The First Harem Tournament 22 – Headache

John came back to with his head in Nia’s lap.

He tried to say something to the effect of ‘hey, gorgeous’. All that left his mouth was the undignified gargle of a throat filled with spittle. With the confusion came the pain. A thrumming, terrifying torment that split his head down the middle line. His vision was swimming, control over his contact lenses lagging and needling like a sleeping limb.

Memories tormented him, coming to his mind unbidden. Banter as the wheel was spun. A prideful request for her to not hold back. A gash of white in the world, edges squirming with the thoughts of elder beings.

John clenched his eyes shut. It wasn’t enough. He let go of the Possession on his contact lenses. In the sweet, total darkness, in the natural absence of light, he found solace. This was the familiar nothing, a dark and yet soothingly regular void. Blindness was very much within the scope of human comprehension.

The roiling in his stomach stopped. He reached to his upper lip and checked for the wetness where burst blood vessels had left the trail of a nosebleed. “Was that really necessary?” he croaked.

“You asked me to fight properly,” Nia said.

John grumbled something, but truly this was his mistake. For one, he had invited it. For two, asking Nia to interpret a mild boast as an invitation to show off was just foolish. Of course she would take him by his literal word. This was his pariah they were talking about.

“I CANNOT BELIEVE IT, FOLKS!” a familiar voice screamed into a microphone. “The Emperor of Fusion, one who many argue could be the future Apex, felled in just one blow! WHO COULD HAVE EXPECTED THIS?!”

“Literally anyone,” another, much drier voice, returned. “By now everyone knows that John Newman’s body is basically entirely magic. She is his natural counter. Only good for him that she’s on his side.”

“When did they get here?” John rubbed his eyes, tapping first the left then the right contact lens to regain his sight. He continued to feel a bit numb as Nia helped him up, but the worst was certainly behind him.

Above him, far enough to be beyond the protective dome, flew a broad desk. Behind it were two chairs and in those chairs two commentators. One was a human man with brown hair styled into an absurdly long, forward protruding tube. The other was a black-scaled lizard man, though John knew that to be a mere puppet guided by a dragon elsewhere.

Jeff and Dra continued their entertaining bickering while Nia answered his question, “In the time you were out.”

“…How long was that?”

“About 20 seconds.”

“…What timing.” John was now walking fully on his own. He didn’t even bother announcing his loss, it was among the most convincing ones yet. Halfway through the walk to the elevator, he flinched. The mental connection to his additional bodies had suddenly come back online, filling him with a painful flood of renewed sensations. It faded as quickly as it came. At least it reminded him those bodies were on the floor. He had entirely forgotten about them. “I do have to say this: you’re quite scary.”

“Good.” Nia’s lips curled into a bright smile. “It means that I am deeply loved.”

John pressed a kiss on her cheek, to prove her intuition completely correct. No amount of fear he had for her could have kept him away for long. The elevator hummed beneath them, beginning its rise as soon as the Creator Puppet had joined them.

The overwhelming loss was a bit of a dent to John’s ego. His mind was running the simulation in a real combat scenario. She had carved right through his Particle Skin and did a dual amount of damage to both his HP and MP, so it was safe to say that Nia’s ability to counter him had only increased. If ever a comparable null arose, he really would be screwed. Luckily for him, the very nature of her powers also meant that Izha likely hadn’t empowered a pariah the same way.

Likely – not guaranteed. Lover’s Will worked on her, as did other methods to bestow her EXP. There was a conceivable reality where Izha had overcome the resistance of a pariah’s mind to pour empowerment into them – it just was unlikely. From how John understood what the telepath had done, he had been working for years to establish the necessary connections all over the globe to then drain the power through. Introducing the anti-mages into that mix was likely an operational risk. Likely.

There was much that had died with Izha. There was some that Lyndell may rediscover. Most curious to John was the potential connection between the primordial Lorylim and Nirvana. Lyndell was capable of formulating anti-magic with her runes, which, in the first place, worked by creating mana voids that collapsed to the ambient mana. Their whole supernatural ‘technology’ was different to the way mankind and its extensions used magic.

John was incredibly curious about the way all of that worked. Experiments had been conducted to recreate Lyndell’s runic formations. They had gone all the way down to having powerful plant mages control mushrooms into using their mycelium. Nothing had worked. Either this was a surviving Innate Ability of Lyndell’s or this kind of magic was tied to her kind the same way Martial Arts were linked to human physiology.

Then again, according to Metra, there had been a successful attempt made at recreating the human body to a degree that the Metracana could use Martial Arts.

THEN AGAIN, that had been a creation of humans.

John was pulled out of his thoughts by Nia grabbing his hand and pulling him off the elevator. He let her guide him, smiling like the lovestruck fool he was as he walked the span of their linked arms behind her. They stepped through the drapes and into their slice of heaven.

A fading adrenaline spike truly highlighted the difference between the outside world and the Imperial Choir’s dwelling. After the previous day, the room was basked in their collective scent, a delectably sweet cocktail of various fruity and flowery aromas that made John’s hairs rise. Body warmth raised the temperature of the large room subtly, though that was the least of the notable influences of their presence.

The ambient mana in the room was effectively rewritten by them all. In the Guild Hall, John’s presence was omnipresent anyhow (the predictable nature of things). That came in a form only those with a sensitivity for auras could really notice, however. For this room, the story was entirely different.

Entities of their power radiated excess mana outwards in a manner anyone could pick up. It reached a degree where it rewrote how a room ‘felt’ to people, even if they did not know why. If a regular Abyssal came strutting in that door, they would have been awed by the raw presence of power without any of the Imperial Choir even lifting a finger.

To John, that same aura in the air enveloped him like a comforting blanket. It tinted even his additional senses. The air, the light, the shadows, the heat, the stone, the moisture, everything was different because they were here.

“Master…” Aclysia came strutting towards him, a handkerchief in hand. It had been soaked in hot water, aiding it in removing the blood from his face. Once she was done, the pure-white thing had been turned a reddish pink. “Much better.”

“Thank you.” John turned his attention to Nia. “Well, I am yours for the next fifteen to thirty minutes.”

“Fu-fu-fu-fu…” Nia tried her best at the kind of giggle usually reserved for dominant types in hentai. It came out stilted. All the same, when she put a hand to his chest, the shove put him on his back on the ocean of pillows. “Be naked,” she ordered.

John obliged her demand with the press of a button. Nia’s dress faded to nothing, leaving her slender body completely bare. Subtle, almost invisible lines of pale silver on her white skin expanded and retreated. They added an alien, pulsing presence to her otherwise so human appearance. It had to be said that moving body markings were the least odd thing about her though.

“Ah!” Nia cried out, slowly sinking down his length. No teasing, no edging, no foreplay, just a woman in charge getting what she wanted.

‘Better to lose to her than to Siena,’ John thought.

‘How uncouth,’ the shadow spirit whispered back to his thought. ‘I know how to treat you.’

‘Well, you are right on that front,’ John responded calmly in his mind, while a delighted groan rose in his throat. “Should I take hold of your waist, mistress?” he suggested.

“…You should,” Nia agreed.

Permission given, he did as he liked. Initially, Nia did most of the bouncing, but soon his thrusts from below took over. She was in charge in the ways that mattered, dictating what positions they were in and all of that. Beyond that, John did as he typically did.

It ended with her filled with three loads, sweaty, and resting on his chest. Arm wrapped around her, he remained right where he was. “What do you think of swallows?” she asked out of nowhere.

“Hottest after I give permission,” the Gamer responded instantly.

Nia flicked one of his nipples – which did nothing for John besides making him raise an eyebrow. He halfway forgot he had those most of the time. “The birds,” the pariah clarified. “Pervert.”

“…Well, they’re birds,” John responded. “I don’t know much about them, not sure what would make them more interesting than their kin.”

“They migrate a long distance and are an ally of farmers across cultures.” Nia’s voice rose to light excitement. “Many species of martin have come to prefer nesting near humans. They rarely use natural sites anymore.”

“I mean, if we engineer their perfect homes, why would they compete with owls and such for hollows?” John responded.

That didn’t seem to be the response Nia had wanted to get. An icy blue eye stared at him, accusing him of something unsaid. It was every bit as cute as it was mildly unnerving. Ever so often, even one as high in Charisma as he failed to grasp what his women wanted.

“It is a very interesting fact,” he added after a moment’s thought.

“It is,” Nia agreed, shifting lightly. The motion made John’s breath hitch. He was still hard and still inside her, she had just elected to stop there for the moment. “Swallows are good fortune for sailors.”

“Because they are land-based birds?” John theorized. “Would mean that they are getting close to a port or some other place to restock.”

“Potentially.” Nia stretched up and taxed another kiss from him. He could not say they were stolen when he was obliged by law to hand them over. The sovereigns of the land had made the rule, who was he to disagree?

“I’m a simple guy, my favourite bird is the eagle with the crow right thereafter,” he said after the smooch.

“What about seagulls?”

“I already got a Velka at home, I don’t need to venerate more flying thieves.”

Nia flicked him again, this time on the chin. “Don’t be so mean to our daughter.”

“When did she get that promotion?”

“I am stating the obvious.”

“I signed no adoption papers.”

“You hate bureaucracy.”

“Perhaps this is an area where it must apply.”

“Non,” Nia disagreed in her mother tongue.

The syllable of French did make his dick twitch inside her. Was it true what they said, that it was a romantic language, or was it just Nia showing him one of those lesser seen sides of hers? More of the latter, really. John was so used to switching between languages that they had lost much of their mystique to him.

A quiet, natural laugh came from the platinum blonde lady atop him. “It pleases me that I arouse you, skinny as I am,” she whispered.

“My types firmly include you,” John assured her instantly. No doubt of that would be allowed to surface!

Nia rose from his hug, then even further, until his cock glided out of her dripping pussy. It was back there within two seconds. The pariah had simply wanted to turn around, presenting him with her little apple bottom. She was delectable all the same, moaning as her walls glided over his rigid cock.

“Alright, your time is up,” Momo declared. “Which means I don’t feel bad about interrupting this anymore.”

“You did not need to wait,” Nia assured, heat rising in her passive tone.

“It’s not really urgent,” Momo stated. “Just got a report from Scarlett that someone should tell you about.”

“Why isn’t Scarlett?” John wondered, looking behind Momo to try and find the redhead.

“She took Lee to check the matter in person. A Kingdom gate just opened up – a natural Kingdom gate,” Momo added that last bit immediately. “At least there are no indicators that Yoshua is involved. It’s just a regular Kingdom gate that seems to lead into the Faerealm of all places.”

John raised an eyebrow. “Where?”

“A national park in the middle of the North Meltpot state- Seems entirely random,” Momo reported to him. “I would say it is just that, but there are reasons to believe otherwise.”

“Besides what Methenia told us yesterday?”

“It hooks into that… Do you know what a Ley-Index is?”

John shook his head in disagreement. The casual tone of the conversation had not given Nia reason to stop in her movements.

“It’s an unreliable way to measure ambient mana to predict the spawning of a Natural Barrier in the near future. Few people make use of it, but I instructed our Ministry of Natural Barriers to track it anyway. Thought it might be like weather data and become more useful as we expand the dataset and all that.”

“Wise,” Nia agreed with the fairy maid.

“Yeah… it rose 25% across the entire nation in the last 48 hours and is still climbing.” Momo put a hand on the swell of her hips. “Usually I’d call it big news, but since we know what’s coming, this is more of an expected foreshock.”

“It’s somewhat big news if the Kingdom gate is related to this,” John mumbled. “The Horned Rat made it sound like there would merely be a spike in Natural Barriers… mhm….” His mind raced for a moment, then he shook his head. “Fusion’s stance on the matter will not change. We’ll remain reactive on this one.” After thrusting up, he added, “But, just in case…”

“I have already activated the quick response forces and have instructed greater sections of the army to be made ready for internal deployment.”

“What does this country even need an emperor for?” John joked.

Momo’s voice was like spiced honey. “Just look pretty and let me do all the work, sweetie.”

He would have to condemn the smug brat to a vacation at some point.