Primordial Villain With A Slave Harem-Chapter 828: Imprisoned [Bonus]

...

Quinlan woke to the sound of dripping water.

Not a rush. Not a storm. Just the slow fall of droplets hitting stone.

*Drip. Drip. Drip.*

His skull pulsed like someone had slammed a war drum inside it. There was a metallic tang in his mouth... blood. His lips were cracked. His limbs felt heavier than they had any right to. He couldn’t move right away. Not because he was chained, but because everything hurt in quiet, lingering ways. The kind of pain that whispered, ’You lost. Sit with that for a while.’

His breath came in shallow, ragged pulls, and even that felt like work. His back was cold. Stone. He was lying on it. Damp, uneven, with jagged ridges pressing through his sacks of clothes into his spine. He didn’t know what happened to his old black robes, but it had been replaced by clothes that reminded him of how Ayame looked when he bought her on the second day of his transmigration.

The air was cooler than the arena. No fire. No crowd. No clash of fists and flame.

Just stillness.

And pain.

He cracked one eye open. The world swam, blurry and warped.

Shadows flickered under torchlight, somewhere just outside the bars. He tried to move a hand. It twitched. That was something at least. He pressed his palm against the floor, dragging his fingers across the rough stone until the friction bit enough to make it real.

Groaning, Quinlan pushed himself into a sitting position. His head screamed in protest, and his vision doubled, but he managed it.

A cell.

Iron bars curved in a half-circle before him, illuminated by a single torch set in the outer wall. The floor was dark and stained. Water pooled in a shallow dip near the center. No windows. Just one heavy wooden door with a narrow feeding slot at the bottom and rusted chains hanging loose from the far wall.

He tried to speak. His voice came out dry and raw.

"...Feng?"

No answer.

But he wasn’t alone.

As his vision sharpened, he spotted her.

Standing at the far end of the cell. No, leaning. Arms crossed, back against the wall, as if she’d been waiting there for hours without a flicker of impatience.

Serika Vael.

The Fire Sovereign herself.

Her posture was relaxed, yet there was a tension in the air around her: a coiled restraint beneath the calm. Power wrapped in poise.

Her gaze, however, was anything but passive.

She studied him with a stare like a dagger. Sharp, measured, cold.

"Where’s Feng?" Quinlan grunted with hostile eyes. "What have you done to her?"

Serika remained silent for a few more seconds before she straightened herself. "Nothing. She’s safe and sound. I have no desire to hurt that child. She’s only been detained due to being your ally."

Quinlan examined the red-headed, green-eyed woman for a while, doing his best to ascertain the validity of her words from any sign he could notice in the woman.

Serika seemed genuine, letting Quinlan release a nervous sigh before tilting his head to the side, "And what have I done to be treated like I assassinated royalty, O’ Mighty Fire Sovereign?"

Serika’s lips twitched, almost looking as if she felt wrong. "I apologize for the eagerness of my retainers... They used more force than I would’ve liked."

Quinlan couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of the situation. "Your apology is better used on a man you didn’t kidnap based on... Why am I here exactly? I don’t remember committing any unlawful acts."

Serika’s gaze hardened.

Whatever thread of warmth had existed before vanished.

"Let’s skip the pleasantries, then. I’ll be direct," she said, her voice cutting through the air like glass.

"Who taught you the Blazing Tyrant Style?"

Quinlan blinked.

The cell seemed to shrink around him. The question came sharp and fast, but it wasn’t just the content that shook him—it was the intensity with which she asked it. The slight flare in her nostrils. The restraint in her posture cracking ever so slightly at the corners.

That style. That was what this was about.

The heat in his chest flared, not from anger, but from the bitter taste of betrayal rising like bile. His mind raced back to the training sessions in the scorching desert heat, spars lit by campfires, lessons burned into his body through repetition and bruises. The gruff and stoic voice of the old man in form and philosophy.

The man had accompanied them on their journey to the capital city. Normally, he should’ve stayed back in his little shack and continued meditating. Quinlan found it odd, but he didn’t know the old man enough for this alone to raise red flags.

Now it all made a sick sort of sense.

The moment they entered the city, the old man’s manner changed. The calm detachment sharpened into focus. And right after he vanished, claiming he had some business to attend to.

He’d led Quinlan here.

Trained him with the Tyrant Forms.

Pushed him to enter a Ember Reign Festival and showcase them.

Not for the potential experience he could gain as a combatant.

Not for the potential growth he could undergo as a cultivator.

But for this.

He wanted to see their reaction to a man displaying his martial arts.

With his own eyes.

Quinlan’s breath caught.

Serika was still watching him, waiting for an answer. But all he could feel now was the chill beneath the fire, a cold, bitter realization threading its way down his spine like a knife.

He didn’t know what the old man’s plan was. He didn’t know who he truly was. But the Blazing Tyrant Style... it hadn’t just been a powerful martial art. It had meaning here. It had history.

And whatever it was, it was enough to make a Sovereign intervene herself.

For the first time in his life, he had been set up. Betrayed to the very core.

Played like a piece on a board he didn’t even know existed.

"... I see things clearly now. The old man has been using me since the beginning."

This realization burned worse than fire.

At his words, Serika’s eyes widened, her mask shattering like glass. "Old man?!" she burst out, pushing off the wall and rushing toward him.