“Have you lost your mind, Father?!”

  Dariam’s voice sliced through the air, sharp as a blade.

  “You’re staking the clan’s honor… on that failure?!”

  Beside him, his mother stepped forward like a serpent, eyes full of venom, her once-lascivious posture now consumed by rage.

  “How dare you expose our blood like this?! You may be Patriarch, but even you have no right to throw away the legacy of the Black Sun!”

  A murmur swept across the square. Such insolence was unthinkable.

  Kyros, however, didn’t move. He simply raised his hand.

  His breath shifted — and the air grew heavy, collapsing upon everyone like a storm.

  Then his body began to glow with a radiant light — gold and black intertwined, the aura of the Black Sun, opening like a solar eclipse.

  Silence.

  Even the torches flickered, as if bowing before the Patriarch.

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  His voice fell like thunder.

  “Do you know who you are speaking to?”

  Dariam and his mother paled, their knees trembling.

  The weight of authority crushed them more than any chain.

  Across the crowd, Luiz’s mother chuckled softly.

  “So, my son… what do you think? Will the skinny one win?”

  Luiz smiled, calm as ever.

  “I believe in him.”

  She lifted her chin.

  “Then if he doesn’t, I’ll beat him myself until he stands again. Because now, he doesn’t just carry the Patriarch’s pride — he carries the pride of our entire clan.

  He represents the Black Sun before all of Sorriso.”

  The tension was suffocating… until a crystal-clear voice broke through it all:

  “Go, Lukas! Go, my Chocolatinho!”

  Leli’s shout echoed through the crowd, her hands raised high.

  Lukas nearly tripped over his own feet.

  “By the heavens… she’s calling me that again! Some things never change — even in this timeline! I wish that one had!”

  Morgana laughed inside his head, her voice dripping with honeyed mischief.

  “Oh, that one’s my doing, sweetheart. I cast a tiny spell near the market district. Some girl overheard… and well, she loved it. Word travels fast~”

  Lukas froze.

  “No. No way.”

  From somewhere in the crowd, a peasant woman shouted, laughing:

  “Chocolatinho? Oh, it fits! Look at that skin tone — adorable!”

  And suddenly, the whole crowd joined in, chanting:

  “Chocolatinho! Chocolatinho! Chocolatinho!”

  Alex rose to his feet, his voice booming like thunder:

  “Go on, Chocolatinho!”

  The ground trembled under the roar of laughter and cheers.

  Lukas turned crimson.

  “Leli… you little pest…”

  Alara — Leli’s mother — just smiled, pulling her daughter close.

  “You really love your older brother, don’t you?”

  Leli nodded without hesitation.

  “I do! We’ve got the same skin tone — how could I not like him?”

  Alara chuckled at her daughter’s bright grin.

  “Then go, Chocolatinho… show them what it means to be a Fernandes.”

  The people shouted, the Black Sun burned above, and Lukas’s heart pounded like a drum.

  Between mockery and pride, the entire city of Sorriso now awaited his next step.

  End of Chapter 14