Chapter 2516 / Chapter 2517

While Vita and Sparkle were exchanging heated words, everyone else around them fell into a collective silence.

The insults were incredibly vulgar.

Although she didn't utter a single swear word, Sparkle's words were incredibly insightful and to the point.

However, Vita still didn't go on stage; she just gritted her teeth and suppressed her anger.

Seeing that Vita had actually held back, Sparkle's eyes flashed with surprise, but then the smile on her lips deepened.

"Oh dear, speaking of which... is our Vita a good woman or a bad woman?" Sparkle put her index finger to her lips, pretending to be deep in thought.

"What are you trying to say now?" Vita's tone was full of vigilance.

"It's nothing, I just wanted to give a fair and objective evaluation of Sister Little Vita." Sparkle's tone was extremely innocent.

"I bet your next line will be, ' Vita is a good woman? Don't make your sister Vita laugh,' right?" Vita sneered.

"How could that be? As Vita's best friend, of course I want to say— Vita is a bad woman, don't make your Vita sister laugh." Sparkle slowly shook her head, speaking in a affectedly sentimental tone that gave one goosebumps.

"Huh?" Vita glanced at Sparkle with some surprise.

"After all... as the oldest member of our Friends Circle, yet only ranked behind Little Herta. Such chastity, of course she's a good woman. Bad women wouldn't end up so miserable," Sparkle said sarcastically.

The people around gasped in unison.

Only those who truly understand Friends Circle know how hurtful Sparkle's words are. She doesn't explicitly mention the pain points, yet every word relentlessly grinds down on them.

As expected, just as Sparkle had predicted, Vita slowly clenched her fists at her sides, lowered her head, and her shoulders trembled slightly.

"Oh, Vita, why do you look a little unhappy? Am I not telling the truth?" Sparkle tilted her head and asked innocently.

"..."by Vita.

"Oh, right, I was referring to the order of the names. What If there's Great Herta, Herta, and Little Herta, then the 'Little Herta'... could it be called Vita? It's hilarious."

"Enough," Vita's voice rang out again.

"Huh? Is Vita finally angry? Then come on up! Let's have a showdown!" Sparkle's eyes lit up, and she opened her arms in a welcoming gesture.

Vita slowly raised her head, her red eyes indeed burning with anger, but a smile suddenly appeared on her lips.

Vita put one hand in her pocket and extended the other towards Sparkle, palm facing forward, making a classic gesture of refusal.

"But I refuse. One of my favorite things is saying 'No' to arrogant people," Vita said with a playful tone.

Sparkle was stunned for a moment, clearly not expecting Vita to be so patient.

"Instead of thinking about competing with me... you should worry about yourself first." Vita laughed instead of getting angry, a meaningful smile appearing on her gray-haired, red-eyed face.

Vita calmly raised her hand, her slender fingers pointing towards Sparkle's side.

Sparkle's smile paused slightly, a puzzled look appearing on her brow, before she looked in the direction Vita was pointing.

The smoke and dust had dissipated without anyone noticing.

The Iron Tomb fist that had just slammed down had slowly retracted, leaving a terrifying crater several meters deep on the stage floor where it had landed, with cracks spreading outwards from the bottom of the crater.

In this gradually clearing view, a figure that should have collapsed and disappeared completely still stood in the center of the stage, unharmed.

Spark, who should have been completely crushed into Sparkle by the Aeon- level Iron Fist, was now "existing" on the stage in an extremely bizarre form. Her entire body had been smashed into a 2D painting as thin as a cicada's wing, flattened and pasted on the ground, like a comic book character that had been pressed flat by a great force.

Although the other party has indeed been smashed into a piece of paper... in a sense, it can be said that they are completely unharmed.

Just as Sparkle was still processing what was happening, the piece of paper stuck to the ground moved.

The eerie 2D artwork slowly rose from the ground, and the paper-like Sparkle put its thumb into its mouth, its cheeks puffed out, and it made a gesture of blowing hard.

"Puff!"

With an exaggerated inflation sound, Sparkle's body instantly returned to its original shape, like an inflated balloon.

The limbs snapped open in mid-air, the joints making a few crisp popping sounds as they reset, and finally the feet landed steadily on the stage floor.

Sparkle raised her hand and patted off non-existent dust from her body, then twisted her neck and stretched her shoulders. Her clothes, hair, and skin were all perfectly intact.

"Oh? I did think you could survive this attack. After all, you're my copy, so you should have some skills. But... why are you completely unharmed?" Sparkle looked at the unscathed Sparkle with some surprise, a genuine look of astonishment flashing in her eyes.

Sparkle paused slightly, then shifted her gaze from Sparkle to the towering Iron Tomb robot behind her.

Could it be that the Iron Tomb is bugged?

Sparkle didn't answer immediately; she just kept her head down, her shoulders trembling, as if she were enduring something.

"Hehe... hehe..." A low laugh escaped from Sparkle's mouth, starting as a restrained chuckle, then a suppressed laugh, and finally turning into an unrestrained, loud laugh.

"Huh? Finally couldn't hold back and went crazy?" Sparkle tilted her head, looking at Sparkle with a kind gaze.

"Origami University Anniversary! I've put in so much effort, put together so many performances, and held this event for so long, all for this moment!" Sparkle suddenly raised her head, spread her arms, and faced all the servers, all the audience, and all the cameras on the entire playground, shouting with all her might.

The moment the words left her lips, a dazzling golden light suddenly burst forth from Sparkle's body.

That was neither an attack nor a defense.

That was the Wish Power. Pure, the Wish Power formed from the expectations and cheers of countless people.

From the moment the server opened, the students, teachers, and audience members on the playground who were looking up at the stage all had tiny golden specks of light appear on their bodies, surging towards the Sparkle.

From countless seats across countless servers, the same golden light simultaneously rose into the air.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the internet, in front of the screens of hundreds of millions of viewers watching the school anniversary celebration through the live stream, their Wish Power were also extracted.

Countless golden rays, as fine as hair, flowed upstream along the network signal path, surging from every corner of New Penacony into the Origami University server cluster, merging into that golden torrent.

For tonight's school anniversary celebration, Sparkle has carefully prepared more than a dozen programs.

Chapter 2516

Every program, every applause, every cheer... all of it, in this moment, in the form of Wish Power, returned to the host who had worked hard on the stage all night.

Sparkle spread her arms wide, gazing up at the torrent of Wish Power surging in from all directions like a tidal wave, her smile radiant and arrogant.

Fools are mad, in the Tavern, where my Sparkle are, there is heaven.

The entire audience at tonight's school anniversary celebration is Sparkle's trump card.

"So you're using this stage as the center of the entire school anniversary celebration's Wish Power, and then using your role as the host to absorb the Wish Power of all the audience members?" Sparkle was stunned for a moment when she saw this scene, then frowned, her tone carrying a hint of surprise.

It's not surprising that Sparkle could see this, after all, Sparkle is the essence of Sparkle, and Sparkle understands the working logic of things like Wish Power better than anyone else.

Just as Sparkle revealed this, a cold laugh came from below the stage.

"Hey, hey, hey, really? Is this all the guy who stole my cartridge is? He doesn't even understand the most basic settings? He's been in my backstage for so long." The Great Silver Wolf crossed his arms and mocked in a condescending tone.

Although the Great Silver Wolf had lost all the power of the Aeon of Joy, its arrogance, ingrained in its very bones, remained undiminished.

"Please, I'm just a Masked Fool, how could I possibly understand that code?" Sparkle rolled her eyes, somewhat speechless.

Sparkle genuinely knew nothing about this.

As Sparkle herself said, she is neither a hacker nor a programmer.

As for Iron Tomb... Iron Tomb might know. After all, Iron Tomb has been behind the scenes for so long, its understanding of server architecture is probably deeper than anyone else's.

The problem is, Iron Tomb's brain is gone.

Iron Tomb is a machine, a weapon, Servant. It hasn't even fully developed a brain, let alone the ability to proactively analyze or report. Unless Sparkle asks, Iron Tomb cannot tell Sparkle about this.

If Sparkle didn't know about this, why would she ask Iron Tomb about it?

Therefore, it's not necessarily a good thing that Servants are completely obedient to their Masters, don't think for themselves, and only faithfully carry out orders.

Although she was tricked due to the information gap, Sparkle quickly suppressed the surprise on her face, put her hands on her hips again, and looked at Sparkle.

"Alright, alright, so what other cards do you have up your sleeve? Just show them to me," Sparkle said calmly.

"That's exactly what I was thinking." Sparkle crossed his arms and looked at Sparkle with great confidence.

"But before that, I'd like to ask, how did you know I could survive that punch from the Iron Tomb?" Sparkle asked curiously.

"No way, you think I'd tell you such important information?" Sparkle crossed her arms and tilted her head to look at Sparkle.

"Oh, I remember now. Besides inheriting the Servant I transferred to you and becoming your Master, you yourself... are also a Servant, right?" Sparkle suddenly realized.

At this point, Sparkle's gaze suddenly turned to the audience below the stage. To be precise, it turned to Firefly, who was standing next to the Twelve Chrysos Heirs.

Startled by Sparkle's suddenly meaningful gaze, Firefly instinctively shrank back and then awkwardly waved at Sparkle.

"And you also took advantage of the mechanics of turning this stage into a game screen using the cartridge, right?" Sparkle followed up with another question.

Sparkle slowly raised her head to look at the gamified interface above the stage, and at Sparkle still full health bar on the interface.

Sparkle pursed her lips, turned her face away, looking displeased but saying nothing.

Seeing Sparkle's expression of "being hit where it hurts but not wanting to admit it," Sparkle knew she had guessed right.

Given the current size of Iron Tomb, after using the power of the cartridge to forcibly transform this stage into a game interface, under the influence of the game mechanics, that full-force attack should have knocked Sparkle to her knees with a single punch. But Sparkle overlooked one thing.

Sparkle's true identity is that of Imagenae Heroic Spirit summoned based on the resentment of countless masks towards her, and modeled after the image of Sparkle that she herself drew.

This means that there is a high probability that one of the Heroic Spirit attributes of Sparkle is a special attack effect on Sparkle herself.

Just like how Iron Tomb, which hadn't reached the Aeon level, was able to successfully usurp the Great Silver Wolf's card, which had already reached Lv1000 and entered the realm of gods, by virtue of its special attack against Aeon of Joy.

Within this New Penacony created by Chen Li using Miracle Cards, all the Heroic Spirits ' attributes were amplified, achieving a true situation where special attack was paramount.

The reason Sparkle had Iron Tomb use the power of the Gadgets to turn the battle from three-dimensional to two-dimensional was precisely to guard against Noble Phantasms that Sparkle might possess that could threaten Sparkle.

In the real Holy Grail War, special attack is indeed paramount. However, under the mechanics of FGO, having a special attack attribute at most only results in dealing 1.5 times or more more damage.

Just because your Noble Phantasm has a special attack against the opponent doesn't mean you can one-shot the boss.

However, Sparkle forgot one thing... After changing reality into a game mechanic, Sparkle could use her status as Servant to have her Master use Command Spell to revive her.

It's even possible that the punch didn't actually hit Sparkle, but that Sparkle's Master had her use "Evasion" beforehand.

It rose to prominence through the gaming industry, and it also fell from grace.

"So what? That attack was just a normal attack against Iron Curtain. And how many Command Spell does your Master have left to squander?"

Having figured all this out, and seeing the undisguised smugness on Sparkle's face, Sparkle curled her lip, her tone still carrying arrogance.

"You're right." Sparkle nodded unexpectedly, then abruptly changed the subject, turning to the camera above the stage.

"But! My dear viewers! My lovely viewers in the live stream! Please listen to me!" Sparkle clasped her hands together, pressed them against her cheeks, tilted her head, and shouted in a pitiful tone.

"Everyone see this! This is Sparkle! This is my true form! This is my cold, ruthless, and heartless true form!" Sparkle pointed at Sparkle with her finger while pressing the back of her other hand to her forehead, making a gesture of utter despair.

"Do you know? On the very first day I, Hua Hua, was born, she abandoned me! On the very first day! She didn't even feed me! She just left me in Penacony to fend for myself!" Sparkle's voice grew louder and more agitated, and two bright tears even welled up in her eyes.

"I was abandoned from birth! I have nothing! No Remembrance, no past, only resentment! It is all of you viewers who supported me! It is you who gave Hua Hua a reason to live!"

"Poor little Hua Hua, she has been destitute since childhood, supporting herself by working for the Origami University to earn Credits, and surviving until now by hosting the school's anniversary celebration to accumulate Wish Power."

"And now! This woman who abandoned me! She actually brought a giant iron figure, taller than Star-Crossed, to beat me up! A weak streamer who can't even kill a chicken! Is this reasonable? Is this fair? Is this what a mother should do to her own daughter?" Sparkle stomped her foot hard as she spoke, pointing at Sparkle and tearfully accusing her.

"..." Watching Sparkle's tearful performance on stage, Sparkle's lips twitched.

"Completely weak? That's not what you said when you hit me on the head with Poké Ball."

And who is your mother?

But the audience clearly didn't care about logic.

"That's so tragic! Hua Hua is so pitiful!"

"Sparkle, you're not human!"

"Support Hua Hua! Down with Sparkle!"

Upon hearing these cries, Sparkle immediately switched from "sadness" to "gratitude," clasping her hands tightly to her chest.

Thank you everyone!

Chapter 2517

Thank you all for your support! Every word of encouragement from you is the motivation for Hua Hua to keep fighting! So... please! Please continue to lend me your strength! Let me use our Bonds and friendship to defeat this cold-blooded and ruthless Masked Fool!

Sparkle made a big heart shape with her hands towards the camera, tears and smiles blooming on her face at the same time.

Following Sparkle's heart-wrenching display of sympathy, a new wave of Wish Power surged forth once more.

Golden specks of light surged in from all directions, denser and more vibrant than before.

The sympathy of the audience stirred by Sparkle's accusations, the enthusiasm of the fans infected by Sparkle's smile, and even the onlookers who simply found it exciting and entertaining—all their Wish Power were transformed into tangible power and poured into Sparkle's body at this moment.

This is precisely the skill that Sparkle possesses as Imagenae Heroic Spirit— [Imagenae] A++.

Absorb "attention," "popularity," and "emotional fluctuations," transform them into Wish Power, continuously strengthen your own attributes, and elevate your Spirit Origin.