After his attempt to rip out Golden Lion's heart failed, Saint Garling immediately put a safe distance between them.
The head he had torn off earlier turned into a cloud of black mist. The mist churned in the air, then slipped back into his body as though something had sucked it in.
Immediately afterward, the stump of his neck began to roil. A new head grew out of the black mist, its features slowly taking shape within it.
"Quite a shock, isn't it, Worms? Never seen the power of a [God] before?" Watching Golden Lion stand there in a daze, Saint Garling once again pulled his lips into an exaggerated grin.
Saint Garling thoroughly enjoyed Golden Lion's reaction. The mere trick of an immortal body was enough to shock them speechless.
Golden Lion wasn't looking at him.
"My Safety Charm!!"
Golden Lion's anxious gaze swept rapidly over the ground, searching back and forth among the rubble and dirt churned up by the shock wave.
Finally, on a patch of damp earth, he spotted a tiny corner of the shattered Safety Charm.
Then he quickly bent down, carefully brushed aside the dirt covering it, and picked up the fragment between his fingers.
"There's another piece here."
"Here too."
Golden Lion's gaze darted across the ground, his body following it as he bent down, straightened, then bent down again.
In just ten seconds or so, Golden Lion picked up five or six pieces.
After that, he couldn't see any more on the ground.
Golden Lion stared at the fragments in his palm, his expression darkening little by little.
Annika's face surfaced unbidden in his mind.
She stood there with a smile on her face, but beneath that smile lay a disappointment she couldn't hide.
*"It's all right, Lord Shiki. Everyone has things