The heavy steel doors had not yet opened.
Inside the vast chamber — cavernous, cold, and laced with menace — the world's hidden powers waited in uneasy silence. But not all were content to sit quietly.
"Late," growled General Ruiz, his voice gravel and disdain. "He kept us waiting last quarter too. Maybe he needs a clock in that palace of his."
"You'll wait as long as he tells you to," came the sharp reply from Ms. Chandra, CEO of AmurTech. "You wouldn't have a coast to bomb without his satellites."
Ruiz sneered. "Your coast, maybe. Not mine."
A soft chuckle from across the table. A man in a plum-colored suit swirled dark wine in a crystalline glass. His eyes were too bright, his smile too wide. "Children, please. Let's not start our civil war until he arrives."
"He's not a king," muttered someone near the back — a cartel representative in a white silk jacket stained faintly with old blood.
"Could've fooled me," Chandra replied dryly. "I saw the dossier on those new girls. Have you?"
A hush followed.
Eyes drifted toward the large display hovering at the chamber's front. The globe rotated slowly, red zones blinking in half the world's major cities. Lines of movement. Pulsing command frequencies.
"Whole cities burning," murmured a cyber-ops director near the edge. "And we're wasting time with egos and threats."
"Speak for yourself," muttered the ex-Prime Minister of the Nord Republic, fingers tapping restlessly. "We didn't build Spiral Fang to have a tyrant wearing its skin."
"That's what we all said," came a voice like rusted velvet. The cartel heir again. He tapped a gold ring against his cup. "Then he started winning."
Another silence fell.
No one mentioned the assassinations.
The disappearances.
The cities that changed hands overnight without a single missile fired.
A few exchanged glances.
One man pulled a flask from his coat but didn't drink it.
Then—
The doors opened.
A low mechanical groan.
And everything shifted.
Revic Sever entered, flanked by five figures in tactical armor — sleek, precise, and perfectly synchronized.
Eyes turned toward him.
But most of the attention settled on the guards at his side.
Five girls — tall, symmetrical, unnaturally graceful.
Elite escorts, perhaps.
Security models?
Class-7 bioframes?
Whispers flickered through the room like sparks catching dry kindling.
"New prototypes?"
"Personal bodyguards, I'd wager."
"Hollowlight combat models, maybe."
But none of them knew the truth.
Not really.
Only a handful of individuals on that ship knew what those five girls truly were.
Not just weapons. Not just machines.
They were engineered devotion. Custom-coded worship. Power wrapped in flesh — made to obey one man and no one else.
Revic stepped calmly onto the platform, pausing at the center. The girls remained behind him, still and unreadable, like statues sculpted for war.
The murmurs died down.
Revic looked out across the sea of power.
"You came. Good."
His voice carried without amplification — calm and absolute.
"The old systems are collapsing — quietly, desperately. Borders mean less every day. Loyalty even less."
"While they dig trenches, we're drawing maps."
"This next phase isn't about survival. It's about replacement."
"Soon, there won't be anyone left to challenge us — because we'll be the ones writing the rules."
He raised a single hand.
Behind him, the five girls lowered their heads in perfect synchrony — a small gesture.
Most in the room didn't blink.
But a few exchanged glances.
One man near the center — a graying cartel patriarch with jeweled rings and deep scars — leaned forward slightly, voice gravel-worn and dry.
"You speak like a prophet, Sever. But last I checked, Spiral Fang had no king."
"We are equals here. You don't give orders — we vote."
A flicker of unease stirred the room.
Revic didn't blink.
Instead, he turned his gaze to the man, tone unchanging.
"Is Kira still attending that boarding school in Vienna?" he asked mildly.
The man's face twitched.
Revic continued, like reciting a weather report.
"She likes violin. But not mornings. Closest with her roommate, Elen. The guards rotate every forty-eight hours — though two have… gaps in loyalty. You should really fix that."
The man stood, rage tightening his jaw.
"You threatening my daughter?"
"I advise you to think twice about your words."
But the man didn't.
He stepped forward.
His hand twitched toward his belt.
And—
Crack.
The sound was sharp and final.
A single shot rang out.
The man collapsed backward into his seat, dead before his body finished falling.
No chaos. No screams.
Just the faint trail of smoke curling from Selica's still-lowered arm.
Her face showed nothing.
She returned to stillness as if nothing had happened.
Inside, though, something curled tight in her chest — like a coil of wire tightening around something soft. Something unnamed.
All eyes turned back to Revic.
He let the silence stretch.
Then, quietly:
"I lead not because you chose me — but because you can't afford to oppose me."
Not a single breath challenged him.
Revic stepped forward again, voice smooth as glass, cold as steel.
"We already rule half the world from the shadows. Governments you fear? Corporations you envy? Militaries you once bribed?"
"They answer to us now."
"You think that came from nowhere?"
"Before Spiral Fang, you were rats in different sewers, clawing for scraps. I gave you structure. Unity. Reach."
"Without me, you are nothing."
No one argued.
They didn't need to agree.
They just needed to remember.
Revic turned to the center of the platform again, hands folding behind his back.
"You're not here to decide — only to obey."
Silence.
Then, one of the warlords — a thick-necked man in arctic camouflage — gave a single, reluctant nod.
Another followed.
Then another.
Eventually, the rest.
Revic didn't smile.
But his eyes gleamed with the kind of quiet certainty only men like him could carry.
"Good."
"Phase II begins at dawn."
The lights above dimmed slightly, shifting from cold white to a deep crimson hue. The holo-display flickered — and for a heartbeat, something shimmered behind the globe projection:
A wireframe of a girl. Face blank. Eyes glowing.
Then it was gone.
No one mentioned it.
But far in the back row, one figure didn't move with the rest.
A woman in silver earrings tapped a silent code into her chair's armrest. Her face was expressionless. But her eyes — they watched Selica a little too long.
And when she smiled, it didn't reach her eyes.