Primordial Villain With A Slave Harem

Chapter 1769 Bad Move

Quinlan pulled his fingers from Ayame's hair and let the warmth of the moment drain with them, because the field he was standing on was still a warzone.The laughter had bought everyone a few minutes.

Now those minutes were over, and the list of problems waiting for him stretched longer than the beastkin columns disappearing on the horizon.

Bodies carpeted the ground in overlapping layers, feral undead from the Covenant's shattered horde still stumbling into clusters of wounded soldiers.

The dwarven king sat frozen in a block of ice with no one quite sure what to do with him, and somewhere behind the elven lines, the Fujimori prisoners needed to be secured before they became four different kinds of headache.

He didn't need to say a word.

The tension that had been winding tighter since Skarn first snarled at him was unwinding now, and with it came the part his girls were best at: the work nobody thanked you for.

Ayame had already pulled a cluster of soul officers aside, her bratty energy shelved into the composed noble who ran his affairs when he wasn't looking, and Quinlan could hear her voice carrying across the field as she started coordinating prisoner transfers.

Seraphiel's golden light bloomed a dozen paces to the right, warm and wide, the Dawnbringer kneeling over a wounded elven soldier.

Serika was hauling a collapsed barricade off a pile of bodies with her bare hands.

Nearby, a handful of dwarven prisoners had inched closer and closer to their frozen king when they thought no one was watching, trying to sneak up and free him.

One of them was muttering about structural fault lines and heat application points when Kaelira's long ears twitched.

She walked over, arms folded, and the dwarves went still the moment they registered what was standing in front of them: an elf, towering over them, looking thoroughly unimpressed.

"I told you to keep your voice down!" one of them hissed at the muttering dwarf.

"I was!"

"Clearly not, since the elf heard you from thirty paces!"

Kaelira ignored the bickering and walked all the way up to the ice block housing Ragnar.

Her fingers trailed the frozen surface as a smith's analytical eyes replaced the stalwart tanker's gaze. "Heating the outer shell would cause a thermal shock that fractures inward. His heart stops before the first layer melts."

The dwarves exchanged baffled looks. They'd been caught trying to free their king and the elf was... solving the puzzle for them?

She tilted her head. "Chipping produces vibrations that do the same thing. The ice is elementally reinforced, so brute force won't even scratch it."

An impressed smile replaced her pursed lips as she announced her findings: "The only person getting him out of there safely is the person who put him in."

The dwarves stared at her with mounting confusion.

"Either way," Kaelira said, "I'd sit back down if I were you."

She raised a finger to point over her shoulder without turning around.

A dozen elven soldiers were visible where they'd been standing the entire time, longbows drawn and arrows nocked, their expressions carrying the kind of sweetness that preceded violence.

They'd been watching the dwarves inch toward the ice block from the start, waiting with the patient glee of predators who had been told not to kill the prey unless it gave them a reason.

"Aww... You're no fun!" One of them giggled. Actually giggled, the tip of her arrow still aimed at the nearest dwarf's throat, and the sound was the least reassuring thing any of them had ever heard.

Then, slowly, the bows lowered, and the elven soldiers' expressions twisted into genuine disappointment.

The color had left every dwarven face in the group.

One of them sat down on the frozen ground, not because he wanted to, but because his legs had quit on him.

"T-thank you..." the nearest dwarf managed, his voice thin enough to pass through a keyhole. "Why did you save us, lass?"

Kaelira didn't look at him as she replied with zero emotion. "I have a feeling you'll play an important role in my... partner's future plans." She turned away. "I didn't want you dying just yet."

Yet.

Quinlan shook his head, amused, as he watched it all from the center of the field and felt the knot in his chest loosen.

'They've got this.'

He could leave the cleanup duty to his girls, letting him proceed with what he had in mind.

His gaze drifted to find Black Fang. She stood apart from everyone else with her arms loose at her sides, watching the field with an expression that gave away nothing.

But her eyes said what her face wouldn't.

She had a certain item on her agenda, just didn't want to ask his help.

'How adorable...' Quinlan chuckled inwardly as he opened a [Warp Gate] beside her, pale energy swirling to life. "Will you get the preparations done for me, Black Fang?"

The woman in question was moving before the question mark landed, stepping through the portal without a glance, a nod, or a single word in response.

He chuckled again, shaking his head, then flicked two fingers toward the ice blocks containing Hozumi and Chizuru. The frozen elders slid across the ground on a current of earth and vanished through the gate after her.

"Everyone!" Myrasyn's voice cut across her ranks with the snap of a queen who had made up her mind. "Assist the Holy Son's women. We have a battlefield to clean up!"

The elven army moved as if they'd been waiting for the order.

Thousands of soldiers fanned out across the grounds, energized by the duty rather than burdened by it, seeking out Quinlan's women for direction.

Kitsara seemed to be in her element, waving groups of elven soldiers toward tasks with a cheerful authority that had absolutely no business working as well as it did, though the real directing fell to Lucille, Aurora, and Ayame herself.

Alexios watched the elves move, stroked his beard once, then turned to the armored man at his shoulder. "Stormlord. Represent the kingdom's interests while I'm gone. The Fujimori prisoners are still subjects of the crown."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Now then." Quinlan clapped his gauntlets together and faced the remaining leaders as if he were about to give a tour of his favorite restaurant. "Shall we begin?"

"Yeah!" Jasmine appeared beside him, beaming, already bouncing on her heels.

"Me too! Me too!"

Felicity came bounding over from Feng's side, waving both arms, and the sight of her stopped Alexios's next breath.

She was drenched in blood.

Head to toe, soaked through, her purple hair matted flat against her skull and her clothes stained so thoroughly that the original color was a matter of speculation. None of it was hers.

The smile splitting her face was brighter than the sun, and she bounced with the energy of a child who had just discovered the world's best playground.

This was not the princess who had been spirited away from his kingdom.

Alexios stared at his daughter for a long moment, and the concern that crossed his face lasted exactly as long as it took for the warrior king to override the doting father inside.

Alexios blinked. "How are you bloodier than the last time I saw you? The fight is over."

"Not everyone accepted defeat with grace, Father." Felicity replied with an ominous grin that belonged on a battlefield veteran twenty times her age.

For a moment the warrior king didn't know what he was looking at.

This was his youngest. His precious little daughter. The girl who used to cry when a flower wilted.

Then he recognized the look in her eyes, because he'd worn it himself at her age, and the savage grin that split his face was pure pride.

"Good."

Felicity beamed at him, then turned and threw herself at Quinlan with full-body enthusiasm, despite weighing about as much as one of his pauldrons.

She latched onto his armor and squeezed, smearing blood across his chestplate, and the hug was so earnest and so happy that it made the Primordial Villain look like a man being ambushed by his little sister after a long day.

Alexios's grin evaporated in the very same instant.

A ribbon of water coiled off Quinlan's free hand and swept through Felicity's hair while she was still clinging to him, pulling the blood out of the purple strands in a single smooth pass before spiraling down her clothes, her arms, her boots, carrying the grime away and leaving her spotless in seconds.

Felicity looked up at him, smiling. "Thank you!"

Before the old king's expression could finish souring at the terrible sight his eyes were carrying to his brain, Felicity released Quinlan and sprinted across the gap, slamming into her father clean and beaming.