Chapter 534: It’s All Business On This Table [Bonus - ]

Chapter 534: It’s All Business On This Table [Bonus Chapter]

The impact rattled the glassware across four desks as the northern ruler stood up, his white dire-wolf fur mantle shifting over his massive shoulders and his gray beard bristling with residual frost-mana.

"Borealis accepts the Sterling proposal!" Volkov boomed, his heavy voice echoing like artillery fire through the chamber. "My men in the frost-trenches are sick to death of receiving Columbian artillery shells that jam in our cannon breeches because some bureaucrat in a pinstripe suit shaved an eighth of an inch off the brass casing to maximize corporate margins! Sterling foundries make good reliable steel! Their ordnance doesn’t crack when the frost-giants charge the perimeter so Borealis allies with House Sterling on this motion!"

Lohan Sterling dipped his head toward the Tsar with a razor-sharp victorious smile playing across his thin lips.

’That’s more money for me~’

"The Sterling Conglomerate will ensure the brave warriors of Borealis have the finest ordnance on the planet, Grand Tsar," Lohan said smoothly.

With the northern superpower throwing its immense military weight behind the deal, Vanderbilt’s objections died in his throat.

The World Council Magistrates nodded in quiet unison with their stylus seals stamping approval into the digital ledger.

Lohan had executed his negotiation with ruthless efficiency, locking down an exclusive raw-material monopoly across the entire northern frontier and securing a military alliance with the Tsardom in under five minutes.

The King’s gaze shifted to the woman seated beside Lohan.

"And Matriarch Bloom?" the King asked, raising an eyebrow. "I understand your house has placed a formal petition on the docket?"

Etilga Bloom did not stand.

She remained seated in her high-backed star-iron chair with her spine rigid as a drawn bow, radiating an aura of blistering confidence that made several surrounding delegates lean back.

Her crimson robes were cut close to her athletic frame, embroidered with burning phoenix threads and her vibrant red hair cascaded over her shoulders like liquid embers.

She carried herself with an imperious temperament... a woman who looked at the rulers of the world as if they were squabbling tenants on her estate.

It was suicidal behavior but if there was anybody capable of pulling it off, it was her.

"House Bloom does not build factories, Your Majesty," Etilga said, her voice smooth but also carrying a dangerous, crackling warmth that made the nearby Council guards sweat beneath their armor. "We hold territory. Specifically... the three coastal mining sectors located in the southern gulf corridor."

A sharp rustle of papers swept through the southern delegations.

"Those three sectors," Etilga continued coldly, her ruby eyes glittering with lethal intent, "have suffered eleven separate pirate breaches and three coastal rift incursions over the past six months alone... The regional prefectures are weak. Their private militias are cowards who retreat behind concrete seawalls the moment a leviathan breaks the surface. House Bloom formally requests the full annexation of those three sectors under our direct martial administration."

"Outrageous!" Prime Minister Sir Arthur Pendelton barked, leaning forward with his cane rattling against the stone. "Those three sectors border the Albion Concordat’s primary southern trade route... You are asking this Council to let a private noble house station an active Lord army directly upon our maritime flank! That is an unacceptable escalation!"

Etilga Bloom slowly turned her head toward the silver-haired statesman as she simply smiled... a slow crescent of a smile that promised complete merciless incineration.

The woman truly did not give a fuck.

"Sir Arthur," Etilga murmured, the air around her chair visibly warping with heat as her crimson mana flared. "If your navy was capable of keeping mutated sea-krakens from chewing through your own cargo freighters, my family wouldn’t have to step in and secure the waters for you... My private Lord army does not retreat nor do we negotiate with pirates. We burn them until the sea boils to steam, and the shipping lanes remain open."

Sitting up in the mezzanine, Seraphina Bloom leaned over the brass railing with her arms crossed, watching her mother with fierce glowing pride.

Beside her, Valerius Sterling shuddered, taking another nervous sip from his smuggled silver flask while muttering about how terrifying the Bloom bloodline was.

Down at the Grand Table, Magistrate Bloom... Etilga’s husband sat silently among the Magistrates.

He didn’t speak but his mere presence as a sitting Magistrate of the highest judicial authority on Earth hung over the table like an immovable iron shield.

The delegates looked at Etilga with genuine awe.

It was partly because her husband’s position gave her immense institutional immunity, but mostly because they respected her confidence and the undeniable benefits of allying with the overwhelming military might of House Bloom.

Governor-General Malcolm Sterling-Cross of Australis leaned forward, rubbing his weather-beaten, scarred jaw with a rough thumb.

"Australis supports the annexation," Malcolm barked with blunt military pragmatism. "My southern convoys lost two supply skiffs to those gulf raiders last month... If Lady Bloom wants to turn those pirate coves into glass and keep the straits open, she has my vote. Better a fiery noble than dead sailors. Australis allies with House Bloom!"

Etilga bowed her head with cool flawless dignity toward the Australis commander.

"A wise decision, Governor-General. Your fleets will enjoy unhindered protected passage through Bloom waters."

With Australis throwing its full support behind her, and with her husband’s silent authority sealing the legal framework, Etilga received exactly what she wanted.

...Both noble titans had executed their business flawlessly.

Aki watched it all from her seat with a tired, hollow quietness behind her ribs.

’Steel, territory, money,’ she thought, feeling the small star-iron necklace resting warm against her collarbone beneath her velvet gown. ’It never changes... The entire world gathered in one room, and all they care about is who gets to bleed the earth dry.’

The King waited until the holographic ledgers dissolved from the center of the ring, leaving the celestial marble clear once more then he unlaced his fingers, shifting his posture slightly.

Princess Kiera remained poised upon his lap, her golden eyes watching the room with placid grace.

His sapphire eyes hardened, sweeping over the assembly with cold command as the air in the Great Assembly Chamber tightened once more.

He leaned forward, his heavy hands resting on the celestial marble.

"And to move on to the next part of the meeting..." the King spoke, his voice echoing off the obsidian walls.

"Forgive the interruption, Your Imperial Majesty."

Every eye at the Grand Table snapped toward the western quadrant.

President Julian Vanderbilt Senior of the Republic of Columbia leaned forward, his massive square-jawed profile illuminated by the stark downlight of the central chandelier.

He was a broad man, built like a shipyard crane, his iron-gray hair combed back with aggressiveness, wearing a charcoal pinstripe suit cut from void-fiber wool that absorbed the light.

On his left pinky, a platinum signet ring encrusted with a raw yellow ether diamond clicked sharply against the marble slab as he steepled his thick fingers.

The King’s sapphire eyes drifted slowly toward the Columbian leader but he didn’t snap.

His eyelids merely dropped by a fraction of an inch... a silent signal that usually made regional governors break out in cold sweat.

"President Vanderbilt," the King murmured. "The Crown was about to open the floor to the territorial dockets... It is rare for Columbia to step out of protocol before the agenda is called."

"Protocol is designed to serve the stability of the realm, Sire," Vanderbilt replied smoothly but he didn’t flinch.

As the supreme executive of the most industrialized capitalist republic on the planet, he operated on the conviction that money, manufacturing, and firepower were the only real gods in human history.

"And stability requires fiscal transparency... Before this assembly turns its gaze toward the unclaimed soil of the northern rifts, the Republic of Columbia must formally address the matter of the Continental Defense Subsidies."

A faint uneasy murmur fluttered through the mezzanine tiers.

Aki’s eyes narrowed.

’The subsidies,’ she thought with her pulse steadying into a cold beat. ’He’s playing his leverage early.’

Vanderbilt reached out with a thick, manicured finger, tapping a series of executive keys on his slate.

BZZZZT!

A massive, golden-hued holographic projection expanded into the air above the Grand Table, displaying a dizzying multi-layered financial waterfall of trade ledgers, raw material shipments, and ammunition distribution routes spanning three continents.

"For the past seven fiscal years," Vanderbilt said, his voice ringing with the authority of a boardroom predator, "the defense of the northern perimeter line... the barrier holding the ice-abominations of the upper trench from flooding the civilized areas has been treated by this Council as a shared burden but the ledger tells a very different story."

He flicked his wrist, zooming in on the ammunition pipelines feeding the frontier forts.

"Currently, the Republic of Columbia underwrites forty-two percent of all heavy ordnance deployed along the permafrost defense trench," Vanderbilt stated, looking directly around the circle, daring any of the other eight rulers to contradict him. "We manufacture ninety percent of the high-velocity tungsten penetrators... We supply sixty percent of the kinetic shield capacitors and over the last three quarters, my government has absorbed nearly four hundred billion Spirit credits in unpaid tariff differentials just to keep the rail-freighters rolling through the winter storms."

He turned his square jaw back toward the King with his expression hardening into cold defiance.

"Now, we sit here today and watch House Sterling receive an exclusive state-backed monopoly over northern foundry construction," Vanderbilt continued, casting a sharp venomous glance at Lohan Sterling, who sat serenely three chairs away, smoothing the silver embroidery of his sleeve. "We watch the United Hegemony receive a twenty-year blanket exemption from imperial maritime duties... Yet Columbia is expected to continue footing the bill for the perimeter’s ammunition reserves without a single adjustment to our raw ether import quotas. That is not an alliance, Majesty."

He took a deep breath.

"...That is an extraction."

The room held its breath.

To speak so bluntly about money in front of the Throne especially after the King had just demonstrated his absolute power of Destruction moments earlier... required either arrogance or immense structural leverage.

Vanderbilt had the leverage.

If Columbia decided to halt its rail-freighters for even two weeks, the northern defense perimeter would run out of high-caliber artillery shells, and Tsar Volkov’s soldiers would be forced to fight Tier-4 frost-giants with bayonets and bare fists.

The King listened without interrupting as he tapped his index finger against his knee... the knee that Kiera wasn’t sitting on.

TAP!

"A compelling presentation, Julian," the King said softly. "You speak as if Columbia manufactures those shells out of civic charity."

The King’s lips curled into a thin smile that made the hairs on the back of Aki’s neck prickle.

"Let us correct the ledger," the King continued, his deep voice slicing clean through the corporate rhetoric. "Columbia manufactures forty-two percent of the northern perimeter’s ordnance because the Throne grants your republic an exclusive zero-tax import corridor for raw abyssal bauxite directly through the central leylines... You sell those tungsten shells back to the northern garrisons at a thirty-four percent markup over baseline fabrication costs. Your domestic syndicates netted over one point two trillion credits in gross dividend payouts last year alone from that ’unpaid tariff differential.’"

Vanderbilt’s jaw twitched, but he held his ground.

"The risks of processing abyssal ore are astronomical, Sire—"

"The Crown does not barter with its arsenals," the King interrupted, his voice dropping into a tone that made the glass flutes on the sideboards ring like tuning forks. "However... I acknowledge the logistical strain upon your western rail networks. Therefore, the Crown will settle the subsidy dispute here and now."

The King gestured casually with his left hand, and a royal cipher stamped itself directly over Vanderbilt’s golden projection, turning the text a deep royal blue.

"The Republic of Columbia’s import quota for refined ether silt will be increased by fifteen percent for the next three fiscal cycles," the King decreed. "In exchange, Columbia will immediately relinquish its proprietary patent locks on the Mark II heavy artillery breeches, transferring the manufacturing schematics directly to House Sterling’s new automated foundries in the northern rail-head... The supply line will be unified. Your profit margins will remain protected, and the perimeter will remain armed. The matter is now closed."

Vanderbilt stared at the blue royal seal hovering in the air.

His eyes flickered with rapid calculation.

A fifteen percent increase in refined ether silt was worth billions on the commercial energy exchange... more than enough to offset the loss of the artillery patent locks, especially since his domestic factories were already pivoting toward high-tier energy weaponry.

The Columbian President slowly lowered his hands, dipping his head in a stiff respectful nod.

"Columbia accepts the terms of the Crown," Vanderbilt said with his voice tightening. "The rail-freighters will continue to run without delay."

"Good," the King murmured with his eyes half-lidded. "Then let us move—"

"There is, however... one additional matter, Majesty."

The King stopped. His eyebrows drew together by a millimeter as the temperature around the dais instantly dropped.

"Julian," the King said, his tone entirely devoid of warmth. "You are testing the limits of my afternoon."

Vanderbilt did not back down.

His broad face flushed a dark mottled crimson with the corporate statesman giving way to an enraged humiliated patriarch.

He turned his heavy head with his eyes burning with undisguised venom as his gaze locked onto the lower guest arc... straight onto Aki.

"It is not a matter of state finance, Sire," Vanderbilt rumbled, his voice shaking with tightly suppressed fury. "It is a matter of basic conduct and roya discipline. Less than an hour ago, in the Grand Rotunda outside these very doors, my only son... Julian Vanderbilt Junior, the recognized heir to the Columbian Executive Board was brutally assaulted."