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~~Holiday Special (Day 7/7, Page 6/6)~~
Each of the four tunnels forked off in two more directions, and then those forked off again. They began to converge with another, creating a symmetrical maze, of sorts. And Hector just kept on adding to it. The metal tubes were all hollow, so he wasn’t concerned about reaching his volume limit anytime soon.

It wasn’t easy to keep all the branching paths coordinated in his head, and he was pretty sure he’d mucked it up in a few places, but it didn’t need to be perfect. Karkash was going to rip it to pieces, anyway. He just needed a means of getting Karkash’s eyes off of him.

And then Karkash did the obvious thing. He pummeled the tunnels with lightning, sending a strong enough current through them that Hector could see sparks flashing across the ceiling.

‘He’s on your left now,’ directed Garovel from underground, ‘and still above you. About five meters or so.’

‘What’s Lynn doing?’

‘Waiting, I think. Probably wondering what the hell you’re trying to do. The other two are closing in, though. And since their reapers can’t sense you at the moment, I expect they’ll come for me.’

‘Let me know when they get too close.’

‘Oh, Lynn is engaging them now. Ten troa says she kills them both without you.’

And despite the circumstances, despite being worried about her, Hector couldn’t help smirking at that.

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A cloud of purple hit the ground before her and softened her landing. She was glad that worked the way she thought it would. Jumping off a four-story building would have looked really stupid otherwise.

Her ribs throbbed, but she didn’t have time to worry about it. A gigantic crystal wall barreled toward her. She gripped her sword with both hands, coloring its blade violet. The shadow extended the sword’s reach by a good two meters, and she swung vertically. The wall cleaved in two, but it went deeper than she realized, and she had to bring her sword back down for a second slash to finish cutting through.

Desmond was already there to greet her with a thrown, sizzling hand.

She raised a purple shield just as it exploded. She toppled back but caught herself with a bed of shadow.