The dragon's harem

When Arad returned to the mortal world, he found himself standing right where the labyrinth was. Around him, no one was there, and he was all alone. Even Gojo seems to have spawned somewhere else.

For a moment, it felt weird. He understood why everyone else would’ve left immediately after such a battle, but it didn’t make sense for Gojo not to land beside him. He checked back his magic, then the location around him, then the flow of natural mana. It was unlikely that he made a mistake, but that was his first guess.

Arad would rather blame himself when something bad happens, because that was easier to deal with as he could actively try to solve the problem. Now, it made more sense since he was fighting Nyar in shattered time and space. He might’ve gotten confused or disoriented, which caused his magic to fail.

But after looking at the magic once more, Arad knew why this happened, and he wasn’t to blame. When he dialed the coordinates of the mortal world, something went off, as if the mortal world wasn’t whole. That is why he and his brother ended up separated. Arad, who was the anchor for the magic, landed where he aimed, but Gojo was flung to gods know where.

He looked around, quickly spreading his senses as far as they could go, and then activated Vorvadoss’s eldritch magic once more. He couldn’t cover the entire mortal world, but he could ping his brother through their telepathic communication.

He took a step through space and landed right beside Gojo. Arad wanted to rush back to his wives, but he couldn’t just ignore something as massive as a missing chunk of the mortal world. Especially since he knew the mortal world was Gaia’s body, the earth spirit. He couldn’t just ignore her being wounded like this.

“Gojo! Something is wrong.” Arad spoke, and Gojo chuckled, sounding quite nervous. “You bet it is! Several thousand kilometers north, mother seems to have torn a chunk of the mortal world and thrown it out of her stomach.” Gojo was older than Arad and thus had sharper senses that could spread even wider.

Hearing that, Arad couldn’t help but hold his breath. At first, he wanted to punch whoever did this to Gaia, but knowing it was his mother, he had to consider talking with her first. He didn’t want to end up getting spanked to a pulp. Did Gaia do something so bad that his mother got angry, or was it the opposite?

Gojo frowned. “There aren’t that many things that mother can’t just kill, even that Nyar.” He was right, Violet should’ve been able to hold herself well against Nyar, even maybe win. In reality, Nyar only attacked because Cain’s rampage weakened.

It took Arad a second to understand, but his brother indeed seems to be a bit smarter than he is. Instead of focusing on his mother and Gaia, he speculated that a third being was involved, that this hole was the result of a fight between his mother and that third person. Poor Gaia must’ve been the battlefield.

“Let’s go.” Gojo lifted his hands and clapped them. In the next moment, the two appeared in the middle of the ocean, looking at the endless stormy skies. They looked around and noticed that there was a kind of invisible barrier in front of them. Gojo wanted to teleport into the middle of the anomaly, but this barrier prevented that.

In that instant, a woman appeared in front of them. She was tall, well-built, had olive skin and auburn hair, wearing a one-piece white dress. With both hands, she reached toward Gojo and Arad’s head, whispering, “Sleep.” In a gentle voice.

Her voice sounded sweet, gentle, loving, and caring. If any mortal heard it, they were bound to relax and fall asleep. It didn’t matter how powerful they were, because this woman spoke a divine order and not mere magic.

But then she froze, puked blood, and her body bent forward like a piece of paper as she cried. Her divine magic backfired at her, and those two were glaring at her with glowing eyes. Her mission was simple: to guard this section of the barrier, put any mortal that approaches to sleep, and send them back home.

But those two were far above what she could handle. She tried to put them to sleep, but instead felt as if she had fallen down an endless abyss. They were mortal, right, but both were touched by divine beings far beyond what she could handle.

Arad’s entire body and mind oozed with Kali’s destruction, and when the angel’s meager divine spell came into contact with it, it shattered violently, damaging her. On top of that, something else hid deep within Arad’s soul, and the poor angel could feel that she almost touched something that shouldn’t be touched.

Whatever was inside Arad tore through her divine magic and caused her extreme pain, but even with that, she felt compelled to thank him for it. Because whatever was inside, she knew she would’ve suffered an even worse fate if her magic reached that deep.

Gojo was much the same, having been touched by Entropy. But that wasn’t what blocked the divine order; it was, in fact, just pure magic, a spell so outrageous that Yog should’ve burned this beautiful bastard ages ago.

Arad extended his hand toward the angel, touched her head, and then healed her. “An angel out here? Something really must’ve happened.” She was in pain, angry, and feeling humiliated that two mortals resisted her divine magic. But for some reason, having Arad touch her head felt awfully comfortable.

As she healed, she saw the two approaching the barrier. “Don’t! Mortals shouldn’t go inside. It is dangerous. Who are you two?” In reality, she didn’t care about who Gojo was and was instead interested in who or what Arad was. Angels only feel comfortable around their god, and he clearly wasn’t a nymphomaniac goddess on a cloud.

Gojo looked back at her. “Dangerous? Then we should go in.” With one punch, he blew a hole into the barrier and flew in with Arad, leaving the stunned angel gasping for air in the back. She couldn’t believe what happened. One angel like her should be powerful enough to fell a whole army, even if the strongest mortal in the mortal world arrived, they shouldn’t be powerful enough to stand against a soldier from the heavens.

She had to get answers from Amaterasu, but how could she even speak with her? Angels rarely get the chance to approach her. But as if reading her mind, Amaterasu’s voice rang inside her head. [Come find me at the church in Alina]

Inside the barrier, Arad’s eyes opened wide as he saw a massive hole that stretched as far as the eye could see and was so deep that light couldn’t reach its bottom. “A hole?!” He gasped, and Gojo frowned. They expected something like this, but seeing a hole wide enough to throw an entire empire inside was still shocking.

“Mother’s magic, and something else. She fought something here and had to rip this entire area from the mortal world. As if it were an infected piece of flesh.” He waved his hands to scan the area, but in that instant, an archon was already behind them, swinging a fist at the back of Arad’s head.

This archon was a man, as tall as Gojo, and he wielded a spear of pure lightning. The stormy skies of the ocean bent to his will, and the dark clouds above turned into a blinding flash of pure power that came crashing down at Arad’s head.

Arad moved, his torso twisted, and the sky above froze beneath his magic. The archon’s spear shuddered, and Arad caught it with his hand, throwing his other arm forward in a devastating punch that smacked the archon right on the nose.

A shockwave exploded outward, and it echoed through the entire hole, alarming all the angels working to repair the area. Something had invaded the restricted area, and it was powerful enough that the archon couldn’t kill it instantly.

Did Cain return? This was the horrifying question all of the angels thought about, steeling themselves for a bloody battle.

“Listen, you angels lack morals. You don’t just attack someone out of nowhere like this.” Arad stared at the angel who held his face, bleeding from the nose. Arad’s body got engulfed in darkness, and in the next second, he was wearing his black armor and mantle instead of the tattered clothes he had in Limbo.

Waving his arm, and from his mantle, Gaia walked out, looking pale and tired. “This is your body. What did happen here?”

Gaia looked at him with a shocked face. “You’ve returned?” She then gulped, “Something powerful attacked here, and your mother fought it. Whatever it was, it infected the sea with strange magic, and to prevent it from spreading, your mother cut this entire area and threw it out.” She looked at her side, “Like cutting an infected arm off before it could spread.”

“Mom? Is he Violet’s son?” The archon growled, and Gaia nodded, “He is, they both are. You’re lucky Gojo is busy with magic right now. If he joined Arad, you might have to deal with more than just a broken nose.”

Arad looked at the hole, and he could sense a flood of eldritch magic boiling at its darkest pits. The angels weren’t here to refill the hole; they were here to clear that eldritch magic out. He grabbed Gaia and carried her in his arms, “Let’s get this place cleaned.”

Before anyone could stop him, Arad used Vorvadoss’s spatial magic to teleport to the bottom of the hole and landed in the middle of the seething mud pit of eldritch magic. Gaia looked around with a shocked face and quickly cried as all of the eldritch magic started flowing into Arad’s body, getting sucked into his stomach with ease. This thing was poisonous to all residents of the universe, and the few who could endure it did so with extreme difficulty. But Arad could just digest it like anything else.

The job that would’ve taken the angels months, Arad had finished in just a couple of seconds, and quickly started filling the hole back with dirt, stones, water, and debris that he collected from the dead worlds.

“Without that pesky magic in the way, you should be able to heal quickly like this, right?” Arad looked at the still confused Gaia, and she smiled. “Yeah… just, what are you?”

“Hmm?” Arad stared at her for a second, “What? I’m just trying to help. Since I can, why would I leave you suffering like this?” The two of them started floating as Arad filled the hole faster and faster.

She laughed, “Filling my hole? I see, you’re trying to cheat on your wives with me.” She tapped him on the shoulder. “I don’t mind, let’s do it. But I’ll tell them later on.”