The loose soils of Kolvak rose quickly in gusts of wind that permeated the roads, obscuring the view of the city from within. The winds were not natural; they were the domed city's imitation of what happened outside it. Dund Vinid gazed at the brown haze in the window and wondered what it must feel like outside. Dangerous as it was, there were always scavengers outside the walls, outside the dome. He wondered how they survived during these times.

  It wasn't a serious thought, however. It was a thought he allowed to linger to while away his time as he waited for the guards to arrive. He sat on his throne waiting, his right arm on the metal armrest and cheek on the fist of the same arm.

  He was starting to grow impatient.

  Dund Vinid wasn't alone in the Council Hall; all eight members had gathered for this. They sat in groups of four, six steps below him, on grand stone chairs fixed to the ground on either side. Seven sat, while Commander Targund, the head of the council stood on the elevated platform beside Dund. It was a rare occasion, having their lord present amongst them.

  Not a single one had a smile on his face.

  Targund spoke up first. “Lord Vinid, I do not think it the best decision to meet your assassin.”

  “Can he be called my assassin if he failed to kill me, Commander Targund?” Dund asked, amused. His gaze never shifted from the window.

  “There are ways to make him talk, we do not have to meet his demands,” Fiarq, another councilor, said. As she spoke, the rest of the council became more vocal.

  They had a reason to be against his meeting the prisoner. It wasn't something the lord of a sector did often, let alone in the Council Hall. They had their reservations about being against it, and he had his reasons for being there. His motives were none of their concern but he didn't think knowing would have changed anything. Commander Targund knew to an extent, and he still didn't think it was worth it.

  The large doors of the Council Hall swung open, then. Six guards stood behind the prisoner in chains, yet it seemed like even that wasn't enough. He was large, larger than most younger cyperans Dund had met in recent cycles.

  His skin was rough and tough, just like any other cyperan, but it was a dark hue of reddish purple, a color uncommon to the cyperans of the Thirteenth Sector's green, which Dund and his council were. His chest was bare of Life Armour. It was safe inside in the dome, but it was clear what the guards had meant with it.

  Dund stared at the prisoner for a while, then smiled. “It is a short distance between the doors and this place,” he said, tapping the armrest of the throne. “Even when it's Targund and not me—even with the chains. There is always an attempt to cross it.”

  “The Dark Half has just ended, Dund. Death would have met you while you rested if I wanted it,” the prisoner replied.

  His statement earned him a shove and kick from the Captain Guard. The prisoner had barely regained footing when the captain hit him again, in the head, this time. He was kneeling now but the guard aimed his thermal rifle at his head.

  “Another vile word, cari,” the captain threatened.

  “I don't think your Lord Commander would let me die just yet,” the prisoner replied, his voice hoarse.

  The guard hit him again. The prisoner fell to floor, coughing.

  “No, he wants to know,” he continued, as he rose to his knees.

  The rifle charged up.

  “That's enough,” Commander Targund said, with a wave of his hand, and the captain stopped. “The guards will have their vengeance in due time.”

  The prisoner only chuckled.

  “Why did you come here?” Dund asked finally.

  The prisoner stared hard at Dund. “The Thirteenth Sector cannot hide it anymore,” he said, his voice hard. “We know of the weapon.”

  For a moment, there was silence. Dund hadn't answered. His eyes were fixed on the prisoner. For the first time, he was serious.

  “That is it?” Kahlirak, another council member, asked, his voice composed yet irritated. “Fifty guards died because of this mad thing's belief in lies? Birvi lost his sons because of this?”

  “But they are not lies, we have found them.”

  “Found what?” Dund roared.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “What is a human, Dund? What is Men of Mercury? Answer me!” the prisoner shouted back in defiance as he straightened himself. He seemed less of a prisoner as time passed and the council didn't even seem to notice as they waited for their leader's response.

  There was none.

  “Say it here, before your guards, before your Council.” The prisoner said as he stood up. The Guard Captain made a move but stopped upon Fiarq's gesture.

  “Human is the Krystal used to control the Men of Mercury missiles,” he announced to the council. “The keys that would begin the end of the empire. We have found them all; we have destroyed them all.”

  “You have no understanding of the words you say,” Commander Targund replied sharply; there was a hint of uncertainty in his voice, perhaps even fear. “There are no missiles in the Thirteenth Sector, what you have done will bring death to all of us.”

  “The Lord of The Thirteenth Sector asked me why I have come here, why I demanded to see him,” the prisoner replied, ignoring Targund. With his hands, he grabbed the chains that bound the opposite arm.

  “I've come for the last human. Give it to us,” the prisoner stated with a note of finality.

  Dund leaned in from his throne, his voice laden with deathly calm. “That Krystal will not leave this citadel and neither will you.”

  Immediately, five out of the six guards lifted up their charged rifles. One aimed at the Captain Guard, three at the council and the last one aimed at the window beside Dund.

  They fired at once.

  The blasts flew right past Targund to the window behind. Dund had pulled him to the back of the Throne by the time they aimed for him. They didn't aim for Dund. No, they needed him alive to tell them where the Krystal was.

  No one else survived their first attack.

  The wind blew in from the shattered window and six soldiers followed. They wore black advanced military armours, rumored designs no else had access to.

  “The Emperor sent them,” Targund said, sounding shocked. “He truly did send—”

  Dund shoved him out of danger's way, interrupting him. Then he charged at the new soldiers.

  Dund knocked down a good number of them, and those he didn't get to were pushed back by the stumbling group. The prisoner and the guards came after him, but Targund had not remained hiding behind the Throne. He went after them.

  Dund Vinid wasn't normal. He had abilities some even considered curses. One of those abilities made him strong, stronger than twenty cyperans. With a loud roar, he tore a thermal rifle out of the grasp of one of the soldiers on the ground and opened fire, aiming across the span of his chest. With his left arm, he lifted the dead soldier and positioned himself behind the armored corpse while the remaining five soldiers rained fire.

  A shield and a rifle. That was all Dund needed. He aimed for their heads, firing, advancing, killing, and pushing back the group of soldiers down the dias. When it was one soldier left, Dund threw the riddled body at him and fired, killing him.

  Without a shield, he wasn't safe. The prisoner fired.

  Dund hit the floor hard, his arms injured. He groaned loudly.

  “Five of my very best, destroyed like rock against sandstone!” the prisoner shouted, truly surprised. “You really are what they say.” He was free of his chains now.

  The prisoner and his guards. Dund had almost forgotten about them. He tried to lift the rifle and shuddered from the pain that shot through him.

  “Commander Targund didn't last very long,” the prisoner said, pointing to his corpse that lay beside the Guard Captain's. “He doesn't share your gifts, sadly.”

  Two guards moved forward and aimed their rifles directly at Dund. “Will you tell me now?” the prisoner asked.

  “The Emperor is a fool, there are no missiles—”

  The doors of the Council Hall swung open and another guard walked in. Dund recognized him; he had seen him several times before. Eireth was Commander Targund's guard, yet he walked in, glanced at the dead guards and council members, even the wounded Lord Commander himself, and walked up to the prisoner. He whispered to him and left.

  Dund just stared, eyes wide.

  “Your guards, like any other soldier, serve the Emperor first. Your loyal ones either lay dead or can't reach you here in this room.” The prisoner said, turning to face the door, “And it seems I no longer need you.”

  Eireth came in again, this time with four more guards. Together they carried a long, narrow, black crystal that glowed a deep red periodically at its center. It hummed gently with each glow, almost alive.

  “Take it from here, Eireth. We still have a chance to prevent the death that would come from this,” Dund said, desperate.

  They kept walking towards the prisoner.

  Dund faced the prisoner. “There are no missiles! Tha– That krystal is not a human. That is not what a human is!”

  They set it at the center of the hall.

  “Destroy it,” the prisoner commanded.

  Eireth and the guards took out their rifles, aimed and fired simultaneously, pelting the krystal till most of it cracked and shattered, a strange dark liquid spewing out.

  By another ability, Dund sensed it instantly, something piercing through. Something immense. Surging. Searching. Approaching. To the others, nothing happened.

  “Lord Vinid will come with us to answer to the Emperor, himself. Bind him,” the prisoner ordered the guards.

  The two guards closest to him lifted him up by the arms and shoved him forward.

  Suddenly, a message rang out from the communicators the guards carried.

  “General, we are under attack!” Dund could hear violent winds and loud explosions on the other end.

  The prisoner grabbed the arm of a guard and barked into the communicators. “Push back! There can't be that many cyperans outside the dome.”

  “It is not cyperan—” the communicator went silent, but not before they heard another explosion.

  In that moment, another entered the hall. Not from the parted door nor the shattered window, it formed from nothing in the center of the hall.

  The being glowed molten yellow, so bright its minute features were hidden. Its very presence seemed to electrify the room like lightning in the air of a wild storm. A head centered in an upright torso, with arms and legs that sprouted from the sides and underneath said torso respectively, were all the similarities it shared with cyperans. Its molten brightness seemed contained within the being's skin.

  It looked around, past the guards and the prisoner, and locked its gaze on Dund.

  It moved a step and the room began to burn.

  The guards fired at it till the rifles died from the heat of the rounds. All of that didn't hurt it. It was all futile. Dund knew it with certainty, and the rest of them soom came to realize it as well.

  No one could kill a Man of Mercury.