My Taboo Harem!

Chapter 952: Blade by Phei: Charm Speech Dominate, The Horrified Marcus

Like sharp iron towers forged for gods too arrogant to accept the earth beneath their feet, the skyscrapers of Paradise pierced upward into the silver-veined night, stabbing toward the heavens with that glittering illusion of dominance rich cities loved to wear before the unreachable height of the sky humbled them into silence.

They could not touch the clouds no matter how violently they reached, could not bruise heaven no matter how many floors they stacked beneath themselves, yet their artificial radiance still fought beautifully against the dark, pouring gold, silver, blue and violet into the cold upper air until the would-have-been black skies above Paradise became something sculpted, expensive and almost holy in the most financially offensive way imaginable.

The glass walls of those towers stood menacingly beneath the night, black and reflective, each pane catching fragments of light while resisting the cold sky like polished armor worn by giants too vain to admit the heavens remained beyond them.

Attached to those towers, positioned lower where humans could watch without stretching their necks into early medical tragedy, massive screens burned against the architecture.

On every one of the screens, a boy could be seen seated beneath garden lights on a cliff mansion stage, though calling him a boy felt almost disrespectful when the camera loved him with such shameless devotion.

Teenage god was more accurate, or at least close enough for the viewers who had forgotten how to breathe properly whenever his face appeared under the lights.

Phei Ryujin Tiamat sat with effortless composure before a sweating anchor who had begun the night believing himself the hunter and now looked like he had discovered mid-performance that the deer owned the forest, the rifle and possibly his mortgage.

Behind Phei, the dark crystalline stage walls played evidence after evidence like willing accomplices to his flawless truths, each image and video arriving with such cruel obedience to his voice that the broadcast felt less like an interview and more like reality itself had been summoned as a witness. His smooth, soothing Charm Speech laced voice flowed from every tower screen around Paradise, synchronized across the city until sound arrived from all directions at once, weaving through streets, plazas, elevated walkways, private balconies and club entrances like a domain taking shape.

It was not merely being heard. It surrounded people, claimed them, settled over the gold-blooded skyline with the calm authority of a godlit boy dragging truth with teeth into the open: each word he spoke was believed and the more he spoke the more people gathered to watched; invited by barely what he was saying but his voice.

Charm Speech!

It was unusual to see the filthy rich of Paradise standing outside in clusters like common pilgrims, eyes lifted toward public screens with the same helpless intensity ordinary citizens usually reserved for disasters, celebrity scandals and collapsing markets.

Yet there they were, scattered across the high districts in shimmering crowds, heirs wrapped in designer coats, business magnates with drinks forgotten in their hands, women in diamonds standing beneath cold light while their chauffeurs waited uselessly beside open doors, all of them glued to the screens as Phei spoke.

Each truth he revealed made eyes widen. Each piece of evidence made lips part. Each name, document, payment trail or hidden recording struck the city like another bell rung for the dead reputations of families who had believed themselves too high to be dragged into public weather.

His voice became strange in that atmosphere, almost priestly, though calling Phei a priest felt insulting to every religion that had managed not to weaponize cheekbones:

He sounded like a god performing an exorcism over the world, forcing evil things out from behind curtains of money and politeness, driving lies from their comfortable hiding places while Paradise watched with the horrified fascination of people realizing the demons had been hosting charity galas for years.

Familiar faces could be seen among the crowds, or at least popular and powerful ones, those whose names moved quietly through banks, boards, agencies and families with more inherited arrogance than moral hygiene.

They stood watching because what Phei revealed tonight touched the strings of Earth itself.

He was not merely attacking a few corrupt names. He was speaking against the rulers behind their rulers, and those whose empires depended on those same rulers could not simply remain at home and pretend the private screens in their mansions were enough.

They needed to see others watching too, needed confirmation that the nightmare was communal, needed, perhaps, the foolish little comfort of hoping against hope that this was somehow all a lie.

On the third floor of a high-end club where bass music throbbed below like wealth trying to remember it still had a pulse, Vice Principal Ashworth stood near the window with a beer glass in one hand and a smile that did not belong anywhere innocent:

From where he stood, he could see the crowd gathered in the street below, hundreds of expensively dressed people motionless beneath tower light, all staring upward at the enormous screen fixed to the building across from them.

Inside the club, even the dancers had slowed. Even the men pretending not to care had angled their faces toward the broadcast. Phei’s voice poured through the massive interior screen above the bar, calm and devastating, and Ashworth took a slow sip as if tasting not beer but the first clean breath of a plan finally surviving contact with the world.

The old man smiled at his handiwork, and then at the boy who had made the impossible part of it seem almost casual.

"I must make it worth his while," Ashworth murmured, the thought carrying warmth beneath its calculation. Phei had given him more than cooperation tonight:

The boy had become the blade, the storm, the beautiful public catastrophe Ashworth needed but could never have created alone without drowning in legacy retaliation before sunrise.

For that, the old man would owe him properly, and Ashworth was old enough to understand that debts to monsters with pretty faces should be paid generously before they became creative.

He lifted his gaze once more to the screen before speaking softly, more to himself than to anyone nearby.

"That’s enough, Emily. Thank you."

***

The same scene unfolded across Hell’s Paradise Island, though there the atmosphere was colder, quieter and far more dangerous. The public screens carried the broadcast across the city districts, gathering crowds beneath towers, outside hotels, along luxury promenades and near private club entrances, but the true weight of the night did not gather in the streets; it settled inside mansions, behind guarded gates, within penthouses where legacy families watched from their homes with silent faces and expensive fear.

Those families did not need crowds to understand what was happening.

They knew exactly how much of Earth’s stability was built on the belief that certain names could not be exposed without permission.

Tonight, Phei was proving permission had become optional:

Among the horrified lookers was Marcus watching his plan not only falling apart but the debris were now crushing him with the weight of Everest.

He knew he was going to suffer consequences for this, so was his family. But before he did, someone he had to pay for her failure.