Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1414  Exchange Between Primordial and Goddess

Lilyanna stared into the water mirror, frozen in place. Her fingers rose on their own and brushed the darkened skin along her cheek. The touch was careful, testing, as if she expected it to spread beneath her hand. The surface felt the same. Smooth and warm. It was her skin still for certain, the blight seeming to be purely cosmetic in nature.

"I contained it," she murmured to herself. Her fingertips traced the warped lines where the glow no longer flowed cleanly. "It was but a weak fragment. I crushed it down to a speck!"

Her breathing picked up. She leaned closer to the mirror, eyes tracking every uneven break in the pattern, every place where the light failed to behave the way it always had. Her hand slid up into her hair and drew a lock forward. Pale strands caught between her fingers, dull where vibrant color should have been.

Her shoulders tightened. "So why is it still here?!"

The mirror rippled as her grip on her power wavered. She straightened her spine abruptly, and her head snapped down toward the man resting his head in her lap. The look on her face had lost all softness.

"You!" she growled, voice rising. "You did this to me. Take it back."

Quinlan's smile faded into a tired line. "Take what back."

"The corruption!" she snapped. Her hands clenched at her sides. "Remove it."

"I can't," he replied, voice steady despite the strain in his chest. "I have no control over the Concept of Corruption."

Seeing her hurt expression, Quinlan sighed and lifted his intact hand to her face. The motion was slow and unsteady, shoulder protesting as he reached inward instead of outward. His awareness slipped past flesh and bone and into the familiar internal expanse of his soul realm.

He reached for the seed.

There was no resistance. No hunger. No pressure pressing back against his will.

The corruption seed sat there, dim and inert. Its presence felt distant and hollow, like a nerve that had gone numb. The violent drive it once carried was gone, drained to the point where it barely registered as alive. Whatever struggle it had endured against Lilyanna had left it spent, stripped down to a quiet, unresponsive core.

His hand fell back to the ground with a dull sound. He exhaled through clenched teeth as the effort sent a spike of pain through his chest.

"It's not responding," he said after a moment.

Her jaw tightened hard enough to show in her pale cheeks. "You will regret this."

He watched her for a moment, really looked at her. At the way her fingers kept drifting back to her face. At the stiffness in her posture, the care she took not to touch the blemish again.

When he spoke, his tone had lost its edge.

"It looks like a battle scar, making you appear strong. I like it."

Her stare sharpened further. The Goddess observed Quinlan with eyes that were as unimpressed as possible. "You and your horrible taste when it comes to beauty do not make me feel any better! You keep falling for intense girls all the time."

He gave a small shrug against the ground. "They are simply the best. No dish is complete without sprinkling on spice."

A frustrated sound tore out of her as she turned away, hands balling into fists.

Quinlan didn't press further, nor make fun of her. He might've been a cocky man at times, but making fun of a woman who feels like her beauty has been 'defiled' based on her own words wasn't something he wanted to do. Especially not when said woman was a cosmic entity who looked one bad impulse away from obliterating him.

"Can't you cleanse your skin though? You are still a Goddess of Purity."

"It should already be gone… I have to understand what's happening."

Having said that, she rose to her feet. As a result, Quinlan's head slipped from her lap and struck the ground with a dull thud. He hissed and curled slightly on instinct.

"How about you do it after you heal me…? I am still in pieces over here."

"I am busy!" Lilyanna shot back without turning. Light gathered around her feet and climbed fast, wrapping her form in radiant force. "Do not move."

Then she vanished, space folding shut behind her in a burst of cosmic radiance.

Quinlan lay there staring at the empty space she had occupied, chest rising and falling in uneven pulls. After a few seconds, he let his head sink back against the ground.

"It seems… Even divine women… Are women…" he muttered with a thin voice as his eyes slid closed again.

…

Quinlan's eyes parted a sliver.

The pain was gone.

It registered before thought did. The tearing pressure in his chest had eased into a distant soreness. His limbs no longer screamed at him for daring to exist. Breath flowed deeper, smoother, filling the space that had felt collapsed moments earlier.

He realized he was no longer on the ground.

His body lay prone, suspended in open air, supported by a lattice of pale radiance shaped into a firm, unseen surface beneath him. It held him steady without restraint. When he shifted slightly, the construct adjusted at once, distributing his weight evenly.

He turned his head.

Lilyanna stood beside him a short distance away. Purity gathered at her hands in layered bands. The power of the Goddess moved through him in controlled intervals, cleansing residue and repairing damage as it went. It never rushed. It never faltered. The authority behind it felt refined through the ages of repetition.

Quinlan looked up from her hands and noted, with a wry, inward sigh, that her face looked the same.

The blemish still marked her skin, contained and quiet. Her expression remained calm, though her eyes flicked toward a new mirror of her own making between adjustments, checking it as if the flaw might shift when she was not watching.

Quinlan let out a faint breath that curved into a smile.

"Shh," Lilyanna said sharply, without looking at him. "Do not distract me with your nonsense."

He obeyed, for a while at least, with the smile lingering as he watched her work in silence.

After a few moments, Quinlan got bored and spoke anyway. "You know, Lilyanna-"

"I am Goddess Lilyanna to you," she corrected at once, fingers never pausing.

"You know, Goddess Lilyanna," he amended smoothly, "I feel like we are going to be good friends."

Her gaze slid to him, as wry as possible. "What could possibly lead you to such an ill-conceived thought, Evil Boy?"

"Evil Boy…? It seems you already settled on a nickname." He tilted his head against the glowing support beneath him and grinned. "The best partnerships rarely begin smoothly. We started rough, which let us show our true selves. I learned quite a bit about you today, and, frankly, I am relieved you are not a distant god treating me like an inconvenience."

"But I am? You are a giant inconvenience."

"… I meant that you're not condescendingly smug. You might think I'm an annoying pest, and I can tell that you're having thoughts of disposing of me with every passing moment, but at the end of the day, you're still healing me to the best of your ability."

"…" the Goddess didn't respond.

"You are lively. Divine yet with a personality that we, lesser beings living life on the mortal plane, can relate to. Frankly, I'm starting to like you."

Her hands continued their work, movements fluid and exact. Power flowed with steady rhythm, sealing fractures and restoring function as if she were following an internal map older than worlds.

"The feeling fails to be reciprocated, Evil Boy," she murmured, voice clipped.

Yet even as she spoke, her fingers adjusted minutely, easing pressure around a sensitive internal channel before it could cause discomfort. She noticed his reaction and corrected it without comment.

Quinlan watched the way she carried herself. The angle of her shoulders. The calm discipline behind every motion. Even in irritation, there was care. Even while wounded, her authority never slipped into chaos.

"You have caused me significant trouble… And you continue to test my patience." She blinked at him, confused. "What do you mean you're starting to like me?" "Don't read into it too much. I just have a feeling I wouldn't hate spending some extra time with you."

"I would." "…" Quinlan could only continue smiling. It was not mockery, nor triumph. It came from a quieter place. Curiosity, more than anything else.

She might've been a bratty, impulsive Goddess who decided to kidnap him, but at the same time, Quinlan couldn't help it.

She fascinated him.