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It would take more than that to stop Zeff. He launched a tide of water with enough force to shove the radium wall straight through the door, the subsequent radium-water reaction hissing violently and producing streams of hydrogen gas. A single spark could set the gas off at any moment, but that was the last thing Zeff was worried about as he pressed through.

‘Do not let Zeff Elroy leave the premises!’ shouted Dergoz for all to hear.

The two sentries from earlier were there in the cloud. Even without a clear view, Zeff was able to materialize ice inside their mouths, and in the next instant, frozen spears burst out of their skulls and killed them both. He mumbled an apology to their on-looking reapers. Any servant without a certain level of passive soul-defense might as well have been dead already for all the threat they posed Zeff. He estimated that there were fifteen servants currently within Rhein’s Keep whom he could not kill with this strategy, the most problematic of course being Lawrence.

Zeff made it all the way out to the courtyard before encountering his next resistance.

‘All guards!’ Dergoz was shouting. ‘Take Captain Zeff into custody immediately!’

It seemed to be creating more confusion than anything, and Zeff intended to capitalize. He ran for the main gate.

A radium dome fell over him, which would have encased him in darkness if not for the element’s faint blue glow. But after a moment, it wasn’t so faint. The thing that made the General’s power so dangerous was unquestionably the way the man could strengthen the element’s radioactivity by empowering it with his soul. It made the radium decay more quickly, but that was a meager price to pay for the waves of debilitating pressure that it sent through the opponent’s body. Already, Zeff could feel the weakening effects, bathing him and Axiolis in so much radiation that his regeneration was having a hard time keeping pace.

Zeff armored himself in ice, empowering it with his own soul as well. It only offered partial protection from the radiation, but he didn’t intend to stick around. A string of geysers shot up around him and flipped his radioactive prison into the air. Blood oozing from the eyes and nose, Zeff kept running.