Lady Marianna burst into laughter. "Fools!"

"How about we skip this pointless talk?" I asked. "We all know you're just playing hard to get."

"Hard to get?" She tossed the king's body aside and took her seat on the throne. "I suppose for you, everything about this situation is hard to get."

Kisk stepped forward and gripped her weapon. I paused her with a raised hand. "You can't defeat me," I said. "You are simply not strong enough."

Marianna rested her head on her hand, smiling in amusement. "Let me guess, you came here to capture me and claim me as another one of your sex slaves?"

"We aren't slaves!" Kisk shouted back.

"Right," Laya followed, "We love Imsi!"

I shrugged with a sly smile. "I'm sure you'll come around eventually. They all do."

She whispered to herself, too faint to hear, but her eyes widened as if she stumbled upon a secret. Then, laughter. "Oh wonderful, wonderful! This couldn't be more perfect." She presented an open palm, then a small red gem manifested between her fingers. Her mocking stare told me to scan it.

"Scan: Target."

The voice answered. "Bloodgem. Contains a human kidney."

"Oh," I said, "that's cute. You have my spare kidney. So what?"

She grinned, tilted her head back, and tossed it into her mouth. With a heavy gulp, something within her changed, and an uneasy disquiet fell upon the room.

At this point, I was far too annoyed and impatient to continue this nonsense. I turned to my girls. "Beat her to a pulp."

Silence.

I glanced at each of them, and shocked eyes stared back. "Kill her!" I demanded.

Again, silence. They stood unmoving.

Marianna erupted into wild laughter. "Oh, your poor thing, you. The blood magic that bonds servant to master prevents them from attacking you--and now, me."

My heart stopped at the realization of what she had done. My girls were given to me as quest rewards--among other methods--and various magicks were cast to ensure their obedience. I had never much considered it since I was so terribly charismatic that they would love me regardless of being forced to or not. The real issue was that I'd have to beat this woman by my own strength. But with a woman this weak, I wouldn't even need to draw my sword.

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I flashed beside her in an instant and raised my armored glove for a backhand.

She was gone, standing in the same spot that I was in just a moment earlier, next to the girls who stood frozen. Then, I felt it. Thousands of tiny invisible hands leapt out of the stone beneath me and gripped my body, pulling me hard to the floor.

I dropped on my knee, my heavy armor clacking with an echo throughout the throne room. "Im-Impossible!" I uttered. "I'm immune to magic traps!"

Marianna spoke with amused authority. "Not to your own."

This was an insult, and I would not be shamed in this fashion, especially not by some arrogant slut. "Dissipate!" All magic within a 100-meter radius turned to mist, and I felt the invisible hands loosen their grip. "Ultimate Magic: Heavenly Charge!"

My command roared throughout the castle, boomed throughout the city and the streets and the heavens and into their souls. A golden glow emanated from me, pulsing with power and hot bursts of wind. This was my trump card, and by the time the spell would finish casting, there would be nothing left of this city--not even a memory.

I would lose my girls, but it was no matter. Harem girls were a dime a dozen, and I could always find more elsewhere.

The power poured into me, and I felt my mana flood past its cap. When I felt the click, I knew the spell was ready. "Curse yourself for this awful fate, Marianna the Harlot! Ultimate Magic: Heavenly Burst!"

Thap.

An arrow slapped against my chest. It ignored my defensive aura completely. The fighting spirit drained from me as I looked up to see Laya aiming her bow at my center mass. Her eyes were… enraged and ashamed. Beside her, Marianna sent a demon's grin from behind her pointed staff. It glowed red, pulsing with evil energy. It shot out like a laser, engulfing me in burning, freezing, stretching, shrinking magic.

I roared in pain and agony as I could feel my arms morph. My heavy paladin armor turned to slag against my skin, sizzling against me, coating my body in its hot, reflective surface. No, the entirety of me was turning into metal! Was she transforming me into a blood gem? The squealing roaring burn of metal and cloth and flesh pounded my senses.

"Refuse," Marianna said behind the hum of her spell. "A funny word, don't you think? It's synonymous with trash, which you are. You are trash. And I can think no more of a fitting end for a near-immortal chauvinistic cunt than to be polymorphed into a... trash can!" She howled with laughter.

This couldn't be happening. I was overpowered! There was no way a woman could defeat someone like me! "Open Portal–"

"Cancel!"

The mist of the portal vanished as soon as it came.

“Oh girls,” Marianna sang. “Don’t you so wish to exact your revenge against this garbage dump of a man?” The girls were silent, but I felt their piercing glares. “Go on then,” Marianna ordered. “Beat him as he deserves!”

They stepped over. My body stretched and shrank, my bones crushed and hardened and reformed into slick iron, melting the entirety of me into a puddle of slag to reform again into a hollow cylinder--with a rattling tin lid.

My sense of sight and sound faded into darkness and silence. I felt thumping, pounding, beating into my sides--my cold metal exterior--then that too faded away to numbness.

I had become cold and empty and defeated.

I had become a trash can containing nothing but my soul.

I had become trash.