Chapter 1941: Personalized Abilities

[Domain Gate] was his [Warp Gate], the Primordial Villain’s own spell, with its limits filed off. No more one gate at a time, small size, or borrowing a scout’s eyes to reach anywhere new. Well, so long as it was inside Iskaris or a land was Declared.

[Masked Seat] was older than any class he held. He had masked himself for a very long time upon his arrival in Thalorind, enjoying the benefits of anonymity.

The system had taken that concealment and stretched it over the crown. Wherever he went, whoever’s land he crossed, he would not be picked up by the enemy’s sovereign senses, despite being a Sovereign himself.

If other Sovereigns had senses like these in their own lands, Quinlan knew that he’d be massacred as soon as he stepped on foreign soil. This circumvented that.

[Declaration of Conquest] was the Primordial Villain himself. A Villain announced what he was going to take, and then he took it.

’This is probably my ultimate card,’ Quinlan mused.

[Reign of the Undying] was his necromancy, the Harbinger of Ruin’s whole line: [Eternal Damnation], [Awaken], the Soul Reaper that ate what he killed, and the pale flame every soul soldier of his burned with.

Until today, a destroyed Elite Soul had cost him a recast and the mana behind it. Now the land itself would burn with that flame, and any soldier of his that fell on it would stand back up.

[Boundless Dominion] was the Primordial Subjugator. [Subjugation] had always come with a budget, a hundred points that the strong emptied faster than the weak. On Iskaris, he could bind as many as he wanted now.

[Elemental Host] was the Harbinger of Aeons, his seven elements manifested over his armies.

Now he could lay one over every soldier under his banner, from the soul army to the dwarven axes to the beastkin packs, all at once, with no ceiling on the number, and pay for it out of the Source.

And the rest of it was the Bloodfather.

’I bet [Land’s Strength] would have been mine alone normally, if I was a maidenless loser. Perhaps with a slightly bigger personal boost to cope with the fact that my life is meaningless.’

The system had looked at the mark on ten wombs, and at the violet one Black Fang carried against a pillar at the edge of the square, and those he still accepted into the family despite not being his lovers, and decided that whatever the land gave him, it gave to them.

His family was the one part of the crown that was not about him.

[Land’s Strength] itself, the Sovereign Source, and [Interdiction] were the crown’s bones.

Every Sovereign in the world presumably held some version of those three. Everything else on the list was Quinlan Elysiar, spelled out in system text.

’The Suppression put over Iskaris sounds like a much stronger version of [Interdiction]... Perhaps suppressing others is that Sovereign’s persona. What a sore loser,’ Quinlan thought.

The last entry was the one with his name on it.

A Declaration was a bet. Name a Sovereign’s land, hand its ruler a full day to ready themselves, and for the three days after that the land itself would hold the door for him.

Their strength dead against him and his marked, his gates opening onto their soil, his own Land’s Strength alive under his boots on ground that was not his.

Lose the race against that clock, and Iskaris paid for it. His land’s strength turned against him. His gates sealed shut. And the Primordial Villain class, the root every other power on that list grew from, was gone.

All of it, until the ruler he had named was dead or kneeling.

’An all-or-nothing battle to the death,’ he chuckled. ’The system really does know me.’

[Ding!]

[Necromantic Tier Ascension: Tier III -> IV.]

’Finally.’

The Tier IV notification had frozen mid-sentence the day Aelindra Ael’vyrn died and rose again in blue, hung there flickering for one long second, and rewritten itself into a single instruction: break the suppression first.

Quinlan tried feeding his stored Lesser Souls into Scar through [Soul Fusion], to enhance her to Rank 6 status.

[Ding!]

[Lesser Souls of level 75 or above must be used as material.]

’...’ Quinlan wasn’t amused.

’No time to dwell,’ the Primordial Villain quickly told himself before he got pissed off and started cursing the Soul Records on his wedding day.

The saber at his hip went hot.

It came through Synchra’s living plate like a hand laid flat on his hipbone, and then the Soul Reaper was not asking anymore. The pitch-black blade pulled at him downward, toward the ground under the altar, with jealous insistence.

Quinlan drew it.

Ten thousand people went quiet in a wave that started at the altar and ran to the back streets, because the Emperor of Iskaris had just drawn his sword at his own wedding.

"Quin?" Ayame’s hand had found his sleeve. "Is everything okay?"

"More than okay," he grinned, and reversed his grip.

He drove the Soul Reaper into the dais to the hilt.

Pale flame came up around the blade.

It was the same ghost-light his soul soldiers burned with, cold and blue-white, and it poured out of the buried saber in every direction at once. It ran across the dais, off its edge, into the cobbles of the square, and then it stopped being a fire and became a road.

"Let Rosie help!" Rosie shouted, and every root under Iskaris took the fire. Quinlan could feel his Necromantic flames traverse the lands along them, reaching the farthest parts within mere moments.

Every soul standing on a road felt it pass under their feet like a breath.

[Reign of the Undying: kindled.]

[Due to the Eternal Tree’s assistance, its activation will cost no Sovereign Source.]

"Best daughter ever," Quinlan decreed while giving his leafy daughter the headpats she deserved.

"Hehehehe!!" Rosie beamed, leaning into her father’s touch. She, too, was having a phenomenal day today.

The crowd of onlookers wasn’t as amused.

"What did he do now?!"

"The roads are burning! Miri Town’s on fire!"

"It’s not hot, you fool, put your hand in it, it’s not even-"

"Don’t put your hand in it!! Are you retarded??"

At the far end of the square, where the Consortium row sat with their papers, the old Mediator had risen to his feet and was staring down at the pale flame lapping around his boots.

Beside him, Maelstrom had lifted both feet off the ground and was holding them there.

Quinlan pulled the Soul Reaper out of the dais.

The flame stayed where it was, burning in the roads with nothing to feed it, and the saber came up clean, dark, and pleased with itself.

Wherever that light ran, any Elite Soul of his could take a blade through the heart and stand up again a minute later without him lifting a finger.

’My home is now protected by a host of undying soldiers while I explore Thalorind,’ the Primordial Villain thought, and sheathed the blade.

Then the girls felt an overwhelming sensation in their abdomens.

"Quin!!" Seraphiel yelped.

The Primordial Villain’s wives would each be presented with a choice that could not be taken back.