The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss-Chapter 170 - 171: Calm and reasonable

The tent’s canvas rippled as if breathing, lanterns casting sickly golden halos over bloodstained maps and half-drunk goblets. The scent of iron mingled with the stale musk of adrenaline and sweat. Atlas’s fingers curled around the wine glass, not for taste, but as a calculated posture. He was the bait. He had been from the beginning. Every word spoken here was a stitch in a net he planned to snap shut.

The earth shook.

A low growl rumbled beneath the ground, subtle at first, more vibration than sound. The glass trembled. Wine sloshed. Atlas didn’t flinch.

Outside, shouts rose. Metal clanged. Horses neighed. A commander barked a command. Someone screamed.

Ggggrrrrrr.

The second quake hit harder. The ground itself seemed to protest, like the land trying to unbury something ancient and foul.

Atlas poured another drink. His hand was steady, his face unreadable. Pain tore through his spine like a saw of fire. [Yggdrasil’s healing interrupted. Mana flow irregular. Adjusting.]

He slid the bottle toward Five without looking. "What do you mean, ’the air was our domain’?" he said, voice low, jagged, threaded with poison. "Sounds like you’re losing your edge, Jagger."

Five’s jaw twitched. His blue eyes narrowed, calm cracking just a hair. "It’s Jagger Johns," he said with a quiet edge. "And I don’t lose edges. I sharpen them."

Atlas tilted his glass in mock salute. "You look like a calm, reasonable man, jagger," he added "Are you... calm and reasonable?"

Five sneered, the sound low and guttural, like bones grinding. He let it echo. Let it scrape. "If the situation calls for.....calm."

A pause. The shadows deepened. Lanterns flickered.

"And this situation?" Five asked.

Atlas leaned back. His golden gaze met Five’s like flame against glacier. "Yes....the situation indeed Calls for... calm."

Quaaakkee.

This one wasn’t subtle. The entire camp shook. Tables upended. Wine spilled. The tent poles groaned.

Seven’s hand flew to her spear. Her voice cracked. "Sir!"

Five didn’t respond. Not yet. He stared at Atlas. Measured him. And in that moment, Atlas saw the crack—not fear, not yet, but the shadow of doubt. The first tremble before a fall.

Five stood. Slow. Deliberate. His blade was in his hand so fast it may have been magic. Its tip hovered an inch from Atlas’s nose.

"Those scrolls," he said, breath sharp. "They’re fake, aren’t they?"

Atlas smiled. Relaxed. Like a wolf in a church. "...Took you long enough."

He sipped his wine. It tasted like iron now. Or maybe that was the blood pooling behind his teeth.

The tent flaps burst open. A knight stumbled in. Pale. Wild-eyed. "Sir! The red dragons—they’re here! So many!"

The knight’s words were high-pitched, cracking like brittle ice.

Five turned, fury breaking through his composure. "What? Impossible. We send them all to—"

"To.....? ," Atlas questioned, cutting in. Voice quiet. Precise. Deadly.

He twirled the crimson vial. Light refracted through it, casting blood shadows across the tent walls.

"Simple," Atlas continued. "I did to you what you tried on our capital. One of your Primes—Eighteen, was it?—spilled the beans."

He smiled at Seven. "She had the sweetest scream when the worms began to sing."

Seven lunged. Five stopped her with a bark. ".....No."

She trembled. Her eyes were fire. Her knuckles white around the spear.

"You’re lying," she snarled.

Atlas tilted his head. "Lying takes effort. Why lie when the truth is so much more... damning?"

Outside, roars echoed across the hills. Not human. Not even dragon. Something worse. Something ancient. The kind of roar that made stars blink and mountains shift.

Five grabed the table, throwing it away in quiet rage. ".....No, there’s more..."

"Haha...," Atlas laughed. "....the mother of dragons...she is coming as well.."

He stood. Slowly. Bones cracking. The vial slipped into a hidden groove in his belt. His aura flared faintly, a shimmer of red and green—virus and healing locked in war.

A sharp memory pierced his mind. Claire, kneeling in the ruins, blood on her cheek, laughing through the smoke. "One monster for another," she had said.

He was that monster now. A necessary one.

"You’re bluffing," Five said.

"I was."

The scream outside shattered glass.

Not a scream. A sound. Piercing, metallic, and wrong. Like something tearing out of reality.

"That," Atlas said, "is your reminder."

He moved to the tent’s edge. Flung it open.

The night burned.

Dragons swooped above the camp, red and black and veined with glowing runes. Not natural beasts. Twisted. Augmented. Machines married to flesh. Fairy core tech bristled from their spines. Their eyes glowed like stars about to die.

Soldiers scattered below like insects. Some fired. Most screamed. The first dragon landed on an airship and ripped it in half.

"You brought a slaughter, you know, what you have done right....these lands, these lands neither be yours nor will it be ours...if that things arrives." Five said quietly.

"You brought an empire," Atlas replied. "I brought entropy."

Seven gripped her spear tighter. "We’ll kill them all."

Atlas turned to her, softly. "You won’t kill a single one. Because the moment you start... they detonate."

The silence was deafening.

"What?" Five asked.

"They’re walking bombs," Atlas said, voice flat. ".... You shoot one down, they take twenty of your best with them."

Seven staggered back. Her faith was cracking. Finally.

"This is terrorism," Five whispered.

"No," Atlas corrected. "This is vengeance in its finest."

He stepped forward. Past the tent flaps. Into the night.

"....and why do you think, I will let you get away..." five gently voiced.

Atlas turned, his healing reaching a height that inferred a kind of aura. A unique aura. Which number five smelled right away.

"You....you were hiding your strength ...?" Five voiced.

Atlas only smiled, drinking the last vile of the potion.

[healing reached.....40%]

Five knew when to fight and when to back down. Call him a coward, or call him smart—but he only attacked if the enemy was someone he knew he could defeat. And the prince with the dark hair—the one they called the Mad Prince—he was something else, something beyond.