The dragon's harem

“An artifact?” Amber gasped, “You had that with you all this time?”

Arad smiled, “I didn’t know I could take it out without my power,”

“The biological link between your mouth and stomach is still intact.” Merlin stared at him, “So this maze can steal out power, but not things that are essential for biological life?”

“I tried to pull the adamantine sword, but the handle kept getting stuck,” Arad looked at her, “That knife is the biggest thing I can pull out. Sadly I don’t have any weapons or potions that are smaller than that.”

“I mean you have other knives that size, but that’s the strongest thing you can pull,” Merlin sat beside the fire, “Besides the damage, that weapon doesn’t give us any way to make clearing this place any faster.”

“What does that thing do?” Amber looked at the knife, “The magic in it is a bit scary,”

“The exploding nipple knife, it does what the name implies,” He smiled, waving it, “One poke and your nipples go BOOM!”

“Keep it away from me,” She jumped back, and Arad chased her, “Come here, we need to test it,”

“I’m not! Throw that thing away!” She cried.

Watching them, Merlin giggled, “You two, we better group up,” She waved her hand to them, “Do you feel it?”

The two stopped running.

Amber could feel a shift in the labyrinth’s magic. It’s like the wind changing direction and getting colder.

With him standing there, Arad could feel a faint tremor in the ground beneath his feet, “A lot of monsters are coming,”

“It took a while for them to adjust,” Merlin said with a smile, “You have to protect me this time. They aren’t playing around.”

BAM! BAM! From the dirt, tents of octopus emerged. “They gave up on magic and want to kill us with sheer numbers,”

From behind the monsters, a large being emerged. A half octopus half human with Merlin’s naked upper torso as the human part.

“That’s the big one,” Arad looked at her.

The monster smiled, “ARAD!” She giggled, “Those horse faces in the first layer failed to catch, but you’re mine now.”

“I know what you say,” Merlin nodded with a smile, “But. Arad is mine. I’m not handing it over, half slimy octopus,”

“Big talk, magicless wizard,” The octopus queen glared at her with a twisted smile, “Your days already ended, and it’s ours now. Thank you for giving birth to us through your magic, but it’s high time you died.”

“You have children?” Arad stared at Merlin.

“No,” Merlin stared at him.

“You an idiot?” Amber stared at him, “She mean that they were created from Merlin’s magic, not literally her children.”

SWOSH! A tentacle emerged from the dirt beside Arad, trying to snatch the knife from his hand.

Arad dodged the attack, landing in front of Amber and Merlin. He looked at the octopus queen with a smile.

“This knife is useless against the small octopus monster. They don’t have nipples,” He glared back, opening his mouth and pushing the knife down his throat.

“But you,” He stared at her exposed chest.

The queen giggled, “I heard you earlier,” She stared at Merlin’s chest, “Mine aren’t as big as hers, but they are firmer just the way you like them,” She squeezed her chest, “Come here to me, leave those milk bags to rot there,”

Arad smiled, “Jokes on you,” He spun the quarterstaff, taking a stance, “I like milk as well,”

The queen’s face twisted as she growled, “Choose one.”

BAM! Arad rushed forward, ready to take her down.

“Kill the women and bring me Arad alive,” The queen shouted with an enraged face.

Arad ducked beneath the wave of tentacles as Amber fireballs flew above his head, exploding at the monsters.

Thud! Thud! As Arad ran forward, he quickly approached the end of the cobblestone pavement around the stairs.

^I love this fool,^ The queen smile. ^The moment he steps in the mud, it’s his loss.^

The octopuses were used to swimming in that mud, even through the cobblestone so they could attack even close to the stairs, but Arad and the rest were different.

A human would get stuck and slowly drown until their death, not to mention the octopuses waiting to attack.

^Come at me. My minions would catch for me. Then I can kill those two bitches as slowly as I want.^ She smiled.

Arad’s right foot approached the mud surface, and the queen’s smile couldn’t be bigger, ^This is it. Arad is mine, forever!^

DING! Arad’s foot landed on a crystal barrier.

“What?” The queen gasped. 𝘳.𝑐𝘰

With gravity magic lifting the barrier from the mud, Arad extended his staff behind him [Flame thrower]

BOOM! With the fire acting as a jet Arad skated across the mud as Ambers fireballs exploded everywhere. He aimed for the queen.

“Catch him!” The queen shouted.

The octopus that survived Amber’s blast turned to catch Arad, but their tentacles got burned by his jet, and approaching from behind him was almost impossible.

SPLAT! From the mud, a slightly larger octopus emerged ahead of Arad trying to use its size to block his path.

Arad pointed his quarterstaff to the left, blasting himself to the right in the blink of an eye and evading the octopus’s tentacles at the last moment. At the same time, he swung his left hand with a smile.

SLAP! His hand slapped one of the octopus’s tentacles.

The tentacles spiked, freezing straight as their colors shifted rapidly. A pained screech escaped the monster as its eyes popped with blood.

An octopus’s boneless body is controlled entirely by nerves and muscles. Their brain spread all the way to their tentacles, augmenting their sense of pain to an insane degree due to the sheer number of their nerves.

This had made them exceptionally susceptible to pain, and Arad’s slaps delivered that and more. One slap and they would die from agony alone.

SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! SLAP!

Merlin smiled in the back. ^A dragon is a dragon, you can steal all of his power, and he would still find a way to make you regret fighting him.^

As the octopus died of agony everywhere. Arad jumped over them, glaring down at the queen.

“You said your chest is firmer than Merlin?” He glared down with glowing red eyes, “Let me slap them to see if that’s true,”

𝑖.𝘤ℴ𝘮