Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1953: First Sighting

"Ships!" Seraphiel exclaimed, pointing at the masts.

Although Iskaris’s people had been unable to sail the ocean, the girls were familiar with ships from the rivers connecting some settlements.

"But they’re very big and built using a different technique." Kaelira’s eyes instantly picked up on the details.

At last, people.

Quinlan slightly lowered their altitude while keeping proper distance because he wanted to see their faces and hear their voices.

Then a flash lit the side of the larger vessel.

*BOOM!*

A bolt fired from the smaller ship’s mounted bow struck a translucent barrier curved around the larger vessel’s hull. Light spread from the impact through the ship’s inscriptions, illuminating ribs of metal beneath the wood before the whole vessel lurched sideways.

The wave it displaced struck the smaller ship beside it. That hull rose through the spray, its prow swinging toward the merchantman as its crew hurled hooks trailing chains across the gap. The hooks glanced off the barrier.

"They’re fighting," Lilith said.

Quinlan stopped bringing his companions closer.

He held them above a ragged bank of cloud and curved the air around his companions with his wind magic. Their voices reached one another clearly, then his currents carried the sound upward into the sky, away from the ships.

He kept a clear route back toward open sea, then drew water into a curved lens before them.

Quinlan adjusted the curve of his water lens until the distant decks came into focus.

"Oh..." Kitsara leaned toward the magnified view.

The woman at the merchant ship’s wheel had a humanlike torso, with a long coat hanging open over her chest. Below her waist, bronze scales continued into an enormous serpent’s body coiled around the base of the helm.

She braced herself with that tail as another impact rocked her ship. A couple human sailors scrambled past her, some carrying weapons, others dragging wounded crewmates away from the rail.

"Quin... Do you think she was born like that?" Ayame asked, leaning against his arm to look through the lens. "I haven’t seen any primordial that looked anything similar to her."

"We haven’t met all the progenitors," Seraphiel answered in his stead.

"And it’s also possible that further racial evolutions occurred in the long time the primordials have been locked away," Aurora theorized.

The captain shifted her coils, holding herself upright while her ship rolled beneath her. Ayame watched the movement with undisguised fascination.

"Look how easily she maintains balance... What would her home even look like?"

Quinlan found himself wondering the same thing. A house made for someone with that body, a street full of people moving as she did, children with little tails racing each other...

He wanted to see all of it.

His girls had spent the night guessing what they might find, and their first glimpse had already given them quite the surprise.

"Master! Look at the other ship!"

Blossom’s eager voice drew their attention to the people on the smaller vessel.

Broad, blue-gray bodies crowded its deck. Each had four arms, the lower pair emerging beneath the ribs, and slits opened along their sides as seawater washed over them.

One held a shield above his head with an upper arm while his lower hands worked a boarding line. Another carried a spear and shield in his upper hands, leaving those below free to cast.

"They all have four arms!" Blossom exclaimed. "How does he move them all differently?!"

Serika leaned closer, her smile growing as she followed the movements of the sailor working the line.

"Imagine trying to get past his guard while he’s got another pair of hands free..."

Several of his wives were leaning further to see everything going on. Quinlan widened the curve of water to give them room.

Then the spearman jumped.

Blue light flared beneath his feet when he struck the sea. His spell hardened the water beneath each step, sending him racing across the gap while the merchant’s sailors shouted warnings.

"Fomorians! Fuck! Release ’it’!"

"Fomorians," Blossom repeated, tasting the unfamiliar word.

The spearman hit the merchant ship’s barrier with his shield.

*CRACK!*

His first blow drove a deep dent into it. He thrust his spear through the weakened patch, tore the opening wider, and leaped toward the deck.

A statue moved beside the merchant ship’s mast.

Its wings unfolded before the pirate landed. Gray fingers closed around his throat, and the winged figure hurled him back through the breach in the barrier.

The Fomorian skipped across the water, struck his own vessel’s rail, and went through it in an eruption of broken wood.

"Holy shit," Serika breathed.

Kaelira’s eyes widened.

"The statue moved! But they’re nothing like the golems I’ve seen!"

The statue stepped into the light, its body carved from dark stone. It had a man’s face, broad shoulders, and wings that scraped sparks from the metal fittings beside the mast.

Its chest rose as it drew breath.

"Does anyone else dare attack my charge?!" it roared across the water.

"He’s talking like an arrogant bodyguard!" Seraphiel laughed in amazement. "Kaeli, look at his face!"

The smith was already staring at it. The winged man’s mouth moved as he shouted to the sailors, his stone features twisting into an angry scowl.

"Is that his body, Quin? Or is he wearing it?"

"I am quite a bit lost, to be honest."

Kaelira laughed. His shy smith was laughing.

’A gargoyle...?’

A woman with a serpent’s body was commanding that ship, a man apparently made of stone was defending it, and sailors with extra arms were trying to rob them both.

Then the Fomorian who had been thrown through the rail hauled himself upright.

Blood ran from his mouth. He spat it onto the deck and retrieved his spear with a lower hand while another sailor tightened a strap around his damaged shield.

Quinlan’s smile grew.

That would have killed plenty of the people they knew, even those above level 70.

On the smaller ship, a black flag climbed the mast.

"I believe we’re witnessing what my people call pirates," Quinlan grinned, seeing the Jolly Roger. He had watched far too many pirate movies not to get excited. "They’re basically thieves operating on open waters, just a lot cooler. In this case, quite a bit cooler."

From below came another bellow.

"The riches, naga! You can keep your precious ship if you give me what’s inside!"

"Naga," Ayame murmured, looking at the coiled captain again. "Is that what she is?"

Quinlan listened for more, eager to put names to the people they were watching.

The speaker stood beside the mounted bow on the smaller vessel. A filthy red coat had been slit down the sides to accommodate his lower arms. His upper right hand held a broad sword, his upper left a shield.

The lower hands remained empty. As he spread them, he used magic to raise seawater along both sides of the merchantman.

"You can drown, foul creature!" the serpent-bodied captain shouted back. "I’ll give you nothing!"

The water surged over her ship.

The naga captain pressed her palm against a crystal beside the wheel, feeding power into the inscriptions. Light spread across the torn patch in the barrier, sealing the breach before the water could pour through.

The barrier shone beneath the weight, holding the sea above the deck in a trembling arch while her sailors ran for shelter.

"Definitely thieves," Serika noted. "What’s so cool about being pirates, though?"

"They drink a lot of rum and sing great songs."

"..."

More than a dozen unimpressed gazes turned toward Quinlan.

He elected to move on, adjusting the lens toward the mounted bow. Its frame had handles at different heights, allowing the four-armed crew to brace it and wind its mechanism at the same time.

Light travelled along the grooves of another bolt as they loaded it.

"That bolt is enchanted. I’d like a closer look..." Kaelira murmured.

"Perhaps we should help the pirates," Quinlan offered. "They must know some interesting places."