The First Harem Tournament 11 – Far Viewing [Romulus POV]

Romulus was annoyed.

He wasn’t above the emotion. It had struck him more and less over the times of his life. Being ancient brought with it phases in life that simply spanned for longer. In some parts of his life, he could admit, he had been quite petulant. He didn’t regard this current one as such. Generally, his temper was even.

The loss of first Frederik then Rodaclam still weighed on his mind, but both men had lived long lives. The variety of their ends was regrettable, one killed by his son the other devoured by the Lorylim. The timing was not. Frederik had been resolved to die soon anyhow. Rodaclam may have persisted for another decade or two. Months, relative to the centuries spent together.

A proper goodbye… Romulus rarely got those. He remembered them fondly, that was what mattered. Two more lives that, in due course, only he and a few others would remember.

Their losses were burdens, but they were burdens that made him grow stronger. The rust of long depression had come off and he wasn’t going to revert to it because he had lost one more friend. In this current era, he regarded himself as wizened by age and patient enough. Still, there was some of that old petulance in him.

Before him hovered a sphere, a scrying window over ten metres across. It was a mighty instrument. Ancient enchantments, only refined over time, had once allowed him to trace the motions of an entire Persian army. Intel that he had used to guide a Spartan army to a mountain pass where a mere 300 soldiers had delayed the mighty host.

Now that very same scrying sphere was broadcasting the intel flowing through a new connection. Hiding the modern, rubber-wrapped cables beneath the antique tiles of his Roman palace had taken him weeks to properly figure out. Sol and Luna had been groaning all about him continuously spreading stone dust and moving mortar about. They were like that when he decided to work on things with minimal magic. It was a little ritual. They complained as he worked, then admitted to liking the final outcome.

The Heavenly Jade Empress swung her arm. The camera shook a few seconds after the motion had concluded. Claire was already flung back by the gust, disappearing beneath the spires of the glacier the two were fighting in. Lu Zhi immediately gave chase.

Romulus rested the side of his head on the knuckles of his right hand. The left was idly playing with Sol’s breast. Ten thousand years and he had not tired of the sensation of feminine softness spilling around his fingers yet.

“You are upset.” The radiant light of his life spoke with a gentle tone reserved for him and his children. To the world, Sol was a harsh taskmistress, enacting the Apex’s will with all the brutality and discipline required. For him, she was a lovey-dovey blonde, nuzzling her sun-brown body against his side.

“Someone wanted to get invited.” The cool light of his life spoke teasingly, strutting up to the enormous couch. Her silver dress hid very little. A plunging neckline left half her midriff visible. Her legs were entirely bare, long, luscious and slender. The finest fabric formed strips atop her small breasts, connected to a metal necklace that held it all together in fantastic ornateness. A pair of wreaths around her upper arms added to the appearance. “Do not be too sad, my beloved…”

Luna half knelt on top of Romulus and put an arm out. Though she rolled her eyes, Sol all the same obliged her sister-wife’s unspoken wish. The dark-skinned celestial goddess put her own hand around Luna’s waist.

Their outfits were matching. Sol’s curvaceous form was covered in gold. Her large breasts and wide hips filled out the revealing dress that much more, mandating a little more cloth to cover her modesty.

They were so different, his lights of the day and night sky. Blonde hair, messy and wavy, silver hair, straight and silky, touched as they leaned towards each other. Gold and silver eyes locked. Orange and pink lips met in a simple kiss of greeting, executed a million times before. Dark and pale skin harmoniously clashed. Abundant curves of a tall goddess met the graceful swing of the average height of another.

Their kiss broke. Gently smiling, they both beheld him, fixed on him with the kind of love that let a man shoulder more than ten millennia of memories and mistakes.

[Sol and Luna AI: https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/9da8068ad0f0.png ]

“…you have your wives, husband,” Sol finished Luna’s sentence for her. “Certainly, that lifts your spirits?”

“Lifts my spirits?” Romulus scoffed at how far away those words were from approaching the truth. “Lights of my life, warmth and clarity of my soul, you are all that I have ever needed to witness the next dawn and to live to the next fall of night.”

He had said every variation of these words to them in every language he knew. He had written poems and songs, performed them publicly and privately, and he would continue to do so for another ten millennia more and ten millennia beyond that, until the day that his infinity ended finally came. Since first he had laid eyes on them, there was not a morning on which he had not chosen to love them. For all the women that his long life had seen him elope with, it was only true for those two.

Romulus’ gaze was momentarily caught by the screen behind his women. The fight between the two women continued. Both, Romulus knew perfectly well, were part of the Gamer’s expansive harem. Whether his web of loves would remain or go through ebb and flows like the Apex’s did, only the millennia would tell. They were similar and different men. Their paths would have their similarities and their diversions.

The fight was a dull affair. Claire was not weak but she was no match for the Heavenly Jade Empress. On a technical level, it was impressive how long the maid held out, especially with the sun still up in the sky. As a viewer, Romulus found himself disinterested.

Luna redirected his attention skilfully by yanking aside the dual strips covering Sol’s chest, freeing the magnificently perky breasts. An ancient man was still a man and his eyes locked onto the jiggling mounds without a second of hesitation.

“H-hey!” Sol complained. “You can’t just-!”

“Shush.” A single finger on golden lips quieted the solar goddess. “Master is upset. Be a good slave and use what nature gave you.”

Sol’s blush deepened. The proud goddess of the sun pressed her lips together, then nodded meekly. Arousal wafted from her as a physical aroma, an intoxicating scent like sweet, roasted almonds. She glided down between Romulus’ parted legs, undid the cord that kept his simplistic robe in place, then freed his manhood.

Romulus watched in stern, stoic silence. That was exactly what the dark-skinned goddess liked to receive whenever she was made the bottom of their little hierarchy. Her breasts enveloped the Apex’s pulsing manhood, an instrument fitting his current, towering size. Panting and gasping, she began her task.

Luna sat down to his right. The heel of an outstretched leg landed softly on the top of Sol’s head, pressing her down until her lips wrapped around the engorged head that protruded from her deep cleavage.

To call her form what ‘nature gave her’ was hardly accurate. Entities of their power could change their appearance with ease. Yet, throughout the millennia, neither of them had bothered much. Romulus’ frame was a product of biomancy, yes, but it was close enough to what he believed he would have looked like. In the first place, he had decided to grow to this height only to have more to cuddle up to. His women had been insistent on this.

Sol and Luna could have appeared in ways that made their divine nature that much more apparent. Shimmering lines on their skin, flaming energy from their eyes, bodies like moving idols of fertility and wisdom – all of that and more was easily within their reach. They preferred their simplicity, the forms that they had assumed upon ascending to godhood. Why improve upon perfection?

“Does that dispel your annoyance?” Luna’s voice, cool and teasing, caressed the inside of Romulus’ ear. Her leg kept moving, dictating the pace of Sol’s bobs.

“Has it ever failed?” Romulus responded.

“There is a first time for everything.” She scratched the back of his head, then sighed when he took a firm hold of her thigh. “I know you love your tournaments.”

“We love our tournaments!” Sol threw in, before swiftly returning to her task.

“You two love your tournaments,” Luna corrected herself with a roll of her eyes. “Still, is it worth getting annoyed over this?”

“It is not my absence at a tournament that annoys me.” Romulus reached down and pinched one of Sol’s nipples. A moan was followed by a muffled cry when he gave it a good twist. “It is the surrounding circumstances as a whole. John Newman is going far.”

“He is but a boy, in the grand scheme of things. Always dedicated to sex and conquest.”

“I am in no position to talk about the former at this time.”

“We three know your appetites are not this endlessly debauched,” Luna remarked in an approving tone. Sex had not lost its appeal after all these millennia, but Romulus had never been so horny to live the way John did every day. “Besides, the issue is with the latter, is it not.”

“In truth, I hardly care,” Romulus told her.

“Krieg does,” Sol chimed in again.

“My friend does.” Romulus tilted back a bit further. The couch reacted to his intent. He had woven every bit of reactive enchantments into the cushions personally, a perfect match for his lifestyle and back. “And I must stand by my friend.”

They knew that about him, of course they did, but ancients had to rehash many of their old conversations for the sake of sanity and renewal of memories. “Rare as it is, I agree with Krieg and Sol on this matter,” Luna said. “The Gamer has reached a level of influence that I do not wish to expand further, certainly not uncontested. However…” she trailed off for a moment.

Luna had secrets from him. He knew and he approved. Their relationship was founded in trust deeper than any other human being would ever experience, for there were simply none who still lived who had cultivated one like it. What he had to know, she would tell him. What he was better off not knowing, she would hide.

“Muris is involved.” Romulus said this not as a guess but as a statement.

“Of course he is,” Luna admitted with a long sigh. “He has been testy lately.”

Romulus hummed. The Horned Rat had been the occasional annoyance. Pompeii, that had gone beyond that, firmly beyond. Since then, that god had mostly kept his feet still, appearing at the edges of history at times. In the last few hundred years, since he had supported that revolution that had seen France split from the Greater Empire, he had acted more openly. Since the Gamer had appeared on the scene, activities had further accelerated.

“A key moment of his scheme must be approaching.” Romulus gestured at Sol, who stopped her servicing and backed away from his cock. Unpleasant as it was to leave business unfinished, a serious conversation demanded the full focus of both him and the second of his two foremost advisors. He wasn’t above pleasure amidst talks; he just did not default to it.

On the scrying window, Lu Zhi shattered the glacier with a blast of force. A host of bats came flying out, going for a final attack. It was doomed to fail like the others before.

“Perhaps I should have supported John Newman more overtly back when he first made contact with Nathalia,” he considered. “Aim to pull him to my side. That could have prevented those two from linking forces.”

“No one could have predicted that he would grow his powers in this way,” Luna stated. “Nor were his blessings a problem before. The Jade Empress taking an interest in him… that was an unfortunate turn of events.”

“It’s not yet official,” Sol spoke, her tone hard. “If we strike them now, the Mandate would not be sufficiently situated to back Fusion up with all of its might.”

“It would be unbecoming of us,” Romulus dissuaded his sun. “To strike an ambitious young man to weaken the Rat… no, I will not engage in such tactics.”

“Wise,” Luna supported him. “I believe that their paths will diverge on their own in due time. Let us not sour our relationship with Fusion and the Mandate of Heaven. All great powers are self-interested. All we must do is wait.”

“…If you say so,” Sol said slowly. She had reason for doubt. Luna was typically right, but she wasn’t always right. None of them were. “Then what is our concern?”

“John is too aggressive,” Luna explained. “He is ambitious, young and proud, but he is no fool. Striking down Veridion, that I believe he did due to love alone. Parading the Aztec demigoddess around and proclaiming his wish to annex all of the lands of that fallen empire?” Silver hair swayed as she shook her head. “No, that was an unforced diplomatic blunder, especially doing so before he went to Hawaii. The Gamer is drawing the attention of the world while Muris schemes.”

“There comes a day of reckoning.”

Into the room strutted a woman of fair skin, not as pale as Luna and yet quite close. A conservative black dress clad her modest curves, a garb that reflected that she was still in a time of mourning. Black hair was tied into a symmetrical crown braid, only a few wavy tresses left to escape to emphasize the androgynous and beautiful shape of her face. A blood red bandage tied around her head hid her eyes.

“What do you see, Justitia?” Luna asked immediately.

The blind lady had stayed in the palace since the end of the Five Days War. Their relationship was old and difficult. Romulus had done wrong by her in the past, ignoring her advice and staying cooped up in his misery in the centuries following Pompeii. She had been his woman once. She effectively was again. All the necessary acts had happened.

Justitia took a deep breath and sang a prophecy.

“Scales tilted strong,

To fantasy was done a wrong.

Humans wander,

Others go yonder.

What was sent out must rebound,

What goes up will come down.

A lock is forged through greatest rite,

A key is turned through a pulse’s might.

The thrice weakened veil with tear,

And bring the unknown horror that is already here.

Yo-“

Justitia suddenly stopped and lurched forwards. Her mouth was forced open by something spilling from her vocal cords. The trio on the couch jumped to their feet, immediately closing the distance. Romulus did not need to understand a specific energy to sense its hostility.

Whiteness formed a bubble. Justitia’s jaw was made to fully unhinge. Her cheeks tore. The whiteness cracked and flowed, forming a mask with a singular opening. A tongue of silver light flicked around the air, moving in a way that was neither electricity nor flame. The masked thing reached up with human hands. Goat-like legs kicked.

Romulus seized the thing by its neck and pulled. The rest of the abominable creature tore from the goddess’ vocal cords. A hoof caught Romulus’ chest. Air was forced from his lungs. He clenched his teeth and whirled around, slamming the entity into the ground. The ancient marble barely withstood the impact, so saturated with his mana that it could take this kind of punishment. The creature scattered into black particles, disappearing as quickly as it had come.

Sol and Luna were already at Justitia’s side. One wove healing sunlight, the other aided by pulling the wound together with stitches of moonlight. The combination of their efforts put the blind goddess’ jaw back into place within minutes. Romulus observed it all with quiet concern, only letting out a relieved breath when the last bit of skin was mended.

“I believe we now know what the entities the Gamer was talking about look like,” Luna remarked. “Tzitzimimeh, it was said?”

Romulus’ eyes were locked onto the spot where the creature had disappeared. In all his life, he had not encountered it nor anything like it before. “What… were you about to say?” he asked gently of Justitia.

“I…” the goddess of justice swallowed, “…don’t know.”