The dragon's harem

Arad grabbed Eris in his arms and looked at her face. She wasn’t weak; in fact, she was divine. Her body writhed invisibly with power, but she was asleep, not unconscious.

She was just horribly overwhelmed by her own power to the point of freezing in place. Her brain was already that of a god, but she herself wasn’t able to follow her own thoughts yet.

The only thing Arad could do now was send her to rest inside his stomach.

As Eris disappeared between his arms, he looked back at the angels, “You as well, watch over her until she wakes up.”

The angels looked at him, then at Gamond, “What about her?”

“Nothing, they were fighting in a match. What matters now is Eris getting enough rest. I can feel that she was still awake, just too overwhelmed by her power to act.” He waved his hand, and his void engulfed the angels, “Go.”

The angels found themselves inside Arad’s small world beside Eris, who was asleep on a bed. They looked at each other and then sighed.

Their goddess’s divine heaven was inside Arad’s stomach, and just by standing in front of him, they could feel that even as a goddess, Eris was nowhere near powerful enough to fight him.

“What do we do now?” One of the angels asked as she approached Eris and looked at her, “Should we move her?”

“No, our heaven needs to be polished first.” Another one pointed out of the window, “It’s just a massive boiling sun, we need to work on making it livable and building a palace first. It won’t take long with Eris’s authority.”

Another angel joined in, “But she can’t help us now. How are we supposed to build it?”

“You weren’t alive when we built Alexander’s heaven. We don’t need a god’s authority to do everything. We can pave the land, build the palace, and even paint a whole heavenly garden without her. But, we’ll need her to make everything connect together.” The angel pointed at the burning sun in the sky, “We should get to work.”

“Why don’t we just ask her?” An angel asked, and everyone stared at her, “She is uncon…”

The angel was pointing at Eris, who seemed to have woken up. “My head…” She growled, “Angels, humans, millions of worlds, and billions of deaths.”

Eris had ascended to godhood. Her viewpoint had shifted, and her eyes now see a different reality.

The first thing she noticed was that while she was the goddess of murder, she inherited a lot of sun power from Amaterasu. Which was both scary and good news.

Scary because she only now realised how stupidly ridiculous Amaterasu’s power is. Eris’s whole power is a small sun that isn’t more than 1% of the sun in the sky. The sun in the sky was small, and Amaterasu had billions of suns that were far more massive.

Eris had thought that becoming a goddess would make her strong enough, but she just realised that this was just the start. At least, Amaterasu isn’t their enemy.

The other thing she realised was that even now, she wasn’t stronger than Arad. Her entire heaven was in his stomach after all.

“My head hurts.” She growled again and stared at the angels, “What did you want?”

One angel approached her, knelt down, and then spoke, “We want to start building your heavenly domain. It would be helpful if we got your permission and a steady stream to your authority.”

Eris looked at the angel and then at her hands, “How do I do that?”

“Just don’t burn us when we pull on your authority. It’ll feel like this.” The angel’s wings flashed white, and Eris could feel something pulling on her divine magic, sucking it slowly.

“I see, got it. Do what you need.” Eris stood, shook her head, and then stretched, “I have to go back, I’m sure Arad is worried, and I hope Gamond is all right as well.”

“Gamond, that while drakaina. If you want, we can go and kill her.” An angel said, and Eris burst laughing.

“Kill her? Then you’d better prepare a huge pot with oil, because Arad would fry your wings like chicken and eat them. Angel fried wings.” She patted the angel on the shoulder, “You know that, like me, she is one of his wives.”

“I know, but…” The angel sighed, “She tried to kill you?”

“You got that wrong. I tried to kill her, and she hit back with the same malice. That’s how I managed to ascend.” She then looked at the angels, “Besides, did Arad clap your asses back when you still worked for Alexander? Do you really want him to hunt you again? In fact, we’re in his stomach now, so he only needs a thought to start digesting you all.”

The angels looked at each other, thinking about it. The problem wasn’t Gamond, but Arad himself. No, they were probably the problem.

Eris was alive and well. Gamond didn’t kill her; Eris killed herself to ascend. They don’t need to start any trouble with her.

Eris disappeared, and they were left alone. “Should we get to work?” One asked and the other nodded, “Yeah, I can’t wait to go flex on the others.”

“Mira’s angels? Leave them alone.”

“Come on! We’ve got our own goddess and heaven now. I’m sure they’ll be seething.” An angel laughed, “I can’t wait to see their faces.”

“You better not.” Another one growled in the back, “Goddess Mira would one day become our weapon supplier, she is really good at making them. Get on those angels’ bad side and they’ll mock us for the next thousand years.”

After agreeing, the angels flapped their wings and flew toward the sun, where they would build a new heaven for Eris. Usually, they too would need some time to rest and get used to a new divine magic, but Murder itself wasn’t that different from war.

Thanks to that similarity, the angels felt energetic and quite capable, which would help them in establishing Eris’s domain and heaven.

As the angels reached the sun, they found it had grown to a massive size since it was tossed here. It was just a few meters wide at first, but now it seems that this sun had absorbed a lot of Arad’s [Ho-white Nova]s to grow.

The sun that Eris had inside Arad’s stomach, her heaven and domain, was around 2000 kilometers wide… one of the angels did fly around it and measured it, coming up with a better number, 2326 kilometers wide. It also had a small planet orbiting it that it sucked from the debris in Arad’s stomach. That planet was around 615 kilometers wide.

This was a fairly small heaven, but considering that their goddess was just born and didn’t have any prior divine history, this was more than a new goddess like her could ask for.

After a long debate, the angels decided that it would be best to build two palaces. An inner palace on the sun itself, and a smaller secondary palace on the small planet.

They also needed to send someone outside to the sun of the Mortal world to link Eris’s manifestation there to the heavens. After all, there are two suns now. One inside Arad’s stomach, which is Eris’s heaven and domain, and another one dancing with Amaterasu’s sun outside, giving the Mortal world two suns to illuminate it.

“This place smells like Eris.” A voice spoke, and the angels looked at the sun, seeing Nar flying there to check it out.

“Lady Nar, this is Goddess Eris’s heaven. Her domain, she had ascended to godhood.” An angel approached her, and Nar looked at them with a grin, “Does that mean I don’t need to use my fire to illuminate Arad’s small world?”

The angels looked at each other, “Yes, it would seem so. This heaven isn’t going anywhere.”

Nar laughed and flew closer to the sun, “Look at all of that majestic heat and fire. Now I don’t feel so bad after all.”

“Bad about what?” The angels looked at her, but it took them just a second to realise it themselves. Spirits, especially spirit queens, were quite proud. Unlike mere mortals who didn’t care about where they lived, the queens were particular about which gods watched over them.

Living here inside Arad’s stomach was quite insulting to them, especially since they lived in the Mortal world before, where not just Amaterasu ruled, but many other gods watched over it.

“Now, even a goddess has her heaven inside his stomach. It seems that Zephyr was right once more.” Nar sighed, and Zephyr appeared behind her.

“See? This is just the start. I didn’t bring you to live in a lawless god-forsaken stomach.” Zephyr flew in, hiding behind Nar to shield herself from the sun’s heat and light, “Next it’ll be Mira, then many more. This place might just grow into its own massive world.”

Nar took a deep breath, “I get it for the tenth time. I got someone to take my place in the mortal world, I’ll move here.”

Zephyr patted her on the back, “What are you saying? You already moved here.”

Nar glared at her and growled with a frown. “You can’t move me to any world you like. Whether I come here or stay in the Mortal world, that’s my decision.”

Zephyr looked at her with a smug face, “Are you sure about that?”

“You aren’t leaving the Mortal world; your elemental expansion is the air they breathe.” Nar rubbed her temples, “You can’t come here and take us all with you.”

Zephyr smiled, “Well, I already solved that, with Arad’s help, of course. You don’t need to worry about that. Just help the angels make that place livable.” She pointed at the small planet orbiting Eris’s sun.

“Why me? Get some fire fairies to do the job.” She growled but immediately went silent, looking at Eris’s sun.

Zephyr looked at her with a smug grin, “Are you sure you don’t want a lick of that heat? It’s a whole sun of fire and plasma… looks delicious, right?”