Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1545  Shameless Fighting Style

They moved.

Isara's chains lashed out before they'd covered five meters. Six golden links split from the lattice and screamed across the basin floor in converging arcs, each one tracking a different target with the precision of a woman who had spent centuries perfecting the art of locking people down.

"[Hex of Decay]!"

Vex's tattoos flared and the curse erupted from her palm in a wave of dark red energy that washed over the three chains targeting Serika. The golden links dimmed, hairline fractures racing through them as the hex ate into the mana holding them together.

The chains didn't break. But they slowed, and the half-second of reduced tension was all Serika needed.

"[Solar Drive]!"

Fire erupted from her feet and she launched forward, closing ten meters in a single stride. Isara's eyes tracked her and a fresh volley of chains snapped toward her center mass with the speed of someone who'd already killed fighters faster than Serika on this very day.

Serika read the trajectories and exploded straight through them. Two chains hit her shoulders and she ripped free before the binding could set, the links screeching against her skin as raw forward momentum tore them loose. A third aimed for her legs and she drove her knee through it mid-stride, shattering the link with the kind of brute speed that Isara's calculations hadn't accounted for.

The chain specialist's expression shifted. The hollow grief that had been sitting behind her eyes since Hargrieve's enslavement and betrayal didn't disappear, but cold professionalism slid over it as she recognized that the tanned woman closing on her wasn't slowing down despite the chains biting into her flesh.

"[Chains of War: Convergence]!"

Every chain in the lattice reoriented. Twelve golden lines snapped toward Serika from every angle, a web designed to lock down every part of her body at once. This was the technique that had held Quinlan himself in the sky. The one that took his elemental repertoire and Synchra's fire to break.

And even that only worked as well as it had because he was an anomaly Isara couldn't prepare for.

These girls, while certainly unique in their own way, were nowhere near as unpredictable or hard to grasp as he was.

"Hey, granny!"

A voice rang out from somewhere to the left, bright and cheerful and completely wrong for a battlefield.

Isara didn't look. Her chains kept converging on Serika because she was a veteran and she knew what a distraction sounded like.

A chain whip cracked toward her flank. Sloppy, telegraphed, the kind of attack a child would throw. Isara deflected it with a flick of her lattice without breaking stride.

But her eyes followed the deflection for a fraction of a second. Instinct. You always confirmed the threat was neutralized.

She saw herself.

A perfect copy of Isara Blackveil, stripped bare, on her knees with her own golden chains wrapped around her body in loops that had nothing to do with combat. The copy's wrists were bound behind her neck, armpits visible, head tilted, lips parted with an expression the real Isara had never made in her life.

The proportions were wrong, however. Kitsara had never seen Isara beneath the armor and had guessed badly on purpose. The breasts sagged like deflated waterskins. The bush between her legs was a wild, unkempt jungle that looked like it hadn't seen maintenance in the full length of Isara's service record.

"You know what they say about women who fight with chains~" Kitsara purred from the copy's lips. "Strict and commanding in the field, but behind closed doors she's begging someone to pull them tighter..."

A vein pulsed in Isara's temple. Her chains didn't falter, her stance didn't break, and her expression barely shifted. But her eyes lingered on the illusion for one second longer than they should have, because somewhere beneath six centuries of battlefield discipline, a woman had just been deeply, personally insulted.

One second was enough.

"[Blazing Fist]!"

Her right hand ignited with compressed solar fire and she drove it into Isara's barrier at point-blank range. The impact cratered the golden lattice inward and sent cracks racing through the defensive formation. Isara staggered, re-formed the barrier, and lashed a chain across Serika's ribs that burned a line of agony from hip to shoulder.

Serika absorbed the hit and swung again. Her left fist caught Isara's hastily raised arm guard and the chain link she'd used as a bracer shattered under the force.

The binding specialist was already adapting. She abandoned the wide lattice and pulled every chain into a tight defensive shell around her body, golden links layered three deep, each one reinforcing the next. Close combat against a chain user of this level was supposed to be suicide because the chains could strike from angles fists couldn't reach, and Isara proved it immediately, a link whipping around from behind Serika's guard and wrapping around her throat from behind.

Serika's windpipe closed. Stars burst across her vision and her hands locked around the chain on instinct, wrenching at the binding with brute force as it crushed inward.

'Don't you dare pull your fire, sweetheart.'

A hex hit the chain around Serika's throat and it corroded. Vex was there, sword cutting through the weakened links while her off-hand poured another [Hex of Decay] into the lattice. The chain crumbled and Serika sucked in air that tasted like blood and smoke.

"From too passive to over eager… General Serika, don't try to do everything yourself," Vex said while already deflecting a chain lash with her blade.

"My bad!" Serika rasped a laugh and drove her knee into Isara's gut.

Isara took the knee, doubled over the impact, and detonated her chains outward in a concussive pulse that hurled both women back. Vex rolled with it and came up sword-first. Serika dug her heels in and slid, the burn marks on her arms and throat screaming, and felt the Solar Fist surge in her chest because the fire didn't care about pain. Pain was fuel. Thyra had taught her that, one broken rib at a time.

Isara re-formed her lattice. Blood ran from the corner of her mouth where the gut blow had ruptured something internal, and her breathing was ragged, but her chains were already weaving back into formation.

"You're strong," Isara said through bloodied teeth. "Both of you."

"What about me, Kinky Granny Who Doesn't Know Ladies Are Supposed To Groom In This Day And Age?"

Kitsara asked and was consequently ignored.

"… But I've held lines against forces that would have ground your little ambush to paste. I held the Villain himself in these chains."

She was right. She was also still standing after taking hits that would have killed most fighters. This woman was a complete combatant who could bind, defend, and counter simultaneously, and she'd walked into a kill box and turned it into a fair fight through sheer adaptability.

Serika glanced at Vex and found the Hexwitch already looking back. A fraction of a second was all they needed.

Serika stepped back.

Isara's eyes tracked the retreat immediately. The tanned woman was disengaging, pulling out of close range while the Hexwitch advanced to take her place, tattoos flaring crimson as mana surged through her channels.

"Interesting strategy," Isara mused, re-forming her chains into a tighter lattice. "Pull back your hardest hitter and send the support forward. You're buying time."

She looked at Vex.

"But if your fire woman retreats, I only need to kill you and the fox whore. Then she's alone."

The pentagram in Vex's eyes blazed to life fully. Crimson light erupted along every tattoo on her body, the curse-lines burning through her skin like channels of molten iron as the Hexwitch class poured raw power into her frame. Her white hair lifted in a wind that had nothing to do with the weather.

"For the first time in my life, I'm referred to as a support. Let me correct that misconception, Kinky Granny Who Doesn't Know Ladies Are Supposed To Groom In This Day And Age. The only person I would play support for is my handsome hubby. All others, I just let them shine momentarily so that when I take over, I shine even brighter."

"Grrr…" Isara growled.

Vex dashed forward.

Isara met her with chains. Three lashed toward Vex's sword arm and two more swept low to tangle her legs, the kind of five-point binding that should have locked down a melee fighter before the first exchange.

Vex cut the first chain out of the air with a stroke that left a trail of crimson decay along the severed links. The second she sidestepped, her body turning with the fluid athleticism of a woman who'd trained under primordial swordmasters. The third caught her blade and she let the momentum carry her into a spin, redirecting the force into a heel pivot that brought her sword around in an arc that sheared through the two low chains simultaneously.

Isara pressed. Fresh chains erupted from the lattice, faster and tighter, punishing every opening in Vex's guard. A link caught Vex across the shoulder and the binding force burned through her armor. Another wrapped around her forearm and she had to hex it off mid-swing, the split attention costing her a half-step of positioning.

Vex was losing ground. Her swordsmanship was elegant and her hexes ate through every chain they touched, but Isara generated new ones faster than they decayed and each exchange pushed the Hexwitch closer to the basin wall.

But Vex was grinning. Holding this ancient bitch off for this long was all she needed to do.

"Only Quinnie gets to call me a fox whore, Saggy Granny. And only in bed or while spanking me."

Kitsara's voice came from everywhere at once.