Primordial Villain With A Slave Harem

Chapter 1790: A Bribed King

"...I don’t know the exact mechanics, Villain. When we gave the blade what it demanded, it grew more powerful. And in the case of the sacrifice I orchestrated back then, it could momentarily go beyond its current capabilities."

"A feeding mechanism that grows on sacrifice," Quinlan concluded with a nod.

Alexios spoke without moving his eyes from the blade.

"The concoction your clan brewed for me." His voice went careful. "Was it also fed with..."

Chizuru chuckled, and it was the ugliest sound she’d made all night. "Does it disgust you now, Your Majesty? Knowing what touched the very thing that kept you alive? Yes, we fed you the blood of massacred orphans-"

"Alright, I’m done," Quinlan sighed.

Every speck of mockery left the old woman’s face as if it never existed. "Wait-"

"[Subjugation]."

Chizuru’s body seized on the spot. The scream that left her was raw and graceless.

"Please, I spoke out of turn, I’ll-"

"You’ll answer every question put to you fully and honestly, without embellishing, withholding, or acting like... You," he spoke with extreme disgust, fully done listening to this bottomless pit of hypocrisy. "Now answer his question properly."

Despite her best effort, despite her frantic eyes, she began monologuing instantly. "We didn’t lie to you back then. The recipe used exotic, rare materials that don’t exist on this continent. We only have a finite collection of them, brought in by the ancestors when they arrived on the continent... It’s then prepared by a Fujimori alchemist with inherited technique. No blood of orphans was involved."

Quinlan looked at Alexios.

"’You will die of old age within months at the latest.’" He quoted it casually. "She screamed that at you on the battlefield while you were trying to cut her head off. Want to fill in the rest, old friend?"

"..." Alexios exhaled, tense, finally looking like a man who was a millennium old.

"The Fujimori approached me a few years ago with a concoction no one on the continent could replicate. Alchemy from what they called their clan’s ancient, outside records."

Aurora instantly perked up upon hearing that.

Alexios’s voice carried no performance. "It promised to slow the aging, letting me continue to breathe past the natural human limit of around a thousand years by up to a whole century."

He chuckled, shaking his head while adding, "So long as I kept taking it, of course."

Every person in the room turned toward the old king.

It was a great mystery how the old king remained alive at his age, let alone this powerful.

Even humans at his level should’ve experienced a rapid decline as their natural lifespan ran out, deteriorating with extreme speed in their last few years.

Alexios, while showing obvious signs of aging, was not at all even at the start of the rapid decline stage. He was still in his prime.

"And they promised I wouldn’t be dependent on them for the full duration of that century because they had a way to take down the Heavenly Restriction," Alexios continued. "When it fell, I could level past seventy-four and extend my lifespan naturally without taking more of their potions."

He paused, expression full of clarity.

"That was only a few years before the blade was awakened. Now it’s clear that they were preparing me to look the other way when it did, not investigating or worse. All I had to do was keep out of their business and I’d get to live forever."

He exhaled through his nose.

"It was too clean a trap to fight, and if I did die, the prowling vultures would’ve descended on my heir. So I took their offer, knowing it was in my family’s best interest that I stayed in power."

Quinlan’s expression shifted, and genuine disappointment replaced the humor. "I feared you for months, old man. Lost sleep over how to handle the strongest human alive." He shook his head, deflated. "And you were taking bribes all along? Being a good boy to these wretches?"

Alexios’s fist clenched in response, and for a moment the room held still, Alexios visibly deciding whether to settle this with his hands.

Quinlan really knew how to get under his skin.

"Haaah..." Then he exhaled again, and his fingers opened.

"You’re right to be disappointed. I don’t deserve to be feared by an unfair existence such as you." The words came out steady.

"I’m just a mortal man at the end of his lifespan, with heirs too young or too weak to hold the throne, and powerful dukedoms who’ve been positioning for my death since before I was even born. Of course I knew the Fujimori were scheming. But as I said, me staying alive was in the best interest of the Valorian family. So I took their offer and played the dependent king."

Quinlan’s eyes lit up as he heard the words spoken, and the tone with which they were uttered.

This was not how a hopelessly blackmailed person would speak.

Quinlan’s grin returned, knowing that the crazed old fucker was too much of a badass to be such a pathetic loser. "...And?"

"They thought they had me leashed. Terrified of losing my supply."

The tired eyes went sharp, and behind them a plan that had been running for a long time showed its edge. "So I let them think it. I took their potions and..."

His eyes found Ayame. "...Looked the other way. I didn’t interfere with their internal affairs, nor did I investigate Kaede. Normally, I would’ve sent my enforcers, knowing that something foul was at play. I wouldn’t have let an eighteen year old girl grow this powerful this quickly without ensuring she wasn’t a threat to the crown."

Ayame tensed up hearing the admission. The king did say she’d learn more of why he did what he did in this talk, but...

It wasn’t easy on her. That was when, to her surprise, a dozen voices sounded in her head almost in perfect sync.

Her friends were all telling her to keep it together, that it’s okay, that they’re here for her.

"..." A soft smile appeared on her lips.

"And while every scheming duchy in my kingdom positioned themselves for my eventual death, using the extra time I was given, I made my own preparations," Alexios went on. "I knew I had to clean house, to cripple the strength of the families who’d been plotting for generations to rebel against the Valorian blood."

The shock on Chizuru’s face was total.

He was making his own play? All this time? While he was pretending to be perfectly blackmailed?!

"My goal was never to live forever," Alexios decreed, looking the Fujimori elder right in the eyes.

Then the sharpness left his features as quickly as it had come, and what remained was a father. "It was to die at the right time, in a kingdom clean enough for my children to inherit without old blood scheming behind their backs. I’ve spent a lifetime forced to maneuver around their whims and desires, unable to steer the nation in the direction I thought best because of their constant resistance. Thus, my final act was supposed to leave behind a nation worth inheriting. Then I could die feeling satisfied with the thought that I wasn’t just another Valorian ruler who kept the status quo up."

Then he turned to Quinlan, and the expression was so dry it could have caught fire.

"But then an unknown nobody had to walk out of the woods and start eating the board I worked hard to set up."