Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1944: Scouting the Ocean

Quinlan studied the water around him.

They had just agreed that Thalorind might contain monsters far beyond them. He was delighted to have an ocean at his disposal, but he wanted to know what was in it before taking his wives farther out.

Through his feet in the sand, he sent his earth magic through the seabed. The shore continued beneath the waves, sloping toward a broken shelf, and he followed its shape down into the rock.

Hollows opened in his awareness, then ridges, then the deep cut where the shelf ended. He had used this same sense to read footsteps through the dwarves’ mountain. Here, he wanted to find the places a creature could hide.

"Quin?" Sera called from the beach.

"A moment. I’m scouting."

Quinlan pulled the sea away from the beach with his water magic. The retreating water exposed a widening stretch of seabed before piling up above the shelf, where he held it in an enormous curved wall.

Wet sand stretched out before him, broken by the ridges he had mapped through the earth. Farther out, fish darted inside the suspended water, high above what had been the surface of the sea.

"What the fuck?!" Maelstrom stumbled back from the tideline. "Is that coming this way?!"

"I’m holding it there," Quinlan assured the onlookers, examining the exposed rocks. "I’d like to see what’s hiding ahead."

Then, under his breath, he muttered, "Seen enough freaky shark movies to know caution is my best friend here..."

His earth magic had found hollows beneath those rocks. Quinlan drew narrow streams from the wall and sent them into each opening, washing out the silt while he searched for anything resisting the flow.

He could inspect the water itself too. By drawing currents through the suspended mass, he sensed the fish pushing against his magic as they swam, each body displacing water he controlled.

"He’s searching underneath the rocks..." Jallen murmured, watching a stream emerge from a hole in the seabed. She craned her neck toward the towering wall again. "While holding all of that?"

Quinlan smiled as he checked the last hollow. His family would have a stretch of sand and harmless fish beneath their feet. Anything that wanted to eat them would have to come from farther out.

Once he was satisfied, he began lowering the wall.

The onlookers braced for the crash.

"Ah..."

Quinlan eased the water down, spreading it over the exposed seabed until the sea returned to the shore. Jallen watched a gentle wave lap at her toes, then turned to the man who had just put the ocean back without splashing her.

He maintained control of a thin curtain of water around the area he had cleared. It curved from one end of the beach to the other, enclosing the swimming area, and extended from the surface all the way down to the seabed.

Farther out, beyond the shelf, he formed a second, wider curtain of controlled water. An approaching creature would have to pass through that outer boundary, cross the water between them, then breach the inner one to reach his family.

The two curtains were submerged, made from the same seawater as everything around them. The onlookers could see ordinary waves rolling toward the beach, but Quinlan would feel anything pushing through the water he held.

A fish crossed the outer curtain, tugging at his magic. He read its size and direction from the water it displaced, then sensed it again when it moved through the inner curtain closer to shore.

Quinlan smiled. There it was.

Then a much heavier body pressed against the far side of his outer boundary. Quinlan followed its movement through his magic as it turned away, swimming back toward deeper water.

"What are you feeling?" Ayame asked, watching him now.

"Something big just brushed against the water I’m holding out there. Probably a sea monster." He glanced toward the distant disturbance. "It’s heading away from us."

He left a curve of white foam above the inner curtain, just inside the shelf, to mark how far they could go. Beneath the cleared water, he prepared broad currents pointing back toward the beach, ready to carry his family ashore if the warning came.

"It’s far from the shore, and I made preparations. I’ll know if anything tries to come closer."

The net would give him time to react. He intended to use that time to get his women out of danger before finding out how strong their visitor was.

Even an invisible monster would still displace water, and a fast one would have to cross the distance between his two boundaries. Quinlan was confident he would feel either one coming.

With the net in place, he waded over to Black Fang, who had scooped up another handful of seawater and was watching it drain between her fingers.

She had tried to escape Iskaris more than a hundred thousand times. Now the ocean lay open before her, and she was standing in the shallows trying to comprehend that she could actually walk into it.

Quinlan wanted to take her much farther than that.

"Will you come with me, Black Fang?" he asked, smiling, offering her his extended arm. "Let’s enjoy this together."

"..." Black Fang angled her neck back, looking up at him. The wonder in her eyes almost made Quinlan’s heart skip a beat. ’Truly, what a woman...’ he noted, once more. Then grinned inwardly. ’Man, I just can’t stop simping when it comes to her.’

After a second that felt like a minute, staring into his deep eyes, Black Fang clasped his offered hand.

Her fingers tightened around his as they passed the depth that had defeated her for centuries.

Quinlan walked on until the water was at their waists. Behind them, Ayame was calling to her sister, but Black Fang seemed to have forgotten the beach existed.

She gazed past the waves toward a horizon she could finally reach. The black silk floated around her hips as she pressed forward, impatient with the water pushing against her.

"Farther."

Quinlan laughed and let her pull him along. He’d brought her out here to enjoy herself, and watching her try to drag him into the ocean was already making his day.

"Big sis! Wait for me!!"

Ayame came splashing after them with her wedding skirt gathered in both hands. She passed the old limit before she remembered to look down, then beamed at the others.

"Girls, come! You have to try this!"

His wives were happy to oblige.

"Blossom isn’t good with water!!" Blossom yelped, tail going limp.

"Foxies are truly supreme then, for this graceful empress has no trouble getting wet at all!" Kitsara crowed, running to her husband.

"Ngg!!" Blossom, too, braced herself after exchanging a glance with her Master. "Master!" His mere smile and confident gaze ensured she leaped right into his arms.

Soon they were all crowding around him in the water, laughing as their skirts floated up around their legs and catching each other whenever a wave tried to knock them over.

Quinlan had married some of the most dangerous women on the continent, and right now they were arguing about whether to take their dresses off. Several seemed ready to start swimming in them.

He loved these women so fucking much.

"I have a better idea," he announced, then shouted towards the beach. "Rosie! Can you grow us some boards? Long, flat ones, with the front curved up?"

"Easy!!"