"The blade said the domain can be challenged by a ruler’s claim." Black Fang wasted no time.
"Yes," Seraphiel nodded. "We need to understand what qualifies as such."
"I’d think people who are on the path to being rulers would get notified of their progress," Serika said, looking at Alexios. "Like, you’re one third of the way toward being the ruler of Iskaris. Do you know anything about that?"
It wasn’t just Quinlan who had a systemic interface in the world of Thalorind - they all had one. It kept note of their levels, XP gains, stats, classes, everything. Serika’s point was that Alexios might’ve received a notification of his progress toward being a so-called ruler by being crowned the king of humanity.
Alexios shook his head.
"I’ve been king of the Vraven Kingdom for almost a thousand years. For all intents and purposes, I am a ’ruler,’ yet I’ve never been told about domains, claims, or anything resembling what that blade described."
His attention shifted to Myrasyn. "I assume it’s the same for you?"
"Yes. This is the first time I hear about these terms," Myrasyn nodded.
"What if ruling one people isn’t enough?" Ayame spoke up next, observing the elven queen. "Alexios rules humans, his race. You rule elves, your race. The blade said ’if a new ruler rises and the land answers.’ The land. Not a kingdom."
Jasmine straightened, smiling. She was thinking the same thing. "If there should be a notification about progress toward earning the claim of a ruler, cross-racial sovereignty could be the key."
"Hmm..." Kaelira pondered, stroking her chin. "A king who rules his own race isn’t a real ruler?"
"Possibly," Seraphiel nodded. "Legally, he is a king, a ruler. But we’re not talking about manmade legality here, but what the system governing Thalorind would consider a ruler. Being born into the right family and inheriting your father’s throne might not give you progression toward being a claimant."
"For all intents and purposes," Lucille smiled at the king, "Alexios is just a tribal leader on a nice chair, claiming no non-human lands as his own, accepted by no non-humans as their sovereign."
Alexios’s eye twitched.
"No offense, Your Majesty~" She didn’t mean it at all.
"Quinlan?" Black Fang only spoke his name, yet everyone understood what she meant.
"That’s right..." Serika straightened, brow furrowed. "If that’s the bar, then Quin clears it. Myrasyn knelt to him. He rules the elves. Shouldn’t he have this progress thing already?"
Jasmine gently shook her head. "Not necessarily. He has elven people who love and embrace him, people who follow him, and people who’d die for him."
She met Quinlan’s stare, and the warmth coexisted with the assessment.
"But he doesn’t have a state. Myrasyn pledged ’our lands are your lands’ on a battlefield, but nothing about elven governance actually changed. There’s no formal treaty, no integrated administration, no law connecting him and the elves under one authority. Myrasyn offered her loyalty, but did she really speak for her people?"
"Hmm..." Myrasyn’s ears drooped. "I get where you’re going with this... Depending on how you look at it, I wasn’t a real queen when I made the pledge. The council ousted me and I haven’t visited the capital yet to reinstate the council and myself. The last formal action by the elven council, the last thing ratified and entered into the governmental record, is their vote to declare me a traitor."
"Yes..." Jasmine reached out to pat the dejected Queen’s shoulder, friendly enough to make the blonde elf have a little smile as she added, "Your word carries weight because people believe in you. But the machinery of state hasn’t processed any of it."
Myrasyn nodded. "So when I knelt and pledged the elven race to Quinlan..."
"Not the land nor the people heard it," Seraphiel finished. "Because the authority behind the pledge wasn’t there at the time you made it. Or so we theorize."
Silence.
Then Myrasyn straightened.
The sadness lingered, but resolve rose through it, the resolve to truly and officially bend the knee to the Holy Son so that whatever this damned system was, it also recognized her and her decision.
When she lifted her chin the queen was back with purpose in her expression.
"Then we fix it."
She turned to Quinlan fully. The smile that broke across her face was bright and genuine, the first real energy anyone in the clearing had shown since the blade went silent.
"I might not technically be the queen of elves right now, but I’d like to invite you, Quinlan Elysiar, Son of Luminara, to the elven capital. I’ll reinstate myself and appoint a new council, then transfer sovereignty to you from the throne room..."
Her ears perked straight up.
"Then we’ll see if the land has something to say about it."
Quinlan studied the elven queen with her bright eyes and perked ears, and the corner of his mouth lifted.
"Sounds like a plan."
Myrasyn’s ears twitched with barely contained excitement, and beside her Isveth clasped her hands together with a brightness that had no business appearing on a woman who’d just learned her world was a cage.
Across the clearing, Seraphiel nudged Kaelira with her elbow, and the smith’s violet stare had gone wide. The elven capital... They were definitely going with him.
Quinlan stood in one smooth motion, which began a small landslide made of two needy women.
"Kya!" Vex and Nyxara both yelped as his arms caught them, one on each side, holding them until their feet found the grass. Vex landed first, her displeasure immediate. Nyxara took a beat longer, pressing herself into his chest one final time before her heels touched ground.
Both women stood there pouting up at the man who’d just dumped them off his lap, and the visual was exactly as dignified as it sounded.
"We have a lot on our agenda." Quinlan surveyed the clearing, then grinned. "Let’s begin."
The grins that answered his came from every direction.
He turned to Nyxara last. The shameless lover, the ancient demon, the woman who kept his soul realm alive and decorated the sky and painted Mimi’s nails just so the place would feel like home when he visited.
"Thank you for everything." He kissed her, warm and slow, and Nyxara sank into it with a sound that made Myrasyn turn pink and Isveth look away.
When he pulled back, her posure was gone.
"You’re leaving again..." The devastation on her face was entirely genuine.
"Yes."
"So soon..." She pressed her forehead against his chest, and the words that followed came out small and bare, stripped of every layer of performance and ancient posure. "I’ll be watching you... Every step, every fight, every boring meeting you sit through..." A smile warm against his heart. "I’ll be right here, rooting for my beloved Ruin..."
Quinlan’s hand settled on the back of her head, gentle. He held her there for a moment, then pulled away.
The assembled group watched the Primordial Demon of Lust reach after him with both hands, her ancient dignity forgotten entirely. The looks they wore ranged from wry familiarity to plete psychological recalibration of what they thought they knew about the peak of power.
"Bye-bye, everyone!" Mimi cheerily waved at them as one by one, they filed through the seam of pale light that opened at Quinlan’s gesture.
Quinlan walked last.
His mind was already moving, listing all that was on his agenda.
Visit to the elven capital.
Dealing with the Fujimori remnants and Silverwind, together with Ayame and Black Fang.
Alexios, with whom he had a hundred unfinished conversations.
Iris and the Covenant, the truth of what happened to her people still buried under layers of old cruelty.
The beastkin and their growing hostility, a front he might not be able to ignore much longer.
The dwarves, a conquered people with no king and no future unless someone gave them one.
The Consortium and the question of what place the underworld held in whatever came next.
Naturally, the never-ending grind for personal might would not stop either, instead only kick into the next gear.
And there was still...
So.
Much.
More.
The Primordial Villain stepped through the seam, and the pale light sealed shut behind him.
He was going to be one very busy man.
...
Author: Volume 12, Ascension of the Primordial Villain, is over. Tomorrow, the final arc of the Iskaris Saga, Consolidation of Power begins.
Thank you for all the support!
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