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Rather than trying to dodge, Hector just relied on Haqq's shield in his left hand. The Lord Elroy's bullets left a few impressive dents in it, but that was all, and Hector kept 'loading' up more bullets of his own.

After having his ice armor pierced a few times, Zeff raised a full barricade for himself and took cover behind it.

Hector decided to do the same. He strengthened his iron barricade with his soul, as well. He knew it wouldn't help much with his weak soul-synchronization, but he wanted every bit of extra durability that he could get.

And then they had a shootout on their hands. Just straight up gun-blazing chaos, constant firing back and forth. The stream of deafening cracks in the air that accompanied each and every bullet soon became just background noise, like a waterfall raging in his ear, and Hector could hardly think of anything other than loading more bullets, keeping it going, not falling behind. He sacrificed his warming variant armor and devoted a second thought process to just making more ammo. He started adding heat to his bullets as well, just to give them that much more of an edge over ice.

The barricades on both sides were being shredded like cardboard, and they both just kept remaking them.

It probably wasn't even an entire minute of battle, but the sheer intensity of it made Hector feel like it was taking an eternity. At length, he felt like he might actually be gaining a slight advantage until he realized that most of his right hand was gone, blown off and spurting blood.

And suddenly, Zeff's gunfire seemed to grow even more furious. The man's barricade was in shambles, but he didn't bother recreating it. He merely stood up and started marching closer.