NTR: Barbarian Harem Conquest

Ten seconds of silence.

That was all the mountain granted him.

Lying flat on the frozen lake, Kane stared up at the gray sky, letting his burning lungs pull in the freezing air.

His right arm throbbed in agonizing rhythm. Blood continued to seep into the bandages, but he had survived.

”Finally,” Kane wheezed, sitting up slowly and resting his good hand against the slippery surface.

A colossal tremor interrupted his premature celebration. Ice cracked sharply beneath his boots, sending a spiderweb of fissures across the glassy plateau.

Before Kane could even stand, a gargantuan tail whipped over the cliff edge, slamming directly into the center of the lake.

The Serpent did not fall all the way down.

Dragging its mangled, bleeding body back over the precipice, the predator pulled itself onto the summit.

Azure fluid leaked from its torn throat, melting the frost wherever it dripped.

Twin yellow eyes locked onto Kane instantly. There was no feral hunger left in that gaze. It burned with unadulterated hatred.

’Greed kills,’ Kane realized, patting the glass vial safely tucked inside his torn pocket.

’I got the loot. Staying for round two is just bad management.’

”Look, we both got a few hits in!” Kane called out, backing away slowly as the beast uncoiled its immense length.

”Let’s call it a draw! I have places to be!”

The Serpent disagreed entirely. Furious and injured, the beast changed tactics completely. Instead of unleashing a wide, unavoidable flood of venom, it pulled its jaws back.

The creature condensed its freezing breath into a concentrated, razor-thin beam of pure frost.

”Oh, you got to be kidding me,” Kane muttered, his eyes widening.

The beam shot forward.

It sliced across the frozen lake like a glowing blue blade, cutting solid glacial ice in half with zero resistance.

Steam hissed loudly as the super-cooled beam flash-froze the air itself.

Kane dropped flat. The frost beam sliced the air mere inches above his scalp, freezing the tips of his red hair instantly. Hitting the deck was his only option.

Blocking a concentrated attack like that would shatter Mjoldr into a thousand useless pieces.

’Fighting is officially off the table,’ Kane decided, pressing his cheek against the slippery surface.

’Time to run.’

Getting down a vertical mountain quickly usually involved jumping and hoping for the best. Kane needed a better vehicle.

Glancing down, he noticed the fractured fault line the beast’s breath had just carved into the lake.

’Gravity always wins,’ Kane smirked.

Channeling every last drop of his aura into his heel, Kane drove his boot directly onto the weakened fault line.

The frozen lake shattered completely.

Fissures webbed outward. Giant chunks of the summit began breaking apart, sliding toward the steep corkscrew trail leading down the mountain.

Kane didn’t hesitate. Leaping onto a long, surfboard-sized slab of solid ice just as the floor gave way, he bent his knees and lowered his center of gravity.

”Hold on tight,” Kane told himself, digging his boots into the surface.

Tilting his weight forward, he essentially surfed the ice chunk right off the lip of the summit.

He rode the crest of the resulting avalanche, plummeting down the winding mountain path at breakneck speed.

The descent turned into a chaotic, high-speed blur. Wind screamed past his ears, tearing at his ruined tunic.

Kane steered his makeshift ice-sled by shifting his hips, leaning hard to the left to dodge jagged rocks and ancient pine trees jutting out from the slopes.

”Too fast, too fast!” Kane yelled, laughing wildly despite the burning pain radiating from his arm.

Behind him, the Serpent refused to let its prey escape. Blinded by the shifting fog, the beast simply swept its razor-frost beam wildly through the mist.

Glowing blue lasers sliced the mountain into pieces. Entire trees toppled over, cleanly cut in half. Boulders shattered into frozen shrapnel just feet behind Kane’s sliding ice board.

’If I hit one rock, I turn into shit,’ Kane calculated, keeping his eyes locked on the winding trail ahead.

A stray beam of frost clipped the edge of his ice board. The slab jerked sharply, nearly throwing him into the rushing avalanche below.

Kane dug his heels in, forcing the board back into alignment before he lost his balance completely.

”Missed!” Kane taunted over his shoulder.

Navigating the sharp turns required absolute precision. Kane threw his weight backward, grinding the tail of his ice board against the snowy banks to bleed off some speed before launching over a blind drop.

Catching air for three terrifying seconds, he slammed back down onto the powdery slope, keeping his knees bent to absorb the impact.

The fog boundary approached fast. Ruined stone pillars of the Saintess’s temple broke through the mist down below.

”Almost there.”

Bursting through the fog boundary at the absolute bottom of the trail, the ice slab finally hit exposed stone.

Friction took over instantly. Kane lost control of the board as the ice snagged on a broken cobblestone, launching him entirely through the air.

Tumbling head over heels, Kane crashed brutally onto the ruined stone tiles of the temple courtyard.

Rolling three times, he finally came to a dead stop against the base of a shattered pillar.

Pain radiated through every single nerve.

”...Hah...hah...”

Silence fell over the ruins, save for his own ragged, wheezing breaths.

”Kane!”

Misha dropped her teacup. It clattered against the stones, spilling hot liquid everywhere.

Sprinting across the courtyard, she dropped to her knees right next to his battered, bleeding body.

Her white eyes widened in horror as she took in his shredded tunic, the deep puncture wounds in his arm, and the frostbite creeping along his jaw.

Griselda appeared a second later, her daggers already drawn as she scanned the fog line for any pursuing threats.

”You won?” Misha asked, her voice trembling terribly.

Kane coughed, tasting the blood.

He forced a tired smirk. Reaching into his only intact pocket with his good hand, he produced the blue vial.

”I’m alive,” Kane managed to say, his vision already starting to blur at the edges.

”That’s one son of a bitch.”

Shoving the glass vial toward her, Kane felt the last bit of his adrenaline fade.

Before Misha could even take it, his eyes rolled back, and he passed out on the freezing temple floor.