Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1560  The Old Warrior

A shockwave tore outward from the point of impact and flattened everything within fifty meters. Soul soldiers disintegrated. Debris launched skyward. The beam split against the blade and fractured into a hundred lances of white and gold that punched into the earth below and left smoking craters where they struck, and the sound of the collision hit a full second after the light did, a crack so deep it shook the ground like a second earthquake.

Alexios was driven sideways and down. The Warrior King landed on his feet, boots carving a short trench before he stopped. Below him, Morgana's broken body lay in the crater where she'd fallen, blood pooling beneath her shattered ribcage, and Alexios stood over her with his sword still raised. Her Royal Guards rushed in from both sides, locking around their queen's ruined form.

The king's grin was gone. His jaw set behind the grey beard and his eyes swept upward, already knowing what he'd find.

Quinlan hit the ground at the same time. The momentum from Alexios's swings had launched him backward and he cratered into the field thirty meters away, armless, [Synchra] absorbing the impact as the half-formed armor cracked and reformed around his torso.

A woman descended through the haze.

Long blonde hair caught the light of the burning field, flowing behind her like a banner. Green eyes, sharp and ancient. A golden crown sat above her brow, and the ornate staff in her right hand still radiated with the spell she'd just cast, light dripping from its gilded framework in rivulets of gold. White robes trimmed with gold filigree moved around her as if the air itself was dressing her, and she landed between Quinlan and the king.

Queen Myrasyn of the Elvardian Alliance touched down.

She looked at Quinlan.

Both arms gone. [Synchra] wrapped around a torso leaking from two sealed stumps. Blood everywhere. [Soul Reaper] hovering beside him in ghostly flames, its own will keeping it aloft.

Through the [Master's Link], Quinlan felt them.

Seraphiel's terror came first, raw and bright. Serika's fury followed, then Blossom's keening despair, and beneath all of them the cold focus of Ayame's second-in-command voice trying to hold the line while her hands shook.

<Everyone stays where they are!>

His voice boomed through the link.

<Do not come to me. Keep fighting. If any of you turn your backs right now, you will be killed.>

Silence. Then, quietly, Ayame.

<Understood.>

The others fell in behind her. The discipline held. Barely.

Myrasyn's gaze drifted from Quinlan to the king standing over Morgana's broken body across the field. Her head tilted, and the amusement in her green eyes sharpened.

"Alexios Valorian. I thought the years would finally begin catching up to you." She tapped a finger against her staff. "And yet here you are, still cutting my spells apart at age one thousand. Aren't you supposed to be a wrinkled up husk wheezing hard on your death bed, stealing final glances at your maids' miniskirts and stockings?"

She clicked her tongue. "How annoying."

Alexios glanced down at Morgana. Her royal guards had locked shields around her as the strongest mage on the continent lay in a pool of her own blood, breathing in shallow, wet gasps.

He looked back up at Myrasyn.

"And you're still terrorizing humanity, I see." His voice carried across the distance between them. "Should have known you'd crawl out of the woodwork eventually, ancient creature."

Myrasyn's brow twitched. The smile stayed, but her grip on the staff tightened and the gold filigree along her robes flickered with light.

"Ancient creature," she repeated. "Young brats with sharp tongues like you need a lesson in respect."

She turned to Quinlan. The amusement faded, and for the first time the elf queen looked at him with genuine concern.

"You've done more than enough," she said. "Rest now. I will handle things from here."

Quinlan spat blood onto the scorched earth and decreed,

"No."

[Synchra] flared. The half-formed armor that had been clinging to his torso and legs surged outward, crimson veins blazing as the plating sealed the last gaps and locked into full combat configuration around his body. The red glow intensified, pulsing with a fury aimed squarely at the king across the field, and the armor's presence radiated a protectiveness so fierce the air around Quinlan shimmered red.

[Soul Reaper] rose above his shoulder. The pitch-black saber's ghostly pale flames burned brighter, and the weapon drifted forward between Quinlan and Alexios, its pale flames flaring toward the king.

Ice erupted from both stumps. Frost climbed from [Synchra]'s seals and crystallized outward, forming rigid structures that extended past where his elbows had been, and the temperature around him dropped so sharply that the blood on the ground froze mid-pool. He sealed his own wounds with the kind of precision that had no right belonging to a man who should have been in shock.

"I'm going to fight."

Myrasyn's green eyes widened. She looked at the armless man standing in full armor with a hovering saber and ice where his arms used to be, mana still climbing, elements still cycling, and the expression on his blood-streaked face belonged to someone who had not yet considered the possibility that this fight was over for him.

Her surprise melted into amusement. She turned forward, staff pointed at Alexios, and her voice took on the easy warmth of a woman settling in for a pleasant conversation.

"Well, now I'm beginning to understand why you have so many infatuated wives." Her lips curved. "I must say, this is the first time I've seen a man lose both arms and somehow become more attract-"

"What the fuck were you two doing?"

Myrasyn's mouth stayed open.

"Two ancient powerhouses sitting on their asses playing spectator…"

Myrasyn's lips pressed together. Her cheeks puffed and her brow furrowed in a pout that looked absurd on a woman who had ruled a nation for millennia.

"Two men," she said. "Two men in one day have called me old. Unforgivable. Truly unforgivable."

Then the pout vanished and the smile returned as if it had never left.

"A lady needs to know how to make an entrance, you know?"

No apology. She had watched the fight, measured every combatant, catalogued every threat, and let Quinlan take the hits that drew them out. The elf queen smiled at him with the warmth of a woman who had been playing this game for longer than nearly all level 74 entities have been alive.

Alexios twirled his blade and settled into a stance, both hands on the grip, the longsword angled forward. His eyes were locked on Quinlan.

"You have invaded my kingdom. You have driven me to the edge of madness with every report that crosses my desk, let alone our infuriating conversations I was forced to partake in." The grin returned, slower this time, heavier. "Did you truly think I would sit in my throne room forever? No. Arrogant brat, the only answer left is to get rid of the tumor on my legacy myself."

Quinlan grinned. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth and his ice-sealed stumps crackled as the elements cycling through his body surged brighter. [Soul Reaper] drifted forward at his side, pale flames burning, and [Synchra]'s crimson veins blazed across his chest like a second heartbeat.

"I see. But old friend, I'm afraid we're not playing the same game."

Every instinct Alexios had honed across a thousand years of warfare screamed at the same time, and a cold that had nothing to do with magic crawled up his spine as Quinlan ordered,

"Do it."

Some really cool stuff is happening in my other novel as well, Demonic Pornstar System, so check it out if you want!