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It was like watching a bull facing down a trio of wolves. The three Blackburns were attacking him in unison with minimal effectiveness, due to the Lord Delaguna’s passive defenses combined with his cobalt transfiguration. However, they did have one destruction user, who finally managed to hit Salvador’s metallic shoulder. Cobalt burst apart into a thousand brittle chips, but scarcely a moment passed before it regenerated, allowing Salvador to charge forward undeterred. The destruction user was forced to retreat sideways so that the other two Blackburns could buy him time to avoid being flattened.

Hector couldn’t tell if Salvador actually needed help or not, but he wasn’t going to wait and find out. He dove in shield-first and materialized a pillar beneath the destruction user, knocking the mustachioed man off balance. Hector swung his sword vertically, looking to lop the man’s arm off, but instead, the iron blade only cut partially through the armpit before snapping in half.

The man, whom he now recognized as Tomas Blackburn, did not look pleased. Tomas brought a meaty hand around to use his ability, and Hector wrenched away in time to lose an arm instead of his head. The heater shield endured a pummeling and went flying out of Hector’s shredded grasp.

Hector didn’t let the loss slow him down, though. He discarded his busted sword, wrapped his good arm around Tomas’ half-severed one, and pulled with all his strength. The appendage popped right off in a cloud of blood, and Hector clobbered Tomas in the face with the man’s own soul-strengthened bicep in one smooth motion. Tomas went toppling backward, and Hector moved to recover his shield, which had nearly finished restoring itself to perfect condition already.

When he looked back toward Lord Salvador, he found the man overpowering his two opponents. Tomas was scrambling back into position, but it was already too late. A huge hand found one of their heads and tore it off as if nothing had been holding it in place. The other Blackburn retreated, and when Tomas arrived again, Salvador put him through the wall.

‘Maybe we should help someone else,’ advised Garovel.

Hector looked around the foyer and saw that everyone was quite occupied, apart from him. The frenzied collision of smoke and liquid metal in the middle of the room made the very air shudder, but he couldn’t even remotely tell if one of them was winning.