Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1956: Fighting Against Overwhelming Stats

Black Fang slid her serpent-patterned blade beneath the axe descending toward Ayame on Narethi’s deck.

She gave ground as the weapons met, turning the heavier strike into the deck. Her sword left a shallow cut across the pirate’s casting forearm as she passed.

"Don’t stop," she muttered to Ayame with a perfectly flat voice.

Narethi recognized the difference at once. Black Fang was watching all four hands, stepping into the spaces between their attacks while Ayame recovered.

The Fomorian dragged his axe free. Blue light coated its edge as he traced a sign with his lower fingers.

"[Aqua Edge]!"

"[Viper’s Coil]."

Black Fang drew her fingers along the serpent markings on her arm. A cord of violet venom lashed from them and wound around the axe’s haft.

She hooked her fingers toward the deck, tightening the coil to drag his next swing low.

The Fomorian tore his axe free and slammed it against her sword. Her heels cut grooves in the planks before she slipped past his upper fist and opened the same forearm farther.

"Big sis!"

Ayame cut the water binding her calf and moved alongside her. Across the hatch, Aurora raised her staff.

"[Ethereal Empowerment]!"

Light spread over the fighters. Ayame’s next step carried her under the axe, and she traced her fingertips down the flat of her blade.

"[Heavenscar Blade]!"

Her katana bit through the bracer on his wounded arm. The Fomorian wrenched it away before she could sever the limb, but his other lower hand came up to catch her sword.

"[Null Rend]!"

Blossom appeared on that side, one gauntlet shining with void energy. Her claws sank into the reaching palm, and lightning burst from them as she tore it open.

He screamed, still strong enough to swing the axe toward her head.

"Cunts with such classes?! Everyone, help overwhelm these sows!"

Ayame caught its haft on her katana. Her arms shook under the weight while Black Fang thrust her poisoned blade into the cut beneath his bracer.

Dark veins spread from the wounded arm toward his chest. "P-poison!" He tried to pull away, but his shoulder spasmed as the venom reached it, loosening his grip on the axe.

Black Fang stepped inside his failing guard and drove her blade into his throat.

"I won’t die to fucking belly dancers!" He caught her wrist with his uninjured upper hand. She twisted through his grip, tearing the wound wide before he could crush the bones.

Blood sprayed across the hatch cover as he fell.

Ayame was breathing hard.

"Sexist pieces of shit... But damn are their stats insane."

Blossom kept her damaged wrist against her body, and Black Fang flexed the hand he had caught before facing the next boarder.

"To be the slower one again..." she whispered, her eyes dancing.

"I know, right?" Lilith laughed from the rail. "Bronnya, with me!"

Bronnya intercepted an axe aimed at Blossom. The impact drove the shield back against her shoulder, and she laughed through a grunt of pain.

"Bahahaha! Boss, these bastards hit hard!"

"I’m noticing! [Rift Cleaver]!"

Lilith tapped the flat of her sword with her free hand before swinging. White light tore through the water ward on the pirate’s weapon, leaving him to catch her steel on its bare haft.

Beyond them, Lucille called, "[Bloodmonger’s Fury]!" and struck another boarder’s breastplate with her magma-coated axe.

It cut a glowing groove. He punched her in the ribs hard enough to fold her over the weapon, but Iris stepped into his next blow.

"You slut!"

Iris staggered against the hatch frame, blood on her lips, then drew a shaking hand down her sword.

"[Torment Cycle]!"

Iris swung at his head, releasing the force stored from his blow through her sword. He caught it on his raised bracer, but the impact drove his arm back against his tusks.

"Gah!"

Lucille straightened, teeth bared, and drove the hammer in her other hand into the knee beneath his guard.

He remained standing, but they had stopped him reaching the workers. Narethi turned back to the hold, spread her fingers, and cast [Water Wall] again to hold the timber steady as the carpenter hammered its brace home.

The hull jumped beneath Narethi and threw her off her coils as the spear-carrier rammed his weapon into it from below.

*CRACK!*

The new runes flared. Kaelira braced both hands against the frame, blood welling beneath her fingernails as she kept the patch whole.

"I can’t keep doing that!"

Through the gap above the timber, Narethi glimpsed the spear-carrier drawing back for another blow. Green light ran along his weapon as his lower fingers traced a sign beside it, while the other swimmers were reaching the hull behind him.

"[Aqua Lance]!"

"They’re here!"

Quinlan faced Narethi’s ship. He stopped feeding the magma above the pirates and swept his open hand toward the bow.

"I’ve heard enough remarks about my women for one day. Begone, filth. [Tsunami Surge]."

His current drove beneath her keel, forcing the approaching swimmers outward.

They fought it with cries of "[Crushing Current]!" Their lower hands pulled against his sweep, and Narethi felt the pressure on the patch ease before their combined magic began gaining ground again.

The pirates’ burning mast fell between the vessels. Steam and smoke hid the water as the gunner and loaders turned the mounted bow toward her hull.

"They’ll shoot while the hero is occupied!"

Kitsara detached two of her white tails and sent them over the rail. Narethi watched them slip beneath the smoke drifting between the ships.

The tails reappeared beside the pirate vessel, each carrying the likeness of a bloodied Fomorian. They vaulted the broken rail and staggered into the mounted bow’s line of fire.

"Don’t shoot! We’re wounded!"

One clutched a dangling lower arm while the other stumbled against him, both keeping clear of the real pirates reaching toward them.

"Get out of the fucking way!" the gunner roared, lifting his hand off the firing lever.

"My leg! I can’t!"

Quinlan swept his saber toward the gunner and loaders crowded behind Kitsara’s decoys.

"I half expected you to shoot your comrades. But alas, those aren’t your friends. [Wind Blade]."

A crescent of wind tore through the false pirates and swept across the crew at neck height.

"Wai-!"

His head flew off with his mouth still open. The loaders lost theirs in the same sweep, blood spraying across the mounted bow as their bodies collapsed over its handles.

Kitsara’s shattered disguises exposed the white tails beneath them. She called both back across the gap as the severed heads spun toward the merchant ship, their eyes still moving.

The foxkin bent forward and shook her butt from side to side as the two tails reattached, her returning fluff bouncing with each shameless wiggle.

Kitsara stuck her tongue out at the flying heads.

"Keep calling my friends ugly names now, you stinky bastards!"

The gunner’s mouth worked soundlessly before his head splashed into the sea with the others.

Quinlan turned back toward the swimmers approaching Narethi’s hull and flattened his palm over the sea.

"A formidable race of water warriors. But what happens if you have no water? [Frozen Sea]."

Ice spread around Narethi’s vessel, sealing the surface over the Fomorians pressing toward it. Then it kept rushing downward, deeper and deeper, freezing the pirates themselves.

Quinlan raised his open hand, and the trapped Fomorians strained against the ice locking their limbs apart. "Nothing much, I see."

He closed his fingers into a fist.

Narethi saw the ice crush inward around each captive. Ribs collapsed under the pressure and torsos burst as the frozen jaws ground shut, flooding the cracks beneath her ship with blood.

"You fucking butcher!"

Beyond the frozen shelf, the surviving swimmers watched their comrades come apart. "How dare you?!"

They drove their axes into its outer edge and hauled themselves out of the water with their free hands.

"I’ll rip your head off!"

The first survivors scrambled across the ice toward the ship, then buried their axe blades in its wooden side to climb to the deck. Their lower hands gripped the planks while their upper arms dragged them higher.

"How utterly terrifying," Quinlan replied, voice emotionless.

Black Fang caught the first axe swinging over the rail on her sword, and Ayame cut the fingers reaching up beside it.

The pirate kept climbing. Bronnya struck him with her shield, knocking him back onto the ice while Blossom caught a sailor he had dragged off his feet.

Narethi’s first mate brought his guards behind the women. They hauled their wounded clear and kept the route to the hatch open while the armed women fought for the rail.

Across the gap, Quinlan’s current was still forcing the pirate vessel’s bow upward. Beside its burning mast, the red-coated captain pressed his lower hands toward the sea.

"[Tidal Brace]! Hold the fucking ship!"

His remaining casters joined him, straining to force the bow down while the hull creaked beneath their feet.

Near Narethi’s bow, the spear-carrier hauled himself over the ice’s outer edge and charged toward the hull, lowering his weapon for another strike.

"There!" Narethi pointed at the spear-carrier. "Their second-in-command! He’s the one breaking the hull!"

"Sink them!" the pirate captain bellowed across the water to his lieutenant. "Make him save his own ship!"

The lieutenant pointed his spear toward the exposed planks above the ice.

"Keep those bitches at the rail! I’ll open it myself!"

The raiders nearest him spread along the hull, climbing toward the defenders while he drew back for a thrust.

"Orc Boss..." Void offered her hand. "Ready?"

Lilith caught it. "Always!"