The First Patriarch: Streaming My Cosmic Harem

Chapter 33: Chapter 33: Don’t Hate the Player

The sheer, explosive velocity of Rosalind’s incoming strike shattered any illusion of a counterattack.

Azriel’s enhanced cognition could perceive the precise trajectory of her glowing, white-Aether claw, but his unranked, baseline mortal muscles simply couldn’t move fast enough to evade it.

In that split second of pure panic, the deeply ingrained survival instincts of his body’s original owner overrode his brain.

Drawn entirely by muscle memory, his arms shot upward, crossing his gauntleted wrists directly in front of his chest in a desperate, last-ditch guard.

But the modern, unversed Earthling controlling the steering wheel completely botched the execution.

Lacking any real combat experience, Azriel did the one thing no fighter should ever do when facing an apex predator: he tightly squeezed his eyes shut and braced for impact.

That defensive jerk had a disastrous ripple effect.

Because he had frantically snapped his wrists in front of his chest, the heavy Kusarigama chain, which he had just wildly thrown toward the ceiling, abruptly ran out of slack.

The momentum violently halted mid-air, snapping the wicked, crescent-shaped black sickle backward.

It flipped in a deadly arc and began plummeting directly toward the top of his defenseless, blind head.

With his eyes shut, Azriel was completely oblivious to the fact that his own "main character" weapon was about to split his skull open.

Rosalind, however, saw it perfectly.

"Idiot," she hissed in mid-air.

Forced to abandon her devastating forward momentum, Rosalind dynamically shifted her kinetic weight.

Her claw strike vanished, and with a fluid, blindingly fast flick of her wrist, she redirected her open palm upward, striking the descending iron chain just inches above Azriel’s hair.

CLANG!

A sharp, deafening metallic ring echoed through the underground arena as her Aether-infused strike sent the heavy sickle flying harmlessly off to the side, where it clattered uselessly against the volcanic stone floor.

Azriel stood frozen, muscles locked, waiting for the ribs-shattering blow that would send him flying into the wall for a second time.

But the pain never came.

The oppressive, suffocating pressure of her GrandMaster aura slowly dissolved into the damp air.

Cautiously, he opened one eye, then the other.

Rosalind was standing directly in front of him, her arms tightly crossed over her chest.

Her chest heaved slightly from the sudden exertion of saving his life from his own weapon, and she was staring down at him with an expression reserved for an exceptionally dense, borderline brain-dead puppy.

Realizing he was still entirely intact, Azriel’s tense shoulders dropped. He let out a nervous chuckle and flashed a sheepish, hopelessly charming grin.

"Ah... you didn’t hit me, Rose. Does that mean you’re not angry anymore?"

WHACK!

Without a single word, Rosalind raised her right hand and brought her palm down in a vertical chop right onto the center of his forehead.

It didn’t carry any lethal Aether, but the raw, unyielding physical strength of a high-tier demi-human was more than enough to make his vision swim.

"Ouch!" Azriel yelped, instinctively clutching his forehead with his gauntleted hands.

He puffed his cheeks slightly and looked up at her through his messy bangs, deliberately activating the cute, wounded-puppy aesthetic he used to manipulate sponsors in his past life.

"That actually hurt, you know."

Up in his peripheral vision, his system interface began lighting up with a fresh wave of divine activity as the 25,000 goddesses in the chat lost their collective minds.

[Goddess_of_the_West] (Golden): I cannot believe what I just witnessed. He almost decapitated himself with a toy! AHAHAHA!

[Crimson_Fury] (White): NOOO! Why did the Duchess save him?! I wanted to see the tomato prediction come true! He is a public menace to himself!

[Moon_Priestess_99] (Cyan): Look at him rubbing his forehead and looking up like that... oh, my heart.

Seeing him dramatically whining on the floor while rubbing his head, the icy, unyielding mask of the GrandMaster finally fractured.

A soft, genuinely amused smile tugged at the corners of Rosalind’s lips, breaking her cold facade.

She let out a soft, exasperated sigh and shook her head. "Idiot."

-x-

[System Mission Update!]

Target Status: Rosalind’s anger decreased by 40%.

Current Progress: 40% / 100%

System Note: Charisma suppression remains intact. Pure wits and behavioral adjustments are successfully influencing the target.

-x-

Azriel caught the system text flashing in his peripheral vision and internally breathed a massive sigh of relief.

The cute act was working flawlessly.

He didn’t even need his cheat-level charm stat when he had years of toxic internet relationship trends and modern dating psychology floating around in his Earthling brain.

[Crimson_Fury] (White): Wait, look at the Duchess’s face... Don’t tell me she’s actually softening up because he did a little pout?! Are you kidding me right now?!

[Goddess_of_the_West] (Golden): Unbelievable. The matriarchal pride was completely disarmed by a fragile male rubbing his forehead. I am writing a stern review about this on the network boards.

[ThoughtAngel_404] (Red): He accurately gauged that a display of vulnerability would trigger a protective instinct rather than further aggression.

’Don’t hate the player, ladies, hate the game,’ Azriel shot back through the Mental Stream Link, keeping his physical face perfectly locked into his adorable, wounded expression.

’A real master knows exactly when to play the alpha, and exactly when to look like a submissive house pet to survive.’

Ding!

[Lusty_Sera (Golden) has sent a gift: ’5x Enchanted Rose’ (Value: 50 KP)!]

Message: "Fufufu~ You’re doing so well, Az! Keep acting pathetic, it suits you beautifully!"

’Thanks for the toxic motivation, Seraphine,’ Azriel thought dryly as the Karma Points rolled into his account.

"Are you going to stand there rubbing your head all day, or are you actually going to pick up your weapon?" Rosalind’s voice broke through his internal commentary, though the dangerous, crushing weight of her GrandMaster aura hadn’t returned.

She crossed her arms, her golden eyes tracking the heavy black chain lying crumpled on the stone floor.

"For a man who spoke so proudly about having ’personality,’ your execution leaves a lot to be desired."

She let out a sharp, mocking scoff, rolling her eyes as she looked down at him.

"Literally, you men are all the same. You can’t do anything right, you don’t even know how to fight... just a bunch of spoiled momma’s princes."

Azriel slowly lowered his hands from his forehead, ensuring a lingering hint of a pout remained on his lips before he dropped to one knee to retrieve the Kusarigama.

As his black-gauntleted fingers wrapped around the cold iron links, he looked up at her from the floor, tilting his head slightly.

"Can you blame me, Rose?" he asked, his voice dropping into a soft, deliberately vulnerable murmur that easily carried over the stream’s audio capture.

"You’re a GrandMaster, and you’re breathtakingly fast. When you vanished like that, my heart practically stopped. I wasn’t just trying to guard against your attack... I was entirely distracted by how terrifyingly beautiful you look when you’re serious."