Primordial Villain With A Slave Harem
Chapter 881 - 881: Truth [Bonus]

Quinlan hovered in the air, cradling Serika in his arms as the world below writhed beneath them. Ash and corrupted wind spiraled in every direction, and the skyline was split open by protruding earth constructs and melting towers. The capital, once a proud gem of Naryssia, was now little more than a ruin waiting to drown.

He stared up at the abomination of fire and flesh that God Venthros had become.

"Even with his powers sealed by Zhenwu's laws…" he muttered, almost too quietly for Serika to hear, "He's still a god in the end."

Serika's eyes flicked toward him, but she said nothing.

"This… this isn't a spell…" Quinlan continued. His voice was laced with a calm, analytic quality, making Serika feel as if he was a scholar more than a combatant in a do-or-die situation.

"It's not a technique. It's him. The real him. This body, this horror incarnate… it doesn't need permission from Zhenwu to exist. It's truth made flesh. Just like how I was allowed to retain my primordial vessel, making my cultivation journey easier than if I were a human… He, too, kept his real body. It's just that he only now assumed his true form. By merely being here, he throws the world into imbalance."

He looked down at the city crumbling under the weight of Venthros's presence, then back to the god above.

"He was never meant to descend on this mortal plain. No god should. That's why the Goddess must be restricted by the Soul Records from directly intervening in Thalorind. Hence her need for the Arch Priests, her temples, and their members to carry her will."

His grip tightened around Serika's waist.

"Now I understand it all… Seeing this, I can finally tell why the Soul Record wants to stop the greed of the gods, no matter what. Why it needs people like me, people who are willing to kick the gods down a peg as they stand in my path."

The greed. The hunger. The corruption that bled from divine ambition. Gods who crossed worlds not to save, but to pillage. To feast on souls like coin, burn laws like parchment, and leave mortals begging for death. Just to feel mighty again.

And this… this was the result. Millions of lives had been eliminated by the mere reveal of Venthros's true form.

Quinlan took a slow breath, calming himself down. Elemental auras flared subtly around his form as he adjusted his stance.

Serika looked at him wordlessly. She had questions, a thousand of them.

Who exactly was he? What did he mean by what he just said? Why did he speak like he carried the burden of many worlds on his shoulders?

But when she saw his expression… The quiet certainty, the burning clarity in his eyes, she said nothing.

It wasn't the time to satisfy her curiosity. That could wait until after they'd defeated whatever this creature was.

…

Far below, hidden behind shattered palace walls slick with blood and corrupted moss, Nalai stared up at the sky with wide, glassy eyes.

The capital—her capital—had become a corpse dressed in ash.

Her elite guard, her loyal citizens? Gone. Her temples, infrastructure? Crushed. Even the protective barriers her predecessors had spent centuries refining had shattered like brittle glass.

But she didn't scream. She didn't weep.

She had been prepared for this outcome.

She had known.

That day, when she met Venthros in secret, he had shown her this form.

And she had known, instinctively, irrefutably:

Nothing could kill him.

Not her. Not Serika. Not even their father, Rykar.

So she made her move. She secured a bargain consisting of three clauses that were highly valued by her.

First and most importantly, her sister would be spared. That had been non-negotiable.

Second, Venthros would aid in killing Rykar, the man who abandoned her long ago and refused to acknowledge her very existence even to this day.

Third, Venthros spoke of the stars. Of realms filled with lawless opportunity. Of a universe where strength had no ceiling.

She was over two hundred years old. Her cultivation had stagnated. This mortal world, limited to the Spirit Tempering stage, had nothing more to offer her. She and Serika had hit the peak of what this limiting realm could provide them with. From here on out until their dying breath, only slow stagnation awaited them.

But out there? There was more. So much more.

She wanted to taste it.

She wanted to grow again.

And in that desire, Nalai understood her sin.

She understood her greed. Her cowardice. Her selfishness.

Watching Venthros destroy the capital, seeing her people burn in twisted flame—they were expected outcomes. Sacrifices she'd come to accept in her cold, calculating heart.

But what she hadn't prepared for was Serika's eyes.

That expression of utter betrayal. That look of complete loss, as if she were nothing but a stranger to her. That flame of righteous hatred she had seen only once before, when she thought that their father had been killed.

Back then, Nalai's heart ached, knowing she brought horrible pain upon her sister with her own two hands and how he turned Rykar's fellow disciple, Serika's right-hand man, against his own master, and together with the assassins she sent, killed her father.

But in her greedy heart, she was overjoyed because Serika came to lean on her and her alone. With Rykar's death, they became orphans who had no one else to rely on but each other.

The Fire Sovereign couldn't show weakness to her own people. As a result, Serika spent many hours crying in Nalai's arms, and that made her empty heart beat with joy again. With happiness she hadn't felt since Rykar sent her away before she even turned ten years old. Since then, her life was nothing but endless cultivation, of rising in ranks, of backstabbing her competitors, who in turn backstabbed her.

That's how the cheery little girl Lysandra Vael became the cold machine known as Queen Nalai, who only pretended to have soft emotions. For her, everything was a pretense, everything was about getting the best outcome for herself.

There was one exemption from that: her twin sister, the muscle-brained, tanned, brash gorilla woman known as Serika Vael.

Nalai was jealous of Serika for so many things.

She had an affinity for the fire element, meaning she wasn't abandoned by their father.

Furthermore, Rykar taught her his secret techniques while ignoring his other daughter completely. She was forced to fight for every little knowledge while her other half was handed everything.

She even envied how simple-minded Serika was. Unlike her, who grew up in this backstabbing, competitive culture, Serika was allowed to be an honest, simple, and goal-driven woman.

But none of that mattered now. Her feelings were useless. Tears formed in her eyes as Nalai's heart accepted that…

There would be no forgiveness. Not for what she'd done in the past. The reason she confessed to the assassination attempt was because she thought that in this chaos, when facing a god who was here to ruin their world, she could get this weight off her chest without Serika reacting as strongly as she normally would… But it became clear that the girl who only pretended to have emotions for the past two centuries didn't quite understand her own twin sister's heart.

Nalai knew that maybe the world would forgive her, maybe she could even strike a deal with Zephyr's clan regarding her forgiveness. She could pay their pardon off with riches, with promises of land and power, anything.

But not Serika.

Not ever.

There was no redemption.