The dragon's harem

Arad’s massive draconic body floated in the cold darkness of his stomach, slowly drifting away in the sea of endless nothing. His eyes were closed, and so was his consciousness. He had endured a lot of suffering in such a short time, and his ego needed time to recover and rest.

Amaterasu looked down at him from afar, carefully watching to make sure who is going to wake up. But in the meantime, she kept listening to Aether and the two kid angels bickering.

“So, bis Sis. What will you do now? Go cause some mischief somewhere else?” As Aether pointed at her with his still-smoking cigar, she smiled. “No, I’ll go and keep having fun. Of course, while dedicating the majority of my divine power to keeping the universe safe. My angels and archons at the frontlines of the war won’t power themselves.”

He smiled and looked at her with a mocking grin. “Fun, I see. Tainting the nuns as usual.” He sighed, “How did you end up like that? For real, I thought the strongest divine goddess would be a beacon of goodness, not debauchery.”

She smiled, leaned on one of her archons, and licked her red lips with a giggle. “Oh? You dare question me? Fine, I’ll answer you. Do you know that I’m a Nymph?”

Aether’s eyes opened wide, “No, first time hearing such a thing. But, if you’re telling the truth, then what does that have to do with you bagging every nun in your church like they’re some kind of collectible.”

“A Nymph is born from beauty and mana. Beauty determines the Nymph’s overall power, and the mana determines her caliber and personality.” She flicked her fingers and formed an ethereal image of Yuwaku. “She was born to Arad’s beauty and Zephyr’s magic, so while she has Arad’s power, her personality comes from Zephyr; that’s why she acts the way she does.”

She leaned on one of her archons and squeezed her chest. “So, since I was born to AO’s beauty and magic, like him, I do like my women. As to why my nuns, it is because they are easily available to me.”

Aether scratched the back of his head and looked away, “I see… as nasty as I expected. I’m leaving, don’t bother us again. Just keep having fun with your nuns.” As he was about to leave, Amaterasu’s face suddenly froze, and the two kid angels turned in sync to stare toward Arad’s floating body.

Mathilde started sweating, and she lifted her arms. “What is this feeling? It is like our divine magic is fading away.”

“It’s spinning.” Amaterasu growled as she looked up, her eyes burning with divine light, and her archons all seemed to pale. “Impossible!” One of them growled and another gasped. “It can’t be.”

“What’s going on?” Aether asked, and the two kid angels looked at him.

“The Universe itself is spinning once again.” As they growled, Amaterasu swung her arm. “Take everyone and leave. I’ll handle him if he starts rampaging.”

Sitting around a burning blue flame, Arad looked at one of his incarnations with a smile. He was a human, a massive one that could be mistaken for a giant, and the incarnation he looked at looked like a massive black dragon that towered over mountains.

There was no one to tell him, but he could instinctively understand that one was his draconic soul, and the other was the human one. They looked at each other for a short moment, not needing to even speak, because they were the same person, sharing both senses and thoughts.

Then, a third person joined them. A tall being, the same size as Arad’s human form, hooded, and nothing could be seen on his face but pure darkness. The two looked at the third one, and soon they moved closer to the flames.

They couldn’t hear or understand what he thought and felt, and before Arad could ask, the stranger spoke first. “I am you, just older, wiser, more mature, and boasting far deeper knowledge.”

The hooded man threw a branch into the flames and added. “I am to you what a fifty-year-old man is to their five-year old self. The same person, different knowledge, principles, and time.”

“You’re that dormant soul.” The human Arad replied, and the dragon glared closer at the strange man. “Indeed, I can sense that you’re a part of me. But why can’t I relate to your thoughts?”

“Self-preservation, you simply can’t handle a single look at my thoughts. You’ll go insane.” The strange man threw another branch into the fire. “I don’t know if you’ll even remember this conversation, since this isn’t our first time here, and you don’t seem to remember.”

“What do you want then? If I won’t even remember this conversation, then why are we even here?” The draconic incarnation growled, and the hooded man chuckled. “Well, I came to ask if I can borrow a body for a few seconds.”

He looked at them. “I see that both draconic and human bodies are taken, so I’ll have to find something else.” He stood, “You don’t have to worry, I’ll leave that third body for you to use.”

The human incarnation stared at the third one for a long moment and then sighed. “Fine, since you’re me. Just, don’t cause trouble.”

The third one smiled and laughed, his voice quickly changing and becoming sharper. “We are beautiful, and we also have a lot of magic. Getting a body shouldn’t be a problem.”

Amaterasu’s eyes opened wide and burned brightly as she sensed the rampaging magic gather inside Arad’s stomach. She had never felt such a thing before in her life, but now, she was certain of it: AO is back.

“He doesn’t even have the core!” As she growled, a woman’s voice spoke from behind her, and her archons all flinched as a naked woman with long black hair, purple eyes, and a radiant fair skin looked at them with a smug grin.

Amaterasu instantly turned around, but the archons were too terrified to move a single muscle. Even with their harrowing power, they could sense that whoever stood behind them was a terror behind all of their imaginations.

“Father… what is that body?” Amaterasu asked with a scared smile, and Arad reached to touch his face. “Ah, a beautiful face, isn’t it? And a full body at that. I took a note from your book and created a Nymph’s body for myself. I did have both the beauty and mana for it after all.”

Arad looked at Amaterasu’s archons with a smile, then looked at their goddess. “I do have to say, you’ve got some good taste. I wouldn’t mind any of them.” He tapped one of the archons on the back, then shifted his gaze toward Mathilde.

“You look better, though.” He gave her a wink, and at the same time, the two kid angels were already kneeling at his feet.

“Our Lord, you’re back.” One of the two angels spoke, and the other nodded. “We and all of the royal guards are ready to serve.”

Arad looked at them with a smile, then summoned one of Eris’s dresses to cover his body with. “You’ve done a great job, but you’ll have to do more. Spread across the entire universe and prepare for a siege. The war will soon shift into a battle of attrition with a winning or losing condition that is my full resurrection.”

Amaterasu’s expression shifted to a serious face. “So, I was right. We have to hold back until you fully wake up.” She looked around, “A decisive win is impossible, it seems.”

“No, we can win in an all-out war, but many would die, and that isn’t worth it.” Arad replied, and his eyes flashed with a deep purple light. “I don’t have much time now, so I’ll go greet an old friend and fix a few loose ends. I’ll be back in seconds.”

With that, Arad disappeared.

Arad Orion had only been resurrected for a minute without a core and with a makeshift Nymph body, but in those short few seconds, he had shifted the entire balance of the war.

In the outer void, the abominations keeping watch over the universes noticed that it had started spinning again, and that prompted one of Nyar’s incarnations to spawn and observe immediately. This change might not seem significant, but it was.

The universe had never moved an inch in the past eons, so why did it start moving now? What did happen? Now, all of Nyar’s colonies and settlements have to start orbiting the universe if he wants to use them as bases to attack from, which is a whole other level of headache.

“It’s been a while, tentacle boy.” As the voice boomed, Nyar’s eyes shot out with blood, and he jumped away as far as he could, glaring back at the source of the voice like a terrifying kitten that just heard a bear speak.

“What?!” He cried, and soon could see Arad. A stunningly beautiful woman sitting on the rooftop of one of the abominations’ houses, looking down at him and his people with a smug smile. “What is that carcass?! No, why are you awake?!”

“Come on, don’t judge me. I picked the easier body to make with less effort and power. As you can see, I don’t have my core, and I am quite weak now.” Arad shrugged, complaining like an old woman at a store.

At that moment, several of Nyar’s generals and powerful abominations noticed that the strange woman was AO, and they all lunged at her at once. “If you’re weak! Then we’ll kill you right and right now!” One of them screamed, and Nyar cried in the back.

“You fool! Get away from that thing!” His cry was too late, because the only thing he saw was corpses, a mountain of them, and not a single one of those abominations returned to his true body.

“That is… an abomination of reality…” Arad was already upon him at that moment. “And you call those maggots abominations? Last time they were smarter.” With a single fist, Arad punched Nyar so hard that he sent him flying through several buildings with ease.

Nyar, of course, wasn’t harmed by smashing through stone, but the wound on his torso quickly burst with blood and forced him to his knees.

“You’d better scram and go find somewhere else to make your own universe. Soon, I’ll start a purge and clean all of your kind from mine, and retake what is the right of my creations. This is the beginning of the end for you, so be smart and give up.” He lifted a foot and stomped on Nyar’s head, pushing his face to the ground and almost cracking his skull. Then with a single push, he popped it like a grape.

Laughing, Arad disappeared and left the abominations’ colony devastated.

Appearing back inside his stomach, Arad Orion looked at his shaking hand and smiled. “It is time… I guess this body can’t endure my consciousness any longer. So, it is back to sleep…” He threw a glance back at Mathilde. “Take care of me, lovely.”

The Nymph’s body evaporated into black smoke, and Arad’s draconic body emerged once again, slowly coming awake and grumbling in pain. “My head!”