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Clearly, Sermung was waiting on something. Waiting for Hector to do something.

But Hector didn't mind waiting, either. Despite everything, he wasn't in a terrible rush to get his ass beat. So if the emperor wanted to sit there in that box, then that was fine. Hector didn't mind keeping it mostly stationary for the man while all the other boxes kept falling around it. He'd started things off that way just to prevent Sermung from being able to sense anything that was going on outside that particular box, since letting it fall on his head would've been rather telling, but Hector hadn't expected that he would need to maintain it for so long.

But what did he really expect to achieve here? That question kept nagging at him--across various thought processes, even. Just to knock some sense into him? This dude was basically invincible. To prove a point?

Yeah.

To prove that thing> living within that man's aura wasn't right. It was too formless to even articulate, Hector felt. But also too familiar to ignore.

A kind of dark certainty. A hopeless and desperate misery.

That was his target in this fight. But how to attack it, then? That was the real question.

If certainty was the issue, then perhaps he could break that. Be surprising. Do something unexpected.

But what could take a centuries old emperor by surprise?

Good question.

Hector's floating iron fortress had grown so rapidly that he was already nearing his volume limit. He could feel it approaching, somehow. The expansion needed to slow and change. Sermung had granted him all this time and space. And even though he couldn't exactly sense the man's aura at the moment, he could all be the feel Sermung's lingering question.

What was Hector going to do with all this?

Well, the purpose of the fortress had been to annoy him. But he was annoyingly not getting annoyed, it would seem.

Hector wanted to fix that.

He focused on Sermung's cube. He added a series of small, vertical, hovering tubes into the room. One in each corner for a total of eight. Then he added tiny metal balls inside all of them at the same time, having the orbs start at the top and then fall normally down to the bottom, hit iron against iron, then disappear.

Then he did it again. Eight little orbs falling in unison. Clinking in unison. Disappearing in unison. Then again. And again. And again.