Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1795: Crushing Implications

Quinlan watched the grey blade go dark in Nyxara’s palm, and nobody in the soul realm spoke for a long time.

Overhead, the stars burned in their uncharted patterns, dense and motionless.

Pink light pulsed from the tree at the heart of the realm into roots that curled deeper into the soil, and even that faint glow seemed to have dimmed since the blade’s last words. The air carried no wind, and the silence that settled over the clearing pressed down on everyone standing in it with a weight that had nothing to do with gravity.

The implications of what was revealed felt...

Crippling.

Alexios’s breathing had gone shallow. The old king stood with one hand white-knuckled on his sword hilt, staring at the grass.

His kingdom, his throne, his wars and treaties and careful rule, all of it had existed inside a cage drawn by someone else’s will.

Ayame hadn’t moved. Her composure held, but her gaze had gone distant, already parsing the blade’s last words for a thread they could pull.

The rest of them wore the weight just as heavily. Nobody in the clearing had shifted their stance since the blade went silent.

But at the same time, nobody crumbled either.

These were the continent’s biggest risk-takers, and learning the continent was a cage didn’t change what they were.

But still... Dealing with the revelation that nearly every assumption they’d walked in with had just been unmade... The silence was crushing enough that even Quinlan let it sit longer than he should have.

He stared at the dead blade in Nyxara’s grip, and for a few seconds the sheer enormity of what the wretched thing had said pressed in from every direction: an entire continent under someone’s will and a world that would treat the lot of them like insects.

Then he shut it down.

*Clap!*

The sound cracked through the clearing, and every eye snapped to him.

"Alright. We’ve learned some heavy information, but so what?"

Quinlan smiled, confident, examining his girls one by one. "We’ve been underdogs all our lives. From the moment you met me, to this very point, there was never a time when we could declare ourselves supreme."

"..." Kaelira, Kitsara, Lucille, all of them were listening to him speak with utmost focus. The way he spoke to them was an anchor, plain and simple.

Quinlan’s smile deepened. "We always knew that Iskaris was only the beginning, that there were much stronger beings out there. What we really need to discuss is how to proceed, how to maneuver so we go from ’insects’ to beings that no outsider can squash."

The tension in the clearing shifted, and the faces watching him had traded weight for focus.

"The Restriction is somebody’s will over the continent, and it can be challenged by a so-called ruler." He settled deeper into the throne, one arm still around Nyxara. "That’s the part that matters. Everything else is just context."

His gaze swept the clearing and landed on Alexios.

"So let’s figure out what ’ruler’ means and how we proceed."

"Hubby’s right."

Vex walked toward the throne without hurrying, red eyes sweeping the clearing.

"The Heavenly Restriction has been sitting here for hundreds of thousands of years. If whoever drew it planned to come back and collect, they’d have done it already." She stopped in front of the throne, considered the lap situation, and chose Quinlan’s unoccupied thigh.

She sat down, shifted until she found a comfortable angle, and pulled Quinlan’s free arm around her waist before he could object. Nyxara, nudged aside by the possessive motion, let out a quiet giggle that promised future consequences.

"The chances of that changing while we’re standing here are basically zero," Vex continued. "We have time to figure this out, so let’s do exactly that."

"Easy for you to say." Elisabeth’s voice cut in from the side, her stare fixed on Quinlan. "’We always knew Iskaris was just the beginning?’ Speak for yourself. Some of us just learned the world we lived our entire lives in is a prison. We had no idea that there were stronger beings out there, save for the Goddess."

Vex’s red stare slid to the Dawn Breaker without her head moving. "And? Stop taking that tone with my husband, woman. He can’t be blamed for your lack of information."

"..." Elisabeth remained silent for a few seconds before she said, "I’m not blaming anyone, I’m just saying that moving on isn’t so easy for everyone."

"Oh, okay." Vex nodded along, saintly. "Why don’t you hold your father’s hand for stability, then?"

Elisabeth’s eyes widened. "What did you just say?"

"Vex..." Quinlan chuckled, and his hand came up to rest on top of Vex’s head. His fingers moved through her white hair once, and the Hexwitch’s entire posture softened under the touch.

"...Sorry, Hubby." Vex’s voice dropped, the edge gone as quickly as it had arrived. She glanced up at him. "I just hate it when these hypocrites keep speaking to you as if you were to blame for everything."

Elisabeth stared at her. "...Why are you apologizing to him?"

"I know, I know..." Quinlan sighed at his Hexwitch. "But now more than ever we should try to work together with even the church, no matter how bad they get on our nerves."

"Hmph..." The Dawn Breaker seemed beyond dissatisfied.

"Elisabeth Valorian." Quinlan spoke up, and the shift in his tone made the Arch Priestess straighten where she stood.

"I know full well how you feel. Believe it or not, I was born with even less information and guidance than you were."

Elisabeth frowned. "What about your mother, Luminara?"

Quinlan reached up and grabbed his own ear, pulling. "She’s my adoptive mother, and I didn’t meet her until I reached the second bottleneck. When I first started out, I was a newborn primordial, alone, with zero information about how anything in this world worked. I didn’t know what a level meant, or XP, or classes. Nothing."

"Alone?!" Myrasyn’s ears went rigid. Isveth’s hand pressed to her chest as though she’d been struck.

They knew he was an adoptive son as he’d already admitted that much, explaining why he didn’t look elven despite being Luminara’s child.

What the elves did not know is how he started out, how Luminara wasn’t there from the beginning. He’d found her on his own, after surviving a world that gave him nothing.

’She must be so sad... Her poor child had to struggle alone without her being there to help him...’ Myrasyn whimpered inwardly, feeling terrible for the First Elf.

"On day two of my journey, I met my stalwart samurai." Quinlan’s gaze drifted to Ayame, warm. "Then my amazing dogkin." Blossom’s tail wagged hard. "And then the rest, one by one. Together, we figured everything out, piece by piece."

He observed Elisabeth with none of his usual arrogance or mockery shown toward believers of what he openly called the hypocrite Goddess.

"Point is, we’ve all been in the dark at some point." A pause, and his voice lost its edge entirely. "I’m not your enemy, Elisabeth. None of us can afford that anymore. Let’s get through this together, shall we?"

Across the clearing, Lucille caught Jasmine’s eye, and the look that passed between them was brief and knowing.

Their husband was playing the role of a reasonable diplomat perfectly. He realized Elisabeth was struggling to come to terms with her new reality, finding its implications too crushing. Thus, he offered her a new set of information, high enough in its shock value to contend with everything else they learned, but not one bit as ominous.

Learning this new information about him only served to help the clearing move on, less dreadful of the future.

And just like that, the clearing shifted.

Elisabeth’s posture loosened by a fraction, and the combative set of her shoulders eased. "...I forgive your foul-mouthed girlfriend for her naughty behavior."

Quinlan grinned and petted Vex once more in response. "Much appreciated."

"Hehe~" Vex leaned back against Quinlan’s chest, tilted her head, and pressed a slow kiss to the side of his neck.

Then her red stare found Nyxara’s across his lap.

The look that passed between the two women lasted less than a second, but it carried everything.

Vex’s pride was quiet and absolute. She’d played the room’s villain on purpose and watched her man walk in as the hero, exactly the way she’d set it up.

Nyxara’s grin spread slow and warm, her ancient eyes dancing with amusement. She said nothing either, but the look she gave the Hexwitch was the closest thing to respect the Primordial Demon of Lust had ever offered her little leech.

Vex curled into Quinlan’s side, and the Hexwitch’s work was done.

"Shall we proceed, then?" Quinlan asked, and all of his guests looked ready to move on.

"The blade said the domain can be challenged by a ruler’s claim." Black Fang wasted no time.