Harem Master: Seduction System

Chapter 375: Beating Up Cai Wei

The sun had just dipped below the jagged horizon of the Tagor Desert, painting the sky in bruises of violet and arterial red, but the Broken Obelisk Ruins were brighter than noon. The ancient stone pillars, worn smooth by centuries of sandstorms, cast long, distorted shadows that danced frantically as the air itself began to scream.

Queen Cai Wei did not hesitate. The moment the challenge left Alaric’s lips, the atmosphere around her detonated.

"DIE!"

It was a scream that carried the weight of a mother’s terrified love and a monarch’s apocalyptic rage. Cai Wei stomped her armored boot into the sand, and the desert answered her call with a catastrophic roar.

"Grand Art: Nine-Hells Magma Serpent!"

The ground beneath the ruins fractured, spewing geysers of superheated, liquid rock. The sand instantly vitrified into glass as nine colossal serpents, composed entirely of magma and obsidian, rose from the depths. Each one was as thick as a palace pillar, their jaws dripping with fire that burned white-hot. They were not mindless constructs; infused with Cai Wei’s spiritual will, they moved with the cunning of predators, encircling Alaric from all sides, blocking every avenue of escape.

Alaric stood amidst the rising inferno, his black robes billowing not from the wind, but from the sheer pressure of the heat. He didn’t move a muscle. He didn’t dodge. He simply watched the nine heads lunge at him simultaneously, a sneer of absolute disdain curling his lip.

"Crude," Alaric scoffed, his voice cutting through the roar of the flames like a razor. "You possess the raw power of the earth, yet you wield it like a blunt club."

He raised his right hand, palm open, fingers splayed.

"Void Barrier: Absolute Stasis."

He didn’t use Qi. He used the fundamental laws of the Void. A sphere of distorted space expanded from his body, transparent and shimmering like oil on water.

The nine magma serpents slammed into the barrier with enough force to level a mountain. There was no explosion. There was no impact. The moment the molten rock touched the Void field, the laws of physics around Alaric inverted. Kinetic energy was nullified instantly. The heat was trapped, unable to radiate. The serpents froze in mid-air, suspended in a state of impossible stillness, looking like statues carved from the sun itself.

"What?" Cai Wei’s eyes widened, her golden pupils contracting to pinpricks. She had poured thirty percent of her dantian’s reserves into that opening strike—enough to incinerate an army—and he had stopped it with a casual wave of his hand?

"Is that all?" Alaric taunted, flicking his wrist outward. "Let’s send it back to the sender. Vector Reversal."

BOOM!

The frozen serpents shattered. The shards of cooling obsidian and splashes of magma were launched back at Cai Wei at supersonic speeds, turning her own attack into a shotgun blast of volcanic shrapnel.

Cai Wei gritted her teeth, her combat instincts taking over. She spun her Serpent’s Fang Whip, a High-Grade Heaven artifact made from the spine of a fire dragon. The weapon elongated into a blur of red light, creating a defensive vortex.

"Serpent Style: Iron Scale Defense!"

She deflected the shrapnel, the obsidian shards shattering against her whip’s barrier, but the sheer kinetic force of the impact drove her feet backward, furrowing deep trenches in the glass floor she had created.

She realized instantly that Fire and Earth would not work. This man... his control over space made physical attacks futile. He was untouchable.

"Fine!" Cai Wei roared, her aura shifting violently. "If the earth fails, let the heavens judge you!"

Her red hair whipped around her face as sparks of electricity began to dance across her skin. The red glow of her aura turned a blinding, crackling violet, mixed with the sickly green of a desert tornado.

"Heavenly Art: Thunder-Wind Calamity!"

She raised both hands to the sky. Dark, unnatural storm clouds coalesced in seconds above the desert, swirling with green wind blades and purple tribulation lightning. It was a dual-elemental attack, a rarity that marked her as a peerless genius among the beast tribes.

"Strike!"

A pillar of Violet Tribulation Lightning, wrapped in a tornado of Wind Scythes, crashed down on Alaric’s position. The attack was faster than sound, tearing the atmosphere apart, leaving a vacuum in its wake that sucked the very air out of the ruins.

Miles away, hidden within the isolation array of the cave, Yun Lan watched the battle through a projection spell Alaric had left active. Her hand was pressed over her mouth, her face pale, her own Ice Qi trembling in resonance with the distant power.

"Heavens..." she whispered, her eyes wide. "She commands four elements? Fire, Earth, Wind, Lightning... She is a monster. Feng Xiao... even with his Blue Lotus Flame, if he fought her seriously... he would lose. She is suppressing the entire region."

Yun Lan watched the lightning strike Alaric. For a moment, she felt a spike of genuine fear. Not for Alaric’s life—she knew he was strong—but for the sheer scale of the power being thrown around. The shockwaves were rippling through the sand dunes like ocean waves, reaching even their hideout, causing the protective barrier to shimmer.

But inside the lightning column, Alaric was laughing.

He stood in the center of the devastation, the purple arcs of electricity licking at his mana shield but failing to penetrate. He looked up at the storm, his eyes glowing with an arcane violet light that outshone the lightning.

"You call this lightning?" Alaric shouted, his voice amplified by magic. "You borrow the power of the sky, hoping it obeys you. That is the way of a Cultivator. You really are just begging the heavens for scraps!"

He reached out his hand, grabbing a bolt of lightning that was thicker than a tree trunk. He didn’t deflect it. He held it, his fingers closing around the pure energy as if it were solid matter.

"I am an Archmage, little snake. I do not beg the elements. I command them. Let me show you.;"

He crushed the lightning bolt in his grip. The energy dispersed into harmless sparks.

"Mana Zone: Absolute Element Control."

Alaric stomped his foot. A wave of pure, colorless mana exploded outward from him, washing over the ruins. It didn’t destroy anything; it rewrote the rules of the local reality.

Suddenly, Cai Wei felt her connection to the wind and lightning sever. The tornado stopped spinning. The clouds evaporated. The lightning she had summoned turned around, curving in the air like obedient serpents, and pointed their jagged tips at her.

"How?!" Cai Wei screamed, her mind reeling. "That is my Qi! That is my will! How can you steal it?"

"Your will is weak," Alaric declared, his eyes burning like dying stars. "Your understanding of the elements is childish. You mix them without blending them. Let me show you what true elemental power looks like."

He gestured. "Arcane Barrage."

The lightning storm Cai Wei had summoned crashed down on her own head, amplified by Alaric’s mana.

CRAAAAACK!

The desert turned white.

Cai Wei screamed as her own lightning fried her defenses. Her Red Lotus Armor glowed white-hot, absorbing the brunt of the damage, but the impact slammed her into the ground, creating a crater fifty meters wide.

She lay there for a second, smoke rising from her body. Her skin was scorched in places, her beautiful face smudged with soot, her red silk robes tattered and revealing burnt, olive skin beneath.

"Stand up," Alaric commanded from above, floating in the air with his arms crossed, looking down at her like a god judging an insect. "I know that didn’t kill you. You are a Martial King. Your vitality is higher than that. Don’t disappoint me, Cai Wei."

Cai Wei dragged herself up, coughing up a mouthful of golden blood. Her eyes were no longer just angry; they were filled with a primal, terrified desperation. This man... he wasn’t just strong. He was a natural counter to everything she did. He turned her strength into weakness. He was playing with her.

"Who are you?" she rasped, her voice trembling. "You are not from the Celestial Dragon Empire. No one uses power like this. Are you a demon from the Outer Realms?"

"I am the man who holds your heart in a box," Alaric reminded her cold-heartedly. "Fight harder, Cai Wei. Is this the power of a mother? Is this the fury of a Queen? Or do you want me to send a scorpion to tuck her in?"

The mention of her daughter snapped something inside the Queen. The fear vanished, replaced by a cold, reptilian resolve. Her humanity peeled away like shed skin.

"You want to see my power?" she whispered, her voice doubling, overlapping with a hissing, guttural growl that vibrated in the sand. "You want to see the true strength of the Snake-People?"

She stood up straight. She closed her eyes. Her aura exploded, turning from violet to a blinding, chaotic rainbow of colors.

"True Form: Seven-Colored Spirit Devouring Python!"

ROOOOAAAR!

A pillar of rainbow-colored light erupted from her body, piercing the heavens. The pressure was so intense that the gravity in the ruins collapsed. Alaric felt a heavy weight press down on his shoulders, his mana shield rippling under the sheer density of the energy.

Inside the light, Cai Wei’s human form dissolved.

She grew. And grew. And grew.

When the light faded, a monstrosity loomed over the ruins.

A massive python, easily three hundred meters long, coiled around the broken obelisks. Its scales shimmered with seven distinct colors—Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Violet—each scale glowing with the power of a different element. A single horn jutted from its forehead, crackling with black energy. Its eyes were the size of carriage wheels, vertical slits of pure malice.

This was the legendary beast bloodline that even Dragons feared: The Seven-Colored Spirit Devouring Python.

"DIE, HUMAN!" The voice came from everywhere, vibrating in Alaric’s bones.

The giant snake lunged. It didn’t use fire or lightning this time. It opened its maw, revealing rows of fangs dripping with venom that could melt divine artifacts.

"Innate Divine Ability: World-Swallowing Domain!"

A black vortex formed in the snake’s mouth. A terrifying suction force erupted. The sand, the stones, the air, and even the light began to be dragged into the maw.

Alaric felt his mana being ripped from his pores. This wasn’t just suction; it was devouring. She was eating the energy of the world to fuel herself. The defensive arrays he had laid down shattered instantly, their energy consumed by the beast.

Yun Lan, watching from miles away, fell to her knees as the projection crystal cracked under the pressure of the aura.

"Heavens..." she gasped, clutching her chest. "That is a Calamity Beast. Alaric... you have to run!"

But Alaric did not run. He stood his ground, his robes whipping violently toward the snake’s mouth. He felt the drain on his reserves. It was significant. If he were a normal cultivator, his dantian would have been sucked dry in seconds, leaving him a husk.

But Alaric smiled. A wide, manic grin that showed too many teeth.

"Finally," he shouted over the roar of the vortex, his eyes alight with the thrill of battle. "A challenge worthy of an Archmage! You want to eat? You want to devour?"

He reached deep into his soul, past his human mana, tapping into the beast essence he had assimilated. The chaotic void energy within him surged, mixing with the ancient bloodline he had stolen.

"Beast Sovereign Manifestation: Azure Spirit Lion!"

ROOOOOOOAAAAAAR!

A sound louder than thunder, deeper than the earth’s shifting plates, erupted from Alaric’s small human frame. It was a roar that challenged the sovereignty of the python, a roar that declared a new apex predator had arrived.

A spectral avatar exploded outward from Alaric’s back. It was a Lion of titanic proportions, composed of translucent azure energy. It was clad in Void Armor, its mane burning with the fires of purgatory, its eyes holding the cold stillness of the grave.

The Azure Spirit Lion was an apex predator of the spirit world, a beast that hunted ghosts and devoured souls.

The spectral Lion grew until it matched the Python in size, standing four hundred meters tall. It planted its massive paws on the ruins, crushing the stone to dust.

The Python hissed, its devouring vortex faltering as it sensed a predator of equal—no, superior—standing. The ancient bloodline of the python recoiled instinctively from the aura of the Spirit Lion.

"A Spirit Lion?!" Cai Wei’s beast voice trembled, echoing across the dunes. "Impossible! That bloodline is extinct! How can a human possess the soul of a Sovereign Beast?!"

"I am the Sovereign!" Alaric’s voice boomed from the Lion’s mouth, merging with the avatar. "Eat her!"

The Azure Spirit Lion lunged.

The clash was catastrophic. It was a battle of Kaiju proportions that shook the foundation of the Tagor Desert.

The Lion slammed into the Python, its claws tearing through the seven-colored scales. The Python coiled around the Lion, constricting with enough force to crush a mountain range, biting into the Lion’s spectral shoulder, injecting venom that corroded the spirit energy.

The desert shook. Shockwaves of pure physical force flattened the dunes for miles around, turning the landscape into a flat sheet of glass.

Alaric, floating inside the heart of the Lion avatar, coordinated the attack. He fused his magic with the beast’s strength.

"Spellblade: Void Severance."

The Lion’s claws glowed with black void energy, extending into massive blades of nothingness. The Lion swiped at the Python’s body.

SCHLICK.

The scales—harder than diamond, immune to most elemental attacks—were sliced open like wet paper. Rainbow blood sprayed across the sands, sizzling and turning the ground into varied elemental crystals.

"SCREEEEE!" Cai Wei shrieked in agony, her massive body thrashing. She released her hold on the Lion, trying to retreat, but the Lion was faster.

"Earth Bind: Gravity Well!"

Alaric slammed his hands together. The Lion stomped on the Python’s tail, pinning it to the ground with the weight of a dying star.

"You possess seven elements," Alaric’s voice boomed, mocking her even as he tore her apart. "But you lack focus! You try to be everything, and so you are master of nothing! You are a jack of all trades, master of none!"

Cai Wei roared, turning her head to blast the Lion with a beam of Petrification Energy.

"Mirror of Distortion!"

A massive pane of reflective void energy appeared in front of the Lion. The beam bounced off it, hitting the Python’s own flank, turning a section of her scales to gray stone.

"No!" Cai Wei cried. "My scales!"

"Lightning Discharge!"

Alaric didn’t let up. The Lion bit down on the Python’s neck, right behind the head. The spectral teeth sank in, avoiding the vitals but piercing the muscle deep enough to connect with the spine.

Alaric channeled a massive bolt of Purple Void Lightning through the Lion’s teeth, directly into Cai Wei’s bloodstream.

ZZZZZRT!

The massive snake convulsed, stiffening as millions of volts fried her nervous system from the inside out. The Seven-Colored light flickered and died. The Devouring Vortex collapsed. Her massive body went limp, crashing down onto the ruins.

BOOOOOOM!

The impact created a mushroom cloud of sand that rose high into the stratosphere. The Broken Obelisk Ruins were no more; they had been ground to dust by the battle of titans.

Alaric dismissed the avatar. The giant Lion faded into motes of azure light, leaving Alaric floating in the air, untouched, pristine.

He descended slowly into the crater.

In the center lay Cai Wei. She had been forced out of her beast form, too exhausted to maintain it. She lay in the cooling glass, back in her human form, but broken. Her armor was gone. Her red silk clothes were shredded, clinging to her body in tatters, revealing nearly everything. Blood—golden and rainbow-hued—covered her olive skin. Her breath came in ragged, wet gasps.

She tried to crawl. Her fingers dug into the glass. She was shaking uncontrollably from the lightning aftershocks.

"Yu’er..." she wheezed, blood dripping from her lips. "Give... give her..."

Alaric landed softly beside her. He looked at her with the cold curiosity of a scientist examining a specimen.

"You fought well," Alaric said, his voice devoid of mockery now, replaced by a cold appreciation. "Better than I expected. You actually made me use ten percent of my mana. Feng Xiao... that guy might have lost to you in your true form."

Cai Wei looked up at him, her vision blurry. She saw a demon. A beautiful, invincible demon.

"Why..." she whispered, tears cutting tracks through the soot on her face. "Why didn’t you... kill me? You could have... severed my head."

"Because," Alaric said, crouching down. He reached out a hand.

"Greater Restoration."

A soft, green light emanated from his palm. He placed it on her bare, bloodied shoulder.

The magic flowed into her. The deep gashes from the Void Claws began to knit together. The internal bleeding stopped. The bruises faded from her olive skin. The burns from the lightning vanished, leaving her skin smooth and flawless once more.

Cai Wei gasped as the pain vanished, replaced by a soothing warmth. She looked at him in confusion and horror. He broke her, crushed her pride, destroyed her beast form... and now he was healing her?

"I can’t have my new pet looking damaged," Alaric whispered, his hand sliding from her shoulder down to the swell of her breast, smearing her own golden blood across her skin in a possessive caress. "You are far too beautiful to scar, Cai Wei. Feng Xiao left a masterpiece in the desert... it would be a shame to break the vase that I wish to hold in my collection."

He grabbed her chin, forcing her to look into his red eyes.

"But make no mistake," he said, his voice dropping to a terrifying growl. "You lost. You failed. You burned your blood, you even used your true form... and I still put you in the dirt without breaking a sweat."

Cai Wei trembled. She felt his power suppressing her, felt his hand claiming her. And somewhere in the back of her mind, amidst the fear for her daughter and the shame of defeat, she felt a dark, primal instinct reacting to his overwhelming strength.

In the animal kingdom, the strongest male claimed the female. And this man... this Alaric... was stronger than any male she had ever met. Stronger than Feng Xiao. Stronger than the Dragon Kings.

"Now," Alaric said, standing up and offering her a hand, his smile returning. "Let’s go see your daughter. If you are good... I might even let you feed her."

The Viper had struck, but the Lion had bitten back harder. And now, the Viper was in the cage, healed, beautiful, and utterly defeated.