Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1347  Futility

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]!”

Mana surged through his limbs. The spell came to him clean and practiced. Wind gathered, dense and obedient, wrapping his body in a rotating mantle as he cast.

The black armored figureʼs right hand - aimed straight at Harel - began to close.

The archmage sucked in a sharp breath. The air refused to follow his command as seamlessly as it had before. His lungs strained against invisible resistance, so much so that the chant nearly broke. His staff shook in his grip.

He forced it through anyway.

The spell completed with a thunderous pull. Wind roared outward from him, a crushing array of blades meant to tear flesh from bone. For a heartbeat, it moved as he willed.

Then it slowed.

The fingers in the sky curled further inward.

Harelʼs vision swam. His cheeks hollowed as the air was dragged from around his face. The hundred wind blades began slipping free, and instead of facing the armored man, began to turn toward their own caster.

”No,” he gasped, clutching the staff with both hands. Mana poured from him in a desperate flood, runes flaring bright enough to scorch the wood beneath his palms. ”I wonʼt let you!”

For the first time since Harel became a mage nine hundred years ago, the wind did not answer his call.

It pressed against him instead. The pressure wrapped his torso, his arms, his throat. His spell bent inward, folding back on itself.

Harelʼs breath came in ragged pulls. The staff slipped an inch in his grip, then another.

He looked up.

The figure in black hovered unmoving, silent as the night sky. Red orbs of light burned behind the helm, ruthless and fixed on him alone. There were no words exchanged between the two, no gesture beyond the continuous, slow closing of a hand.

Harelʼs fingers released the staff, letting it fall out of the sky. He stared at the horrible creature before him with his heart in his throat.

”M-monster…” he whimpered.

The hand finished closing, forming a tight fist.

Every blade he had shaped, every ounce of wind mastery he had refined through centuries of practice, turned against him.

His authority over the winds was overwritten, his spell stripped away from his control.

The first cut took his left shoulder. Robe, muscle, bone separated cleanly as if measured. His scream never finished forming. A second blade passed through his ribs from behind, opening his chest and dragging the sound out of him in a wet, broken gasp.

Blades crossed his body from every direction. His legs parted at the thigh. One arm spun away end over end. Wind that had once lifted him now held him in place, pinning what remained of his body in the air while it worked.

There was no time to fall.

His torso split along the spine. His helm-less head jerked once as a final blade passed through his neck, clean and final. Blood burst outward in a spray, carried on the very currents he had sworn mastery over.

Then the pressure was released.

What was left of Archmage Harel came apart.

Chunks of flesh, strips of green cloth, and dark red arcs of blood rained down over Greyhaven. Pieces struck rooftops, streets, and shields. Something soft slapped against a wall and slid down, leaving a long smear before dropping out of sight.

The wind stilled.

High above, the black-armored figure lowered his fist.

Marwen felt her knees weaken.

The girl beside her let go of her spear. It clattered against the stone, loud and wrong in the sudden gap left behind by the windʼs silence. No one moved to pick it up.

The lieutenant swallowed hard and turned toward Marwn. ”C-captain,” he said, voice strained but still trying to hold together. ”Orders?”

Marwen didnʼt answer.

Her eyes were locked upward, fixed on the black-armored figure as he lowered his fist and hovered without effort. The same place where Archmage Harel had been moments ago now held nothing but scattered blood still falling in thin lines.

”Captain!” the lieutenant tried again, louder this time. ”We should regroup. Link up with the Third or the West Guard. If we consolidate, we can still…”

His words kept coming. Tactics. Formations. Familiar sounds meant to anchor fear.

They never reached her.

Because the figure in the sky moved.

Slowly, deliberately, the armored head turned. The red lights behind the visor shifted, locking onto Marwenʼs position as if her existence alone had drawn his interest.

Her breath stopped.

The world narrowed until there was nothing left but those two points of red.

The screams around her dulled. The clash of steel and dwarven cannon fire became distant. Even the pounding of her own heart seemed to fade, replaced by a cold pressure spreading from her chest to her limbs.

She had faced death before. She had stared down undead lords, terrible beasts, and enemy champions who could crush men barehanded.

This was different.

This was not an enemy measuring her strength.

This was a predator noticing movement.

Her lips parted. The word came out on breath alone.

”Run.”

The lieutenant stiffened. ”What?” He stared at her as if sheʼd struck him. ”Run? Captain, you said we hold the line. You said we fight until the last drop of blood!”

”Run!” she repeated, louder now, her voice cracking as her legs trembled beneath her. She didnʼt look away. She couldnʼt. Her voice came as a whisper of terror. ”Everyone… run.”

Confusion rippled through the squad.

The lieutenant stepped closer. ”Captain, listen to me. We can still put up a fight and buy time. Honor-”

”Forget honor!” Marwen screamed.

The word tore out of her chest, raw and shaking.

”Forget duty! Forget everything they taught us!” Her voice broke as the figure in the sky began to glide closer, the distance shrinking without effort. ”It doesnʼt matter. None of it matters in front of that thing! We were taught to face humanoid enemies and wild monsters, not THIS!”

Her hands shook so badly she had to force them into fists.

”This isnʼt a battle,” she said hoarsely. ”Itʼs a culling. A wide-scale farming operation! Weʼre being butchered like pigs! Killing us gives them XP and bodies to raise, bolstering their forces!”

Her soldiers paled like never before. Many cried out in sheer disbelief.

The red gaze stayed on her.

She could feel it. Even through armor, through distance, through chaos. She knew, with a certainty that hollowed her out, that beyond that obsidian helmet of his, this wrathful entity was sporting a cruel, predatory grin.

If she stayed one second longer, she would die without even being noticed.

”Everyone, run! The only victory we can achieve on this day is not feeding that being with even more resources!” Marwen screamed. ”So we scatter! We hide! We live!”

The black-armored figure tilted forward and began moving toward them.

Marwen released a choked sob from the depths of her very soul and turned to run with her allies as Greyhaven burned behind her.

Today was the day when the sky itself ceased to belong to humanity.