Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1794: The Blade’s Truth

A thin wet rasp responded. It managed one word.

”...No.”

”No?” Quinlan raised an eyebrow from his throne of braided vine, Nyxara still warm against his chest.

After dealing with Chizuru’s nonsense longer than he should have, Quinlan tried the obvious next.

”[Subjugation].” The spell left him clean, aimed at the consciousness inside the blade, and caught nothing.

Like closing a fist around smoke. Not enough of an entity left to bind.

’...Great.’

His eyes found Nyxara’s, and the nod he gave her was small. The leash tightened through the bond. The blade screamed, thin and pitiful, and when she eased off the wretched thing cringed so hard it nearly came apart. ”I wasn’t asking. Speak the truth, only the truth, or you’ll forever regret opposing me.”

Three heartbeats of silence. Then the rasp returned. ”...What do you want to know?”

”What exactly are you?” Quinlan asked.

Nyxara didn’t need to squeeze. Her attention drifted toward the blade, idle, and the answer spilled before the pressure arrived. ”...A key. To borders. Thresholds. I was forged to cut even what should not be possible to cut.” The rasp steadied. ”Severing is my purpose.”

The pulse in the grey metal flickered, a fraction dimmer than when it first spoke.

”Where did the Fujimori come from?” Ayame’s tone was the second-in-command’s, composed and precise.

The blade strained. Quinlan could feel it through Nyxara, the wretched thing reaching for memories that dissolved before they formed. ”A continent east of here... They were powerful... once. Driven from their homeland, invaded. Defeated.”

”What invaded them?” Black Fang asked.

”Enemies...” The rasp died. When it returned, it was thinner. ”I don’t remember everything. The years in the dark were long. I wasn’t created to store information but to sever.”

”Could it also be because of what the demoness did to you?” Vex lobbed the accusation, aimed squarely at the woman in her man’s lap.

Nyxara sighed, a theatrical exhale, eyes closed, chin tilting skyward. ”Jealousy is such an ugly trait in a woman... I shattered its will, not its memory. Cleanly, precisely, every piece left exactly where it fell.”

She concluded with a scoff. ”I don’t make mistakes, little leech.”

”So the Fujimori of old ran from their homeland and arrived in Iskaris. How did they get through the barrier? No one else entered before or after them as far as our records indicate.” Alexios broke through the female banter.

”I slit the edge...” A grinding pause, trying to remember the details. ”They sacrificed their people at the wall to empower me... And I made a wound large enough for the clan to pass through.”

Myrasyn’s ears went rigid. ”Does that mean you can cut through it again? Can we leave if we power you up again?”

”No.”

”Why not?” Aurora prompted.

”Because getting in is easier than leaving. But even if it wasn’t, you wretches of Iskaris are so pitifully weak I’d require your whole population sacrificed twice over to harvest that much strength.”

”...” Being belittled like that, for once, sounded more ominous than mocking. Quinlan and co were used to being treated as the underdogs, but what this thing was saying...

Just how powerful were the people on the outside?

”So you cut through the barrier. Then what?” Ayame kept her eyes on the blade, where the grey pulse had slowed to a crawl.

”Everyone who crossed above the seventy-fourth threshold died within minutes.”

’Fuck...’ Quinlan cursed, having a bad premonition. This sounded far too close to what Vasilen Sangomar, the ancient vampire, had told Quinlan. The archduke managed to survive, but he did so as a heavily suppressed existence.

The blade confirmed his thoughts.

”Hmm... Oh, yes. I remember. The domain you clueless barbarians call the ’Heavenly Restriction’ killed them... Their cores could not sustain themselves against the drain. The strongest, the ones who could have led, including my wielder...”

The rasp went thin. ”They suffocated where they stood...”

Alexios’s jaw tightened.

”The clan arrived with its head cut off,” Quinlan murmured.

”That’d explain why even the elders are so clueless,” Ayame sighed.

”Driven from their homeland in a hurry...” Lucille shook her head, disappointed.

”The only clan records that could’ve survived, including the elders’ ’instructions from the ancestors,’ were written by weak followers, not leaders,” Black Fang concluded.

”How much stronger were these ancestors than I am? What was their level?” Alexios asked.

”...You’d not even be worthy of cleaning their boots, boy king. As for their level... I don’t remember.”

”Was it over a hundred?” Serika inquired.

”Yes.”

”Over two hundred?”

”...I don’t remember.”

”One fifty?”

”I don’t know...”

”...” Serika sighed, disappointed but happy she at least got confirmation of the outsiders being more than level one hundred.

Which in itself had grave implications for all denizens of Iskaris.

”It’s fading.” Aurora watched the blade, clinical. The grey pulse that had answered Nyxara’s command was guttering, each throb weaker and farther apart than the last.

Nyxara glanced down at the blade in her grip without lifting her head from Quinlan’s chest. ”I forced it to speak to us, but this isn’t its natural state of being.”

Her grip shifted on the hilt. ”I’m not only keeping it conscious without becoming its wielder, but I’m also forcing it to speak. It’s like sustaining a flame where there is no air. It won’t last much longer.”

”I see...” Aurora nodded. ”Thank you for the explanation.”

”What’s there to thank? I just answered my sister-wife’s question~” Nyxara purred, drawing a heart on Quinlan’s skin.

Isveth observed the demoness for a long moment, braving herself for the disrespect she was about to show toward one of the Holy Son’s women, then spoke up. ”Forgive me, but Miss Demon is from beyond the Restriction, is she not? Surely she knows more than this corrupt sword spirit thing can offer.”

The response she received was far different than whatever the elf could’ve ever expected.

Nyxara turned her face into Quinlan’s neck, hiding, and the words came out bare and small. ”I’m sorry, my love...”

Quinlan’s hand settled on her head, fingers moving through her hair with extreme gentleness, and he addressed the room without looking up. ”She’s restricted in what she can tell me.”

Myrasyn opened her mouth, looked at the primordial demon nuzzling into her boyfriend’s neck with droopy eyes and the posture of a kicked puppy, and closed it again.

”Ah...” Isveth hurriedly bowed. ”I’m sorry, Miss Demon.”

Nyxara didn’t respond, instead electing to hide further away into her conqueror.

Quinlan turned back to the fading blade.

”The Fujimori were running. If they had to run, they weren’t the strongest beings out there. How strong is Thalorind’s peak, then?”

The blade took a long time to answer. When the rasp returned, it was barely audible, each word surfacing at a cost.

”The ones who... defeated them.” A long, grinding silence. ”The gap between you and the peak... Is unfathomable...”

”Give me concretes. How much stronger are they?”

”...I don’t know.”

For a long, long second, nobody spoke as Quinlan’s hand went still on Nyxara’s back.

Across the clearing, Alexios was looking at him, and for the first time, both men were truly speechless at the same time.

The implications of what this thing revealed thus far have been overwhelming.

But the blade was fading, and they couldn’t afford to stop.

”You called the Heavenly Restriction a ’domain’ earlier.” Black Fang spoke up, cutting through the quiet. ”Not a barrier. Explain.”

The pulse in the grey metal skipped. For a moment Quinlan thought it had stopped entirely, then it returned, weaker.

”A domain is... a will. Someone’s...” The rasp fragmented, reformed. ”...will, laid over the land... and its people. Authority. A ruler’s... claim. The seal around this continent... belongs to someone.”

Elisabeth, who hadn’t looked back since Nyxara’s display, turned toward the blade.

”Who is this ’ruler?’” Alexios’s voice was very quiet.

”I... don’t remember...” The rasp had gone thin as thread.

”You told the Fujimori that conquering Iskaris would bring about the golden age of the clan. Kaede told the Scarlet Lilies that if they helped her win Greenvale - which was the first step toward conquering the continent - she could bring down the Heavenly Restriction,” Ayame spoke up at last. ”These two must be connected. Explain.”

The rasp came back thinner than ever before.

”Yes... It is connected... Cause and effect... A domain belongs to... the one who drew it. And a domain can be... challenged. By a claim of equal standing.”

The words were dissolving between syllables now. ”If a new ruler rises... and the land answers... the original claim... will not hold.”

”Explain the mechanics properly. Stop speaking in riddles.” Quinlan had had enough. ”What counts as conquering? What are the effects of a domain exactly? Can a so-called ruler just cast a domain or dispel one at will?”

”Kekeke... Little primordial... My sincerest of apologies, but... I... Don’t... Remember...”

The grey metal pulsed once more and went still.

The thin presence Nyxara had forced into coherence scattered back into the depths of the blade, leaving behind a crowd too stunned to even speak from all the implications they’d just learned.

Well, save for the old king.

”Fuck me.”