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"In any case," said Zeff, "if you think that such an attack is coming, then remember that you can block their materialization by doing it to yourself, first."

Hector blinked a couple times as he imagined that. Hmm. He hadn't thought there would be a solution, much less one so simple.

"Your armor may afford more help in that regard as well," said Zeff. "The heart of the problem, of course, is your soul's field density being simply too weak. So even if you block the opponent from materializing a spike inside your head, they can still coat it from the outside and spike you that way."

"And you think my armor will protect me from that?"

"If it is fitted closely enough to your head, yes. Your eyes might still be vulnerable, however. They are a small enough target that, in the middle of combat, you may not need to worry about it, but it is still good to keep in mind, nonetheless."

"Hmm." With the Scarf, he actually didn't need his eyes all that much.

Which reminded him.

He inspected the Scarf more closely, searching for tears or bullet holes, and indeed, he found a couple of the latter.

He and Garovel had been wondering about the durability of the Scarf for a while now. The item hadn't been bothered at all by face-melting heat of the Undercrust, so it had seemed reasonable enough to assume it was quite tough.

But that didn't mean it was invulnerable. And with how incredibly useful the Scarf was, Hector was afraid of it getting destroyed in battle, one day.

However, this wasn't the first time that he'd noticed damage to the Scarf. And he had since come to discover that the Scarf appeared to have a very slow regenerative capability of its own. These two bullet holes that he was looking at right now would probably take several days to heal.

He had been quite relieved to learn that about the Scarf, and yet, it still didn't quite alleviate all of his concerns. It seemed very possible to him that the Scarf could become too damaged to repair itself--or just get completely obliterated by a strong enough attack.