Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1988: Welcome to Thalorind

[Soul Reaper] erupted in brilliant blue flames beside Quinlan, flooding the spider cavern with light as his [Awaken] unleashed the souls within the saber.

Streams of fire plunged onto the stone bridge beneath him, swelling into armoured bodies before Marielle’s eyes. Boots struck the sloping span in a rolling thunder, and weapons emerged from the blaze already gripped in their wielders’ fists.

"Summons...?" Andre whispered. "Just how many...?"

Quinlan could feel every soul awaiting his will within the burning blade. One casting was enough to bring forth as many as he desired, and with the queen so generously emptying her nest for him, he saw no reason to be stingy.

"Welcome to Thalorind, my soldiers." His greeting reverberated through the depths, echoing off the walls.

Ito formed at the bridge’s upper end and raised his sword to his chest, bowing to Quinlan through the swirling flames. The former Fujimori squad captain had lost his head to that same saber before Quinlan harvested his soul and sent him against his own men.

"Master. Thank you for letting us step foot outside."

Marielle’s mouth opened.

"Clear the lower tunnels," Quinlan told the officer. "My wives and I are taking the upper nest."

"As you wish, Master."

"General Scar isn’t here, so everyone! With me!" Ito roared, charging down the bridge with his blade raised.

Before he reached its lower end, he hurled himself over the side into the heaving mass below. An answering battle cry tore from the throats of the soldiers pouring after him, their armoured bodies plunging through the cavern with weapons aimed at the upturned mouths.

"RAAAAAH!"

The officer landed sword-first on a giant’s head, driving his blade through an eye and burying it to the hilt. Its hooked foreleg punched through his chest, but he seized the limb and dragged himself farther down it to reach the sword lodged in its skull.

*SKRIIIIEE!*

Black fluid sprayed across his helmet as he ripped the blade sideways through the creature’s head. Around him, his soldiers hit the swarm hard enough to buckle legs, hacking into the bodies beneath their boots while fangs closed on them from every side.

One lost his sword arm at the elbow and rammed the broken stump into the spider’s eye. As its mouth opened in a shriek, he plunged his remaining hand between its fangs, holding it open for a comrade’s blade.

"That hurt, you hideous thing!" the wounded soldier bellowed, shoving deeper into the jaws.

The fangs snapped shut through his neck, bursting his body into pale flame, but he’d held them apart long enough for his comrade to drive a sword through the soft flesh beneath the spider’s head. A twist of the surviving soldier’s blade folded the spider’s legs, dumping him into the next creature’s reach.

Above them, Marielle crouched at the edge of the stone balcony Quinlan had made by raising the feeding-room floor into the cavern wall. Aurora’s barrier sheltered her and the rescued captives, with steps descending to the fighting terrace and the bridge below.

Even as she watched soldiers being torn apart, more leapt off the bridge, roaring as they fell. Those who landed among the wreckage climbed straight over their own dying comrades to reach the monsters beyond.

"They aren’t even trying to protect themselves..."

At the centre of the slaughter, the officer tore free of the dead giant’s leg and charged with a hole through his chest. Another spider caught him across the waist, pinning him between its fangs while he hacked at the plates above its mouth.

"Keep going!"

His blade split an eye before the jaws met through his middle. Pale fire burst between the fangs, spilling over the spider’s face as the ruined body came apart.

Then the scattered flames drew together beneath its head, reforming Ito with his sword already rising toward its throat.

"Again!" he roared, driving the blade upward with both hands.

Marielle recoiled from the balcony’s edge. The hole in his chest was gone. Farther back, the soldier she’d seen lose his arm and head was hauling himself onto another spider, using both hands to wrench its fangs apart.

[Reign of the Undying] was returning Quinlan’s destroyed Elite Souls to the fight without another casting of [Awaken]. Each could return once per minute, and out here, beyond Iskaris, every resurrection cost them another ten percent of their strength until he set foot on his land again.

Splitting the shell took more effort now, enough for Quinlan to notice the cost of the resurrection. Even with a boot braced against the monster’s face, Ito had to keep tearing at the wound before its throat finally opened over him.

"Forward!"

The soldiers answered with a roar, trampling the collapsing body as they drove toward the tunnels. Quinlan thrust ridges of rock through the swarm on either side, splitting its masses into channels.

"Stay... dead!"

On the wall to the balcony’s right, the queen hooked a web bridge and dragged it down across the soldiers still descending Quinlan’s stone span. Silk tightened around their weapons as she pulled, wrenching the front rank off their feet toward her waiting fangs.

Across the gap between her hook and the snared soldiers, Quinlan swept a blade of wind. The tether snapped, and he followed the cut with a torrent of water that struck her underside hard enough to send her supporting legs scraping furrows down the wall.

*SKRIIIIEE!*

Digging her hooks deeper into the rock let her brace against his torrent, though water still splashed over her screaming face. Until the last soldier had stripped the loose silk from his weapon, Quinlan held her there; then he swept the ruined web into the brood below.

"Keep them busy," he told Ito, grinning as his soldiers charged through the cleared crossing.

"Necromancer," Andre breathed. "But... what?" The Grade Three adventurer was more confused than ever in his life.

He lowered his sword. "What in the Goddess are you, Adventurer Black?"

Vex stepped past him, her crimson tattoos joining into a single burning lattice. Tiny horns pushed through her white hair while a black tail uncoiled behind her.

"He’s not ’in the Goddess.’" The Hexwitch’s eyes danced with amusement as she watched her lover. "That hypocrite doesn’t deserve such a thing."

"Demon!" Marielle choked.

Vex turned her pentagram eyes toward the horrified mage, then rolled them, not even bothering to reply.

Instead, the woman who forced the Primordial Demon of Lust to sponsor her Bloodfather evolution began running down the balcony steps and past Kaelira at their foot to follow the soldiers onto the bridge.

When a giant spawn hauled itself over the lower end to block them, the Hexwitch caught its descending foreleg on her sword and pressed her free hand toward its shell.

"[Hex of Decay]."

The curse shattered into dark sparks before it could sink through the shell. Under the weight still pressing on her sword, Vex slid back a step, her heel scoring a line in the bridge.

"Oh? The pests are truly on another level over here." Vex’s tongue reached out, licking her lips with immense satisfaction. "Let me exterminate you."

"[My Man Reigns Supreme]!"

Quinlan’s towering silhouette rose behind her as her mark burned through her clothes. With the limb held against her blade, Vex let the curse measure the creature against her husband, her grin widening when the comparison reached Magic.

"[Hubby Supremacy Tax~]!"

Black threads stretched from the spider into Vex as she drained the gap between its Magic and Quinlan’s, stealing only what the creature possessed and adding it to her own power. The resistance that had shattered her first curse weakened while magic swelled through her brand.

"[Hex of Decay]."

This time, her strengthened curse sank into the spider. Where its flesh had resisted her before, a black wound spread around her sword until the rotting leg buckled against the blade.

"There we go. Love you, Hubby!!"

Vex giggled while a sideways wrench of her blade tore the leg free in a spray of rotten tissue. As the spider pitched forward, her next thrust met it.

By the time Vex pulled her sword out of its head, Black Fang had come down the bridge behind her and was already passing her disciple.

"[Damnation’s Fang]."

Violet light shone through the assassin’s clothing as she ducked beneath the next creature’s fangs. Her coated blade opened its throat, leaving serpent-venom seeping through the wound.

There was no soul for [Soul Reaper] to harvest from the monster, but Black Fang’s venom took hold of its corpse. The dead spider drove its legs into the bridge and rose behind her, its movements guided by a fragment of her own combat awareness.

"Kill."

At her sword’s gesture, it leapt onto the spider climbing beside it. The living creature screamed as its dead sibling drove its fangs beneath its head and tore backward.

Through the opening her puppet made, Black Fang slipped farther into the swarm. Each kill rose behind the Venomborne Terror to turn upon the next living body.

"Master, you’re having too much fun!"

Vex came after her with a delighted laugh, driving curses into the creatures struggling beneath the puppets. The brood packed the bridge so tightly that the dying could scarcely fall before another spider was climbing over them.

"You should smile more like this. Such an unhinged grin on a powerful woman is a dangerous drug for Hubby."

"I’m not smiling."

Vex held up a hand mirror so Black Fang could see them grinning side by side. "Master... You’re having the time of your life and you’re very sexy while doing it."

She giggled, "Well, if you ask me, you look like a savage psychopathic maniac on the loose, but it’s not my opinion that matters, right~?"

"I’ll deal with you later," Black Fang decreed flatly, descending into the chaos.

"Hehe! Wait for me!" Vex rushed after her, grinning from ear to ear like the happiest of daughters.

How couldn’t she?

Her beloved master was finally free, and it was all thanks to the same man who did so much for them all...

"Master, isn’t it about time you ditch your stupid pills and drink from the tap?!"

Marielle grabbed her husband’s good arm. All she’d been waiting for was a chance to leave with their rescuers once the monsters died. Now Black’s soldiers were returning from destruction, and the quiet woman was making corpses fight for her while an unhinged demon was running after her, screaming utter nonsense.

Then the officer’s greeting came back to her.

Master. Thank you for letting us step foot outside.

All morning she’d been explaining adventuring to the man now floating above the slaughter. He’d let her carry on with an army of the dead inside his sword, and every woman with him had known.

"Why?" Her voice scraped her throat. "Why are you showing us this?"