Chapter 289: Vespera On Stream [III]
On the left video tab, Lohan Sterling adjusted his white silk cuffs, his face twisting into a look of disgust-filled contempt as he stared at Etilga’s feed.
"Have you no shame whatsoever, woman?" Lohan reprimanded sharply, his voice dripping with arrogance. "You are broadcasting your distasteful domestic degeneracy to over one hundred million citizens... You allow yourself to act like a unrefined savage, turning a formal diplomatic conference into a circus!"
Etilga slowly lowered her cigar, her fiery crimson eyes narrowing into razor-sharp slits as she glared at Lohan through the screen.
"Decorum?" Etilga sneered, letting out a sharp venomous laugh. "Coming from a spineless corporate parasite who spends his entire life hiding behind white marble walls? Look at you, Lohan! Calling me a savage while your entire company survives on predatory loans and blood-money mining operations in the outer zones!"
’Huh? Aren’t they supposed to be more chill?’
"I run a legitimate multi-sector financial empire!" Lohan shot back furiously, slamming his manicured fist onto his marble desk! "The Sterling Financial Conglomerate keeps the entire economy of Lord Society running! You are nothing more than a glorified matriarch leading a family of violent, short-fused maniacs..."
"A financial empire?" Etilga scoffed, flicking cigar ash directly onto her husband’s neck. "You’re a glorified loan shark in a white suit! The Bloom Clan’s armaments division single-handedly forged the elemental catalysts that defend the walls! Without our weapons, your precious banks would have been torn apart by monster swarms decades ago!"
"And you charge astronomical extortionate prices for every single blade you forge!" Lohan barked out a harsh mocking laugh. "You squeeze the Council dry with inflated defense contracts! You’re a leech on society, Etilga!"
"And what are you, Lohan?!" Etilga’s voice rose to a terrifying superheated screech, her crimson mana flaring so violently around her chair that the velvet curtains behind her caught fire. "You sit there in your pristine white suit, lecturing me about dignity, while you let your corporate foot soldiers burn down entire outer villages just to clear land for your mining rigs! You hypocritical gold-worshiping bastard!"
"At least my operations generate net infrastructure!" Lohan barked back, leaning close to his camera with his green eyes blazing. "At least I don’t let my spouse crawl around on the floor like a beaten dog... Look at that man beneath your boots! He is a Magistrate of the World Council, and you treat him like dirt! It is a disgrace to the entire male gender!"
"He is MY husband, and he will serve as my chair whenever I damn well please!" Etilga snarled, stomping her heel onto the Magistrate’s back again for emphasis. "If he had a spine, maybe he’d stand up, but he doesn’t! Just like you don’t have the spine to step into a real Unknown Zone without ten thousand mercenary guards protecting your pathetic skin!"
"I don’t need to fight in the dirt because my mind controls trillions of credits." Lohan shouted back, his face flushing red with rage. "You think brute physical force makes you superior? You are an ape holding a glowing sword..."
"I will take my glowing sword and personally shove it down your throat, Lohan!" Etilga shrieked back, her red hair floating in the air as heatwaves distorted her camera feed. "Say one more word about my family, and I will mobilize the entire Bloom Clan fleet to flatten your corporate headquarters into a pile of ash!"
"Try it, you crazy bitch! My automated orbital strike grid will vaporize your fleet before your ships even clear the atmosphere!" Lohan screamed, standing completely up from his leather chair and pointing a finger at her screen!
Beside Vespera, Sky and his streaming drones were completely frozen in place.
Sky took a long, ridiculously nervous sip of his iced juice through his straw with a massive drop of sweat visibly forming on the side of his neck behind his mask as he watched the two titan family heads tear each other apart live on air.
’I thought nobles like this usually had training in this aspect...’
Vespera sat in her leather chair, sweatdropping hard as she watched the two trillion-credit family heads scream at each other live on stream, listing astronomical financial figures, corporate crimes, and ancient grudges just to flex their corporate dicks in front of a hundred million viewers.
The bickering between Lohan Sterling and Etilga Bloom raged on continuously, escalating into a wild unfiltered flurry of personal insults, family grudges, and corporate flexing that left the entire live chat box completely paralyzed with shock.
[User_X99]: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW?!
[Rune_Fanatic]: THEY ARE LITERALLY THREATENING ORBITAL STRIKES ON LIVE STREAM!
[Sovereign_Watcher]: LMAO THE MAGISTRATE IS GETTING STOMPED ON AGAIN!
[Gamer_Tag_44]: THIS IS THE GREATEST STREAM IN HUMAN HISTORY!
[No_Life_Lord]: VESPERA AND SKY ARE JUST SITTING THERE SWEATDROPPING LMAOOO!
After three straight minutes of non-stop blood-curdling screaming, Lohan Sterling finally took a deep ragged breath, smoothing down his white silk jacket with trembling hands.
He offered a sneering arrogant smirk toward Etilga’s feed.
"Say whatever you want about my business, Etilga!" Lohan declared loudly, puffing out his chest with supreme aristocratic pride. "At the end of the day, my legacy is completely secured... At least I have a son! A brilliant, high-tier heir who commands respect across the entire Lord faction."
Etilga stopped puffing her cigar.
She slowly lifted a delicate silk-embroidered fan to the lower half of her face, her crimson eyes narrowing into cold razor-sharp slits as she looked at Lohan through her screen.
"A son?" Etilga sneered softly, her voice dripping with pure icy contempt. "Your son Valerius is nothing more than a fragile gold-plated mistake... no different from the others who walk this Earth."
Etilga lowered her fan slightly, exhaling a long plume of grey smoke as her red eyes gleamed with terrifying maternal pride.
"Unlike my daughter..." Etilga stated with absolute, ringing authority, "...who became a Lord from the moment she was born."
Vespera on the other hand blinked beneath her traveler’s hood, her eyes widening in genuine shock.
’Seraphina awakened from the moment she was born?!’
Beneath her traveler’s hood, Silas’s mind slammed into a wall of pure shock as Etilga Bloom’s ringing declaration echoed through the communication channels.
’...who became a Lord from the moment she was born.’
Silas already knew Seraphina was a remarkably talented woman.
During the time in the Sovereign Realm... from her fiery displays of high-tier pyromancy to her arrogant domineering attitude... she had proven herself to be a powerhouse among the new generation.
’Haah... This is more complicated than I thought.’
She certainly had her own share of glaring personality issues, and Silas honestly hoped that she wasn’t holding some deep vengeful grudge against him for accidentally seeing her completely naked during the Secret Realm expedition...
He had resolved to handle all of that delicate drama through Valerius, as he hoped but hearing her mother speak those words right now still caught him completely off guard.
In the modern era of the Sovereign Realm, there were essentially two recognized types of individuals who awakened Cores.
The vast majority of citizens belonged to the standard awakening system. Silas vividly remembered his own awakening back at the Awakening Pantheon in Valoria City... that colossal structure built of polished white marble and dark obsidian where thousands of nervous eighteen-year-old academy students gathered every year.
Standard Lords had to wait until their bodies reached maturity at eighteen before stepping onto the glowing central altar, allowing the ambient spatial energy of the Sovereign Realm to channel through the stone pillars, stimulate their latent mana pathways, and force a Core... whether Red or any higher core to coalesce within their chests.
However, Silas had never personally met anyone who had awakened a Core at the exact moment of their birth, completely bypassing the need for an altar ritual or the physical maturity required to process the Realm’s raw energy.
To awaken as a full Lord from the second she drew her first breath... that meant Seraphina’s soul and physical vessel had possessed such an absurdly dense mana affinity that the Sovereign Realm’s laws had recognized her instantly upon her entry into the world.
’If that’s true...’ Silas mused in astonishment beneath his hood, ’...then that crazy fire girl isn’t just an arrogant noble prodigy. She’s a monster of nature.’
On the left video feed, Lohan Sterling sat in his pristine white silk suit, his manicured fingers twitching against the armrests of his plush chair.
For the first time since the broadcast had begun, the arrogant head of the Sterling Financial Conglomerate seemed genuinely speechless.
His green eyes flickered with a mixture of annoyance and suppressed humiliation.
He opened his mouth, closed it, and then dismissively waved a gold-cased hand toward the camera feed.
"Hmph," Lohan snorted, forcefully clearing his throat and adjusting his silk cuffs. "I shall ignore that ridiculous, unverified claim for now. We are here to conduct a professional inquiry, not indulge in maternal fantasy."
On the right feed, Etilga Bloom let out a triumphant predatory grin.
She took a slow drag from her slender cigarillo, exhaling a thin stream of blue-grey smoke into her luxurious red-velvet room.
That was the divine beauty of having a peerlessly talented daughter.
Being able to rub her child’s superiority directly into the faces of arrogant, money-obsessed rivals like Lohan Sterling was a feeling sweeter than the finest wine.
Etilga’s crimson eyes shifted away from Lohan’s window and locked directly onto the central stream display... focusing squarely on Vespera sitting in her tailored double-breasted suit beside Sky.
Across the network, millions of viewers were already spamming messages calling Vespera a Hero and a mysterious icon of the New Category.
Etilga wasn’t tuning into this broadcast to verify internet rumors or disprove foolish doubts about the Blessed Land.
She was a master politician and a matriarchal conqueror.
She was here to evaluate this mysterious single-armed Lord, measure her value, and secure an advantage for the Bloom Clan.
Suddenly, Vespera felt a genuine ice-cold chill ripple down her spine.
Beneath her hood, Silas’s Golden Core flickered as his senses flared.
Whatever twisted, scheming thoughts were currently brewing inside that crimson-haired woman’s head... Silas didn’t like it at all.
It felt like being stared down by a hungry apex predator lurking in the tall grass.
Beside Vespera, Lord Sky cleared his throat behind his full-face streaming mask, adjusting his designer sunglasses as he looked at the timer running on his stream interface.
"Alright, folks!" Sky announced, waving his hands cheerfully toward the central floating camera drone. "That brings us right to the five-minute mark for our scheduled co-host segment! I know the chat is going wild, but Warlord Vespera is a very busy sovereign ruler, so we’re going to wrap up this Q-and-A right here—"
"Wait," Lohan Sterling immediately interrupted, his authoritative voice cutting through the broadcast speakers.
The billionaire noble adjusted his posture in his marble office, raising a single finger toward his camera feed.
Though his tone was outwardly polite, it carried the rigid weight of a man accustomed to buying whatever time he desired.
"Lord Sky, the stream has barely commenced," Lohan stated smoothly. "The preliminary banter consumed the entirety of the allotted window... I politely request a few extra minutes to conduct a proper, dignified discussion regarding the Blessed Land’s economic standing."
Sky paused, glancing at his interface, then turned his head toward Vespera. With a sly, theatrical shrug of his shoulders, Sky deliberately shifted the entire weight of the decision onto her shoulders.
"Well, Warlord?" Sky asked cheerfully, his voice amplified for the hundred million viewers watching. "The floor is yours. Do we end the stream here, or do you grant our distinguished guests an extension?"
Vespera’s lips thinned into a tight flat line beneath her hood.
Inside her head, Silas grumbled bitterly.
Sky was a master at manipulating media pressure.
On one hand, Vespera could easily decline the extension, stand up, and ride her Blessed Wolf right back into the forest.
However, on the other hand, she didn’t want to ruin her public reputation at all.