The dragon's harem

When Betty saw the scales, her eyes opened wide, and her ears twitched. She had never seen that scale before, but could at a glance tell who it belonged to. That was one of Luminous’s scales. She had an inkling about where it came from.

When Luminous retired from the war and came back to the mortal world, she was severely injured and had to recover. She was also trying to get rid of her radiant light. The first method she tried was shedding all of her scales. One by one, Luminous tore all of her scales off in an attempt to put a stop to her light.

Those scales she tore off and threw away; this must be one of them. How did it end up here with the apes? Betty herself has no idea. But, it could’ve been picked by some dragon in the past, then ended up collected by the apes when they raided their hoard.

The ape opened his mouth wide, wrapped his tongue around the scale, then with a single gulp, swallowed it whole. Due to the blinding light, as the scale traveled down his throat, his organs and bones became visible.

“Oooo!” He growled, fell to his knees, and then stared at the ground as his body twitched. He could feel it flowing through his veins, the essence of a great dragon, the power, the unrestrained brutality of nature’s greatest predators.

“So…” He mumbled, “This is our national treasure! How strange, how powerful, how absolutely… Brilliant!” As he screamed, his body burst with rainbow hues of light so bright that it was blinding, the sky shifted, the ground around him melted, and everyone except Betty had to close their eyes.

The ape’s body soon turned into a ball of incandescent radiance, and a loud screech boomed across the ape’s kingdom as it was washed away by a wave of rainbows.

The ape finally moved out of the light, and he didn’t waste a single second. He didn’t have much time in this form after all, his body could only endure it for a couple of seconds, three or four at most, before collapsing.

But even a single second at light speed was enough to run laps around the entire globe, and so three seconds were far too long a time. He first ran around the entire kingdom and destroyed all of Betty’s golems one by one, and none of them could endure a single touch from his arms.

Usually, golems don’t collapse right after the wizard dies, so he had to kill the golems first before finishing Betty off. He couldn’t risk her being petty and setting the golems to explode if she died.

As expected of the national treasure, the golems didn’t stand a chance. He wiped them all out in the blink of an eye. Controlling this power was hard, but the sheer speed and rush of magic made it possible. Not even a single fraction of a second had passed, and he was already back at Betty, charging at her with a clenched fist.

He had done; he had saved the entire empire, defeated the traitors, and killed the invading army of golems. If he survives the backlash, he will be the next king. Sure, the people would berate him for wasting the national treasure, but it was necessary, and he understands that, even now, he is sad for wasting it. But how else is he supposed to defeat a hundred thousand army of overpowered golems?

It would all be fine, as long as this halfling dies, and he survives the backlash.

His fist was an inch away from her face, and he could already taste victory. At this distance, it is impossible for her to dodge or even reach. She’ll die without knowing what happened to her. All she should’ve seen is him getting engulfed with light, then the afterlife.

But then, something horrifying happened. She moved, leaving after-images as she dodged to the side and evaded his fist with a passive face. “Do you even know how to stop?” She spoke, and he couldn’t believe it.

She wasn’t just matching his speed, but was moving faster than him. Light was the universal speed limit, and nothing could ever move faster than it. But Betty was cheating the system by stopping time when moving at the speed of light to accelerate even further. The key to breaking the light barrier is the manipulation of space and time, the fundamental laws of the universe.

But, won’t time move backward when breaking the light barrier? Yes, it is moving backward, but not in the way everyone might expect. What moved backward is Betty’s time; the universe’s time remains untouched. Betty was aging backward when moving faster than light, she is becoming younger.

Then why won’t she revert to being a kid? Well, just as it takes people years and decades to grow, it takes the same time backward to get younger. And the speed of that time relates to how much faster than light she moved. The relation was simple; twice the speed of light would make her age backward at a normal rate, similar to how people normally age forward.

So, in short:

At a speed of 0, time move at a rate of 1. The normal rate.

At a speed of 1 Light speed, time moves at a rate of 0. Time has stopped for Betty.

At a speed of 2 light speed, time moves at a rate of -1. Time is flowing backward on Betty’s body at a normal rate.

This was only possible thanks to Betty’s great mastery of magic, and her precise control over time spells and ability to distinguish between her own time, and the universe’s time.

“I outran death; there is no way you can ever touch me.” She walked behind the ape, who looked frozen from how much faster she was moving, and kicked him in the back.

His back almost shattered, if not for the rush of power coming from the scale he consumed, he would’ve exploded into a puddle of blood. He turned around, trying to catch up to her, refusing to believe that she was matching the national treasure on her own.

But Betty was fast, so fast in fact that when he looked, he could see a thousand of her running circles around. He tried to punch one of the after-images, only for his hands to hit nothing.

“Sorry, but I can’t save you.” Betty spoke in a sad voice. “This is where you die. The draconic magic you’re getting from the scale is waning, and you don’t have enough time to decelerate safely.”

That was the problem with consuming the scale of a light dragon. That burst of energy lasted so little time that while the scale’s power would protect the user when accelerating the first time due to excess energy, it wasn’t the case a few seconds later when that power ran out. This ape would soon find himself moving at near the speed of light, with his mundane, unenchanted body.

He didn’t believe her and rushed in for another attack, and it was then that the scale’s power flickered.

All power and light disappeared from his body, and the air friction hit him like a wall. All of his cells were burned and crushed into pure plasma, and faded with the light like he was never there before.

Betty stopped moving and landed beside Ganta. The fight was over, and it all took a few seconds.

Ganta and Sebas only saw a blinding flash of light that lasted for a couple of seconds, and then all of the golems were destroyed, and the ape was nowhere to be seen.

“What did happen?” Sebas asked, and Betty looked at him with a sad face. “He used a power far too great for his body, destroyed all of my golems, and died to that power.” She sighed. “Do you know what the sad part is?”

She lifted her foot and then stomped down, firmly planting her toes in the dirt and sending her magic across the entire kingdom.

All of the golems stood back up, getting repaired from the dirt they walked upon, as if nothing happened. “It was all in vain, fruitless, and a pointless endeavor.” She turned around and stared at Ganta. “Remember, never eat what you can’t handle, and never take a stupid risk. No matter how fast I can be, even I can be late.”

“That scale he ate… was it that of a light dragon?” Ganta asked with a worried face, and Betty nodded. “Yes, it was one of grandma’s discarded scales.”

Ganta took a deep breath and shifted into her humanoid form. “I see… that was our national treasure.” She looked at the destroyed kingdom, the countless dead apes, and the sorry mess her people had turned into.

“What a disaster.” She growled.

Betty sighed and stared at Sebas. “Go find her parents and free them. That the first step.”

As Sebas left, Ganta approached Betty. “First step? Do you really think we can save this kingdom? All of our homes and farms were destroyed, our fighters are all injured, and we even lost our national treasure. We’ll be invaded and destroyed in a few months at best.”

“The second step is you going back to Arad and being a good concubine to Aella. Your people have no choice but to rely on Aard’s empire support to survive those coming years. He is pretty unlucky, wouldn’t you say? I feel like almost every wife he takes must come with costly baggage.” She patted her on the back. “We’ll get this kingdom up and running, so don’t cry about it. It’s not a big deal…”

Betty then froze, scratched her chin. “Considering that Isdis is about to collapse from overwork, you might need to beg her a bit.”