Silence, when it finally came, felt heavier than the bombardment itself.
Across the western half of Constantinople the guns had gone quiet almost simultaneously, as if the city itself had exhaled after holding its breath for days.
Smoke still hung in the air, drifting lazily through ruined streets and shattered markets, but the thunder that had defined every waking moment was gone.
Elias gave the order without ceremony.
All offensive operations—cease.
The command propagated instantly through the system, cascading down through every unit, every battery, every ship.
Artillery crews stepped back from their guns.
Naval captains ordered their decks secured.
Infantry squads lowered rifles that had not cooled since the breach.
The war, at least in Europe, was over.
Montenegrin banners which had risen replacing the origional Maroon banners of the Ottomans coated the city, the only places devoid of any markings or colors of nationality were the mosques and holy places.
they had been secured without damaging or looting, and the only action taken was to remove any national markings, removing the belief that the empire control the religious sites, the meaning was clear to Elias at least.
Perhaps not to the empires peoples, at the moment but in time they would come to believe in the Montenegrin rulers more for being noble enough to not destroy, loot or even repurpose their holy sites for their own reasons.
The Sultan, now a prisoner in his own palace, was moved under heavy guard.
Not shackled, not beaten, not humiliated.
Simply escorted, watched at all times by soldiers whose faces betrayed no triumph, no hatred, only obedience.
He was no longer a ruler.
He was leverage.
Across Thrace and the Balkans, Elias's armies did not withdraw.
They entrenched.
New borders were marked not with ink, but with men and steel.
Garrison forces rotated into cities that had fallen without resistance.
Census teams followed close behind, accompanied by engineers and logisticians who catalogued roads, ports, storehouses, and rail lines.
Quickly documenting all the new lands, peoples, and things so that nothing was unknown to the rulers of these new lands.
As a result supply trains ran on time.
Rations were distributed methodically.
Curfews were enforced evenly, without favoritism.
Where riots threatened, they were dispersed with overwhelming presence rather than bloodshed.
Where resistance cells were detected, they vanished overnight—leaders detained, arms confiscated, networks dismantled before they could ignite.
To the common people, the change was terrifying.
Just days before, they were ruled and policied by their own ottoman imperial forces, but compared to them these new foreigners were so efficient, and... well upright.
They didnt look down or discriminate against anyone, everyone was cared for, and protected, while everyone was a target of the posted laws without bias.
~
The navy remained where it was.
Steel hulls sat astride the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles like a clenched fist, their guns silent but very much awake.
No Ottoman ship passed.
No foreign fleet was allowed to approach without escort and inspection.
British ships were finally allowed to move once more under heavy protest, while Russian ships began moving with great thanks.
And as for the Ottomans own fleets.
None moved.
None dared test the blockade while the Sultan himself sat under Montenegrin guard.
From Vienna to Berlin, from London to St. Petersburg, cables flew back and forth in frantic bursts.
Emergency councils convened.
Old assumptions were discarded in hours.
New threat assessments were written and rewritten as intelligence finally converged on the same, chilling conclusion.
The Balkans were no longer a chessboard for great powers.
They were a power.
A state that had crushed an empire in weeks rther than years, seized the most strategically vital city on the continent, and then stopped—not from weakness, but from choice, as if they knew somehow this was the extent of their ambitions at this point.
And at the center of it all stood a king most of Europe had barely noticed until now, one of the newest monarchs to rise to a throne in the last few decades.
Peter I's arrival was announced three days later.
His convoy moved along secured roads under escort that looked, to trained eyes, profoundly wrong.
The soldiers surrounding him were not merely disciplined—they were unnatural.
Their uniforms were subdued earthtones, speckles in other contrasting colors making them practically disappear in with the landscape if you didnt look hard enough.
And their weapons... they were alltogether some new kind of rifle the locals had never seen before.
Though to Elias these units were indeed special.
These were the lottery summons.
Handpicked by fate and system alike.
A contingent of soldiers comparable to WW2 era, though sporting differences from the normal timeline.
Their uniforms were close enough to the era, but the weapons they bore were not.
Each man was wielding a shortbarrelled musket, though unlike a traditional musket there was no flintlock, no flashpan.
Even for the most modern weapons available to date this was odd.
The weapon had a belt of ammunition hanging out of one side.
Military veterans seeing the design for themselves scoffed at the failure of a weapon, but then could only shake their heads to admit that their once grand empire had been defeated by those bearing just such weapons.
To Elias this weapon was not strange.
It was a Chaingun afterall.
the common main weapon of infantry forces of both NOD and GDI of the command and conquer series.
Otherwise known as the GAU-3 "Eliminator" a 5.66mm weapon capable of a rate of fire near 400 rounds per minute, making it a handheld machine gun, already with a faster firing rate than machine guns already being designed and tested among the great powers of Europe and America.
Peter himself rode at the center, dressed not in ostentatious regalia but in a simple military coat, the crown absent.
He was not here to conquer.
He was here to receive the surrender.
As the convoy approached Constantinople, the city revealed itself in layers—burned districts, intact quarters, crowds lining the streets in wary silence.
No cheers.
No jeers.
Just eyes watching, hundreds of thousands of people waiting anxiously to see their new liege lord, and discover his intentions after slaying a giant.
At the gates of Topkapi Palace, Peter dismounted.
The Sultan was brought forth.
Two men stood facing one another beneath the shadow of a dynasty's end—one born into decline, the other elevated by a power he did not fully comprehend, but would never question.
The formalities were brief.
Interpreters spoke, but the meaning was clear even without words.
The Sultan bowed.
Not deeply.
Not proudly.
But enough.
"I accept the cessation of hostilities," Peter said, his voice carrying across the courtyard. "And the transfer of all Ottoman territories in Europe to the Kingdom of Montenegro."
This verbalization quickly spread announcing to the remaining Ottomans, and the rest of the world that the war had come to an end.
Even those still fighting in Moldavia, Romania, and north Bulgaria would soon hear the news, and in doing so abandon their current posts retreating to Turkey to shore up the remains of their empire against additional attacks.
Romania, and Bulgaria's birth was close at hand, as Russia would surely give rise to these slavic states as a buffer and ally against the mighty Austro-Hungarians, and this new entrant onto the world stage.
Meanwhile for Britain the eternal meddler, France the worlds whipping boy, and Germany the militant puppet of Britain the news to come would be enough to shock them.
Enough to make their leaders question just how much the board had been reset.