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Regardless, none of that was presently on Hector's mind, even in background thought processes. Right now, his only concern was waking the damn thing up and getting it to help him out. Apparently, a fight with the Crystal Titan had not been enough to stir it out of its slumber already.

With the Core in the palm of his hand, Hector sensed its attentive presence again. He would have to give it specific instruction, though. He still wanted it to help him discern the secrets of the Amir-22, but he knew that he couldn't directly ask it to do that.

So maybe he could trick it.

He asked it to search the immediate vicinity for a hidden soul- or ardor-based function.

While it was busy thinking, Sermung was floating right outside the crystal cage, staring at him. Most of the iron coating that Hector had applied was already gone, stripped away in huge chunks, and he hadn't bothered trying to reapply it.

Agh. And the expression on the man's face. Watching Hector expectantly. All but asking him, 'Is that it?'

There was something about this guy that just pissed Hector off so much. Like no one else he'd ever met before.

Certainly, there'd been plenty of genuinely evil bastards in the past who angered him much more, but this was such a different feeling, somehow. Such a unique flavor of irritation. Hector could not have explained it even if someone asked him to.

The Core got back to him.

There was a spatial concealment function nearby.

A what now?

It was a kind of short-form teleportation into a pocket dimension. Only usable for temporary concealment, not for travel.

Well, that sounded really cool but also maybe kinda useless in the present situation. Hector wasn't about to be picky, though. With that information in mind, he envisioned a pocket dimension and pressed his soul into the shield. Was that the right way to activate it? He wanted to try on his own before asking for further clarification, just in case the Core caught wise to--

Everything was gone, he abruptly realized. Total darkness in all directions.

Garovel spoke up first. 'Okay, Hector, I've been trying to give you plenty of wiggle room here, but what fuck is this now? Where are we? What have you done?'

'Uh...' With not even any air to breathe, he could already feel his body suffocating. 'Look, don't be mad.'

'Oh, I've BEEN mad.'

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Hector didn't really like using the Living Core unless he had to. Not only was it perpetually grumpy and kind of a pain in the ass to deal with, but it tended to go dormant a lot--and Hector was beginning to think that was no quirk of its personality. Perhaps it was so grumpy all the time because it was trying to conserve energy.

Because it needed that sleep.

Or perhaps it was just an asshole.

Tough to say. He was trying to be generous in his interpretations here.

When conducting his practice sessions with the Amir-22 before, he had of course tried to use the Living Core to uncover all of the shield's hidden functionalities--just as he'd done with Rathmore's Gate--but the surly little bastard had refused to help him.

It had called the shield an 'unformed sibling. Unfinished. Unworthy.'

And after discovering some things on his own, Hector got tired of consulting the Core. Because this was no fleeting mood swing on the Core's part. Apparently, it considered itself an "accidental" stroke of genius from Abbas, not a "true" achievement from brilliance.

Which, in brutal fairness, might've held a kernel of truth to it. Obviously, Abbas hadn't intended for things to spiral out of control the way they did on that day. Though, of course, a lot of that had been the Core's own fault, too. It seemed to think that a truly "worthy" creator wouldn't have been tricked by it the way Abbas was.

A real piece of shit, this little fella was.

But Hector had also since come to the conclusion that there was another layer to its refusal, too. To actually refuse a direct order from him, it must have felt very strongly about this particular issue; and given how otherwise logical it was, Hector felt like there was only one explanation for such behavior.

The reason the Core was so disappointed by the Amir-22 was because it actually did want Abbas' newest work to prove that its own creation was not just some fluke, after all--that the Sunsmith truly was worthy of being considered its creator, just like how Hector kept saying he was.

And so, despite how impressive this shield was, it was ultimately still a work-in-progress, as Abbas said. Maybe the "final" version would actually satisfy the Core. But then again, given Abbas' recent behavior, Hector had been getting the feeling that there might not ever be a "final version."

Like maybe the guy would just keep iterating on it forever and ever. Surely not, though, right?

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He'd used a similar trick before in the battle with Bloodeye and the Man of Crows. In that case, though, he'd just been ping ponging himself around the sky, but he felt this would be far more disorienting if he started bouncing around inside the cage.

So he took an extra step and braced himself within the cage. Iron spikes shot out all around his armor and crashed against the crystal. They didn't pierce it, of course, but there were enough of them to still stick in place through sheer mass alone. Yeah, he was sealing his own movement, but that didn't matter much when he was already trapped.

The first iron ball hit the mark dead on, and the cage went sailing. Without much help from his senses, he could only assume that the cage hadn't actually broken away from the crystal platform holding it up. Instead, it had probably just knocked the whole platform over and sent the top-heavy cage flying toward the ground like the head of a giant hammer.

Unless it, too, had been suspended on a hovering platform the whole time. He couldn't actually tell, unfortunately. He only knew that he was finally moving. He sent another ball from the opposite direction while dematerializing the first one, but then the cage stopped again.

Motionless.

Caught in more crystal, most likely.

Agh.

After all that. Useless.

Well, of course. It was Sermung.

Hector had to think of something. Sermung's aura was closing in. All slow and casual, but closing in, nonetheless.

He racked his brain. Ideas. Ideas. How could he possibly get out of this? He tried another iron ball, just for the hell of it, but as expected, it didn't even hit the cage this time.

Goddammit.

What else was there?

The cage was still taking turns between molten hot and completely normal. He could see a few cracks around the corners where the drills had been the most active, but even now, that was about it. They were not getting through that, apparently.

Not enough force. Not enough heat. Definitely not enough soul power. Distractions weren't doing much, either. Which made sense, he supposed in a background thought process. The way they were talking before, Sermung almost certainly had multiple thought processes, too. Unless that was just some crazy aura shit.

This wasn't fair at all. Sermung was actually just him but better. Wasn't he? Like in every way, too. Materialization, soul power, aura use, experience. Even his goddamn signature medieval armor. No one else used that shit. Why did this guy have to steal that, too?

Okay, that thought process was getting a little ridiculous. But it did have a point.

In fact, the more he focused on and processed the idea simultaneously, the more he realized that he really only had two things that Sermung didn't.

But both of those things were made by a brilliant integrator with a Fusion Forge.