The dragon's harem

As Arad and Merlin returned, he started looking around the living room and seeing more details of her magic, quickly feeling that a vast wall of skill had formed between them. But what surprised Arad more was her control over time through the labyrinth. It was already slowed down a bit, and it is probably what allowed Isdis to finish most of the paperwork while he was out.

Arad has better magic output and volume, while she has more control, experience, and creativity. Which was expected; she had been a wizard for far longer than he was alive. Arad wanted to ask her to teach him a few tricks, but he was certain that if he asked now, she would ask for something funny in exchange.

“You really created a masterpiece.” Arad smiled, and Merlin shrugged. Even though she looked nonchalant, she was giggling inside, and Arad sensed that clearly.

“Masterpiece, I’m proud of this place. But it still needs a lot of work.” She walked past him and pointed through the hallway. “Everyone is already in the bath waiting for us. We should go.” Now she was getting embarrassed, and to avoid Arad looking at her face, she walked in front of him.

Merlin was both proud of this place and that Arad praised her for it. But at the same time, she couldn’t endure showing him an incomplete work. It was like makeup; even if he praised her for it, she couldn’t push herself to show her face to him if she thought she messed something up, even if Arad couldn’t tell the difference.

Arad looked at the hallway and extended his senses, reaching the bath at the end. “I can’t see inside it.” It felt like he had hit a wall, a space that he couldn’t look behind. But after a second of inspection, he could see past that wall, albeit everything looked to be jumbled up.

What Arad could clearly sense was a happy sensation coursing through Merlin’s mind. She was excited to show him another one of her tricks.

Merlin smiled, “Well, that is another trick of this place.” She lifted both of her hands and combed her long, slender fingers. “This place isn’t just a single labyrinth, but seven of them all intertwined together and separated by barriers. Four of them are space-based, and the others are time-based.” She started walking beside Arad as they headed to the bath.

She didn’t mind Arad looking at her face now because she could better control her emotions while talking.

“First, all of the rooms where the queens, concubines, and mistresses sleep are one part, your quarter is one, then the maids’ and servants’ quarters are one, and then everything else is the last spatial part.” She waved her hand, showing Arad a map of the entire place with every spatial labyrinth colored differently from the rest.

If this were a game, she would’ve separated all of those parts with loading screens to prevent anyone from conquering them all at once. It was the same concept as how a castle’s Bailey would be separated into multiple sections so an invading army can’t take over everything in one swoop.

“For the time-based separation, they are separated by night, day, and a special time that I can control at will.” She tapped Arad on the shoulder, “This allows me to isolate, move, and control the entire space without overwhelming my brain at once.”

Since this place didn’t exist outside, the light coming from the windows, and even the view, is just a projection of the mortal world. If an assassin managed to get into the private quarter, Merlin could separate them by a whole day and make them stuck in the day’s version of the quarter and have to wait for the night to fall.

Merlin knew it would work because she already caught one, a spy to be exact. One of the maids who applied to work here was a spy for some nobles, and she was promptly captured. Because while one passes by Merlin’s loading screens that separate the sections of the labyrinth, she can scan their whole body and mind, and she found out the maid was trying to use telepathy magic, and hit a capsule inside her stomach where she stored notes.

Arad nodded. “So, the bath now is the fourth spatial labyrinth overlapping with your special time labyrinth.” He smiled, “Does this mean time flows differently in the bath than outside?” He was thinking Merlin could use that to create a training room for the other wives, while she was thinking of making their bedtime longer.

“I slowed it down by half. So, spending two hours inside is just an hour outside. Perfect for taking long baths, or stalling for time while waiting for help to arrive.” She looked at Arad, “Just like how Nyar attacked before, he could come here, and this would allow me to slow him down better.”

To Arad’s surprise, for once, she wasn’t thinking of anything spicy. It seems that Nyar’s attack gave her quite a scare. She did have to work with Alice and Yog to keep him locked inside a labyrinth, which probably made her feel that her skills were lacking.

But to be honest with himself, Arad thought Merlin was too powerful for the mortal world. Like, no one should be able to do what she did, not even the gods. If she were to ask him to kiss her feet and thank her for saving the day, he would do it. If not for her, the mortal world would’ve been destroyed by the clash, and all of his wives would’ve died.

The two finally reached the bath and walked into the changing room. Arad could feel the flow of time shift, but also could see the stress it put on Merlin. “How long can you keep this up?”

“A few days at most.” She quickly started stripping, “Unlike you, I don’t have a bottomless pit of energy to use. If two of the seven labyrinths were to break, this entire place could collapse on itself.” She smiled and reached around her shoulders, throwing her cloak aside.

“Of course, with moderation, I can keep it for a while.” She licked her lips. “I can also suck your mana, as Mira did before. I’ve been working on a special spell for that.”

As she explained, Arad took a step forward, leaving his clothes floating in the air as he used a [Void Step] to get out of them.

She stopped in the middle of taking her robe off and stared at him. “Did you have to teleport out of that armor?” She spent a second looking at his body, then pulled her robe above her head and remained in her underwear.

Arad looked back at his black armor. It was so heavy and rigid that without him, it remained standing in place like a statue. Of course, while he looked at the Armor, Merlin was busy looking at something else.

“It did feel a bit tighter on me than before, so I wanted to look at it.” Arad turned toward his armor to inspect it for damage, but it was perfectly fine. He was the one who got a bit bigger since the last time he wore it. Which was worrying.

Arad knew he didn’t get fatter, and he didn’t get that much taller or more muscular. What changed was his build; his shoulders grew a bit wider, his hips got a bit smaller, and even his arms became longer. He got leaner in some places, but toner in others, which made his armor barely fit.

“You’re still growing bigger?” Merlin approached him and stood by his side. Her head barely reached the middle of his torso. “I look like a halfling compared to you.” The only thought that crossed her mind was that if he were a bit taller, she wouldn’t need to kneel.

Arad looked at his hands for a long moment, pondering what he should do. The stronger he became, the larger his humanoid body needed to become to contain all of that power. That was what he and everyone thought, but in reality, it wasn’t what caused him to keep growing.

Arad was AO, the first overgod, and such a being couldn’t be contained in the body of a mere humanoid. Arad might be a mortal now, but his body is growing to become that of a god above the gods.

Adam, the first human and the father of humanity, was sixty arms in height, and Arad would eventually end up just as tall.

“For now, let’s thank Zephyr.” Arad closed his eyes, and his body started shrinking in size, soon becoming no taller than Merlin herself. Opening his arms, he smiled, “What do you think?”

She put her hand on his head, then brought it to her head, “Can you get… like a bit taller. Make it so your chin is above my forehead.” She was used to him being taller and wanted it to remain like that. She did want to tell him to stay at 3 meters tall, but she knew that it would be inconvenient to live like that.

Arad grew just that little bit bigger, and she looked at him with a smile. “Looks good to me. Let’s see what everyone else thinks about this.”

He smiled. “Looks good to you? So, I didn’t look good before?”

She giggled, “To me, as long as you can look down at me, throw me around, and make me feel small, then I’m happy.”

The two of them walked into the showers first, where seven maids waited for them. Two helped Merlin wash, and the other five combined their effort to scrub Arad’s whole body, quietly staring at him, wondering why he was a bit smaller than before.

When they finished, they sneaked past Arad to ask Merlin about his size, and she told them that he used Zephyr’s magic to get a bit smaller. The maids’ opinions were different, but consistent.

Three loved him a bit smaller, like he was now, three loved him to be massive, larger than life. And the last one asked if his meat’s size changed, which got her sharp glares from the other maids.