They didn't celebrate.
There was no cheering, no gloating.
Just work.
Dreg dragged one of the dead assassins by the collar, leaving a long smear of blackened blood across the floor.
"Dead," he grunted.
Liza checked the one she'd crippled earlier. Her blade had gone in deep through armor, muscle, bone.
"Also dead," she said flatly.
The only one left alive was the one Malerion had blasted into the wall. His breathing was shallow, but present. The armor around his chest was warped inward like someone had tried to collapse his ribs with a thunderclap.
Quill knelt beside him, placing two fingers on the assassin's neck.
"He won't last long," he muttered. "But we might squeeze a few minutes out of him."
"Good," Malerion said.
Skit raised a trembling hand.
"Shouldn't we… you know… panic?"
"No," Malerion answered.
Bit frowned.
"Maybe just… a little bit?"
Liza flicked a small pebble at his forehead.
"Shut up."
Donnie holstered her revolver and looked around the ruined main hall.
Cracked tiles.
Scorched walls.
Blood sprayed in thin arcs.
Shadows burned into plaster where resonance and runes had collided.
"This was subtle," she said dryly. "Very low profile."
Quill snorted.
"I can lower the power next time"
"No," Malerion cut in. "You did well."
Quill blinked.
"Oh. Uh. Thanks."
Dreg frowned down at the unconscious assassin.
"So. Interrogation?"
Malerion shook his head.
Not the way you're thinking.
He knelt again, this time placing his palm gently over the assassin's chest avoiding the worst of the crushed bone.
Alastor's presence sharpened inside him.
"Careful," the radio-voice murmured. "His essence is frayed. Too much pressure and he'll snap."
I just need echoes, Malerion replied silently.
He let the Fourth Ring turn once.
Not fully.
Not aggressively.
Just enough for the inner structure of his soul space to stir, to vibrate, to sing.
The assassin's soul responded without consent
trembling under the foreign pattern, releasing fragments of memory the way cracked glass releases light.
Images.
Voices.
A chamber lit by violet fire.
Seven banners.
Feathers.
Masks.
Fear.
The sigils of lesser houses Seralinn, Veylthar, Croswin, and others whose names Malerion had only seen in whispers on Donnie's notes.
He saw
A decision.
raised hand.
sentence:
"If we do not erase him, the corvius gaze will return."
And beneath that, quieter, shivering like a wounded animal:
They were afraid.
Not of him.
Of Vaethelion Corvius.
Of the fact that a prince had once walked down this far and spoken with Malerion as if he were something worth noticing.
They were terrified of that imbalance.
Malerion withdrew his hand.
The assassin's breathing faltered, then stopped.
Quill checked his pulse.
"…yeah. He's done."
Dreg glanced at Malerion.
"You got something?"
"Yes," Malerion said.
Liza's eyes narrowed.
"What?"
He looked up, gaze sharp.
"They're not afraid of us," he said. "Not of Sin Rouge. Not of my power."
He let that hang for a moment.
"They're afraid of Corvius."
Skit blinked.
"Who?"
"Prince Vael's bloodline," Donnie said quietly. "Ancient Goetia house. Very old. Very high. Even the lower hells whisper about them."
Bit swallowed.
"So they're scared because… Vael visited us?"
Because he might do it again, Malerion said. Because it looks like he favored us. And if a High House prince is interested in the slums, and we're at the center of that interest…"
Quill finished the thought.
"…then we could become a political problem they can't control."
Dreg growled.
"So they tried to end it fast."
Yes, Malerion answered. Cleanly. Quietly. Without involving Vael directly."
Alastor chuckled darkly inside him.
"Short-sighted little nobles," the voice purred. "They swatted at a shadow and found a blade."
"Quill," Malerion said, standing.
"Yeah?"
"Get rid of the bodies. No traces. No trophies."
Quill deflated.
"No trophies at all?"
Malerion's stare was flat.
Quill raised both hands.
"Okay, okay, full dissolution it is. I'll fire up the containment field."
He signaled to Skit and Bit.
"Help me drag them to the back. And don't lick anything."
"We weren't going to " Skit started.
"You absolutely were," Bit added.
Quill rolled his eyes and led them away.
Dreg cracked his neck.
"You're sure we shouldn't hang one outside as a warning?"
We're not warning common gangs,Malerion said. We're dealing with Goetia. They don't see corpses like this as fear. They see them as insult.
"And they answer insult with annihilation," Donnie added, voice cool.
Liza dropped the ruined mask she'd been inspecting.
"So what's the move, boss?"
Malerion looked around the ruined hall for a moment.
This mess stays internal, he said at last. We don't broadcast it. We don't brag about it. Anyone who asks We don't want their reputation to be damaged because it is the most important thing to them.
Donnie's lips tilted.
…we say it was just another gang trying to muscle in?
Malerion nodded.
"Let rumors shape themselves however they want as long as the word 'Goetia' never appears in them."
"That won't protect us from the source," Alastor murmured in his mind, amused. "But it will keep the rest of the ring clueless."
Malerion agreed.
I know.
He turned to Dreg and Liza.
Seal the entrances. Double patrols. Quietly. Anyone suspicious? Do not kill on sight. Capture if possible. I need more echoes.
Dreg grinned.
"That I can do."
Liza vanished with a soft flutter of motion, already moving to reweave the shadows of Sin Rouge.
The planning room had once been a storage space.
Quill had filled it with diagrams.
Donnie had filled it with maps.
Liza had filled it with escape routes.
Everyone gathered there once the bodies were gone and the worst of the damage was patched enough that the bar wouldn't look like a war zone to casual eyes.
The big map of the Lust Ring lay unfurled across the central table. Dreg leaned on the edge. Donnie stood with arms folded. Quill fidgeted with a pen. Liza half-sat on a shelf, perched like a patient predator. Skit and Bit hovered in the background, trying to look useful and mostly looking terrified.
Rafe slipped in last, closing the door behind him quietly.
"You missed the fun," Dreg said.
"Yeah." Rafe glanced at the scorch marks on Malerion's sleeve. "I noticed."
Malerion tapped the map.
We confirm what we already suspected, he said. Lesser Goetia houses are moving against us.
Donnie laid a sheet of parchment on top of the map names, sigils, influence pathways.
"At least three houses are involved," she said. "Seralinn, Veylthar, Croswin. Maybe more behind them. They don't act alone unless they're cornered."
"Are they cornered?" Liza asked.
Donnie's smile was thin.
"They are afraid," she corrected. "Not of us. Of what it looks like when a Corvius prince takes interest in this place."
Rafe nodded.
"I've heard the same from my contacts. They're panicking. They can't tell if Vael is here on a whim or on orders. Either way, they don't like that they weren't told."
Quill tilted his head.
"So they took aim at the only thing they can safely hit."
"Us," Bit said.
"Yay," Skit added hollowly.
Malerion let his fingers rest over the part of the map representing Sin Rouge's territoryjust a small glowing patch in a sea of pink and red.
Tiny.
Insignificant.
On paper.
But reality was drifting.
"I want a clear view of our situation," he said. "Donnie?"
She straightened.
"Power tiers, then," she said. "From the top down."
She pointed at the upper edge of the map where the Pride Ring would be.
"High Goetia Houses like Corvius, line, and others of that tier. Ancient contracts. Celestial ties. They don't look at us except through people like Vael when they get bored or curious."
Quill muttered, "Or suicidal."
Donnie continued.
"Below them, Lesser Goetia Houses. That's our immediate problem. They are still far above Overlords. Their magic is old and specialized. They're political creatures. They don't fight personally unless cornered. They send others."
Malerion nodded.
"Our assassins."
"Exactly," Donnie said. "Then below them: Overlords. Sin-born powers. Famously dangerous. You're not there yet, boss to be blunt."
"I know," Malerion said simply.
Dreg nodded in reluctant agreement.
"In a one-on-one with a serious Overlord, we'd have to fight dirty. Very dirty. the problem with sinner ovelords is their immortality unless you have access to angelic weapons or a higher level of power
Donnie pointed lower.
"Below Overlords, strong hellborn Below that, organized gangs. Below that, the average trash of the Ring."
"And us?" Rafe asked.
Donnie looked at Malerion.
"Us?" she said. "We're a… statistical mistake."
Quill snorted.
"Pretty way of saying 'we shouldn't exist at this power level.'"
Malerion's lips twitched.
She wasn't entirely wrong.
"So," Liza said. "What exactly do they think we are?"
"Wrong question," Malerion said.
Liza arched an eyebrow.
He tapped the parchment with the sigils of Seralinn and the others.
"The right question is: what do they think Vael is doing?"
Donnie's eyes sharpened.
"They know his bloodline. They know his family's weight. If they believe he's coming here for personal amusement, that's one kind of problem. If they suspect he has orders from above, that's another."
Rafe added:
"And if they convince themselves that you are part of that…"
"Then we look like a proxy," Malerion finished. "A tool. Or the start of a faction."
Bit raised a hand.
"Are we a faction?"
Skit elbowed him.
"We are now, idiot."
Quill rubbed his face.
"Okay, so they're scared Vael is building something through us. They can't touch him, so they're trying to erase the 'something.'"
Dreg frowned.
"And we can't just… tell them he isn't. Right?"
"Even if we did," Donnie said, "they wouldn't believe it. Nobles don't trust words when fear is involved. They trust control."
"And we're outside their control," Malerion said quietly.
Alastor's voice hummed with dark delight.
"Such a delicious mess you've found yourself in," he said. "You truly have a talent for attracting interest
Rafe cleared his throat.
"All right. Reality check. They're scared. They're angry. They lost three elite killers. What do we expect next?"
"More assassins?" Dreg suggested hopefully.
"No," Malerion said. "Not immediately. That was their first test. If it had succeeded, we'd be dead quietly and they'd all go back to pretending the slums don't exist."
Liza nodded.
"Now that it failed, they have to think. They can't risk drawing too much attention."
Rafe's eyes narrowed.
"So they'll escalate sideways. Politics. Money. Pressure."
Donnie snapped her fingers.
"Exactly. They might start with territory restrictions. Taxes. Sabotage via local gangs. Or they'll try to push us into conflict with someone above our weight and let that crush us."
Quill grimaced.
"Sounds… annoyingly plausible."
Malerion looked at each of them in turn.
"We can't win a direct war with Goetia," he said. "Not yet. We can't even fight an Overlord openly and expect to survive without heavy losses."
Dreg grunted. He didn't like it, but he didn't argue.
"So we don't fight their war," Malerion said. "We fight ours."
Bit raised his hand again.
"What does that mean?"
Malerion smiled slightly.
"It means we survive. We grow. We make their attempts costly, but not obvious. We make it so that every demon they send vanishes in ways that don't point to us directly. We become… unprofitable to attack."
Alastor's amusement curled through his mind.
"Starve them of information. Feed them confusion. Let their own paranoia bite them."
Donnie nodded.
"We can do that," she said. "Layer fake rumors. Plant false witnesses. Make it look like their killers ran into something else in the district."
"Something worse than us?" Skit asked.
"We're not the only nightmare in the lower rings," Liza said. "We just happen to be organized."
Rafe hesitated.
"There's another option," he said.
Malerion looked at him.
"Speak."
Rafe swallowed.
"We could… answer."
Dreg frowned.
"We already did. With their corpses."
"No," Rafe said. "I mean politically."
The room went a notch quieter.
He continued:
"They're nobles. Lesser Goetia, sure but still nobles. They expect fear. Silence. Compliance. What they don't expect… is a composed, controlled, formal answer."
Quill stared.
"You want us to send a letter?"
Rafe shrugged.
"Not begging. Not threatening. Just something that says:
We know.
We understand.
We're not impressed."
Donnie smirked.
"A polite declaration that we're not going anywhere."
Liza's eyes gleamed.
"I like that."
Malerion considered it.
Alastor hummed in approval.
"Dangerous," the radio-voice murmured. "But deliciously so."
Rafe added, carefully:
"If we write it right, it won't be enough to accuse us of rebellion. But it will tell them that if they want us gone, they'll have to bleed for it."
Malerion's gaze sharpened.
"So not defiance," he said. "Not submission."
Rafe nodded.
"Exactly. Inconvenience."
They cleared the table.
The maps stayed, but moved aside. Donnie brought ink and parchment. Quill, hilariously, tried to sit as far from the paper as possible, as if it might explode.
"Words aren't my kind of weapon," he muttered.
Malerion stood by the table and spoke slowly.
Rafe wrote.
"To the representatives of the Lesser Goetia Houses operating within the Lust Ring," Malerion began.
Donnie raised an eyebrow.
"Bold opening."
"We're already alive after they tried to kill us," Malerion said. "Pretending we don't know who they are would be insulting everyone's intelligence."
Rafe kept writing.
Malerion continued:
"You have sent your claws into my territory.
They did not return."
Dreg grinned.
"That's a good line."
Donnie nodded.
"Cold. Short. Efficient."
Malerion went on:
"I understand your concern.
You fear what a prince's curiosity might mean.
You fear losing what little stability you have."
Rafe hesitated.
"Are we… accusing them of fear?"
"Yes," Malerion said. "Without saying the word."
He went on:
"But I am not the one who invited his gaze.
I did not ask for his attention.
I do not command his steps."
Liza smirked.
"So we say: this isn't my fault."
"Exactly," Malerion said. "I'm removing their easiest excuse."
Rafe wrote quickly.
Malerion's eyes hardened.
"I will make this simple.
I have no intention of challenging your position.
I have no intention of bowing to it, either."
The room vibrated with a quiet, dangerous energy.
Donnie exhaled.
"Now that… that's a line."
Quill stared.
"Is this a letter or a loaded gun?"
Malerion finished:
"You may continue to fear what a prince chooses to do.
You may fear what he sees in my district.
Whether he returns or not is beyond my power to decide.
But understand this:
If you send more blades into my home,
I will continue to break them.
Not out of ambition.
Out of survival.
If that offends you—
find a different problem to solve.
Malerion,
Proprietor of Sin Rouge."
Silence.
Rafe slowly put the pen down.
"That," he said quietly, "is going to make them furious."
"Good," Liza said.
"Scared, too," Donnie added. "Because it's not bluster. It's not begging. It just says: 'I exist, I understand, and I won't die quietly.'"
Quill scratched his head.
"Is it too much?"
Malerion shook his head.
"It's perfect," Alastor said in his mind, delighted. "You're not insulting them. You're not swearing loyalty. You're telling them the truth: if they keep sending disposable pieces, they will keep losing them."
"How do we send it?" Skit asked.
"We can't exactly knock on their mansion doors," Bit added.
Rafe smirked.
"Leave that to me."
Donnie nodded.
"He has channels. Couriers that pass between noble sectors and the lower rings. The kind nobles use when they want something done without their crest on it."
"Like sending assassins," Liza said.
"Exactly," Donnie replied.
Malerion handed the folded letter to Rafe.
"Make sure it reaches them," he said. "But not in a way that links back to you directly. Or to us, if it's intercepted."
Rafe placed the letter inside his jacket carefully, like it might burn.
"I know how to do this," he said.
Dreg clapped his shoulder.
"If you die on the way, I'll be disappointed."
"Reassuring," Rafe muttered.
Later that night, Malerion stood again on the balcony of Sin Rouge, watching the neon veins of the Lust Ring pulse and flicker.
The city seemed almost calm.
That calm was a lie.
But it was useful.
Inside his soul space, the Fourth Ring turned slowly
no longer flaring with reckless spikes of strength,
but settling into a colder, sharper kind of power.
"You understand what you've done," Alastor said softly.
"Yes," Malerion replied.
"You told the lesser Goetia that you will not run. Not kneel. Not break from pressure."
"Yes."
"You also told them you can keep killing anything they send."
"Yes."
Alastor chuckled.
"Some would call that suicidal."
Malerion watched the distant lights.
"I call it accurate."
For the first time since his arrival in Hell, he truly felt it:
He was no longer just surviving the Last Ring.
He was staking a claim.
Not for glory.
Not for ego.
For one simple reason
If he didn't,
they would erase him.
Behind him, the muffled sounds of Sin Rouge continued:
Dreg training recruits in the back.
Liza slipping in and out of places she shouldn't be.
Donnie muttering over dossiers.
Quill arguing with Skit and Bit about safe rune charging.
Rafe slipping into the night, letter in his coat.
A small, fragile, stubborn core.
His.
He placed a hand over his chest, feeling the low hum of the Fourth Ring resonate with the distant heartbeat of the district.
"They wanted to test me," he murmured.
Alastor smiled inside his mind.
"And now?"
Malerion's eyes narrowed.
"Now we see how they handle the answer."
The situation wasn't solved.
Not truly.
But for the first time since the assassins had stepped into Sin Rouge,
Malerion felt something like balance.
Shaky.
Risky.
Thin as a blade.
But still
balance.
And as long as he could feel that resonance,
as long as his Rings turned,
as long as Sin Rouge answered when he called
he wasn't prey.
Not anymore.