Chapter 554: Not That You Could Understand [Bonus - ]

Chapter 554: Not That You Could Understand [Bonus Chapter]

The voice was bizarre and hollow, carrying an unnatural sound that seemed to sound from inside the ears of every person at the table rather than through the air.

Every head of state stiffened simultaneously.

Grand Tsar Nikolai Volkov’s frost-dusted brows slammed together in a heavy frown.

President Julian Vanderbilt Senior’s hands paused on his pinstriped trousers, his eyes narrowing in calculation and across the table, Chief Minister Rajesh Varma of Indus lowered his prayer beads, his psionic guard-mages behind him subtly shifting their weight onto the balls of their feet.

A cold uneasy murmur began to simmer in the upper mezzanine.

The identities and capabilities of the five masked Council Heads were among the deepest, most jealously guarded secrets on the planet.

For centuries, their individual power profiles, core refinement tiers, and personal histories had been erased from every library and terminal.

The only thing humanity knew for certain was that they were ancient monsters who had survived the first horrors of the Apocalypse, their lifespans artificially locked by unspeakable cultivation methods.

Nobody knew what elements they commanded and nobody knew what weaknesses they possessed.

’What a pain in the ass...’

It was this lack of actionable intelligence that had kept the World Council untouchable... every Lord or Sovereign who had ever attempted to raise a rebellion had been slaughtered before they could even learn what kind of mana had pierced their heart.

Yet this specific masked figure was widely assumed by the high cabinets to be the Council’s all-seeing eye.

Whether through an ancient divination artifact, an omniscient sensory domain, or an underground network of parasitic informants, he commanded a terrifying near-instantaneous awareness of global events.

’Does this freak see everything?’ Chancellor Henri de Montmirail thought bitterly, his hand tightening around the silver frame of his spectacles as cold sweat beaded behind his collar. ’Or does he just cherry-pick what he reveals to keep the rest of us looking like blind children? If he knows everything that happens across the continents and only opens his mouth when it suits his agenda... what an insufferable bastard.’

The masked Council member did not care about the silent curses directed at his mask.

’Perhaps he’s a machine?’

He continued in that dead mechanical monotone.

"The initial incident report filed with the Valoria City Police Department identified the perpetrator as Harper Whitmore... That designation has been dismantled as video intelligence secured by an independent asset... Lord Evelyn has verified that the entity was an unregistered sand-based biological mimic. The subject’s dermal layer was actively fracturing into loose silt prior to the biological drain and the physical likeness of the corporate executive was merely a stolen shell."

The chamber went dead silent.

A dozen subtle suspicious glances darted across the ring, settling squarely upon Chancellor Montmirail of Europa.

Valoria City sat within Europa’s borders so its infrastructure, its security grid, and its policing fell under the Continental Directorate’s jurisdiction.

Yet nobody dared to openly level an accusation.

You couldn’t realistically hold the President of Europa accountable for a rogue mimic slipping into a luxury restaurant in broad daylight.

You couldn’t even pin the blame on the Mayor of Valoria or the defense wards.

In an era where high-tier Awakeners could warp physical mass and alter their mana-signatures, when a true Rogue Awakened decided to butcher a foreign prince, standard security networks were practically useless.

Menes Al-Mansur raised his right hand with his rings catching the harsh white light.

"I thank the Council for its report," Menes said, his voice dropping into a flat monotone that sounded completely hollow. "However... as I stated, this is a private family matter. A domestic concern of House Al-Mansur. It does not require an international inquest, nor does it concern the governing bodies so proceed with the docket." ℯℯ𝑙.

He leaned back in his star-iron chair with his jaw clenched and his eyes returning to that empty dead stare.

A quiet ripple of unease passed through the surrounding rulers.

Everyone at that table was a seasoned political predator... they could see through the Pharaoh’s bravado in an instant.

If his son had been slaughtered by a common rogue, he would be screaming for Europa’s blood, demanding billions in reparations and trade concessions but to sit there, turning paler by the second, sweating through his gold-embroidered tunic while calling the brutal, desiccating slaughter of his favorite son a "family issue"?

And considering the assassin had utilized sand manipulation... the sacred hereditary mastery of Khemet’s royal line, the implications were quite chilling.

Something was rotting in the southern sands, and Menes was terrified that the World Council would smell the corpse.

The King of the World did not pursue the matter as he tilted his chin with his sapphire eyes turning cold and dismissive.

BEEP!

At the southern arc of the table, Chief Minister Rajesh Varma of the Indus Sovereignty raised his hand slightly with his serene voice breaking the tension.

"Your Majesty," Varma noted, dipping his white-bearded chin with polite poise. "The time on the grand pavilion display has reached the final increment and the staging corridor is primed."

"Thank you, Minister Varma," the King replied smoothly.

The King raised his broad right hand, the heavy star-iron signet ring glinting against the pale skin of his knuckles.

CLACK!

He tapped the ring once against the celestial marble.

VUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!

A vibrant shocking eruption of deep purple mana surged from the point of contact, racing across the smooth stone surface in an intricate spiderweb network of glowing runic filaments.

The rulers around the table, including Vanderbilt and Da Silva, instinctively lifted their forearms from the stone as the table reacted.

The pristine celestial marble warped, its texture shifting from cool, polished stone into a seamless milky-white optical screen that hummed with dense magic.

SHING! SHING! SHING!

Dozens of high-definition glowing rectangular holographic displays snapped into existence, hovering four inches above the marble in front of each throne.

The public broadcast had officially begun.

The feeds displayed multiple ground-level angles of the Great Staging Pavilion and down on the polished steel staging floor, the seventy combatants chosen to represent the Nine Major Powers and the recognized independent houses were lining up in their designated team circles, their armor, robes, and armaments gleaming beneath the blinding arena lanterns as hundreds of millions of citizens across the globe watched the broadcast through screens and private terminals.

The King rested his elbow on the arm of his throne with his chin sinking into his palm and his deep blue gaze sweeping over the floating screens before drifting upward toward the elevated mezzanine box reserved for House Bloom.

His eyes locked onto the crimson-haired woman seated in the center of the box.

"Matriarch Etilga Bloom," the King spoke, his voice carrying effortlessly over the low sound of the holographic arrays. "You observe the staging floor with remarkable composure. Among the assembled scions of our global elite... who do you believe will emerge victorious from the Wastezone today?"

Etilga Bloom did not blink.

The crimson-haired matriarch sat tall in her high-backed chair, her heavy robes of layered burgundy silk cascading over the brass balustrade like flowing blood.

With a languid practiced flick of her slender wrist, she snapped open an exquisite folding fan of black lace and beaten gold, waving it with slow grace before the lower half of her face.

SNAP! SWISH!

A private holographic pane floated directly before her eyes, zooming in on the main waiting hall on the ground level.

There, standing amidst the armored ranks of the young heirs, was Seraphina Bloom.

The young woman was clad in her fitted, crimson-and-black strike cuirass, her twin curved hunting daggers sheathed horizontally across the small of her back and her ruby-red eyes burning with fierce razor-sharp focus as she completely ignored the nervous murmurs of the scions around her.

Etilga smiled behind her fan, her gaze never wavering from her daughter’s silhouette.

"My daughter, of course," Etilga replied, her voice sounding full of certainty.

Every head at the Grand Table turned to look at her.

The King’s sapphire eyes narrowed by a fraction of a millimeter.

"A bold declaration, Matriarch. Even against the warriors of Amazon, the frost-champions of the Tsardom, and the Crown Prince of the Throne himself? Pray tell... what is the foundation of your certainty?"

Etilga lowered her fan by half an inch, revealing full crimson-painted lips curled into a sharp, mocking smile.

Her ruby irises shifted away from the display, locking straight into the King’s cold blue gaze.

"It is an instinct, Your Majesty," Etilga purred softly, her tone carrying the terrifying velvety softness of a silk ribbon wrapping around a throat. "A certainty that an attentive parent feels deep within their marrow regarding the capabilities of their own flesh and blood..."

She paused, letting the silence hang over the assembly like a falling blade, before delivering the final strike.

"Not that you could ever understand such a thing."

SHK!

The King’s pupils violently contracted into microscopic pinpricks and the entire Great Assembly Chamber seemed to violently run out of air.

Julian Vanderbilt froze with his pen suspended three inches from his tablet.

Tsar Volkov stopped chewing the inside of his cheek with his massive frame locking up and even the masked Council Heads tilted their porcelain visages toward the mezzanine in stunned disbelief.

To mock the King’s parenting was an act of unfathomable madness.

Kara White had done so earlier, yes but Kara was a freak of nature, a Second Phase Gold Core who had physically pinned five hundred people to their seats with raw pressure and threatened to pull down the sky.

But Etilga Bloom?

She was merely the matriarch of a noble house... She commanded no continental legions, sat on no throne, and held no top core.

For an ordinary high-clan matriarch to strike the Supreme Monarch across the face with the exact same accusation... publicly, on a live international broadcast feed was suicidal beyond comprehension.

Across the aisle, Lohan Sterling stared at Etilga as though she had suddenly grown three heads and vomited fire onto the carpet.

His hands shook against his gold-topped cane with his mouth opening and closing like a suffocating carp, waiting for the King’s Destruction to vaporize the entire Bloom side into floating ash but the dark void-light did not pool in the King’s eyes and the Star-Iron throne did not shatter either.

Instead, after five excruciating seconds of suffocating silence, a dry chuckle rumbled from the King’s broad chest.

"I see," the King murmured, his voice dropping into a flat deadly tone that promised quiet retribution. "I certainly hope your daughter’s twin blades possess the strength to back up her mother’s tongue."

Etilga did not lower her head.

She merely snapped her fan shut with a clean clack, resting the gold filigree against the hollow of her collarbone, completely unbothered by the aura pressing against her box.

’Let him glare,’ Etilga thought, her pulse remaining completely, deliciously calm.

Her ruby eyes drifted sideways across the floating holographic panes, sliding past Seraphina’s fierce silhouette until the optical feed framed the far northern corner of the staging platform.

There, standing in an immaculate, tailored double-breasted suit of dark charcoal, was Kara White.

The one-armed woman had her right hand buried casually in her trouser pocket with her empty left sleeve pinned neatly to her ribcage, leaning against a pillar while chewing on a dried strip of spiced meat with an expression of unbothered boredom.

Beside her stood the First Princess, shifting nervously from foot to foot in her light gear.

Etilga’s ruby eyes darkened, a slow intoxicating heat flaring deep in the pit of her stomach.

She had been fascinated by the Lord of Blessed Land ever since their first live-streamed media appearance together.

Even during that chaotic public interview, Etilga had been captivated by the power of the woman’s composure, initially scheming to secure Kara through an arranged marriage alliance with Seraphina to elevate House Bloom above the Council.

’Marry her to Seraphina...?’

Etilga’s tongue slipped out between her lips, discreetly tracing the dark gloss from her upper lip behind the concealing lace of her sleeve.

’No... what a tragic waste that would be.’

The memory of Kara standing before the Throne minutes ago... she was so fearless, cruel, and utterly irreverent too, daring the King of the World to strike her down while treating the nine major powers like unranked street vendors... had shattered every polite matriarchal calculation in Etilga’s mind.

’I don’t want that creature for my daughter,’ Etilga mused, a shiver of heat rippling down her spine, making her toes curl inside her velvet slippers. ’I want to keep that magnificent, dangerous monster all for myself~’

It was a twisted scandalous thought, of course.

The woman was barely nineteen... practically the same age as her own daughter while Etilga was a reigning matriarch of high society with a reputation to protect.

’And who on this pathetic earth is going to stop me?’ Etilga sneered internally, her smile widening into something dark and insatiable. ’I am a Bloom... We take whatever we desire...’

Down in the Great Staging Pavilion, the massive overhead clock struck zero with a deep sound.

BZZZZZZZZT!

The combatants gathered across the polished steel staging floor stopped their conversations instantly.

[Author’s Note]

The Discord has been set up! Feel free to come along, the invite link is below...

https://discord.gg/fa72E7e5m