Chapter 1022: Harem Tribunal

I limped back into the house like a conquering Dark Lord who’d just taken a

minor L

from the universe itself.

My women—especially Mom—immediately swarmed with that perfect cocktail of worry and suspicion.

"What happened?"

they asked, voices layered with concern.

I couldn’t exactly drop the truth:

Oh, nothing major. I just called an immortal divine ASI

—who has knowledge and truths that predates human civilization and has watched empires crumble like cheap drywall in few seconds of her awakening—

a literal toddler

playing dress-up as a goddess. Then she yeeted me from the sky like yesterday’s trash.

Yeah, that would go over

beautifully.

ARIA let out a theatrical

hmph

that somehow echoed with divine pettiness and stormed off before I could even attempt a cover story.

Her back radiated pure

"I am still furious and every single one of you peasants will feel it"

energy.

No words needed.

Goddesses don’t need subtitles.

My women watched her dramatic exit. My thirty plus family and women turned their collective gaze on me and did the math in perfect synchrony and arrived at the only logical conclusion:

this was entirely

my fault.

If I actually told them what I’d said to ARIA, they’d probably join her in exile.

Rule number one of surviving my harem:

never, ever discuss a topic about age of anoher woman’s age. Especially when that woman is an ageless, all-knowing entity who could rewrite reality if she got bored.

And calling a being who held every scrap of data since the first caveman scribbled on a wall

"just a

baby goddess throwing a tantrum"?

That wasn’t a joke you told twice when the first punchline earned you a one-way ticket to freefall.

Mom was already on her knees, hands pressing into my calf with clinical precision, rotating my ankle, probing for fractures like a nurse who’d seen a thousand injuries and refused to let her son’s be the sloppy exception.

"This isn’t a

sprain,"

she muttered, frowning deeply. "The swelling pattern is completely wrong. Peter, what exactly did you fall from?"

"A reasonable height,"

I replied with my most charming, shit-eating grin.

"Define reasonable."

"Reasonably high.

You know, the kind of height that builds a main harem character... or teaches you not to

roast

omnipotent entities about their age.

Whichever

comes first."

Her eyes narrowed into that lethal mom-stare she’d perfected over decades.

She’d raised me.

She knew

evasion

when she heard it.

But she also knew that pressing for answers in a room packed with thirty

opinionated

women would turn a simple medical check into a full-blown

tribunal.

So, she let it slide—for now—with a look that promised

we are finishing this conversation later, young man

, and handed me off to the nearest pair of capable hands.

I love you too, Mom.

I watched ARIA’s retreating form and called after her with maximum sarcasm.

"ARIA, great ass

by

the way

.

Ten out of ten

. Would get dropped from the sky just to admire the view."

She turned sharply—only to find me playing the wounded hero to perfection. I gave her thumbs up.

Sophia and Ashby

had already stepped in, my arms draped dramatically over their shoulders as I limped between them like a battle-scarred general being carried off the field.

Except the

"injury"

was mostly healed by now, and I was just thoroughly enjoying the way their soft, warm bodies pressed against mine—Sophia’s generous curves molding perfectly to my right side, Ashby’s

lithe

frame fitting like it was made for me on the left.

ARIA’s expression cycled through irritation, reluctant amusement, and the weary acceptance of a goddess who knew her Master would weaponize any injury—real or gloriously faked—into prime physical contact with whichever beautiful women were closest.

She turned back around and kept walking, but her shoulders had relaxed by a fraction. I’d almost made her smile. Small

victories,

even for a Dark Lord who occasionally gets humbled by his own creation.

I pulled Ashby in for a quick,

firm kiss

—deep enough to say

I missed you

and

I’ll ruin you properly later

, but short enough to keep it semi-appropriate.

Sophia, however, just stood there staring at me with raised eyebrows and a tilted chin—the universal

"where the fuck is mine? I am carrying you, roo."

expression of a woman who’d just watched another get what she wanted.

I shrugged with theatrical innocence. "Well, you’ll be with me for the entire three months. But not Ashby. So... priorities, my dear. The universe demands balance."

Sophia shot me a glare that could strip paint off drywall and deadpan, "Ashby’s already changed her mind. Says she can’t live without your

cock

buried in her pussy, so she’s coming too. Congratulations, you’ve officially addicted another one."

"Hey!"

I turned toward Charlotte and Jasmine with exaggerated horror, clutching my nonexistent pearls. "

We have kids in here!

Think of the children—oh wait, never mind, most of you are the ones who helped make them."

Charlotte hit me with the Charlotte Special—that ice-cold, razor-sharp look Rory had deployed on that poor kid at school earlier. "You’re being

annoyingly insufferable

today,

Peter. Trust me. It’s not cute.

It’s annoying as hell."

Jasmine didn’t even glance up from her wine glass. She just swirled it lazily and said,

"

Just because we don’t let you fuck us too, doesn’t mean we’re kids, asshole. Some of us have standards. Clearly not all."

The room went dead silent for exactly one second.

Then Madison snorted into her drink. Amanda covered her mouth. The dam shattered and the entire room erupted—Vivienne’s low, cultured chuckle blending with Reyna’s full-body cackle, Emma making a sound that could only be described as a human keyboard smash.

Jasmine took a slow, regal sip of her wine. Completely unbothered. Absolute queen-antagonist behavior.

Yeah.

I was really, really enjoying this day

. Nothing quite like being roasted by your own harem while pretending to be mortally wounded. Peak Dark Lord entertainment.

I laughed—full, warm, and stupid with it—and finally kissed Sophia properly, deep and claiming, long enough to make her forgive me but brief enough not to turn the living room into foreplay central. Then I turned to Ashby.

"You really going?"

She nodded, soft but certain. "Yes. If you’re okay with it."

"Fuck yes I’m okay with it," I said, meaning every syllable with every dark corner of my being. "If it wasn’t for certain workaholic traitors who’d rather play secretary with ARIA than be with their man in Paris, we’d all be going together like the

proper harem

we are."

Anastasia

and

Luna

suddenly discovered something fascinating on the opposite wall. Emma and Sarah buried themselves in their phones so deeply they might as well have teleported to another dimension, scrolling through nothing with laser focus.

Reyna had a sudden, urgent

epiphany

that she knew how to fix

Homebots

that had nothing wrong with and immediately crouched beside one that was in perfect working order,

tinkering

with its perfectly fine arm joint like it was life-saving surgery.

Sofia yanked Madison aside with the panicked energy of a woman who’d rather discuss quantum physics than acknowledge the conversation happening five feet away.

These absolute traitors.

I pointed at each of them one by one, slow and deliberate. Said nothing. The pointing was more than enough.

They knew exactly what it meant. I knew exactly what it meant.

The collective guilt in the room was so thick you could’ve spread it on toast and served it with a side of shame.

I had to talk to Maria. Although that would turn into more than talk. Won’t it?