The dragon's harem

The three Voids landed on the snow and looked at the dark chasms of the underground. They could already sense countless eyes gazing upon them from the darkness with hungry malice.

As Voids, the three retained most of their former power and enough sentience to wield it. But they also lost the vast majority of their emotions. They were empty, like the void, their eyes only burning with inhumane, disturbing intellect.

While all of them retain the normal five senses, each one of the three Voids has a powerful sense that distinguishes them. Darkness could see clearly even in true darkness and even distinguish colors in it. Madness could sense the psionic power of the monsters, especially since all of them burned with madness and vile hunger for slaughter. Pain, on the other hand, could sense and track wounded monsters, and especially those who are in pain, even in the blinding darkness; she could track and hunt them down.

Arad is currently watching the world through the three Voids’ eyes and is ready to assist them in any way necessary.

He could see Darkness flooding the crust of the cavern like a tsunami, washing off the weak monsters and ripping them apart. She didn’t bother harvesting any souls from the weak B-rank monsters that only hid there to escape from the storm, but didn’t dare venture deep into the chasms.

Pain almost immediately sensed a great monster hiding in the depths of the darkness, licking its wounds after a deadly battle. That was Pain’s current target, and it’ll take her a while to reach him. But when she does, finishing the wounded horror won’t be that hard.

Madness, on the other hand, strangely shifted its gaze away from the chasm at a hole in the ground far away north. At first, Arad didn’t understand what the madman was thinking, but he immediately noticed it. That hole wasn’t another entrance to the chasm, but the maw of a massive horror. It mind controls weak monsters to make them mistake its maw for the chasm and jump inside it. It’ll take Madness a while to break and kill the horror, but Arad can already think of many uses for that creature.

Satisfied with what his three Voids are doing, Arad shifted his attention back to his body in the Titan’s plaza. He looked down at the endless mountain range and then turned to Tyal, “I should probably go hunt for a time. Not every day I get the chance to eat my fill.”

Tyal giggled, “If it’s just food, then we’ll have a massive meal for you. It is not that titans eat less than you, do they?” He, in fact, did eat more than the Titans. They’ll probably offer him enough food for the size he showed, which was less than a hundredth of what he needs to eat.

This was really one of the largest problems that Arad had met since he became an adult. The amount of food he needs to sustain himself has grown so large that it is almost impossible for him to eat his fill. The uranium that Gaia manages to get him is sufficient to keep him alive, but it is more like living on military rations. Not something that he would want to live off.

But that wasn’t all, Arad had several more goals now that fighting and safety aren’t an issue. To explain it, he knows that one day he’ll have to survive on a diet of uranium and nothing more. That’s why he now wants to explore the world before venturing to other worlds, his goal is to gather culinary knowledge to be able to make his humanoid body decent meals to mask the tasteless uranium he has to eat.

And of course, he also has to feed Nina. She is now her husband so he is responsible for feeding her. And what better place to hunt large quantities of monsters than the mountains that can feed the Titans?

They rode across the plaza and returned to the streets. For several hours, they explored the large city, its countless shops, and even watched a play in the theaters. Those titans aren’t just some powerful race that hunt and eat, they are deeply concerned about culture and philosophy. To the point that some of them can spend years pondering the right way to eat a loaf of bread.

And yes, Arad saw it, a massive, twenty–meter–long, steaming hot, golden bread loaf. The smell alone was enough to warm up the frigid air, and Arad didn’t hesitate to shove a few into his stomach. He’ll eat some and send some back home through his clone that remained in the castle.

“Can you make that?” Arad pointed at the bread loaf and looked at Tyal.

She looked at him with a puzzled face, “Me? No clue.”

He immediately looked away. “What a shame.”

Tyal froze for a few seconds. “Wait… that’s what you care about?” As she started to realise something, Arad had already disappeared. When she looked for him, she found him already sitting with the grandma who was cooking the bread in a massive oven, which was in fact the burning side of a volcano.

Tyal froze in place and then cried, grabbing both Alice and Claug, “He’s going for the old hag!” And then she dragged them with her as she rushed to capture Arad before she could get demoted beneath an old grandma.

****

Down underground, a deadly battle had started. Darkness surged and turned into countless claws and maws that swirled around a large snake that hid in the shadows. Calling the monster a snake was an understatement; the thing was a massive leviathan that was almost a kilometer long and had several sharp spines running down its back.

The snake itself moved very slowly and didn’t look that active, but what drew Darkness’s attention was that, despite its massive size, the leviathan moved silently and without causing any tremors in the ground. It was an ambush predator.

But as soon as the darkness attacked it, the leviathan moved at harrowing speed unfit for its massive body. In the fraction of a second, its jaw had already flown hundreds of meters and snapped shut at the darkness’ claws.

Darkness couldn’t dodge the sudden attack as she didn’t expect such speed, but still, damaging true darkness was extremely hard. She managed to tank the bite and flew out of the leviathan’s maw and reached toward the eyes, aiming to blind it. Countless claws emerged from the darkness and rippled like a chainsaw, ripping the scales to pieces and tearing the snake’s eyes out in seconds.

That was when Darkness made a mistake, this leviathan didn’t need its eyesight. It didn’t rely on darkvision like other monsters of the dark chasm.