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Hector kept it up in a sustained rhythm, going faster and faster.

It was a countdown, of sorts. Meant to impart a sense of escalating urgency. He'd used a similar tactic on those Abolish invaders just before his fight with Banda Toro. The intention back then had been to get the invaders to flee without a fight altogether. That hadn't exactly worked out the way Hector wanted it to, but he wasn't expecting it to work here, either. Obviously, the Crystal Titan was not about to get scared and run away.

But thankfully, the guy was also not a bloodthirsty psychopath. So the consequences of failure weren't quite as bad here.

Or at least, the consequences upon himself weren't.

The consequences for Sermung, though? And for the rest of the world? If Hector couldn't find some way to get through the guy?

When he thought about it like that, the stakes of this fight felt considerably more terrible. It was enough to make a certain question bubble up in his mind, one that he felt compelled to ask Garovel about, despite the incredibly inconvenient timing as he continued navigating his own floating fortress.

'...Did you sense the aura of death around Sermung?' said Hector.

Garovel needed a moment. 'No. That doesn't work on undead.' And the reaper probably wanted to ask why Hector was bringing that up all of a sudden, but perhaps for the sake of not breaking his servant's concentration, he kept that question to himself.

That, and he probably didn't even need Hector to explain. Garovel would almost certainly be able to connect the dots.

What a strange thing this all was. That Hector could feel such anger and desperation toward someone that he'd also come to admire. Was this what they meant when they said to never meet your heroes? That didn't seem quite right.

Hector kept planning, though, even as those emotions and questions bubbled up through his mind. He let them dissipate like foam on the sea while the majority of his concentrated remained on the fight.

And so he wasn't surprised when Sermung finally decided to move, even though the force was so immense that the floating fortress nearly disappeared in its entirety.

Like a popped balloon, almost all of it burst apart in an instant.

Hector was still concealed, though, in a far portion that remained. He immediately went to work regrowing the whole network of cubes again, but apparently, the Titan's patience had run out.