The dragon's harem

When a fairy found out about Arad and died, Zephyr had to take her corpse back to the elemental plane of air to have her soul saved before it could be erased by the universe. That had happened just today, this morning, Zephyr had to make a trip back there, to the world her father rules.

The fairy was saved, but that only caused Zephyr’s father to shift his ears toward her and listen. When Zephyr sat with Arad and everyone else in the ballroom, Focalor silently watched from his throne.

Focalor, despite his age, looked to be in his early twenties without any trace of a beard on his defined jawline. He was a tall man, standing at around 1.9 meters {6’3’’}, muscular, and boasted a radiant porcelain skin so smooth that it made him look like a statue sculpted from marble.

His hair was long and dark, his eyes red, and he only wore a purple skirt and donned more gold jewelry on his body than any woman could ever hope to wear. Earrings, necklaces, bracelets, anklets, piercings, and even belts. Each piece was worth more than an entire world, and many of them were infused with the souls of everyone he killed, wearing them on his body like trophies.

He leaned forward, and two massive, dark purple eagle wings unfurled from his back. Arad’s face reflected in his eyes, “So the gates of Solomon are about to open if he is back. I can’t believe Zephyr tried to hide this from me.”

As he stood in his golden throne room, thirty djinn generals appeared beside the walls, and all of them knelt in unison. “Our Lord, please wait! You can’t charge blindly, against him, even you… We fear the worst.”

Focalor smiled, looking at his generals with a grin. “Arad Orion, the one who created the entire universe. Certainly, I can’t defeat such a being. But this Arad Orion still didn’t awaken his full might. He cannot defeat me, not in his current state, nor in a near state.”

The generals stared at him in silence. They knew he was right. Focalor is their Sultan, the Djinn of destructive winds, sovereignty, and domination.

“Dear.” At that moment, a voice called from the darkest corner of the throne room, and the generals paled. The air became heavier, the purity dropped sharply, and the shadows danced. “You’ll make Zephyr angry. Leave him be, at least for now.”

Focalor replied with a smile. “But he said that he wishes to see me. I can’t sit still and not grant that wish.”

She sighed. “Stop it with the loopholes. All wishes come with a backlash; what will it be for him? Are you sure it won’t sour the relationship even further?” Her voice grew louder. “You aren’t planning to put Zephyr in a difficult situation, are you?”

“The backlash is me being hostile. So, we’ll have to fight if I grant his wish and show my face.” He replied, and then scratched his chin. “Hold up, when did I last calibrate my power for a lower world?”

“Our lord, we believe that your mere presence in the mortal world would destroy it. Fighting AO is one thing, but if you end up harming his wives, we’re certain he’ll chase you back all the way here and burn this place to ash.”

As one of the generals pointed out, Focalor nodded. “You’re right, I’m certain his wives are far weaker than I am. My wind could be too much for them to handle, and they’ll die. The backlash might’ve been worse than I expected.” He looked at the shadows. “Love, I’m going to calibrate my power in a dead world. I’ll be back in a few days.”

Focalor disappeared and soon found himself standing alone in a deserted world. A second passed without anything happening, but right after, the winds started picking up speed. Within a minute, winds as fast as a thousand kilometers per hour were blowing all across the globe. Then, within an hour, those winds had become fast enough to skin the crust of the world, moving at speeds far surpassing four thousand kilometers per hour.

“It seems this would take weeks…” Focalor sighed. His control over his power seemed to have rusted over the years. If he wanted to show up in the mortal world without destroying it, he would need to once again train the finer control of his destructive wind.

Back at the ballroom, Arad felt a chill running down his back and could smell the shift in the wind. It was so faint that he almost missed it, and the only reason he noticed was that Zephyr also seemed to notice, flinching for a second then looking around.

“What was that?” He asked, and Zephyr shook her head. “Nothing important. Just a nuisance.” She was glad that her mother could keep her father in check, even if for just a short time.

Zephyr flew up and landed on Arad’s head. “For now, let’s focus on what is really important. Giving them the treatment they deserve.” She pointed at the middle of the hall then shouted. “Bring the wine!”

Hearing Zephyr’s words, many wind spirits flew in carrying thumb-sized barrels of wine. They threw those barrels at the ground, causing them to return to their original size and open. “Free wine to everyone! To the empire’s prosperity!”

She had to shift Arad’s attention away from her father. Focalor is the only man Arad shouldn’t meet now, because they’ll either end up killing each other or throwing the entire world into chaos.

On that dead world, Focalor stared at the torn ground from high above. His wind had become so violent that even the stone mountains had been ground to dust in minutes, and his power was only rising. It was then that he noticed something crawling beneath this world’s devastated surface. He hadn’t been here in four centuries, and there was no life anywhere in this world at that time.

“What are you? Hiding beneath the ground.” He spoke, and the ground shattered in the blink of an eye. A tall man with green skin, long ears, and seven eyes flew at him with a clenched fist.

Focalor dodged the attack with a single flap of his wings and looked at the abominable creature. “An abomination? You guys really suck, don’t you? Why come to this dead world?”

“Who are you?! This world had been abandoned for decades.” The abomination growled. This world had looked nice and cozy for him, a place where he could grow and gather power to invade the living worlds. But now, where did this djinn show up from?

“Rank nine? Maybe ten, have you been consuming the essence of this world to grow?” Focalor smiled as he slowly lifted his thick arms.

“A mere djinn, do you think you have power over us?” The abomination growled. Unlike the people of the universe, the djinn’s wishes cannot harm the abomination because they aren’t even recognized as a target.

“Do you know? The world has two strange powers. A flow of negative energy that brings ruin and bad luck, and a flow of positive energy that brings fortune and good luck. We Djinn use that positive energy to grant wishes, and then slap a bill of equal negative energy on whoever asked for the wish to balance things out. That’s where the backlash comes from.”

When Focalor started explaining, the abomination flew at him and swung a fist. “Like I would care! Die!”

When the abomination got close, Focalor’s arms sparked. His right arm burned with positive energy, and his left flashed with the negative one. “Sorry, but even if my wishes don’t recognize you as a target, I can, so I’ll direct the flow of energy manually.”

Focalor once more dodged the abomination’s attack, but this time, he didn’t let him go, but touched him with his right hand. “All of the abominations have one wish they yearn for, to one day belong to this universe. Congratulations, now you’re one of this universe’s people.”

Hearing Focalor’s words, the abomination realized that he was an abomination no more, but a demon of the abyss, one that far surpassed the demon lords in power.

“What! What did you do to me?” The abomination, now a demon, screamed, and Focalor smiled as he swung his left arm.

“I granted your wish; no need to thank me. Now, the bill.” As Focalor’s left hook hit the abomination’s face, it exploded with so much power that a flash of light illuminated the entire world, and the abomination felt its very existence getting ripped apart, torn to shreds, and ground to dust by the will of the entire universe. He had finally become one of the universe’s people, only for that universe to come crashing down on his head with full force.

Since he wasn’t an abomination anymore, he couldn’t even resist and ended up getting erased from existence so hard that even Nyar felt the impact.

“The universe doesn’t need your kind for its future.”