Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 871: Betrayal

Zephyr looked down at the slender arm piercing through his body, his comrade’s arm.

His friend’s. The one he trusted with his back.

Nalai?”

His knees buckled. Blood dripped from his lips as he slumped against her, his blade falling from his hand and clattering across the stone.

Across the field, Serika turned in time to see her sister lower the corpse gently to the ground.

Sister?” Her voice cracked. “What are you doing?”

Nalai looked up. Her expression was unreadable. Her hand was still wet with Zephyr’s blood.

Serika screamed.

”Sister?!”

The world stood still.

And the god began to laugh.

Zephyr’s blood hadn’t even begun to cool when the wind-cultivator, eyes hollow with corruption, abandoned Nalai and launched off the ground.

Not toward her. Not toward Quinlan.

He streaked past Venthros, leaping with blades drawn, and descended upon Rongtai’s remaining monks.

The first was cut in half before he turned. Another was decapitated mid-chant. Screams rose like smoke from a fire. The monks, weary and bloodied after felling the large earth cultivator, barely had time to react. They’d thought the worst was over.

But the storm had only just begun.

Across the broken field, silence had fallen. One that was held together not by peace, but by horrified disbelief.

Quinlan stared at Nalai. So did Serika. Even her own soldiers looked at her as if she had sprouted horns. Mouths opened. No one spoke.

Then she raised her fist into the sky, tall and regal, her voice ringing like a bell across the blood-stained arena.

”As Sovereign of Naryssia, I hereby acknowledge God Venthros as our ally. I declare all who stand in his way as enemies of Naryssia.”

It echoed.

Like a verdict handed down by the heavens.

There was a pause of shocked gazes staring at her.

Then her soldiers, who were still and frozen, looked into her face. Into her eyes.

Clear. Cold. Certain.

Their queen had led them through famines. Through enemy embargoes. Through civil unrest. Her wisdom had elevated their cities, brought flowing waters to once-barren lands. They had named her “The Saint of Stillness” and “The Merciful Flood.” She was divine in all but name. ṙαΝ𝔬BĚṧ

She had never been wrong before.

”She wouldn’t side with him without reason,” one soldier muttered.

Another spat, “The Fire Nation and Earth always resented us anyway. If she says this god’s on our side, then he is.”

”We’ve never been allies with any of the other three nations

”Serika’s always been unstable.”

”An alliance between Queen Nalai and Lord Venthros could fix the world. Let us Naryssians thrive like never before

Rationalizations cracked over the crowd. And then came the flood.

A tide of water cultivators rushed forward, faces hard with conviction. They roared as they descended—not toward Venthros, not even toward Nalai, but toward the allies who had bled beside them moments before.

Rongtai’s surviving monks turned with grim faces.

Serika’s scouts let out desperate warnings, trying to fall back.

And Quinlan…

He stepped forward with his fists glowing with fourfold elemental resonance, catching the first attacker’s blade with his forearm and shattering it with a twist of earth-hardened muscle. Fire burst behind his palm as he slammed the soldier into a water-soaked pillar, cracking it in two.

”SISTER!”

Serika’s scream tore through the chaos. Her eyes were wide and wild, her face twisted not only in anger, but in overwhelming pain as well.

She stood halfway between Quinlan and Nalai, fists clenched so tightly that blood leaked from her palms.

”You know what he is! You know! This is the fated Invader! The thing that was prophesied to destroy Zhenwu!” Serika’s voice broke as she fought her tears back. “How can you stand beside him?!”

Nalai stood still, expression serene, unshaken by her sister’s anguish.

And then she smiled.

”Because he reached out and made me a proposal I couldn’t refuse.”

Serika blinked. Her lips parted in utter disbelief as she repeated the words, “A proposal you couldn’t… refuse?”

Nalai nodded, as if this were a calm debate, not the collapse of an entire alliance forged by blood. “He was ready to invade us weeks ago. But he contacted me before he did. He said he doesn’t want to kill us talented ones. That it would be a giant waste of our potential.”

Serika took a breath, about to shout something, but Nalai continued, her voice fluid like the sea, steady and unrelenting.

”While we were training our little Avatar,” she explained with her eyes flicking briefly to Quinlan’s distant form as he was fighting waves of her soldiers, “I disappeared for a few days.”

Serika said nothing. She couldn’t. Her throat was too tight to formulate words, her vocal cords refusing to obey her commands.

”That was when I met Venthros.”

Her next words sent a chill down Serika’s spine.

”We fought.”

The battlefield went quiet around them. The storm of combat still raged behind, but here, between twin sisters, it felt as though time had stopped.

”I gave it everything I had. My domain, my techniques, my full force as a Sovereign. But he Her lips curved downward in dejection. “He never even drew his full strength. I realized then and there that even if all four of us Sovereigns fought him together, we would lose. We would die.”

Serika’s fists trembled as she finally found her voice. “That’s why we were supposed to train Quinlan! The Avatar was meant to help us defeat this dark creature!”

”That boy?” Nalai scoffed, cutting her off. Her gaze shifted toward the middle of the battlefield, where Quinlan was locked in battle, tearing through soldiers in a blur of the four elements. “I told you. Venthros was ready weeks ago. I asked him to wait.”

Her voice was nearly a whisper now.

”I wanted to see if the so-called Avatar could actually reach a level that meant something. If he could become something real. A rival. A savior. Or at the very least a proper challenge.”

Her tone dropped cold.

”But I was disappointed.”

Serika stared, unable to breathe.

Nalai continued. “So I made my decision. I’d rather stand beside the one guaranteed to win. But don’t worry, sister she tilted her head to the side sweetly, “I made sure you could join me.”

You what?”

”I asked him to spare you. His offer stands. We can work with him together.” She raised a hand, palm to the sky like she was offering a gift. “He told me about the wider world. The vast universe outside this self-contained world, or a cage to be more precise. We’ve been playing in a shallow pond while gods like him swim in the sea. He’ll take us with him, Serika. We’ll go world to world, conquering, growing stronger, learning true cultivation. Not this backward, sealed-off system we’ve been chained to ever since we were born.”

Serika’s eyes were wide with disbelief. Horror. Grief.

”You she choked on her own words. “None of this makes sense! How can you trust him?! He’s the Invader! He’s here to ruin everything!”

Nalai giggled.

A light, crystalline sound that made Serika’s blood run cold.

”You’re right. It’s a gamble. But Venthros promised me one more thing.”

The softness vanished from her voice. Her smile sharpened.

”He promised to find our father. Wherever he’s hiding. And when he does Her voice dropped to a venomous murmur, he will present him to me, alive. So I can finish what I started.”

Before you guys say that this was a total asspull on my end, let me say that I’ve dropped multiple hints.

Rykar’s comment about not being able to trust even family, Nalai’s quite forced reaction to the news of his being alive, Nalai insisting that Venthros was still in the wind sovereign’s palace when Serika’s spies were no longer certain… And that’s just from the top of my head. All that is to say, this has been planned by me even before the arc began and I left a few small clues but didn’t want to make it obvious.

I understand that many of you don’t like her actions, but sometimes, things just don’t go our way. Not every nation toppling jade beauty has the heart of a saint.