The dragon's harem

It wasn’t a surprise that Lydia couldn’t help Jack train any special techniques or fighting style, because she knew none. She was fast, strong, determined, fearless, and reckless. She was the exact opposite of him, who always plans ahead, sets traps, and tries to gain every possible advantage.

Jack would pick a lock open; Lydia would smash it. Jack uses sweet words and blackmail to get someone to talk, while Lydia would just cut their fingers off. Jack would try to find the secret words in a devil’s contract to outplay them, while Lydia would just walk to the devilish bastard and punch them in the face.

Maybe that was their strength, the straight forward Lydia and the shifty Jack. He could teach her how to me more subtle in her style, and she could teach him how to be more aggressive. Together, they might reach the level of rabid violence and malevolent cunning Arad could pull.

“How about this?” Jack stood, extended his arm forward, and pulled the wakizashi. “You hold the power of the sun, and I hold the darkness, the eclipse. Without light, there are no shadows, and an eclipse is just the moon blocking the sun and casting its shadow upon the world.”

Lydia nodded. “That means Amaterasu still has some influence on the moon, since she can command it to cause an eclipse whenever she wants.” She swung her sword in the air, then pointed it at the sky. “What can you do?”

Jack looked at his wakizashi. “Gods can command souls, can’t they?”

“To an extent, depending on the god’s power, they can do that. But most gods can interact with souls; that is how they manage their heavens.” Hearing her, Jack closed his eyes, and tried to feel her soul.

Lydia’s soul was massive, dwarfing the mortal world and standing as bright as the sun. She is an archon now. If she spreads her wings, they’ll engulf the entire mortal world, and their divine light could scorch everything.

Jack’s soul was just as massive, but pitch black, yet riddled with countless sparkling orbs of light like gems. Looking at it reminded him of the night’s sky. His soul took the form of a massive nebula. He wasn’t a human; he was the demigod of galactic storms, the successor of Susanoo.

Right now, Jack’s soul was bigger and had far more potential than Lydia’s soul, but in their current self, Lydia was still far stronger than him. Eventually, if Jack becomes a true god and masters his power, he’ll surpass Lydia, who is an archon, but before that, he has no way of beating her.

“How about this?” Jack walked toward her and then took a step into her shadow. “At first, I thought the eclipse allowed me to control darkness, but that is wrong. I’m controlling the shadow of the moon, so if I can control that, I can also control other shadows.” He stuck his head out of the shadow. “I’m feeling a lot of resistance, so I think controlling the shadows of living people isn’t easy.”

Lydia looked at him, then closed her eyes. “You’re wrong, the shadow is as hard to control as the one casting it. If I did this.” A second later, Jack was forcefully ejected from her shadow. “I’m an archon, so I can resist your will, the will of a demigod. I bet no one else could do it.”

“So, camp in your shadow, and sneak attack everyone. I could also set traps using divine magic and even empower my body. Neat.” He stood, cracked his neck, and then looked at her. “So, this is all for today.”

Lydia sheathed her sword. “Yeah, we should call it a day. But starting tomorrow morning, I’m going to have you work on your body.”

Jack sighed. “I’m going to be sore for weeks.”

In another place, far, far away, Shuten and Ibaraki walked with Lunara through the golden hallways of Kali’s heaven. It was a great temple, several worlds wide, filled with endless gardens, green forests, and golden mountains, rivers of liquid gems, and a graveyard with a tombstone for every demon that has ever died.

The three of them climbed the holy stairs, and the angels parted ways to let them pass. The two demon lords looked back with worried faces and then shifted their gazes toward the angels and archons flying in the sky.

The average demon lord was as powerful as ten angels, but the average archon was as powerful as ten demon lords, and some were even as powerful as a thousand demon lords. Technically, demon lords were akin to great popes or priests for Kali.

But there was also a vast difference in power between demon lords. Lunara here was stronger than Shuten and Ibaraki combined. She might not reach the level of an archon, but she was probably one of the few demon lords who could one-shot an entire world with a single attack, mainly her [Moon Fall].

What didn’t make sense here was the dragon from earlier, the one Lunara claimed to be her and Kali’s husband, that one called Arad Orion, who wiped the floor with Susanoo’s remains. At first, Ibaraki thought she could beat Arad in a fight, but now, she knew that if he wasn’t holding back, she could’ve died before she could even move.

“Since we’re here… you weren’t joking about him being her divinity’s husband, right?” Shuten asked, and Lunara looked at her. “Of course I wasn’t joking.”

“Have you ever heard of Nyar?” Lunara threw a glance back. “The one some demon lords got drafted to fight against.”

Shuten nodded. “Of course, the only reason we demons hold onto our violent nature and lust for blood is to make sure we never grow weak. Those abominations can kill all the mortals, but then they would have to deal with the rampaging demons of the bottomless abyss.”

“In short, Arad didn’t just face any abomination. He faced Nyar twice, face to face, and survived the fight, even dealing some damage. Not so long ago, Arad and his older brother, Gojo, faced Nyar together and bullied him.” As she smiled, Ibaraki paled.

“They… couldn’t have lied, could they? Nyar himself isn’t a creature even the gods dare face directly.” She asked, and Lunara smiled. “Amaterasu was there, and she watched the entire fight. Do you really think she’ll bother bringing someone weak with her to Susanoo’s grave? In fact, she was walking on her two feet, not floating, while he was around. That alone should tell what kind of monster Arad is.”

Looking back at it, Amaterasu always floats on her cloud, looking down on people like the sun behind the clouds, but with Arad, she was actually walking. From what the demon lords know about her, Amaterasu never does that, and the only ones who saw her directly were the women on her bed or the overgod himself.

The fact that she walked alone was abnormal.

“We’re going into the inner palace, where Kali is. You’ve got two rules to follow. Don’t be rude to anyone, and don’t harm anyone.”