes were crucially valuable.

The enemies were easy to tell apart, at least. The Man of Crows was obviously the dude with all the fucking crows flying around him, but Hector hadn't expected him to have giant black wings growing out of his back, too. Mutation user?

The crows themselves were obviously abnormal, too, being the sources of much of the fire, lightning, and acid thrown around. And Hector could tell that they were even more dangerous than they looked, because Abbas was clearly trying his best to avoid them. If the Lord Saqqaf could just ignore their attacks and blast through, he assuredly would've.

But what in the fuck was up with Bloodeye? Worwal's description of a "strange transformation power" was an understatement if ever there was one. The guy looked like some kind of demonic alligator-goblin, which might've also implied mutation, but his body was frequently shifting between its solid form and crimson smoke.

Hector had seen such shifting before with Xuan Sebolt's usage of transfiguration and pan-rozum.

Bloodeye's fumes seemed to be having a harder time keeping up with Abbas than the crow guy did, so perhaps that was why Dimas chose to go after him first.

A hail of gravitic bullets sprayed across Bloodeye's horned backside, peppering it with bloody holes and making the monster turn his head toward them.

An instant later, Hector had a present for him, too.

A giant ball of iron, as big as a car, launched via his orbital technique.

It clobbered him, carrying him off into the distance.

Which actually surprised Hector a little bit. He hadn't expected that to work quite so well. But then again, that was a quite literal ton of solid iron he'd just flung at the guy, and there was nothing up here for Bloodeye to brace himself against.

Inertia and momentum had been on his side for that particular interaction. He had no doubt that Bloodeye would be back, though--and soon.

But in the meantime, they could gang up on the crow guy with Abbas.

Unfortunately, the crow guy seemed to have already noticed them. A flock of black birds came snaking through the air.

Dimas dodged, but an errant lightning bolt from one of the crow's mouths caught him.

And then Hector was falling through open sky.

Dimas had dropped him, he realized.

Shit.

What to do? His vision was limited through the slit in his helmet, and the Scarf was sending him all sorts of confusing information with how fast the wind around him was moving.

But he'd wanted to give it a second try, hadn't he? Well, now was the time.

He shut his eyes and concentrated, trying his best not to think about the fact that he was currently in freefall, the fact that he'd soon hit the ground and be turned into canned meat if he didn't do something about it.

High winds had intense effects upon the Scarf. He knew that from his first trip to Lorent, when he'd met Pauline Gaolanet, the Sparrow at the airport.

And the effects now were similar, perhaps even stronger. He could sense so many pathways in the air, all linking together, pushing each other or crashing against one another. It was like trying to pick out individual strands of spaghetti within a giant bowl. One big mess.

But that was the wrong way of looking at it, wasn't it? Individual strands weren't that important. The groupings of strands were more informative, weren't they?

Yeah.

Some of the currents knotted together, creating nothing but chaos that disrupted his senses, but around them, the air could still flow. If he could ignore the holes and follow the other paths, maybe this was doable.

Oh hey, there was a flock of crows chasing after him from above.

Wow, couldn't they tell he was already falling out of the sky? That was pretty aggressive. What a bunch of dicks.

Hmm, maybe one of these thought processes was a little too calm.

Whatever the case, this ruled out flying, Hector decided. While it was true that he'd been practicing his flight quite a bit recently, he didn't think he had enough speed with it yet to warrant using it against these guys.

These motherfuckers were using pan-rozum. They might not have been able to keep up with Abbas, but they were still damn fast. Abbas could break the sound barrier, if he wanted to. The fact that he wasn't running circles around them was impressive enough on its own.

No, he had to prioritize speed here, Hector felt--even if it meant losing some of his control and maneuverability.

And to his mind, his flight wasn't even that stable yet. If it was just a matter of maximizing speed, then one of his most primitive techniques would be best here.

He pummeled himself with a big block of iron from the side. He took the hit with Haqq's shield, but it still sent him flying, just as desired.

He tumbled haphazardly through open air, which made it difficult to keep his bearings but not impossible. He maintained his concentration on the Scarf, using the oncoming flock of birds as a fixture point. Even if he couldn't be quite sure of his own location within this wobbly storm of air currents around him, he knew that he wanted the distance between him and those crows to be increasing, not decreasing.

They were getting closer, so he slammed another block into himself, even harder this time, aiming more upward and diagonally.

The impact was more disorienting, but it worked. It created distance.

For a moment, at least. The birds weren't letting up, of course.

So he did it again. And again. And still again, essentially ping ponging himself back up into the sky and toward the battle.

Thank god for the Scarf of Amordiin. Without it, there would've been no way he could sense where anyone else was.

Roman was zooming around the crow guy but keeping his distance, probably caught in the dilemma of trying to draw attention but not too much attention.

Dimas had regained his composure and was on the way to attack again. Hector sensed him looking in his general direction, but the Lord Sebolt didn't move to catch him with gravity again. Perhaps he thought Hector knew what he was doing and so didn't want to interfere.

A very generous assumption, if true.

As he neared the midair combat zone again, Hector could still sense the flock of crows chasing after him from below. He would need to deal with them, somehow, else they would be a distraction for Abbas.

After one last aerial tumble, he managed to catch himself on an upside down platform of iron. And for a brief time, as his physical momentum remained with him, pushing the platform higher, his feet were firmly planted on it as he looked down through his visor at the ascending onslaught of murderous crows.

He didn't yet know how durable those little feathered bastards were, so perhaps it was a good time to test them out. With enough concentration on the Scarf, he was very aware of their individual spatial locations relative to himself.

So he started doing two things: spinning up a slew of new iron boulders in orbit around him, and clapping iron boxes around the birds at range. If he could thin their numbers a bit, then perhaps they wouldn't be quite so deadly.

Some of the boxes weren't quite on the mark, which wasn't too surprising considering how quick the damn things were; but some of them were dead on. And immediately, scores of iron cubes began dropping out of the sky, taking black birds with them.

Hector didn't bother collecting them yet. He didn't know if the birds would be able to break free without assistance, and he didn't want to bring them so close to his body and to Garovel while lacking that critical piece of information.

The flock as a whole still remained quite strong, though. The density of birds packed in there was even greater than he thought. Already, they were spitting fire and acid in his direction.

He had to move, but not before launching one of his boulders at them. It rocked through them, attracting lightning and acid attacks that caused it to crack apart and scatter--but that still didn't render it worthless. The broken chunks sprayed across the flock in a wide pattern, smashing clusters of birds out of formation and sending blood and feathers flying.

Hmm. He felt like that had done even more damage to them than if the birds had just tried to avoid the boulder altogether. Maybe they didn't expect it to have that much force behind it.

Or maybe they were just a bunch of stupid birds that attacked anything that came close.

If that was the case, then he could probably take advantage of that, couldn't he?

He knocked himself away from his upside down platform just as it was engulfed in flames and acid--a combination which combusted and sent him tumbling through open air again.

He was getting used to this, though. He still had more boulders in orbit around him, and it wasn't that much more difficult to keep them there even while moving like this, so long as he maintained his focus.

The flock was still chasing him, but it had lost probably a third of its number already.

Time to make it more.

He repeated his process, catching himself on another big slab of materialized iron that was moving with him through the air, then clapping more boxes around more birds.

They were closer now, so he didn't have quite as much time to work with as before, but he was still able to lessen their numbers and deliver another speeding boulder into the remaining flock before leaving.

And indeed, the birds crudely attacked the boulder again, splitting it apart and blanketing themselves in more iron chunks, just like before.

So they really were that primitive, then. Either the crow guy couldn't manipulate their behavior that closely, or he was simply too distracted by his fight with Abbas to spare that much attention for Hector.

The latter might've made the most sense, actually. He was close enough to sense Abbas' insane movements now at the edge of the Scarf's range. The Sunsmith was pressing his advantage with a flurry of hand-to-hand attacks in midair. The man was using the jets on his suit to put his entire body weight and more into his punches, which he weaved into spinning kicks and compounded with three-dimensional movement, zipping above and below the Man of Crows constantly.

Given the technology at Abbas' disposal, hand-to-hand combat seemed a bit quaint to be employing now, but Hector had to admit, it still looked pretty damn overwhelming. The crow guy couldn't even get away from him now and was only able to dodge maybe a fifth of the attacks overall--perhaps even less as the barrage continued, unabated.

Plus, Dimas appeared to have a rather strong matchup against the birds. While Hector had been trying to deal with one flock, Dimas had been dealing with three and was now even pulling another away from Abbas.

The birds were flying all over the place, being thrust up and down like yo-yos through the sky as gravity rapidly increased and decreased around them. Some dropped and just kept falling, unable to resume flying.

The Man of Crows was on the ropes, Hector felt. But he also remembered what terrible shape the Sunsmith's armor was in. That was probably why Abbas was resorting to such a straightforward beat down now. His technological arsenal was limited.

Hector couldn't get too comfortable, he knew. Even as he saw the flock of crows that was chasing him slow down and begin to disperse, even as they stopped spitting deadly attacks in his direction, he was reluctant to conclude that the battle was already won.

He did, however, allow himself to reach the apex of an arc and land on a hovering iron platform. It was still wobbling and moving with his momentum, but the footing was mostly stable. And after all that, he didn't feel too disoriented. He'd expected a lot worse, quite frankly.

He took a moment to reassess the situation. None of the boxed crows had broken out yet, as far as he could tell, so he started collecting them and boxing up more.

It might have been a needless effort, though.

Abbas was still going hard. No doubt, the crows were losing their potency because of how badly he was slapping the shit out of their master. It seemed like every hit was landing now, drawing more and more blood, with only the occasional glancing blow being returned.

At this point, Hector couldn't even picture how he might assist in such a fight. A ranged attack would risk hitting Abbas, and trying to help up close would probably just earn himself a flying roundhouse kick to the face or something. Either that, or Abbas would have to start pulling his punches, and Hector certainly didn't want that.

Hector was watching in morbid awe. One of Abbas' metal boots caught the crow guy in the side, folding the man's body in half--and not in the normal direction. Abbas was trying to grab his head, seemingly--probably to rip it off his shoulders--but the guy was barely managing to wriggle away.

Honestly, the fact that the crow guy wasn't dead yet was kind of impressive in its own way. Abbas was moving like a man possessed.

Hector didn't mind letting someone else do the heavy lifting. That was the point of providing combat support.

'Bloodeye inbound on your right,' came Garovel's private warning.

Well, shit.

Hector couldn't sense Bloodeye yet with the Scarf, so he had to turn and look.

Okay, what the hell? The dude had wings now. He definitely hadn't had those before. And unlike the Man of Crows', Bloodeye's were not feathery at all. They were clearly more fleshy and gnarled. They barely even looked like wings, actually. It was like some sort of horribly deformed pterodactyl.

The fact that Bloodeye could apparently grow wings was strange enough on its own, but why had he grown them? He'd already been capable of flight via his red smoke form in pan-rozum.

Regardless, Hector knew at once what his task here was.

Delay, delay, delay. He just needed to buy time for Abbas to finish off the crow guy.

Or in other words, he just needed to be as obnoxious as possible.

And when he thought about it like that, this seemed doable. Obviously, he couldn't take either of these monstrous Abolishers in a fight. But he could almost certainly annoy the shit out of them.

Dimas and Roman both seemed to be thinking the same, because they were already pelting Bloodeye with scarcely visible attacks, trying to slow his progress. Hector, meanwhile, prepared a couple more boulders while circling around on his hovering platform. He wanted to wait for a solid opening before attacking again, because it seemed like Dimas and Roman might just provide one soon. That, and if he fired a boulder off too soon, the bastard would probably just dodge.

As Bloodeye entered the edge of the Scarf's range, however, Hector sensed him do something incredibly strange.

Bloodeye opened his toothy maw, reached his own hand deep into it, and pulled out a fucking missile.

It made no sense. Of course it didn't. Lengthwise, the missile was larger than the dude's whole body. It was physically impossible for him to have been keeping a missile in his freaking stomach--nevermind the implication that he'd had more than one in there.

Absurd. The missile was already active, too, with the rocket on its tail firing even as it emerged from Bloodeye's mouth.

'Garovel, are you seeing this shit?!'

'Worry about it later! Stop that thing before it achieves its top speed!'

The reaper was right. The last missile was so damn fast that it would've bridged the current distance between Bloodeye and Abbas in the blink of an eye. This one obviously needed time to accelerate, and that was their only window to work with.

With the way Abbas and the crow guy were locked in close quarters combat, Bloodeye should've been reluctant to use such a dangerous weapon for fear of hitting his own ally in the process; but Hector had a feeling that these Abolish maniacs probably didn't give a fuck about things like that.

He loosed one of the iron boulders. At this range, he didn't expect it to hit and just wanted to give Bloodeye something to think about. But to that end, Dimas achieved better results than any of them.

Perhaps too much so.

Dimas did to Bloodeye what he'd just been doing to the crows, yo-yoing him up and down with gravity. He ended it off by flinging the monstrous man straight upwards, even higher into the sky--and perhaps, Hector briefly thought, all the way out into space.

But not before the missile managed to slip out of the gravity well. And much to Hector's surprise, it didn't go for Abbas.

It went for Dimas.

And it was blindingly fast. There was barely a moment to react.

Hector put out a hand, aiming to materialize an iron wall into the missile's path. Dimas raised both hands, perhaps trying to throw it off course.

It was Roman Fullister, however, who actually succeeded.

He just happened to be the closest to the missile's flight path. Why it hadn't picked him in the first place was impossible to say. Perhaps Bloodeye had simply thought the gravity user to be the bigger problem. Perhaps it was just pure chance.

Whatever the case, there was no time to question why or make an informed decision, no time to use logic or concoct a strategy. There was only time enough for Roman to let his instincts take over, to do what required as little thought as possible.

He put his very own body in the way.

Hector's eyes widened at the sight of the explosion, and in the back of his mind, he had to remind himself that Voreese hadn't been with him. Roman would be fine.

But the man had really just taken one for the team.

The aerial battlefield shook violently, and the resultant shock wave nearly knocked Hector off his hovering platform. Even at this distance, smoke and shrapnel still made it all the way over to him, piercing his armor in a couple places.

Dimas had been closer, though. He might've still been caught in the explosion a little, Hector realized.

He concentrated on the Scarf while steadying his platform simultaneously.

The air currents all around him were swirling like mad. He'd just gotten accustomed to the crazy winds at this altitude, and now everything was confused again. But he kept searching. Dimas had to be around here somewhere.

Ah. There. Below him.

Something wasn't quite right, though.

Dimas' left arm and leg were missing.

Damn. That could be fixed shortly, though. And at least he was still alive.

'Another missile above!' yelled Garovel.

How many of these damn things had this motherfucker swallowed?

Hector didn't waste time trying to confirm anything visually. He just materialized a giant dome high over everyone's head, adding as much thickness to it as quickly as he could. Thankfully, there was more time to react than with the last missile, because Dimas had flung Bloodeye so far away.

The iron dome lingered there in the air for a couple seconds, falling and beginning to pick up speed even as Hector kept beefing it up--until the explosion arrived.

The iron ripped and scattered into a million pieces, threatening them all with even more shrapnel than the missile itself provided. Hector did his best to annihilate what he could, but the twisted chunks of iron were like a heavy rain for a few lingering moments.

The smoke was the real danger, though. It obscured their view, and Hector had a rather strong feeling that Bloodeye would be pouring through it any moment now. He tried to focus on what the Scarf could tell him, but Bloodeye could also be smoke, so he had to be extra attentive.

And indeed, when the dark red fumes plumed diagonally out of the dark gray smoke, he almost didn't see them.

Bloodeye was headed toward Abbas now.

The two missile explosions seemed to have caused a mild disruption in the fight between the Sunsmith and the Man of Crows, but they were still going at it. Some of the birds had returned to harass Abbas as their master struggled to get away, but Abbas had a solid grip on one of his wings now and seemed to be trying to achieve the same on his neck.

Hector needed to keep buying time. And hitting Bloodeye with another boulder wouldn't be nearly as effective while the dude was in his smoke form.

Wind might be the trick, Hector thought. If a solid object couldn't stop the smoke, then maybe a tornado would. He'd recently gotten a crash course in tornadoes, after all.

But could he actually generate one with just his iron? In his battle with that tornado back at the airport, he'd been trying to smother and calm it, and this was basically the exact opposite.

He had an inkling of how he might attempt it, but not having pulled this off before, he couldn't help feeling enormously anxious in a background thought process.

He needed to create a whirlwind with orbiting iron cubes. The problem, though, was that the point of origin for the orbiting was not himself. It needed to be Bloodeye. Who was still moving.

If he'd had more time to think the problem through, Hector probably would have just been even more hesitant. Creating orbiting cubes around an enemy--much less ones that were moving fast enough to stir up a violent wind--that was a shaky idea, at best.

But he went for it.

His spatial awareness was key. Without a good sense for Bloodeye's exact location within Hector's own sphere of influence, this technique would be horrifically imprecise. Concentration, experience, and the Scarf of Amordiin were the deciding factors.

The literally fuming Bloodeye made for a terrible target. His amorphous body seemed like it was going everywhere at once--but of course, it wasn't. Bloodeye's aim was clear, at least. Hector used that to his advantage.

The cubes materialized around the red smoke, moving with it as they spun up, accelerating. The disturbance of the wind was made more visible by the distortions it created in Bloodeye's form. Perhaps that was hesitation on display as well, mixed with confusion.

But no. Fuck. It wasn't working. It was barely slowing Bloodeye down, if at all, even as Hector kept trying to ramp up the speed.

Hector didn't know why. Maybe he'd been foolish to think he could create a strong enough whirlwind so quickly. Maybe the altitude had something to do with it. Maybe heavy wind didn't affect pan-rozum-created fumes like he thought it would. Or maybe Bloodeye was just too damn strong.

Whatever the case, Bloodeye was getting through. He was going to make it to Abbas. He was going to interfere in their fight and help the crow guy. He was practically on top of them, already.

The smoke bent visibly downward, and then Hector noticed Dimas there, still mid-regeneration as he tried to pull Bloodeye off of Abbas with pure gravitic force.

It wasn't entirely taking, though. The smoke resisted. As if it had a mind of its own. Because it did, of course.

Neither wind nor gravity was enough to deter Bloodeye's fumes. Hector's orbiting cubes were distorting with Dimas' gravity, too, making it more difficult to keep the wind up and the pathing correct.

Not a very good combination, unfortunately.

Bloodeye made it to Abbas. The red smoke became a red cloud, expanding continuously and enveloping the crow guy, too.

Hector racked his brain, trying to think of something. How the fuck were you supposed to fight smoke?! With the view of the fight obscured, he couldn't even tell what was happening anymore. Was Abbas holding his own? Should he jump in there and try to help? That seemed like a terrible idea, but launching iron boulders into the smoke blindly didn't seem much better.

Before he could decide, the crow guy came flying out, tumbling through the air with one wing missing and a dozen trails of blood following. His neck was still attached to his shoulders, but only just. A fist-sized chunk of it was gone.

Maybe that was the ticket, then.

Hector abandoned his previous orbital project and started a new one--with a quite a different objective in mind, this time. He gathered all of his focus in order to sense everything the Scarf could tell him about the Man of Crows.

The guy's black wing was regrowing. His movement was slowing. He was trying to steady himself. He would soon succeed, no doubt.

They couldn't have that.

Iron cubes orbited around the crow guy as he moved. Birds were circling around him, too, but they seemed pretty disorganized, still. Hector knew they'd be a problem again if the guy got his bearings back.

This time, wind was not the goal. This time, he had a clear target. He was just waiting for the bird guy to stop tumbling. There would be a perfect moment to strike, Hector felt, when the guy caught himself in midair. The cubes would be the least likely to miss.

In the meantime, though, he could do more. He still had mental room to work with. An entire thought process to spare, more or less.

He used it to fill the cubes with molten iron.

He'd only done this once before, so perhaps it was a bit risky... but it had sure been effective last time. That was undoubtedly his most powerful technique, at the moment, and this would be a new variant of it.

Would the Man of Crows be able to take it better than Chort had?

Probably.

Hector doubted it would tickle, though.

The moment arrived. The wing had completed enough of its regeneration, and the crow guy stopped himself in midair with a suddenly furious beating of both feathered appendages. From the look on his face, he only just barely glimpsed the four giant, red hot cubes around him before their orbits shifted.

And they all converged inward simultaneously.

The impact was far bigger than Hector expected. This was a genuine explosion. The aerial battlefield shook from the force of it alone, and molten iron splashed out in every direction at once, flashing bright enough that Hector had to squint from behind the eye slit in his helm as he watched.

The Man of Crows dropped. Covered in what was essentially lava, his figure was barely even humanoid anymore as fell, motionless as a statue, through open air.

The birds were still following him, though. Disorganized, but following.

That seemed like evidence that the job was not yet done.

Hector bounded off his platform, annihilating it behind him. He let himself fall--skydiving in a full suit of plate armor.

He watched the birds closely for any signs of life. With the Scarf, he could tell that the crow guy had lost some body parts in that attack, but it was tough to sense exactly which ones were missing beneath all that molten iron. He could annihilate it for a better look, of course, but that seemed imprudent, considering how much it must've been impairing the Man of Crows' senses, at the moment.

Was the head still attached? That was all he wanted to know, really. At this range, it would be difficult to target such a small point on the man's body with a powerful enough blow--which was why he'd resorted to this variant of his strongest technique first--but maybe it would be doable if he got a bit closer.

He pushed himself downward with velocity states on the back of his armor--an extra layer of descending iron.

It worked surprisingly well. He jolted closer to the Man of Crows by several meters, and he could see with his own two eyes that the molten iron was being disturbed. A scorched arm and an inflamed wing were trying to wipe it away.

That was useful information. He traced the positions of the arm and wing with the Scarf and located where the head should have been below the iron. By now, the neck might've finished regenerating, or it might've been in even worse condition after that attack. There was no way to tell while it was covered.

If he wanted to decapitate the Man of Crows, he'd have to remove the molten iron first. He needed a better look, and he didn't want the iron to dampen the force of the blow, either.

But that would obviously expose him to danger, too.

No time to think about it. They were falling. That ground was coming up fast.

He annihilated the molten coating.

In that moment, he had a full view of the Man of Crows' smote and sundered body. It was in pieces and still trying to regenerate, but the head, neck, and most of the torso were intact. The limbs looked like they'd exploded out of their sockets.

And the guy saw Hector there, approaching from above. They locked gazes.

That was certain death in the man's eyes. Perhaps he saw the same thing in Hector's.

Hector had an orbiting blade already prepared. It didn't need to be big to sever the neck, but it was. Wide and flat, the size of a dinner table. Better to overdo it than under.

He loosed it.

Straight and true, it flew--thanks again to the Scarf, most likely.

And it cleaved the Man's neck from his shoulders. Blood soared amidst the charred flesh and scattered feathers.

It still wasn't over, though. Hector could sense the crows around him. Three separate flocks, all twitching simultaneously, all suddenly converging toward him.

Hector knew at once. So long as that head was unrestrained, those birds would probably remain within his control.

Finishing this meant doing something about that.

He'd practiced creating truly cold iron during his training with Zeff, but he didn't have much confidence in it yet. Molten iron was much easier by comparison. It pulled on an "emotional" command from his mind, feeling something like anger and ferocious concentration. Lowering the temperature, then, seemed to be about summoning the opposite feelings, which still felt somewhat strange to him. He could do it, just not as easily.

It wasn't just the difficulty of the technique that concerned him, though. It was its efficacy. He didn't know if it would actually be able to freeze someone this powerful. By all accounts, the molten iron should have melted the Man's body within seconds, but clearly, his passive soul defense was so strong that he'd only ended up with burnt flesh, instead.

And if he relied only on the cold to subdue the Man of Crows, then nothing less than freezing would do.

Which was why he didn't intend to rely on cold alone.

Hector traced a quick outline of the Man's face with the Scarf and created a frozen iron mask for it in his hand. He might've liked to simply coat the guy's face in iron, instead, but he was certain the field density of the Man's soul would prevent his materialization from functioning that close to the skin. He had to do this the hard way.

It all happened within a few moments.

As he soared close, the iron mask was so cold that he'd immediately lost sensation in his right hand, even through the gauntlet he was wearing. Which was a good sign, at least.

But the birds were there, too. The quick little bastards.

He slammed the mask onto the Man of Crows' face and just barely twisted himself around in time to take the brunt of the first flock's attack with Haqq's shield.

It dented impressively but held together, and Hector went flying off course as the unshielded extremities of his iron armor shattered.

He could sense more crows en route. Two other flocks. They weren't as rigid as the one he'd faced earlier, nor were they spewing ranged attacks; but he couldn't just wait around for them to skewer him. Garovel was with him, after all.

And, well. It worked before, so he did it again. Hector knocked himself out of the flocks' paths with an iron boulder, narrowly avoiding both streams of beaks and claws.

As he tumbled, struggling to keep the severed head in view of his eye slit, he caught sight of something that took priority over just about everything else in his mind.

He saw a reaper melt out of the Man of Crows' head.

The face was covered by the frozen, soul-infused mask, but the back was still open, which was something he'd been intending to fix. But that was where the reaper appeared from. Perhaps it was trying to flee during the confusion, believing Hector would be too distracted by the flocks and the utter mayhem of freefall to notice.

Hector didn't have to think. He hadn't even been certain that the Man of Crows had been using a hyper-state up until now, but it didn't matter. There was no need to be surprised or to question it.

The reaper was a servant's weak point. There was only one action to be taken here. Instinctual.

And for it, Hector had the perfect technique, something he'd picked up from a man he admired more than almost anyone.

He launched a crude iron javelin with a simple, straightforward velocity state. No orbiting or parallel thought processes required.

It missed.

But that was okay.

It just had to get close enough to the Man's reaper. Which it did.

The iron shaft branched out violently, becoming a deadly tree of blades in the direction of the reaper.

And it connected.

With his soul pressed into it, the iron branches skewered the reaper dozens of times, shredding its soul in the blink of an eye.

Hector didn't get the opportunity to even process what he had just done, however.

Right as his own killing blow was struck, a flock of crows crashed into him, tearing his armor apart and ripping through his body like paper. He barely sensed the flock's form at the last moment, convulsing and scattering.

He tumbled through open air again, having lost all sense of direction. He reached out with the Scarf to get his bearings, only to sense that he was heading straight toward some kind of gargantuan wall.

Wait, no.

That was the ground, wasn't it? Because he was falling. And it was far too late do anything about it now.

Everything went black as he hit solid earth.