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Even without his brain, however, the Lord Elroy remained conscious, still able to sense the relative positions of other souls. Pan-forma allowed his mind to reside with Axiolis’, and reapers, of course, did not require a physical brain for their own consciousness. So instead of regenerating from his splattered brain matter, Zeff’s body regenerated from his legs as they tumbled to the ground. Pan-forma would always regrow the body from the largest surviving section of their merged souls, regardless of whether it was the head or the little toe or only the soul without any flesh whatsoever.

In mere seconds, Zeff had a skull again, and after that, his gray eyes returned as well, allowing him to witness the result of Sanko’s attack. Spears of jagged rock littered the uneven earth, having created a sloped field of stone spires, almost like a maze. Aftershocks were still making the ground quiver.

And the blood. Pools of it were everywhere, growing with each moment as dozens of Rainlords lay dead or nearly so, smashed beneath piles of stone.

Octavia and Rayen were still attacking Sanko, Zeff saw. Evangelina, Socorro, and Santos looked like they would be on their feet momentarily, but he also spotted Parson and Lawrence descending from the broken cliff that the Keep now stood upon.

Zeff didn’t even think. His body just started moving on its own as he felt the old well boil to the utmost brink, ready to explode now that he finally had those two men in sight. No doubt, they were hoping to finish Zeff’s brethren off while they were down.

He was absolutely not going to let that happen.

The old well loosed an explosion of burning water. Not steam. That wasn’t the kind of water that could hold his hatred. Only lakefire could fulfill that purpose. Flaming water, eternally burning and boiling, never extinguishing or evaporating.

This was the old well’s purpose. To preserve the ingredient he needed for when the moment presented itself, the moment that demanded explosive refusal. And it worked. Almost too easily. It had been many years, but Zeff felt the response. Emergence found him once again.

A mountain of ice blinked into existence, already hurtling toward Parson and Lawrence. The two men noticed it rather immediately and diverted courses--Parson zooming up and away, while Lawrence launched himself down toward the three Rainlords via a radium projectile.

Unfortunately for Lawrence, however, there was a second mountain of ice, and it clobbered him into the cliffside.