Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1943: Sandy Beach

Dark light stood up out of the square’s own cobbles in a single sheet, taller than the great doors and wide enough that the front rows had to step back from it. Through it lay blue sky and moving water.

Ayame looked at it, then at him.

"Quin."

"What can I say? Being a ruler rules," Quinlan mused slyly, not elaborating.

Of course, he’d share his abilities with the girls without holding anything back. But messing with his cheeky samurai was one of the Villain’s favorite activities.

"You’re not funny one bit. Hmph."

Ayame Elysiar stepped through the gate first, arms crossed under her delicate chest.

...

The shore was white sand and slow waves rolling in, and past where they broke the water went blue all the way out to a sky with nothing in it but the sun.

The powers of the continent stepped out of a wall of light onto their beach.

First the empresses, then Rosie, who ran straight to the water’s edge to look at her own wall from underneath and reported that she could not see it.

After them came the governor of Elysaria, a queen of fourteen with her father the retired king behind her, four beastkin lords with their hackles up, a dwarf in a formal coat, two Fujimori, the Obsidian Circle in a nervous row, the Scarlet Lilies, and Iris.

Black Fang stepped through last.

"Wait, wait, where even is this?!" Felicity demanded of the waves.

"The southern coast," Alexios replied before Quinlan could, knowing his land like the back of his hand.

Seraphiel had stopped listening at the first step.

The Dawnbringer stood with her eyes closed and her bare feet dug into the sand to the ankle, and the sound she made belonged in a bedroom.

"Quin," she whispered, without opening her eyes. "It’s so warm..."

Iskaris had never lacked for beaches. On most of them a person could walk into the water and take a few steps before the Restriction sent them back.

But those beaches weren’t as immaculate as this one. Here the wall had stood a few steps short of the water, and the sand past it had never carried a footprint.

Seraphiel’s toes curled. "Girls, get your shoes off and come here. I can’t have my sister-wives miss this."

Kitsara and Blossom had theirs off before the sentence ended. Lucille walked in beside the elf, sank to her ankles, and made the same shameless sound.

"Told you," Sera sighed, wriggling deeper. "This is the best beach ever! We need to organize a swimsuit party when we have the time."

"Swimsuit party?" Aurora hummed, sinking in with her friends. "Ah, yes, I remember. One of Quin’s pervy fantasies. Have us dress in skimpy clothes and let him put suncream on us..."

"Exactly!" Sera beamed, having remembered her lover’s fetishes with crystal clarity.

"No objections from me~" Serika was instantly game. Sandy, hot beaches sounded right up her alley. Having Quinlan get oily with her was just the cherry on top.

As the girls enjoyed the beach, Ayame was staring at the water ahead.

"You know the barrier’s rule," she said. "You walk into the sea, you black out, and you wake up on the sand a few paces back with a headache and wet boots."

"I’ve been told that nearly every child in the coastal settlements tries it at least once," Alexios said. "It’s a fun game for them."

"I tried it a dozen times," said Rajah.

"More than a hundred..." whispered Lilith. After reaching level 74, her life’s mission became escaping the Heavenly Restriction so that she could resume her leveling journey. This was the reason why the Lilies agreed to help Kaede and the Fujimori clan in the first place.

"More than a hundred thousand," muttered Black Fang under a shaky breath.

"I spent centuries studying this phenomenon..." spoke the Mediator. Both of his legs were trembling so hard that two of the Obsidian Circle had to hold him up.

"I’m afraid your research material became unavailable, old man," Quinlan smirked as he began walking forward.

Synchra flared between the first and second step as Quinlan shrugged her off.

The black wedding suit went crimson at every seam and ran off him like water, off his shoulders, down his chest, down his legs, until it gathered at his left ankle into a thin black band with a single red seam, humming.

Synchra was sulking. He could feel it against the bone, a small jealous vibration from a suit of armor that had just been demoted from a wedding suit to an ankle bracelet.

The Primordial Villain stood on the sand of his continent wearing an anklet and nothing else.

"Uhh..." Jallen seemed to have found something difficult to grasp while observing Quinlan from behind. "What’s that giant thing dangling between his legs?"

"Oh my," said Void, and opened one eye, which for Void was a standing ovation.

"No wonder the serpent likes him so much." Lilith jabbed at Black Fang. Luckily for her, the Venomborne Terror was not in a mental state to listen to her.

Even before she said it, the captain of the Scarlet Lilies had already clamped a hand over her niece’s eyes. "Stop squirming, Felicity."

"Aunt Lilith! I’m the queen!" Felicity was prying at the fingers with both hands, up on her toes. "I’ve seen statues!"

"Statues don’t swing like that. It’s obscene."

"I command you!! Let me see!!"

"I’ll leave on an adventure within hours, so Your Majesty may banish me freely."

"N-not fair!!"

"This guy..." Ayame sighed, shaking her head. Despite her best efforts, she was grinning from ear to ear.

"Hubby will remain Hubby, Sovereign or not~" Vex purred, eyes laser focused.

"Master’s butt..." Blossom Elysiar was about to begin salivating.

Kitsara put two fingers in her mouth and whistled loud enough to carry across the whole beach. "Do a swirl, handsome!!"

Down the line, the governor of Elysaria was looking, kept looking, and then licked her lips. "That brings back memories..." Myrasyn muttered, mind back in a dark cell.

Quinlan walked down the sand.

The first wave broke over his bare feet, cold, and the Primordial Villain kept walking, water climbing his ankle, his shin, his knee.

Behind him a wave washed up the sand and slid back down it. The next one was already rolling in at him, and the beach had gone so quiet that the water was the only sound.

He walked past the line where every Iskarian who had ever tried had gone black and woken on the sand, no matter where on the continent.

Nothing took him.

The water took his thighs, then his waist, and the waves shoved at his chest. He leaned into it, kept going, and when it reached his collarbone he stopped and turned around.

The powers of Iskaris were strung along the sand in a ragged line, and every face on it had gone slack, mouths open.

Rosie found her voice first.

"Rosie’s wall let Daddy through!" she screamed at the whole beach, jumping. "Whichever Mommy doesn’t go swimming should consider pampering Rosie!!"

And the beach broke the way the square had.

Serika hit the water at a sprint, while Felicity shrieked and grabbed Feng by both arms.

Lilith Ravenshade sat down hard where she stood, both hands flat on the sand, and then howled at the sky, no words in it, until she ran out of breath.

The Mediator had slipped out of the Circle’s hands and onto his knees in the sand, grey eyes on the water, tears running into his beard.

The four lords stayed where the water ended, staring past him at a horizon none of them had ever been allowed to reach.

"...I’ll be damned," Gorruk the bearkin said, very quietly.

Rajah had not blinked since the first wave. "A dozen times," the tigerkin said to nobody, and then again, louder, with a laugh in it. "A dozen times!"

Black Fang walked into the water to her shins and stopped there.

The Venomborne Terror stood in the shallows with her black attire soaked to the knee, and then she bent down, slowly, and put her hand into the sea.

The water ran over her fingers and out again. She cupped what she could, lifted it to the sun, and watched it run out between her knuckles and fall, speechless.

Four hundred years.

It was over.

She was free.