Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1557  Beneath the Earth

A short bit ago…

One hundred meters beneath the battlefield, Quinlan Elysiar sat in the dark.

The pocket he'd carved was large enough for his body to occupy it comfortably. He floated at its center with his legs crossed and his palms resting on his knees, suspended by a gentle cycling of wind that kept him motionless in the pitch black.

His eyes were closed.

They'd been closed since the fight began.

The mana flowing out of him climbed upward through a hundred meters of compressed soil and rock, threading through the earth in channels that split into dozens of hairline veins as they neared the surface. They surfaced beneath the decoy's feet and fed into the illusion from below, pouring elemental energy into the projection that Kitsara's detached tail wore like a skin.

It was, without a doubt, the most intricate application of his magic he had ever attempted.

Channeling fire through a hundred meters of earth and stone while keeping the output stable enough to look natural at the surface was like trying to thread a needle while someone violently shook him by the shoulder.

Every element had to travel the full distance, maintaining coherence through layers of rock that wanted to absorb it, dissipate it, or redirect it along the path of least resistance. Wind was the worst. Wind wanted to scatter the moment it left his hands, and forcing it through solid earth required a constant pressure that ate mana like a furnace ate kindling.

He sat perfectly still while his mind fought a war.

<Quinnie, she's doing the creepy eye thing again.>

Kitsara's voice rang through the [Master's Link].

<The elements in her irises are spinning just like they did in yours before the slutty succubus knelt and you consumed her. It's actually kind of pretty if you ignore the crazy.>

<Focus.>

He couldn't speak out loud, for a hundred meters of earth separated them. Everything went through the link.

<I am focused! I'm - well, my tail is - standing here being you, looking all sexy, handsome, and really badass while I am cursing the ever living shit out of this mad cunt.>

<…Move the left hand. She's about to probe with wind.>

Kitsara moved the decoy's left hand, and Quinlan felt the shift through [Overlord's Eyes] as the illusion adjusted. He saw what the decoy saw: Morgana hovering above them, mana cycling, the field scorched and smoking around them.

He poured fire into the channels.

The element surged upward through the earth, racing through the pathways he'd carved, and erupted from the surface beneath the decoy's feet. It traveled through the illusion's legs and into its palms, and from Morgana's perspective, the Primordial Villain conjured flame in his hands the same way he always did.

The shockwave from the collision propagated downward through the ground and Quinlan felt it in his bones, a deep vibration that reminded him exactly how much power the woman above him was throwing around.

'And I'm trying to match it from down here,' he thought. 'Through solid rock.'

He grinned in the dark.

Channeling through that much stone ate a good chunk of everything he sent upward, and Morgana was reading his diminished output as his actual limit. Which was exactly the point.

Quinlan felt Morgana's mana spike through the link and he shifted focus, sending stone screaming upward to form the dome. [Infernal Gale] hit it and started grinding through, and underground he clenched his teeth and fed layer after layer into the channels faster than the lance could eat through them.

The lance died. He exhaled and rebuilt the shattered pathways. Every big spell fractured the channels he'd threaded through the rock, adding a half-second delay to every exchange that Morgana read as him slowing down.

<She's monologuing again. Something about peeling your mana channels open.> Kitsara paused. <She actually wants to dissect you, Quinnie. I'm going to call her a stupid fucking bitch.>

<You're supposed to be me. I would not call her that.>

<Yes you would! You curse bitches like this out whenever you get the chance!>

<…>

<You think yourself a gentleman, but you're our sexy arrogant primordial lover who rips a new one verbally to his enemies before ripping them apart for real!>

<…I'll leave the acting to you. My concentration is eaten up by the fight.>

<Exactly! Let Lady Kitsara conduct her masterful performance in peace! Hmph!>

Happy to be trusted with her part of their dual act, Kitsara settled into silence. Through the link Quinlan felt her focus sharpen as she turned her attention back to Morgana. The foxkin's tail adjusted the decoy's posture, squaring the shoulders, tilting the chin up just slightly.

Maybe he had a point. "Stupid fucking bitch" wasn't his register. He was colder than that, more dismissive, the kind of man who made you feel small without raising his voice.

The decoy looked at Morgana and the foxkin shaped the words herself.

"Yep. Still batshit insane."

Close enough.

…

Magma was the easiest element to send through stone, and when Morgana saw it surface, she lost her mind.

<She's laughing,> Kitsara reported. <Full crazy. I think I broke her.>

<She broke a long time ago.>

Morgana was rambling about his element switching and his growth rate, and Quinlan listened from the dark while the woman above him had a religious experience over a projection.

<She's going on about what happened to you in three months that took her centuries. I'm going to tell her it's a skill issue.>

Quinlan's eye twitched behind his closed lids as he listened to Kitsara ramble about skill issues and how Morgana's a loser and everything.

<Dial it back on the monologuing. I don't go on rants about my enemy's failures.>

<What do you mean? You are literally the most arrogant guy who has ever lived. You yap at your enemies constantly. You stand tall, towering above them, often outright flying above them as you stare down with your condescending and sexy as hell red eyes and tell them exactly why and how badly they're beneath you.>

<I do not yap.>

<Quinnie, I have been playing you for twenty minutes and I have never talked so much shit in my life. I am doing it perfectly, by the way. Chiseled jaw, bedroom eyes, staring at this psycho like she's a hot piece of ass I'm about to murder. I'm basically looking like a constipated chad.>

She paused. <I am so nailing this!>

<…Just don't overdo it.>

<Roger!>

…

Felicity's voice hit them both at the same time, screaming at Morgana about how Quinlan would have helped her if she'd just asked.

Morgana didn't look at her.

<She's not looking.> Kitsara's voice had gone flat. <Felicity is screaming and she's not looking. Again.>

<Kitsara.>

<She's RIGHT THERE. Her daughter is RIGHT THERE and she won't even…>

<Kitsara. Focus.>

<I hate this woman so much I can't find the words.>

Quinlan could feel through the link that the tail maintaining the illusion was trembling with the foxkin's anger. If she lost her grip the whole facade would shimmer.

<Keep the illusion steady.>

<She's not a mother. She's a disgusting tumor on the female gender.>

A long pause. The trembling subsided.