Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1505  Fighting an Arch Priestess

Black Fang was thrilled.

The signs were subtle if you didnʼt know her, but Quinlan had spent enough time around the woman to read them. The slight widening of her stance. The way her fingers adjusted on the katanaʼs grip, the relaxation of someone preparing for sustained violence rather than a quick kill. A real fight. She could smell it.

Quinlan was less enthused.

He was focused, because an Arch Priestess standing on the steps of her cathedral was a very different opponent than the soldiers heʼd been cutting through until now.

The Arch Priest class was the Goddessʼs highest mortal appointment. Her chosen heralds, handpicked from the ranks of the Healer class for their devotion and elevated into something far more powerful. Where Healers channeled the Goddessʼs mercy - or as Quinlan now knew, her Purity - to mend wounds and cure disease, Arch Priests channeled her authority at a much higher level. Holy boons that could fortify, shield, purify, and smite with a potency that made standard healing magic look like a parlor trick.

The Healer class itself was already selective. The Goddess chose who received it, and she chose based on virtue. It was the reason sheʼd refused to grant the class to Quinlan. It was also the reason Seraphiel had received it, because beneath the cheeky act and shameless flirting, Quinlanʼs elven lover was one of the kindest souls heʼd ever met.

The Goddess had good taste in that regard.

Many considered the Arch Priest class to be the Healerʼs superior evolution. Quinlan disagreed. To him, it was a cage dressed in gold.

The price of that power was freedom. Arch Priests derived their strength from a direct connection to the Goddess, and that connection required proximity to consecrated ground. A cathedral. A temple. A shrine of sufficient sanctity. Step too far from the Goddessʼs domain and the boons faded, the power drained, and the Arch Priest became an ordinary person in expensive robes.

Healers could walk the world. They could travel, fight, explore, live as they pleased. The Goddessʼs gift to them was unconditional.

Arch Priests were leashed.

However, there was an exception to the rule. Elisabeth Valorian, the Dawn Breaker, Second Princess of the Vraven Kingdom, had somehow maintained her connection to the Goddess even at vast distances from any cathedral. But Elisabeth was an outlier so extreme that scholars had written entire treatises trying to explain how she managed it.

The rest were bound. Stationed at their cathedrals for life, deriving immense power in exchange for never leaving. Revered by the public. Honored by kingdoms. Treated as living saints.

Slaves, in Quinlanʼs eyes. Doing a womanʼs bidding in exchange for a gilded cell.

He knew that opinion was extreme. To virtually anyone else on the continent, being chosen as an Arch Priest was the highest honor imaginable. A lifetime of privilege and respect. The faithful wept when they were selected.

Quinlan looked at the golden light pouring from the cathedral and saw a very powerful woman who could never leave her front door, unless she was willing to lose her powers.

Which was exactly what made her dangerous right now.

She wasnʼt away from her source. She wasnʼt weakened by distance or cut off from her patron. She was standing on the doorstep of her Goddessʼs seat of power, fully connected, fully charged, drawing on faith and devotion funneled through walls built for exactly this purpose.

An Arch Priestess at the heart of her domain.

For Black Fang, that meant a challenge worth getting excited about.

For Quinlan, it meant this was the first real fight since the barrier.

Black Fang moved first.

Her hand found the katanaʼs grip and drew it in a single fluid motion.

”[Orochiʼs Howl].”

The air rippled. A serpentʼs head, colossal and spectral, manifested above her. Its form was dark smoke except for the head, which was sharp, defined, and alive. The phantom serpent lowered and its enormous forked tongue licked her blade, releasing a howl that shook the stained-glass windows in their frames.

The katana ignited. Violet fire condensed along the edge, searing and bright, while a poisonous miasma bled from the steel and trailed behind every movement like smoke from a torch. Her veins darkened beneath her skin, pulsing violet as the serpentʼs essence threaded into her body.

The spectral head dissolved into motes of light.

Black Fang was already moving.

The Venomborne Terror crossed the distance to the Arch Priestess in a blur that left afterimages burning in the cold air. Her katana came in fast, a rising slash aimed at the priestessʼs throat.

”[Divine Aegis]!”

A wall of golden light erupted from the steps. Black Fangʼs blade struck it and the impact cracked the air, sending a shockwave rolling down the street that shattered windows on both sides. The barrier held.

Black Fangʼs boots skidded backward on the stone, but she was already moving again, circling left, probing, her speed turning her into a streak of dark robes and violet steel.

Velaraʼs staff swept in a horizontal arc. ”[Searing Judgment]!”

A beam of concentrated golden light lanced from the gemstone and chased Black Fang across the steps. Stone exploded where it struck, leaving craters of scorched, purified earth.

ʼNot long ago, I wouldʼve sat this one out,ʼ he admitted to himself. ʼWatched from the side, supported from range, and accepted that jumping into a fight at this level would make me a liability rather than an asset.ʼ

He adjusted his grip on the saber.

ʼNot anymore.ʼ

Black Fang was already adjusting her trajectory to avoid the beam. She would have dealt with it. Sheʼd fought mages who could level city blocks and lived to tell about it, or rather, lived while others told about it. A beam of holy light wasnʼt going to end her.

But avoiding it cost her momentum. Every second spent dodging was a second she wasnʼt cutting.

Quinlan thrust both hands forward and every ounce of wind he could call upon slammed into the beam from the side.

The golden light resisted. Holy energy was dense, heavy, and it did not want to move. His wind buckled against it, flattened, nearly broke. The beam kept tracking Black Fang, closing the gap, scorching the stone inches from her heels.

He pushed harder. His mana screamed. His pathways burned.

The beam shifted. A fraction. Barely a handʼs width of deviation from its original trajectory, but a handʼs width was enough.

Black Fang didnʼt dodge.

She didnʼt even look at it.

The golden light seared past her so close it singed the fabric of her robes and left a trail of smoke rising from her shoulder. She ran straight through the heat of it without breaking stride, without flinching, without a single adjustment to her course. She trusted him to handle it.

The realization struck Quinlan even as the last of the beamʼs energy dissipated against the ice dome behind them. She hadnʼt slowed for even an instant to confirm the beam had moved. Sheʼd felt his wind hit the spell and committed forward with the absolute certainty that the man fighting together with her would make it work.

The deadliest killer of Iskaris, teaming up with the continentʼs most versatile fighter.

Their combination made for an extremely problematic duo.

Black Fang closed the remaining distance and her katana came down in a vicious arc aimed at the priestessʼs neck.

Velara raised her staff to meet it.

”[Holy Rebuke]!”

The staff detonated on contact. A shockwave of golden force erupted from the point where steel met holy wood, and the blast radiated outward in every direction. Black Fang was hurled backward, boots tearing grooves in the stone as she skidded to a stop. Quinlan, mid-sprint up the steps to attack from the opposite angle, caught the edge of the blast and was thrown sideways into a pillar.

Pain lanced through his shoulder. He pushed off the cracked stone and kept moving.

Black Fang was already closing again. The blast had bought Velara two seconds. Black Fang gave her back one.

Quinlan flanked from the right. The Arch Priestessʼs eyes snapped between them. One enemy she could track. Two, from opposite angles, with one of them casting weird spells without a single spoken word?

Her free hand thrust toward Quinlan.

”[Divine Condemnation]!”

The spell was different from the Searing Judgment. Quinlan felt it before it arrived. The air itself changed, thickening with a pressure that made his bones ache. Golden light gathered at Velaraʼs palm, dense and blinding, compressing into a sphere that hummed with a frequency he could feel in his teeth.

Then it fired.

The beam was much wider and faster than the last. It crossed the distance between them in the time it took Quinlanʼs eyes to widen.