THE SOVEREIGN GOD'S MORTAL VENGEANCE!

8.

A choking silence suddenly engulfed the meeting room. Lucas's question was like a blade of poisoned steel piercing straight into Vyan's pride. The face of the Wine Family Head turned pale instantly before shifting into a deep flushed red, consumed by a burning rage he had never experienced before.

"What are you saying, you ungrateful brat?!" Vyan snarled, his voice trembling violently. Richard's high blood pressure surged instantly.

"You dare question my qualifications as a father?! Without the Wine blood flowing through your veins and the roof of this estate, you are nothing more than a rotting carcass on the roadside!"

Vyan lifted his black rattan cane high, a pair of murderous intents swirling at the tip of that enchanted wood.

"Today, I will break both your legs and arms! Let's see if your slick mouth can still act arrogant after you're crippled!"

BAM!

Before that whip of the rattan could swing down, the double doors of the meeting room were kicked open from the outside.

"FATHER! DON'T JUST BREAK HIS LEGS, KILL HIM! KILL THIS BASTARD CHILD!"

That hysterical roar shattered the tension. Edward stood at the threshold with ragged breathing and a face as pale as paper. His right arm was wrapped in a thick bandage and supported by a sling across his chest, while his forehead dripped with cold sweat from the pain that hadn't fully subsided.

Two family private doctors looked panicked as they tried to hold him back from behind, but Edward roughly brushed them off with his left hand. The arrogant youth's gaze was filled with overflowing, deep-seated vengeance as he glared at Lucas.

"Edward?! Why are you here? You need to rest your injuries!" Vyan said, his hand suspended in mid-air.

"How can I calmly rest, Father?!" Edward shouted as he limped toward the desk. The young man pointed at Lucas with a look of pure hatred.

"Look at my arm! My bones are shattered! This demon deliberately used an iron rod to harm me! He didn't just beat me, Father... he intended to kill me! He is defying the authority of the Wine Family!"

Edward then turned back to look at Lucas with a cunning smirk masked by pain.

"Father, this bastard child earlier blatantly insulted Late Mother and called the Wine Family a gathering of braggarts! He said he would kill you, then me... just to seize the leadership seat of the Wine Family!"

That vicious slander spilled without hesitation from Edward's mouth, intentionally pouring gasoline onto the raging fire of Vyan's anger.

"What?!" Vyan's pupils dilated. His gaze was now entirely filled with cruel torment.

"Good... Truly good, Lucas," Vyan hissed, his voice low and laden with a death threat.

"Turns out beneath your quiet nature all this time, you've been harboring such a base intent of betrayal."

Amidst the storm of cheap provocation that could make ordinary people kneel in terror, Lucas didn't even blink.

He tilted his head, glanced at Edward who was smiling slyly beside his father, and then looked back at Vyan with a gaze full of pity—not for himself, but for the two figures before him who were completely oblivious to the fact that they were playing with a newly awakened dragon.

"Two clowns on the same stage," Lucas muttered softly, the corners of his lips rising into a cold smile that made the hairs on Edward's arms stand on end once again.

"Please, go on with your little play. I want to see just how far the stupidity of this Wine Family can go."

"INSOLENT!"

Vyan's roar instantly shattered the room's calm. The cold tone and insults from Lucas's mouth destroyed the Head of the Family's remaining patience. With his eyes bloodshot from wild rage, Vyan swung the enchanted black rattan cane with all his might, aiming straight at Lucas's head!

SWISH!

The strike sliced through the air with lethal speed, carrying the weight of a blow capable of crushing an ordinary human skull in an instant.

From a distance, Edward smiled with satisfaction from the side, imagining the blood of the one trying to usurp his family's leadership seat staining the mahogany floor.

"Tch! Just a random piece of rattan..."

However, Lucas did not budge. His eyes didn't even flutter for a fraction of a second.

SWISH—CLACK!

In just a split second, Lucas's right hand shot upward with absolute precision. His slender fingers tightly gripped the shaft of the black rattan precisely a few inches above his head. That full-powered strike stopped dead in its tracks, as if its impact had slammed into an invisible steel wall.

The shockwave from the collision whipped Lucas's hair back, but the youth's face remained as calm as an icy lake.

"W-What?!" Vyan's eyes widened drastically. The muscles in his arm strained as he tried to push down or pull back the rattan, but the family's heirloom weapon felt as though it had been embedded in an eternal boulder. It didn't budge even a millimeter.

Lucas slowly looked up, staring straight into Richard's pupils, which were now filled with pure shock.

"For a long time... the old Lucas only survived in that dilapidated room just hoping that Father might spare a single glance, paying attention to my condition," Lucas said in a soft voice, yet laden with the deep-seated pain of the body's original owner.

"But seeing today... instead of seeking the truth and defending me, Father chose to nurture a lie just for your favorite firstborn."

That remark paused briefly. A faint red flash suddenly gleamed within Lucas's pupils...

CRACK! KR-BAM!

The grip of Lucas's fingers tightened. The black rattan cane, renowned for being extremely tough and layered with protective spells, instantly cracked, spreading rapidly like a spiderweb before finally shattering into pieces of wood and black dust scattering through the air.

"I-Impossible.... Ju-Just a hand grip... What ordinary human could possibly do that!" Vyan muttered tremblingly, stepping backward reflexively as the rattan fragments clattered to the floor.

Edward, who was also standing beside him, jolted in panic, his face turning corpse-pale once again.

"De-Destroyed the rattan cane?!"

Lucas now brushed the remaining wood dust from his palms, then continued his statement in a cold tone that thundered to every corner of the room.

"Father... Starting this very second... I, Lucas, officially sever and cut off all blood ties with the Wine Family!"