On the massive, curved display wall, the popularity curve representing Leon’s livestream, which had been soaring toward its absolute peak of 125 million concurrent viewers, suddenly plummeted without warning.
It reset straight to absolute zero.
On the platform’s total traffic monitoring console, the bright red curve tracking active user retention dipped straight down to the bottom at an unprecedented, near-vertical slope.
“No…
no…
this…
this is mathematically impossible…” President Sterling’s face drained of all color instantly.
He staggered backward a step, barely managing to steady his trembling body by grabbing the edge of the master control panel beside him.
His lips were shaking uncontrollably.
“A misunderstanding…
there must be some catastrophic misunderstanding here!
Move!
Find a way to establish a connection with him!
Call him right now!
Dial the contact number he filed in his registration document!
Hurry!” The entire hall fell dead silent for a fraction of a second, before erupting into pure, unadulterated chaos.
The head of the technical department frantically pulled up Leon’s identity dossier, extracted his personal number, and punched it into the terminal with wildly shaking fingers.
Ring…
ring…
ring…
Every single waiting tone felt like a heavy mallet striking directly against the racing hearts of the executives on the floor.
Finally, the call connected, and a calm, clear young voice echoed through the speaker.
“Hello?” President Sterling practically snatched the microphone, speaking in the most submissive and urgent tone he had ever used in his entire professional career.
“Hello!
Mr.
Lin!
I am President Sterling, the General Manager of the Prodigy streaming network!
May I ask…
what caused you to suddenly migrate your broadcast to another platform?” “Is there perhaps some massive misunderstanding between us?
Our corporation has diverted our entire infrastructure to promote you today, and your popularity metrics were on track to secure the absolute number-one spot globally!
Don’t you think—” “Heh.” A sharp, freezing chuckle resonated from the other end of the line, cutting him off mid-sentence.
“You want to know why?
President Sterling, why don’t you take a look at the support logs between my account and your platform’s customer service department from earlier today?” President Sterling froze, a suffocating premonition uncoiling inside his chest like a toxic vine.
He forcefully covered the microphone with his palm, spinning around to roar at the head data analyst next to him.
“Quick!
Pull up every single backend log associated with Mr.
Lin’s account registration!
Customer support tickets, inquiry chat history—display all of them on the central screen right now!” The analyst’s fingers clattered frantically across his mechanical keys.
Within moments, a brief text interaction from the customer support queue was projected onto the main screen, its content blindingly visible to the entire room.
User (Leon): Excuse me, my profile is verified as a Legendary High Grade class.
Why does my stream fail to meet your broadcasting criteria?
The official corporate policy explicitly states that all Legendary classes qualify.
Customer Service (Employee ID 7749): Following an internal review, your specified class does not meet our active promotional guidelines.
User: Could you please specify exactly which guideline it violates?
What is the objective baseline for this decision?
Customer Service: It does not fit our criteria.
That is all.
No further explanation will be provided.
The cold, impatient, and thoroughly dismissive responses felt like consecutive, resounding slaps delivered straight to the faces of every single Prodigy executive standing in the room.
Especially when they tracked the management chain responsible for that specific support division.
When the collective realization clicked, a thousand eyes locked onto the absolute rear of the crowd, pinning the bald Supervisor Miller.
His face was entirely ashen, his body shaking like a leaf caught in a gale.
President Sterling’s face warped from pale white to an ugly green, before settling into a deep, murderous black.
The veins on the back of his hand gripping the microphone bulged aggressively, yet he forcefully suffocated his exploding rage to salvage the corporate disaster.
“Mr.
Lin!
This…
this is definitively an isolated error committed by a few lower-level rogue employees!” “The poor professional attitude of a few low-tier bureaucrats absolutely does not represent our corporate ethos!” “I offer you my most sincere, absolute apology!
Our firm is prepared to offer any tier of financial compensation you desire!
Please, just grant us another opportunity!
I personally guarantee—” Beep…
beep…
beep…
A harsh, hollow disconnect tone cut off his frantic pleading.
“Mr.
Lin?
Mr.
Lin?!” Sterling screamed into the microphone to no avail, before his arms went limp, dropping into his chair.
He understood completely now.
The teenager had done this entirely on purpose.
Leon didn’t care about whatever financial restitution or premium contracts Prodigy could offer.
What he wanted was to watch the Prodigy network suffer a catastrophic, multi-million dollar downfall right at the absolute zenith of its investment cycle, right when they had gambled their entire global infrastructure on his traffic.
This was a flawlessly calculated, brutal act of revenge.
But what could he even do about it?
He was entirely powerless to retaliate.
He didn’t even dare harbor a single thought of striking back.
Leon was a future pillar of humanity, a supreme talent commanding a verified Mythic-tier asset who was currently being aggressively pursued by the highest military and political forces of the human race.
Forget destroying a mere streaming company; even if Leon publicly stated he wanted the Prodigy platform erased from the stock market tomorrow, a hundred rival conglomerates would happily dismantle it just to curry favor with him.
And it was all because of that bald, blind idiot.
The degenerate had actually kept an explosive administrative failure like this a complete secret from executive management.
Sterling snapped his head upward, his bloodshot eyes scanning the room like a ravenous beast before locking onto Supervisor Miller, who was actively attempting to dissolve into the shadows of the doorway.
“Security!
Drag Supervisor Miller over here right this second!” Sterling’s voice was hoarse and freezing, every single syllable scraping out from between his gritted teeth.
Two massive corporate bodyguards immediately stepped forward, ruthlessly seizing the limp, weeping Supervisor Miller and dragging him across the floor to drop him before the general manager.
“President!
President Sterling!
This is a complete misunderstanding!
An absolute mistake!” Miller wept hysterically, tears and sweat pouring down his face as he clawed desperately for a baseline excuse to survive.
“It was that low-level support agent!
The representative handled the ticket entirely on their own initiative without filing it!
This has absolutely nothing to do with me!
At worst, I am merely guilty of minor administrative oversight!” Smack!
A savage, heavy backhand landed squarely across Miller’s face, instantly obliterating the remainder of his excuses.
The kinetic force of the impact caused Miller to spin halfway around before crashing hard onto the carpet.
His cheek ballooned into a heavy purple swelling as a thick stream of dark blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.
President Sterling looked down at him, his gaze entirely devoid of human warmth, packed with an unyielding fury.
“Do you take me for a complete fool?
Administrative oversight?” “Without your explicit, systemic directives, would a common entry-level customer support representative ever dare to reply to an officially certified Legendary application with that level of hostile arrogance?” “More importantly, after realizing the magnitude of what occurred, you deliberately chose to falsify records and conceal the situation from the board of directors.
Zhang Degui, you are going to take the full, legal brunt of this disaster!” “The corporation’s legal division is going to sue you into the absolute dirt.
Prepare your family to file for total bankruptcy to compensate for our lost market capitalization!” “No…
please, President Sterling!
Have mercy!
I’ll never do it again!” Miller wailed in absolute despair.
He knew with absolute certainty that his professional career wasn’t just dead; his entire life was functionally over.
To placate Leon’s anger and salvage a fraction of their public reputation, the corporation would systematically grind him into powder, ensuring he could never breathe easily in society again.
Meanwhile, at the corporate headquarters of the Starry Sky streaming network.
The ambient atmosphere here stood in razor-sharp contrast to the corporate funeral unfolding over at Prodigy, representing a literal transition from hell straight into heaven.
“Move, move, move!
Get those servers online!
Everyone, clear your schedules!
Channel all corporate infrastructure and unlimited network traffic into Broadcast Room 9527 right now!” The grand director of the Starry Sky platform was so wildly excited his entire face had flushed a deep crimson.
His voice shook uncontrollably, vibrating with an unprecedented wave of corporate euphoria.
“Technical division!
Reroute our highest-specification mainframes and dedicated routing arrays to his node!
Marketing!
Abandon every other active promotional campaign and clear our entire mobile homepage for his banner!
Launch a mandatory global push notification across all associated social media networks immediately!” “Broadcast it to the world!
Leon, the Legendary Beast Tamer commanding the Poetry-Reciting Blademaster, has officially chosen Starry Sky as his exclusive home!” The entire Starry Sky corporate apparatus operated as if it had been injected with a massive dosage of high-grade adrenaline.
Employees were sprinting down corridors, screaming directives, and over-clocking terminals like madmen.
The long-standing frustration of being ruthlessly suppressed and squeezed out of the market by the two industry titans, Prodigy and Gears, for many years was transformed within a single fraction of a second into an unparalleled, frantic engine of operational drive.
They recognized a golden, once-in-a-generation corporate opportunity to execute a high-speed maneuver around the curve, overtaking their rivals to capture the absolute top of the global industry.
A mere few minutes later, the exact millisecond Leon re-established his transmission uplink within his brand-new Starry Sky broadcast room, the tidal wave of netizens who had been waiting impatiently in the directory poured into the channel like a catastrophic tsunami.
[User: ‘Hang Capitalists from Streetlamps’ has entered the channel.] [User: ‘Stirring the Pot in a Downpour’ has entered the channel.] [User: ‘Little Ming’s Dragon Turtle’ has entered the channel.] [User: ‘Miracle Walker is Still Farming’ has entered the channel.] [User: ‘Black Stocking Cockroach’ has entered the channel.] The exact same familiar usernames flashed across the entry log, carrying the same chaotic, unhinged community energy, but the sheer volume of incoming unique users was several times larger than his original pool.
Within less than two minutes of hitting the go-live switch, the concurrent viewer counter violently smashed past the three hundred million milestone, and the number continued to skyrocket at a rate of millions of active entries per minute.
The comment feed exploded like a synchronized fireworks array at a national celebration.
“First!
I’m officially first!” “From this historic day forward, the Starry Sky network is my primary app!” “Prodigy actually had the absolute stupidity to offend God Lin?
I’ve already uninstalled that trash from my device!” “Let’s get it started!
I am losing my mind waiting to see the next combat performance of my Poetry-Reciting Blademaster!” “What kind of monsters are spawning in the third wave?
I can’t wait!” Leon nodded in silent satisfaction as he tracked the analytics.
The traffic volume inside his new Starry Sky room completely eclipsed his previous records on Prodigy, backed by a significantly smoother and more stable bitrate configuration.
Right at that exact second, the final challenge of his initiation trial materialized.
[System Notification: Phase 3 of the Initiation Trial has commenced!] [Objective: Survive the catastrophic assault of the high-tier elemental spirit, the Fire Dragon Emperor, for ten minutes.]