Page 896

Duvoss and Xuan were separated now, and Melchor’s body began to swallow them both.

Unsure what else he could do, Hector just kept flinging iron while he also worked on a spiked boulder above the liquid metal beast’s head.

A visible pulse of gravity burst through Melchor’s arm, and Duvoss fell away from him, still gripped by the severed hand.

And Hector dropped everything else, suddenly knowing his most important task. He bolted forward and lunged for the reaper. He snatched Duvoss up just before the wave of mercury could, and the mercury crashed against Hector’s shield and armor both, sending him flying once more. But his concentration held firm, even as he crashed through the north wall into an auditorium and took out a row of seats before his armored body finally skid to a halt.

He pulled Duvoss close and kept him positioned just behind the shield, prepared to endure another metallic tidal wave, but it wasn’t immediately necessary. He saw Lord Dimas buying them precious time.

‘Can you move?’ asked Garovel.

‘N-no, I don’t--agh...’ Duvoss barely sounded conscious.

‘Forget it,’ said Garovel. ‘Regenerate Xuan now. Hector will keep you safe.’

‘W-where... where is Xuan’s brain?’

‘I lost him in the chaos. Just try regrowing him.’

And Hector saw a tiny speck appear in his own hand--a dot of brain matter. He had no clue how Xuan’s previous brain had gotten destroyed, but he didn’t have time to worry about it.

Melchor came crashing through the wall like a freight train.

Garovel’s next words were kept private. ‘It’s time to cheat, Hector.’

And the young Lord Goffe switched hands with the shield. As soon as his bare skin touched it, he felt the enhancement course through him like a shiver that tautened every muscle, but he kept his focus. He raised a broad platform beneath Melchor, trying to throw him off and squish him against the ceiling, but the liquid mercury cut through his iron like butter and bounded closer, undeterred.

Hector launched himself away with a diagonal platform. The mercury caught up anyway and snaked around his leg, stopping him in mid-air before yanking him back toward Darktide’s gaping maw.

The iron spikes came out, completely engulfing his body, and Melchor crunched through them without a single care. Hector’s armor shattered and pressed against his flesh.

But Hector himself remained. Curled into a ball, he protected Duvoss and Xuan with his body alone.

Page 895

Hector kept thinking someone would attack him again, particularly Melchor, but it seemed that Darktide didn’t want to divide his attention again, seeing as he did end up losing Horatio the last time he tried. Still, it was a very odd thing, just watching the violence unfold rather than participating.

Dimas and Salvador had thinned their opponents down to the last one, and Dimas moved to assist Asad, who’d been stuck in an apparent stalemate with Ismael and Nere up to now.

‘This seems too easy,’ said Garovel. ‘The way they talked about Darktide, I figured he’d be able to do more with pan-rozum than flail around like this.’

Hector was getting a similar vibe. ‘You think he’s holding back?’

‘Maybe. I’m not sure why he would, though.’

‘Well, if it were me, I might try to create an opening first--possibly by tricking the opponent into thinking they were beating me...’

Garovel paused. ‘Colt taught you that, didn’t he?’

‘Er. S-sorta... But, uh. I’m probably wrong. I’m sure that’s way too simplistic for a fight of this level. And if I could see through it, then Lord Xuan would obviously--’

As if on cue, a chunk of Darktide’s body pierced the center of the smoke and detonated with such force that even Hector was thrown into the wall. The blast filled the whole foyer, leaving behind long-lingering tremors that made Hector feel like he’d been caught in a sudden earthquake. He could hear more crumbling rock, but the smoke was so dense that he could scarcely even see until Dimas’ gravity swept the air clear again.

And when Hector returned to the busted guardrail, what he saw made his breath catch.

Darktide’s hulking form had been torn asunder, and pieces of mercury boiled beneath pools of acid. But the liquid metal beast was still standing, while the white fumes had all but dispersed. And Darktide was already in the middle of tearing Duvoss free from the Seadevil’s almost smokeless figure.

‘Time to help,’ said Garovel.

Hector leapt off the second floor and slid down on an iron ramp, already running when his feet touched stone again. He chucked a materialized spear as he charged forward, shield first.

Melchor saw him, but just carried on anyway and let his liquid body devour the iron as if it had been intended to feed him.

Page 894

Hector observed the fight with grim wonder, trying to keep an eye on everyone. Dimas and Salvador appeared to have their situation well in hand, with Dimas occasionally boring enormous holes in the rock, earning more aerial space for himself. Hector watched the man fly into a tunnel of his own making, only to return a moment later, exploding through a wall behind one of the Blackburns.

Meanwhile, Xuan and Melchor were still a thunderous mess of scarcely understandable chaos. Pillars of white smoke and whiter flames slammed against sheets of flexing metal, making both burst apart each time.

‘What are they doing?’ Hector asked.

‘Trying to overwhelm one another,’ said Garovel. ‘They’ve both mastered pan-rozum, so there aren’t many ways they can subdue each other. Hyper states can be forcibly undone by tearing the reaper out of the user’s brain. But in pan-rozum, the user can melt their brain mass down into something incredibly small without losing any of its functionality--and on top of that, it can be MOVED, too. So right now, they’re both attempting to surround and destroy enough of one another that they can locate their opponent’s brain and end the fight.’

Hector understood. ‘Process of elimination...’

‘Exactly. The less original mass the user possesses, the fewer places the brain can be located.’

Every now and again, Hector could see the smoke take on a vaguely human shape, sometimes with too many arms, all grasping at Darktide’s only slightly more humanoid form. Javelins of white flame punctured the mercury in multiple places, looking almost like fiery claws as they tore through the liquid body. Xuan’s own body expanded and contracted as he pleased, billowing one way and then the other, and not being particularly bothered by Melchor’s smothering walls. Even when Darktide actually succeeded in boxing some of the smoke in and compressing it, the Seadevil simply cut himself free with fire or acid.

‘What is Xuan’s element?’ said Hector. ‘Do you know?’

‘No one told me,’ said Garovel, ‘because I guess they like to keep their trump card secret when they can, but seeing it now--it’s almost definitely phosphorus. The sheer volume of smoke is somewhat telling--though I’m a little surprised he can control the product of his chemical reactions so well. To make the smoke an extension of his body... well, I am quite impressed.’

‘They did say he was 106...’

‘Yes, they did.’