The Coffin Palace rose again in silent mockery, its four walls closing in and its lid descending, intent on extinguishing that dazzling light.
[Iron Prison] stared coldly into the distance. Slyder, your friend's death this time should be enough to sound the alarm for you. If you still can't kill me the next time we meet, someone else beside you will die.
The moment the coffin lid descended, a faint breeze slipped inside, carrying a song both familiar and strange.
It sounded like a soft murmur, like a mournful cry.
The Soul-Suppressing Song?
The pathways for Soul Self-Destruction in Gerard's body stalled for an instant. Surprise flashed across his pale face before he reacted, immediately seizing that brief pause to halt his Soul Self-Destruction.
The strain of the abrupt stop made him cough up blood. While [Iron Prison] was distracted by confusion, he quickly broke away. Without locating his opponent's Origin, taking them both down would mean dying for nothing.
In an instant, Gerard used that sliver of light to escape the palace.
"Trying to leave?"
[Iron Prison] clenched its five fingers. The molten metal outside the iron coffin suddenly shuddered, transforming into steel arms that reached for Gerard. All the steel across the territory awakened, forming a Heaven-Sealing Earth-Locking net that left nowhere to escape.
As the iron net closed in, another force intervened violently. The prisonlike iron walls turned into siege spears and stabbed inward.
An iron chain shot out and caught the weakened Gerard with precision. At the end of the retracting chain, a pale hand seized his tattered collar, trembling uncontrollably.
"Have you lost your fucking mind?!"
Gerard looked at him through half-closed eyes and suddenly smiled. For a moment, he seemed to see that Slyder again, the one who would stamp his feet in fury