Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1346  Archmage Harel

Fuse lit.

Another thunderous crack split the air.

A second building folded inward, its interior collapsing into a cloud of dust and falling masonry. The recoil launched him backward again, over the wall, vanishing from Marwenʼs sight.

A moment later, he bounced back up.

Again.

And again.

And this exact scene played over a hundred times simultaneously.

This was the dwarven solution.

When the barrier of their targeted settlement fell, and the walls were taken, they did not abandon their artillery outside the walls, nor did they burden themselves with hauling the full siege mounts up the walls.

Instead, they turned the conquered outside region into a support platform.

Trampoline nets caught recoil. Grapples retrieved gunners. Cannons became mobile. And the defenders became trapped inside their own settlement. Why not just continue shooting from outside? After all, with the barrier down, they could just angle the artillery and shoot inside.

Multiple reasons. One, shooting from the walls gave them a proper sight and height advantage. Two, they became protected by the walls themselves, making a sally out effort from the defenders or a second army coming to reinforce the settlement flanking them a lot less probable.

Three, their cannons were never meant for high-arc bombardment. Each shot was expensive, and firing at steep angles reduced accuracy, penetration, and return on destruction.

Cannons were meant to take the barrier and then the walls down. But why take the walls down when it was an extremely expensive business to craft so much ammunition, and when they can use it to their own advantage?

Thatʼs why they scaled the walls with cannons on their shoulders.

For hours after taking the walls, they reduced cities this way. They did not charge inward like other races would, as that would mean bleeding in alleys they did not know.

Instead, they erased paths. Crushed choke points. Collapsed buildings until the defendersʼ familiarity with the settlement meant nothing.

There was no home ground once the streets were gone.

Marwen forced herself to breathe.

Her attention snapped back to the city, and her blood went cold because that was when she heard the fighting.

Not undead, this time.

Steel on steel. Shouts that broke too fast. Orders cut short.

Marwen turned with her heart hammering.

Blue-skinned figures moved through the streets in the distance.

Some advanced in tight formations, shields overlapping, steps synchronized. Others ran across walls and leapt rooftops, hunting in pairs, throwing daggers or arrows flashing once before moving on.

They were not charging.

They were clearing.

”Weʼve lost…” someone breathed behind her.

Marwen clenched her jaw.

”No,” she said sharply. ”We hold. We always hold. The fate of the human race depends on us.”

She turned back toward her squad, already drawing breath to give orders.

”Captain…”

The voice came from her right.

A girl. Barely old enough to have earned her armor. She was shaking so hard her spear rattled.

”Captain, look…”

She pointed upward.

Marwen followed her finger.

High above Greyhaven, a figure hovered.

Black armor. No wings. No visible magic holding him aloft. He drifted from area to area.

Where he passed, crowds vanished.

When facing a tight crowd, fire blossomed at his fingertips, tight and contained, consuming an entire formation in a single breath. Elsewhere, when faced with scattered formations or retreating enemies, blue points flashed and lines simply folded, bodies dropping before sound could catch up. When soldiers fled into buildings, the ground itself rose and collapsed inward, burying them under their own shelter.

Marwenʼs breath caught.

But just then, a figure in green rose from the far end of the square where the lordʼs manor was, boots lifting from the stone as wind gathered beneath him in a tight, controlled spiral. An archmage.

Recognition rippled through the defenders. Shouts broke out, sharp and hopeful.

”Thatʼs Archmage Harel!” someone cried.

”Wait, what is he doing here in Greyhaven?!”

”I heard Duke Tharion himself tasked Lord Harel to conduct research into the local fauna in hopes of crafting an elixir that can make warriors fly!”

”The Goddess shines on us on this day! I heard Lord Harel is in the high level 60s, and the enemy foolishly stayed in the air for so long! Everyone in Ravenshade knows that…”

The men and women spoke together: ”The sky belongs to Archmage Harel!”

The girl beside Marwen sucked in a breath, her knuckles turning white around her spear. ”H-heʼll kill it,” she blurted, voice breaking with the effort of believing it. ”Heʼll kill that monster!”

Harel lifted higher, robes snapping violently as the wind answered his call. From rooftops and towers, ballistae loosed. Bows followed. Spellbolts tore free from trembling hands.

A coordinated effort to shoot the damned creature down from the skies above Greyhaven, giving the defenders a chance at victory. ”With a wind-elemental archmage confronting him while at the same time thousands of projectiles shoot toward him, this is the end! It must be!” Marwen shouted, voice full of pride for her fellow combatants.

They were truly the heroes of humanity.

Just like this, the sky, the dominion of the strange creature until now, became filled with motion.

The man in black did not dodge.

He raised his left hand and snapped his fingers.

That was all.

The sky broke.

Violent whirlwinds tore into existence around him, not just one or two, however… From one moment to the next, dozens materialized, spiraling in intersecting layers. Arrows were ripped sideways mid-flight, shafts splintering as they were flung into one another. Spellbolts unraveled, their magic shredded and dispersed. Ballista bolts were seized by sudden lateral force and hurled screaming into empty streets below or miles away outside the city.

The entire volley became useless.

At the same time, while this was going on, the creature in the skies raised his right arm.

Harel felt it the moment the right hand lifted and was aimed at him.

Authority.

Sheer, unquestionable authority.

Every instinct he had sharpened over a near millennium of spellwork and combat screamed at once. His breath hitched from the overpowering pressure assaulting his body, as if the air itself had thickened around his chest. The wind beneath his boots wavered. He forced it steadily through habit alone.

He raised his staff and called upon all he had. The runes along its length burned a hard green as he planted it before him in the skies.

”I will stop you here!” Harel shouted, voice carrying on the currents he commanded. ”Your senseless rampage ends right here and now! [Tempest of a Hundred Blades]!”