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He put an end to the "alarm" system that he'd been using with the little clumps of metal, and silence finally returned. Banda and his men took notice, pausing at the sudden change.

Hector made the three golems' heads snap-turn in unison--dematerializing then rematerializing in an instant. Little cubes full of molten iron began orbiting around their bodies, readying themselves to be launched.

Banda's group hesitated again, watching the golems for a long moment.

Perhaps Banda could tell that this wasn't an empty threat now. Even if the man didn't exactly know what he was looking at, the intent had to be quite clear, no?

Controlling the orbiting cubes at a distance was certainly more difficult than just making them orbit around his own body, but it helped that the golems were immobile. And that the cubes were small. They wouldn't pack nearly as much of a wallop as the most powerful version of this technique, but they would almost certainly be more than enough to shred through that aberration like tissue paper. And with the thinned crowd, Hector had a pretty good lock on the aberration's location.

If Banda still felt bold enough to keeping walking forward, Hector would fire off a warning shot.

And wouldn't ya know it, Banda did exactly that.

At that first step, Hector fired off a molten cube right in front of Banda's face, exploding the rocky ground a few short meters away from the man.

Banda turned toward the sight of the explosion, perhaps to assess the damage done as the cloud of dust dissipated, then looked toward the golem that had fired the shot.

Hector made the missing cube regenerate as Banda watched.

And for a long time, no one moved.