Over one continuous night, the peace summit in several perspectives.

They’re still military.

Scarred minds and marred bodies cannot hinder the blazing hatred gnawing within. They descend coordinated, sweeping through the auditorium, in plain clothes and crafted personas. Ignorance is earned when they blended seamlessly into the sea of mundane crowd, predators concealed in tall, plain grass.

One by one they subdue leaders to blubbering messes.

---

Prince Buyeong sits, transfixed to the television set. His eyes are not blinking. The news of a siege burgeoning out from the peace summit has his heart sitting on cliff’s edge.

Court Lady Noh Ok-nam prays, muttering frenzied whispers. Her wizened fingers grasping the creased talismans into crumpled useless paper wastes.

Prayers may not be enough. 

---

Secretary Mo Mi-do takes a call in the hallway, but hysterical screaming buries the babysitter’s update. Soon, she’s trapped in the ocean of fleeing people and losses her phone, confused, lost and a fractured wrist.

Her wrist is a footnote in the aftermath of the peace summit’s livestream of beheaded government officials.

---

Myung Seung-ah is never supposed to be in the peace summit. But she is an intern, her working hours are the royal’s right. Here she is, huddled beneath the table, gripping her tablet with whitened knuckles.

Her earpiece is crackling, static plays a sombre bark. She knows that voice, spends hours working on fictionalised versions of them. “Cut the feed,” the voice commands.

She cannot stop her hands from shaking. Seung-ah taps on the tablet.

The livestream is now playing orchestral music to a black background.

---

Koo Seo-ryeong almost, almost drops the plastic bowl against the pristinely alabaster tiled floor, but the chopsticks already rolled underneath the sofa.

She fumbles with her phone, scrolling down numbers after numbers, wondering which one would give her the actual updates, not sugar-coated, crowd-control telegrams.

It is hard to say, if this apprehension bedevilling her nerves is the result of a misplaced infatuation or genuine affection towards the man she sought to dethrone.

---

Lee Gon detests guns. It lacks of refinery a sword brings but his Four Tiger is tucked safely in its crystalline case, back in the palace. His terrible shots are legendary, public knowledge even.

It’s not until he spots the intern’s trembling fingers protruding from the table, he acts.

You see, Gon is a king that does not understand moderation. His uncle’s duplicity and his father’s blind faith work erse wonders on the psyche of an orphan prince. The pursuit for comprehensive mastery in all things that destroy—means Lee Gon knows his way around a gun, a bow, a crossbow and the list continues.  

He’s a fantastic sharpshooter.

Five out of fifteen terrorists drop dead almost immediately, bullets into their eyes. The other eight are easily overpowered by his vicious Royal Guards rustling into the room.

The other two, a pair of lovers, slip out in the madness.

“Yeong, catch him,” Gon roars. He would have shoot more, if the clip didn’t run out.

Jo Yeong rushes after the alpha terrorist.

---

Kang Hyeon-min is fearless. Yeong has the tenacity of a rapid dog. It is a fight of equal skill, enhanced strength and the itch to release pent-up savagery, army versus navy.

Hyeon-min is a romantic man, has ideas of noble idiocy and chivalry swirling inside his head. He throws himself at their pursuer, a martyr in the making and throws the first punch.

But pitted against Yeong whose life is not his own, Hyeon-min struggles to evade and land crippling blows.

---

Luna isn’t one to fight clean. There are rarely honour between thieves, even less between a band of handicapped ex-soldiers. But she values the man who bequeaths her a second chance, Luna and unconditional love.

She throws a chair at their attacker, once the men are locked into a display of tug war.

It stuns the bodyguard a flickering second—that’s all they need and she hauls Hyeon-min into safety.

---

Yeong returns to his king, empty-handed. Gon is not the slightest disappointed, but it is hard to tell from a handsome face with all his emotions chiselled into a mask of calm collectedness. Rather his fury is directed to the menace that plagued his empire.

There is no trial. Not even prison could protect these once military men from the king’s wrath.

---

The morning sees breaking news—there are no survivors from the terrorists, dead from the crossfire between the Royal Guards and the SWAT team.

The king is safe—no mention of his prowess with a gun and those witnesses are thoroughly gaslighted and brainwashed to see a Royal Guard shooting—and the Royal Public Affairs Office declines an interview.

The empire is shaken, but not crumbling.