Page 459 -- LIII.

~~Holiday Special (Day 7/7, Page 5/6)~~
Karkash burst up into the sky, wreathed in electricity as the iron boulders swirled around him with increasing speed.

Hector made more lightning rods as he ran along the ground. He wanted to stay ahead, to create iron spires more quickly than Karkash could seize control of them. Getting in close without anything to shield himself from the lightning was obviously dangerous, and Karkash wasn’t likely to fall for another simple diversionary tactic.

For a time, their battle reached a kind of stalemate. Karkash refused to come in close where Hector could actually hit him, and Hector refused to leave the sanctuary of his many, fleeting lightning rods.

It did, however, give him and Garovel an opportunity to strategize.

‘Karkash is only a problem because of his mobility,’ said Garovel. ‘If you can take that away from him, we’ll be able to escape much more easily.’

‘Is that even possible?’

‘We know his power is to control electromagnetic fields, so presumably, he can only fly because he’s wearing something metallic under his clothes. Destroy that.’

‘How the hell do I do that?!’

‘Good question.’

‘Fuck!’

‘I have an idea, though.’ And Garovel explained it to Hector, who listened as best he could while still trying to maintain the stalemate.

Hector understood. It sounded difficult but still doable. Before he could put the plan into action, however, he noticed Lynnette standing atop the castle’s roof. And then he noticed Andres and Desmond, too, appearing together through the hole in the wall that Hector had made upon being thrown outside.

If nothing else, the stalemate was about to be broken.


Chapter Fifty-Three: ‘Under mayhem’s gaze...’
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Hector enacted Garovel’s plan. He stopped running and made a soul-empowered dome around himself. Then, he extended the dome out in four directions at once, suddenly creating an above-ground tunnel--one with an intersection, no less. He ran in the tunnel to his right while still adding on to all four directions.

He could already hear Karkash ripping up chunks of metal, searching for him, but the odds were in Hector’s favor. And he meant to increase them even more.