The screens slowly dimmed one by one, returning from red alert status to passive tracking. The Wrath feed stabilized into territory maps and casualty reports clean, efficient, and overwhelmingly one-sided.
Dreg didn't just win.
He dismantled them.
Bit let out a low whistle as numbers finalized.
"Uh… confirmed retreat. Three factions down to less than thirty percent manpower. Survivors scattered."
Skit added, "Chat channels say Wrath's talking about Ouroboros like we eat people alive."
Liz smiled without looking up from her tablet.
"Good. Fear is cheaper than war."
Rafe turned away from the screens, expression satisfied.
"This wasn't just a victory. It was a message."
Quill nodded.
"They'll rethink testing us for a while."
For a moment, there was silence again this time earned, not tense.
A breath.
Pause between storms.
Verosika leaned her hip against the table, arms crossed loosely, watching the room function like a machine Malerion built piece by piece.
Not with fear.
With loyalty.
She didn't say it aloud, but she admired that.
Malerion watched the final feed shift from combat footage to a stabilized field marker, then finally spoke:
"Good work. Stand down."
Orders rippled like controlled shockwaves:
Monitors lowered intensity.
Weapons were returned.
Communications shifted to low priority.
But no one left.
Not yet.
Something still hung in the air not danger, but expectation.
Rafe broke it first.
"So. What now? Counterattack? Diplomacy? Or let the Ring stew in humiliation?"
Malerion considered.
Everyone waited.
Even Verosika, who normally would joke, stayed quiet.
Then he answered:
"We do nothing."
Skit blinked. "Nothing?"
"Wrath came to us," Malerion said calmly. "They failed. If they try again, they will fail again. And if they don't…"
He paused, voice steady.
"They will remember."
Rafe exhaled slowly, thoughtful.
"That's not just strategy. That's reputation-building."
Verosika smirked a little.
"Translation: you're letting the fear do the traveling."
Bit nodded.
"That's kinda brilliant."
Liz finally looked up, eyes narrowing not hostile, analytical.
"It's the first time you've chosen influence over expansion."
Malerion returned her stare without flinching.
"Not the first time. Just the first time publicly."
Silence again this time heavy with realization.
They were watching a shift.
Not weakness.
Evolution.
Verosika stepped closer not dramatically, not possessively, just present, her voice quieter than the rest:
"Wrath now knows who you are."
Malerion didn't look away.
"So does Envy."
That line changed the temperature of the room.
The Watcher.
The invisible pressure hovering over everything.
Reason Wrath thought they could strike now.
Rafe ran a hand through his hair.
"Which means that was the warm-up."
Quill added, voice lower:
"And the Watcher now has data response time, troop strength, coordination patterns."
Liz crossed her arms.
"He's studying us."
Skit muttered:
"Well that's creepy."
Bit nodded vigorously.
"Very creepy."
Malerion didn't react outwardly, but Verosika saw it the slight shift in his focus, the sharpened attention.
He wasn't intimidated.
He was calculating.
Rafe finally asked the question hovering unspoken:
"So what's the next move? If we don't expand… how do we answer him?"
Malerion turned toward the screens again.
"We don't answer."
Liz raised a brow.
"You ignore a direct provocation?"
"No," Malerion said, voice quiet but absolute.
"We prepare."
Those two words were enough.
Everyone understood.
Because Ouroboros didn't chase threats.
It built systems to erase them.
Later
The command center gradually emptied Skit and Bit to logistics, Quill to recalibrate defense algorithms, Rafe and Liz to compile political fallout reports.
Noise faded.
War tension eased.
Leaving only two people in the cooling quiet.
Malerion.
And Verosika.
She stepped beside him at the window overlooking Sin Rouge chaotic, neon, alive, unaware how close it had come to shifting hands.
"Was this always the plan?" she asked softly.
Malerion didn't pretend not to understand.
"No."
A pause.
"But I adapt."
She nodded slowly.
"That's dangerous, you know."
He glanced at her.
"For whom?"
She smiled not sharp, not taunting warm, knowing.
"Whoever thinks they can predict you."
His gaze held hers longer than necessary.
No rush this time.
Interruption.
Just gravity.
She leaned closer not hesitant, not testing comfortable.
"You didn't flinch today," she murmured. "Not once."
"You didn't either."
She laughed quietly.
"I had someone worth standing beside."
The air thickened slow, magnetic, familiar after last night but steadier.
Not chaos.
Connection.
She rested a hand lightly on his forearm.
"You know Wrath won't be the last."
"I know."
"And the Watcher?"
"He will reveal himself eventually."
She smirked.
"And when he does?"
Malerion's expression didn't change, but his voice did low, controlled, lethal.
"He learns what fear feels like."
Verosika exhaled soft, approving.
"Good."
For a moment, neither moved.
Then she broke the quiet with a small gesture:
two fingers tapping his chest slow, deliberate, affectionate.
Not claiming.
Acknowledging.
"We should get some rest," she murmured.
Malerion didn't release her gaze.
"Stay."
No command ir hesitation.
Just truth.
She didn't disguise her answer with sarcasm.
"Yeah," she breathed.
"I will."
And in the quiet aftermath of chaos, victory, and pressure neither spoke of
they stayed.
Not because of fear.
Because of strategy.
But because finally
they were choosing each other.