Silence.The kind of silence that comes after a storm that should have destroyed everything — but didn't.
Marble dust floated through the air of the Deviluke throne hall, glittering in the dim light.Scourge stood at the center — half-shadow, half-radiance. The energy he had taken from the Watcher still rippled across his form like molten glass.
King Gid had fallen to one knee, his hand gripping the fractured floor.Behind him, soldiers shifted uneasily — their weapons lowered, their instincts torn between fear and obedience.
Sephie's expression was unreadable. Her power radiated like the sun, and yet she did not move.Her eyes — sharp, golden — locked on Scourge.
"You consumed it," she said finally."You took the Watcher's essence."
Scourge turned his gaze to her. His new pupils gleamed with layered fractals — like galaxies nested within a human frame.
"I took back what was trying to take me," he replied. "And I made it mine."
Gid snarled, forcing himself to stand. "You're a parasite. A threat to my people."
Scourge didn't flinch. "Your people?" He tilted his head slightly. "Or your control?"
For a heartbeat, Gid froze. Sephie's gaze sharpened — she had heard it too, that tone of dangerous calm that only absolute certainty carries.
"Enough," Sephie cut in, her voice shaking the hall. "Gid, stand down.""This creature—""He's not a creature anymore," she interrupted. "He's aware."
The King's glare flickered to her, then back to Scourge. "Awareness doesn't make him trustworthy."
Scourge raised his hand slowly — and the fragments of the floor beneath Gid floated.Not in threat. In demonstration. The Watcher's fractal light coursed through the debris like veins of creation itself.
"I didn't come to rule," Scourge said softly."But I won't bow either. Not to the System. Not to the Watchers. Not to you."
The words hung like fire in the still air.
Lala, who had stayed close behind Sephie, finally spoke — voice trembling but resolute."Father… please. He protected us. He protected me."
Haruna stepped forward too, her aura steady but conflicted. "And me. He chose not to destroy."
That was the moment the court changed.Not with power — but with witness.
Sephie sighed quietly, eyes narrowing as if she could see the chain of possible futures unfolding all at once.
"Then we have no choice but to acknowledge it," she said at last."Scourge… from this day forward, Deviluke recognizes you as an independent entity."
A murmur spread through the hall — confusion, fear, disbelief.
King Gid clenched his fists. "You can't—"
"I can," Sephie cut him off. "And I will."
Scourge's gaze softened for a fraction of a second — respect, or perhaps gratitude, flickered beneath his alien composure.
But within him, the System pulsed.
[Hidden Mission Complete – "Free Will Assertion"][Reward: ???][Processing Reward Data…]
The whisper of power moved through him, quiet but vast — a shift in the structure of his being.
He exhaled slowly, and the fractal light around him dimmed.
"Then it's settled," Scourge said quietly."From now on… I decide what I become."
And as Sephie turned to restore order, and Lala rushed toward him, only one thought echoed inside Scourge's mind — the faint, amused tone of the System itself, now no longer a controller, but an observer:
"Let's see what sovereignty truly costs."