The smoke from Valmir's execution didn't just drift away; it hung heavy and stagnant in the air, a greasy gray shroud swirling amidst the shattered wooden crates that had become the traitor's final resting place. The silence that followed the shot was unnatural, broken only by the distant, rhythmic tolling of Bakasa's emergency bells—a mournful sound that signaled the city was officially under martial law.
Dayat stood frozen in the center of the wreckage. His shoulders heaved with every ragged, shallow breath, his lungs burning from the ozone-heavy air. Resting on his right shoulder, the weapon he had birthed from his own mind hissed like a cornered viper. Udin Merepet—the Handheld Railgun MK-I—vented plumes of superheated steam from its twin Mithril barrels, the metal glowing a dangerous, dull cherry-red.
