The sky was already torn apart by fire, ice, and divine light, yet something deeper began to move beneath all of it like something hidden and watching from a place the fighting hadn't touched.
It was the kind of presence that doesn't announce itself but simply waits until the right moment and then makes itself known in a way that can't be ignored.
Steampunk exhaled slowly and adjusted the gears along his wrist with careful fingers, and the faint ticking of countless hidden mechanisms echoed around him, steady and precise like a clock that had never lost its rhythm. His calm gaze settled on Eric with the kind of focus that comes not from anger but from understanding exactly what you're dealing with.
"His structure is quite layered," he said quietly. "Multiple authorities overlapping without rejection."
Christina stood beside him, and her presence was almost invisible even now, even in the
middle of all the chaos and destruction.
