Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

729: War Council

729: War Council

”You’re here, Grim Reaper.

Red-Eye,” Gorruk rumbled, voice deep as ever.

The bearkin chieftain was an imposing sight, even more so now with his hulking form drenched in lionkin gore from head to toe.

Viscera clung to his skin like some grotesque war paint, his claws still dripping with blood.

He didn’t seem to notice, let alone care.

The smell of carnage clung to him like a second skin.

He probably took it as a prestige.

Beside him, I stood with Vex and my girls, our eyes turning to the ruined city of Sunscar.

The settlement had been utterly crushed beneath the joint onslaught of the dogkin and bearkin armies.

Crumbling towers, shattered gates, and blood-slicked streets lay beneath plumes of smoke.

Fires still licked at the sky in the distance, and corpses littered the ruins in every direction: lionkin warriors, their beasts, and the few necromantic remnants from the Covenant who’d been unlucky enough to remain behind.

And yet, this was only the appetizer.

The main meal awaited us ahead.

After an hour’s march, we saw it: Lionheart.

It loomed on the horizon like a sleeping colossus, far too large and too proud for the scorched plains that surrounded it.

Towering white walls glinted under the sun, clean and unbroken, flanked by defensive ballistae, mana turrets, and watchtowers filled with lionkin soldiers.

But it wasn’t just a city.

It was a fortress.

A bastion.

A sanctuary.

And a prison.

Lionheart held over a million people before the war, a number that was surely swollen by retreating civilians and armed forces.

I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that there were now over two million people inside, with hundreds of thousands of combatants among their midst.

We made camp in the fields beyond, joining the other factions who had arrived before us.

The tigerkin had set up in rows of tents to the west, their formations neat, their warriors efficient.

The foxkin camp, by contrast, was more chaotic and colorful, trickster banners flapping with whimsical, mocking designs.

The wolfkin stood to the north in rigid silence, their banners fewer, but their numbers no less impressive.

They were stoic, fierce, and unshaken.

And then they came.

Thunder rolled across the plains, not from the sky, but from the arrival of the Consortium.

Their black banners stretched as far as the eye could see, adorned with the golden eye insignia of the Vesper Consortium.

At the forefront rode Maelstrom, a towering figure cloaked in winds, whose armor was marked by dried blood and fractured runes.

His gaze was grim, surveying the field ahead.

The army behind him, once more than 30,000 strong, had visibly shrunk: roughly 25,000 now.

Many bore visible wounds.

Their armor was scorched and dented, their eyes ringed with fatigue from countless ambushes and skirmishes with the Covenant’s dark forces.

But their steps didn’t falter.

The Consortium had bled, but they had not broken.

As night began to fall, the fires of war camps lit the horizon in every direction.

It was time for the final war council.

A massive pavilion was erected at the center of the encampments, serving as a neutral ground for all sides.

There, the leaders gathered.

Gorruk, wreathed in dried blood and silent menace.

Vex, wrapped in her now cleaned kendo attire, was seated beside me with her usual smug grace.

Maelstrom, standing with subdued wind elemental energies shimmering around his form.

Rajah, the tigerkin leader, eyed me with a clear lack of trust in his gaze.

Silver, the leader of the foxkin people, who, unlike Rajah, glared at me with clear hostility.

Skarn, the wolf boss, was silent, observing all leaders in equal measure.

Lastly, Vargis, who was returning Silver’s glare in my stead.

I would’ve liked to deal with Silver before today, ideally right after I humiliated him by beating his two sons, but I wasn’t presented with such an opportunity. 𝔯ἁNọꞖÊŠ

It wasn’t like I could demand his death, and the other beastkin lords would jump to complete my order.

I had to let him go home from the summit, for he had done no wrong as far as beastkin laws were concerned.

I didn’t know if we would clash in the future, but one thing was for certain: I would have to watch my back so long as I was in Beastman Confederation lands.

Anyhow.

We stood around a wide table strewn with maps, siege plans, and diagrams of Lionheart’s known defenses.

Everyone was watching.

Everyone was waiting.

”So, why exactly are these two present?” the nasty fox asked, dismissively gesturing at me and Vex.

”Maelstrom is the leader of the Vesper Consortium’s forces, Vargis is the leader of the dogkin people, so what right do they have to be here?”

”I don’t need your permission to invite these two people here,” Vargis barked.

”You have your sons present as well—I mean the sons that aren’t with the Goddess or suckling on their thumbs in the recovery room back home after my son-in-law put them in their place.”

”Grr!” A hostile growl sounded from the foxkin leader, eyes narrowing into fiery slits.

He elected to ignore Vargis’s latter statement, addressing the one about his children being present.

”Yes, they’re here, standing loyally behind me just like your two sons standing behind you, not around the table as if they were equal to us!”

Both Vex and I were doing our utmost to hold our snickers back because he was perfectly right.

We had no right to be here, perhaps not even present at the meeting at all.

But…

”I’m not in the mood for this petty back-and-forth game of yours,” Gorruk grumbled in a low tone.

”The Grim Reaper and Red-Eye made all of this possible, without them, we would never have gotten the fuel needed to declare open war against that Leohtar scum.

I don’t care if they stay.”

”Fine by me as long as they don’t interrupt too much,” Skarn said, shrugging his shoulders.

Rajah nodded.

”With this irrelevant matter settled,” Vargis said, giving Silver a side-eyed, mocking glance, “I say we should hear what sort of opposition Maelstrom experienced from the nasty allies of the lionkin.”

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