Primordial Villain With A Slave Harem

Serika rose from the pyre in an instant with her hair igniting into ribbons of flame as her temper flared, but the messenger who burst in fell to his knees, panting, covered in soot and smelling of ozone.

"Sovereign!" he cried, holding up a scroll bound in Windcaller silk. "Urgent report from the high courts of Aerynthia!"

Her brow furrowed as she took the scroll, ripping the seal open with a flick of her finger. Her eyes scanned the contents in silence.

Lines of text. Scattered, frantic reports. Descriptions of a storm that shattered the Sky Temple. A figure wreathed in wind and fire. The Sovereign of Wind was gone. Their shard, taken. Cities have fallen under sudden siege.

Her hands gripped the parchment tightly.

"The invader is here..." she murmured. "And they ruined Aerynthia so quickly we couldn’t even react before it was over... How?"

The messenger nodded shakily. "Yes, my Sovereign. The invader... he’s already taken the Wind Shard. The nation of Aerynthia has practically fallen."

The room fell into utter silence, broken only by the roaring fire that now danced more fiercely than before, reacting to her pulse.

Her expression remained still, unreadable.

But inside her heart, something shattered.

She knew.

It was him. The Avatar, the only hope of their world.

Quinlan.

And she’d imprisoned him for her own agenda. When he was only here to learn from her and her elites. As the Avatar should... He was just widening his horizons while fighting strong opponents. An extreme amount of guilt enveloped her chest. She already felt horribly bad, but now... This was the worst blunder of her life. She might’ve doomed the world with her greed.

Serika’s gaze hardened. "Send word to the Ashen Watch. Mobilize the Ember Guard. I want all border movements monitored. If the ex-prisoner steps onto our lands again, do not engage. Tell him I wish to apologize and that he’s welcome in my home. Mobilize our spies as well. Try to find him in Naryssia’s lands. Have my words reach him at any cost. At the same time, prepare our armies for war with the invader. Vulkaris won’t keel over, no matter who it must face."

The servant bowed deeply. "Yes, my lady."

After he left, Serika’s lips trembled with uncertainty. Should she truly leave this to her spies and patrol guards? No... Her father had taught Serika about the importance of sincerity. She welcomed Quinlan with injustice and a cold cell. It was only fair if she...

Serika stood from her throne with a determined expression.

...

Naryssia – The Silver Depths Court

The mirrored surface of the Grand Pool rippled mesmerizingly as a servant approached with a scroll in hand. Moonlight streamed through the open arches of the watery palace, reflecting in curtains of falling mist. Queen Nalai stood barefoot upon the glistening platform of woven kelp-silk and sapphire tiles with her eyes closed, listening to the murmur of her nation’s deep veins.

The scroll was placed gently in her hand.

She opened it.

Aerynthia had fallen. The Wind Sovereign was gone. The Avatar may have appeared... but so had a dark invader.

Nalai’s serene expression flickered.

"... So it begins," she whispered.

After a brief pause, she turned.

"Send word to all River Bastions. Tighten the Mist Curtain. No foreign cultivator crosses our borders without scrutiny."

She handed the scroll back.

"And the Avatar... find him. Guard him. He may yet be the key to surviving what comes next. Send word that we pardon him of any legal troubles that could arise from his actions against the Seastone Clan’s Jiai family."

Her voice was low, gentle, and unshakable, like a deep current beneath a calm surface.

"We must not fight the storm blindly. We must flow around it, and when the time is right... drown it."

The servant hesitated before retreating, his gaze lingering on the queen with quiet admiration.

Of the four Elemental Sovereigns, none commanded such universal love as Queen Nalai. The Fire Sovereign, for all her strength, was a brash warmonger who ruled by power and temper. The Wind Sovereign had vanished from her responsibilities long before her death, shirking duty in favor of wandering freedom. The Earth Sovereign prepared his people in silence, speaking little, hidden behind walls of stone and ritual.

But Nalai...

Nalai had ruled with both wisdom and warmth. She uplifted the weak without coddling them, tempered the strong without suppressing them. Both cultivators and commoners flourished under her reign, and even the most hardened clan elders of Naryssia admitted, often with gritted teeth, that their queen had made life better. Not just more prosperous, but more just.

"A tidal queen," the servant whispered under his breath. "Calm above... but limitless beneath."

...

Daluang – Temple of Stone Echoes

A boulder cracked.

Dust fell from the arched ceiling of the stone temple as the old sage opened a single eye, unmoved from his meditative stance. The echo of falling debris faded, and a hooded disciple prostrated before him.

"Your Eminence... the nation of wind... has fallen. And..." He quickly relayed all the information they had available.

Rongtai breathed once. Slowly. Like the settling of a mountain.

"So... the Avatar has awoken."

The disciple remained silent.

"And the usurper walks."

Another pause.

"Double the trials at the Ten Thousand Steps. Strengthen the core of the Earthen Guard. We do not chase clouds. We weather them."

He closed his eye again.

"Let the world tremble if it must. Daluang does not."

...

Unknown Location – The Eye of the Storm

The wind howled... then fell silent.

At the heart of a ruined sky temple, where stones floated in slow orbit around a shattered altar, a man opened his eyes.

Pale blue irises. No pupils.

Around him, the air bent, no longer merely a current but an extension of will.

The last shred of Sovereign Wind qi melted into his chest, the shard now gone, consumed.

A black-robed attendant stepped forward and knelt deeply.

His voice trembled with awe and devotion.

"Congratulations... God Venthros. The first shard is yours."

The man—no, deity—smiled.

"Three more remain," he said, voice as soft as falling snow. "Then the veil will fall. The gate... will open."

He turned his eyes toward the horizon.

"And we will claim this self-contained world as ours."