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~~((Thanksgiving Special - page 19 of 30))~~
He'd practiced creating truly cold iron during his training with Zeff, but he didn't have much confidence in it yet. Molten iron was much easier by comparison. It pulled on an "emotional" command from his mind, feeling something like anger and ferocious concentration. Lowering the temperature, then, seemed to be about summoning the opposite feelings, which still felt somewhat strange to him. He could do it, just not as easily.

It wasn't just the difficulty of the technique that concerned him, though. It was its efficacy. He didn't know if it would actually be able to freeze someone this powerful. By all accounts, the molten iron should have melted the Man's body within seconds, but clearly, his passive soul defense was so strong that he'd only ended up with burnt flesh, instead.

And if he relied only on the cold to subdue the Man of Crows, then nothing less than freezing would do.

Which was why he didn't intend to rely on cold alone.

Hector traced a quick outline of the Man's face with the Scarf and created a frozen iron mask for it in his hand. He might've liked to simply coat the guy's face in iron, instead, but he was certain the field density of the Man's soul would prevent his materialization from functioning that close to the skin. He had to do this the hard way.

It all happened within a few moments.

As he soared close, the iron mask was so cold that he'd immediately lost sensation in his right hand, even through the gauntlet he was wearing. Which was a good sign, at least.

But the birds were there, too. The quick little bastards.

He slammed the mask onto the Man of Crows' face and just barely twisted himself around in time to take the brunt of the first flock's attack with Haqq's shield.

It dented impressively but held together, and Hector went flying off course as the unshielded extremities of his iron armor shattered.