Shane's figure slowly emerged from the shadows.
The Mongulian Warrior, who appeared to be Mongul's daughter, paused her taunts. Her upturned nose lowered slightly as she looked Shane up and down with an inscrutable gaze.
Shane did not raise his eyes to meet the scar-faced, arrogant warrior's stare across the room.
Instead, he looked away, using the brief lull to swiftly scan the layout of the entire vault.
The enormous vault was spacious and imposing. Energy-lock slots lined its four walls in an orderly pattern, and transparent crystal display cases stood in neat rows.
Some cases held sealed cosmic curiosities of varying shapes, shimmering with brilliant colors.
Though Shane could not recognize most of them, anything Mongul had specifically placed here had to be a rare treasure gathered from across the stars.
After a quick sweep of the room, however, Shane's heart quietly sank.
Four crystal display cases in prime positions stood completely empty. Their spotless bases bore no trace of anything having been displayed there, clearly having sat vacant for a long time.
And of the trump cards he knew Mongul possessed from his previous life, the two most impossible-to-counter cosmic treasures were both missing.
The Reversal Cube, which could invert dimensional rules and utterly counter anyone whose strength operated on a physical level.
And Black Mercy, the bizarre alien plant that even those with supreme willpower struggled to escape once it touched their flesh. There were only two possibilities: either Mongul carried both with him at all times to deal with unexpected situations...
Or they had been exhausted during his past cosmic conquests and gladiatorial contests.
But Shane leaned toward the worse possibility.
As a tyrant who roamed the universe, Mongul certainly possessed tremendous power himself, and was even called the War God on his people's homeworld.
But