Page 2804

~~((Thanksgiving Special - page 20 of 30))~~
He could sense more crows en route. Two other flocks. They weren't as rigid as the one he'd faced earlier, nor were they spewing ranged attacks; but he couldn't just wait around for them to skewer him. Garovel was with him, after all.

And, well. It worked before, so he did it again. Hector knocked himself out of the flocks' paths with an iron boulder, narrowly avoiding both streams of beaks and claws.

As he tumbled, struggling to keep the severed head in view of his eye slit, he caught sight of something that took priority over just about everything else in his mind.

He saw a reaper melt out of the Man of Crows' head.

The face was covered by the frozen, soul-infused mask, but the back was still open, which was something he'd been intending to fix. But that was where the reaper appeared from. Perhaps it was trying to flee during the confusion, believing Hector would be too distracted by the flocks and the utter mayhem of freefall to notice.

Hector didn't have to think. He hadn't even been certain that the Man of Crows had been using a hyper-state up until now, but it didn't matter. There was no need to be surprised or to question it.

The reaper was a servant's weak point. There was only one action to be taken here. Instinctual.

And for it, Hector had the perfect technique, something he'd picked up from a man he admired more than almost anyone.

He launched a crude iron javelin with a simple, straightforward velocity state. No orbiting or parallel thought processes required.

It missed.

But that was okay.

It just had to get close enough to the Man's reaper. Which it did.

The iron shaft branched out violently, becoming a deadly tree of blades in the direction of the reaper.

And it connected.