The dragon's harem

“My head!” Arad growled, grabbing his throbbing head. He felt like he was having a really bad hangover, but when the memories of the star collapsing upon him returned, the rush of adrenaline and blood quickly stabilized him and made all of the pain and headache fade away.

“Huh? I made it.” He smiled, shifting back to his humanoid form, but the moment he did, he felt that something was off. Looking down, he looked the same as before… nothing had changed with his body, but he could feel it.

Right now, he had three incarnations instead of four two. Arad before had just two incarnations, which he could double using the constellation of Gemini. Those two were his human and draconic self, but now, a third persona was there, a Nymph.

Arad tried to remember what happened after he lost consciousness inside the star, and he could only remember darkness, which was strange. There is a huge difference between remembering nothing and darkness, because the latter means there is a gap in his memories that was erased or didn’t register.

^I already had the beauty to make a Nymph, and that is how Yuwaku was first born. But, what about the magic? Did consuming that sun trigger it?^ Arad started thinking as he summoned his Nymph incarnation and looked at her.

^No, could it be Eris’s magic, even Amaterasu’s? No, that doesn’t make sense since it became one of my incarnations instead of an independent being.^ Arad looked around, and his eyes lay on Amaterasu and Mathilde who floated far above him. It seems that they arrived, and they might’ve seen what happened.

“What did happen?” Arad called to them, and Amaterasu looked at him with a smile. “The star collapsed, but you managed to swallow it at the last moment. But, all of that food caused your magic to go berserk, you were about to spawn a Nymph, but that magic was already too mixed with the star’s plasma, and it all got sucked into your body.”

Arad stared at her for a long moment and then smiled. “That doesn’t make much sense, does it?” He then looked at her with his Nymph incarnation and doubled her with Gemini. “Now, why did I get it as a body? How is that supposed to work?”

Amaterasu flew down until she floated just a few feet above his head and replied. “The same way you can absorb souls and give them void bodies, you can do the inverse and absorb a body and make it host your will. Since that Nymph was born from both your magic and beauty, then you are her true self. The same way a Nymph in the beautiful forest would have her real body be the forest itself, and not the humanoid projection of that beauty.”

She flicked her foot and turned around. “If you want a more detailed explanation, I’m sure Yog could give it to you. She is better at teaching people than I after all.” With those words, Amaterasu disappeared.

Arad looked at Mathilde and Aether who was beside her, the two young angels have left, so Arad didn’t know they were around. “Did you see what happened?”

“No, I just felt the sun collapsing and I rushed here. I’m an archon of legs, so I could move pretty fast.” Mathilde replied with a tense face and Arad shifted his gaze to Aether.

“Yeah, not the kind of flash bangs I love, but the sun was fucking bright. I’ll need to gouge my eyes later and grow new ones.” He chuckled, and Arad could feel that Aether was truly disturbed by something that he saw.

“You should rest. Where is Eris? I’ll go grab her.” Mathilde approached him, and Arad rubbed his temples. “She was releasing too much plasma, so I sent her to a less populated layer of the abyss to minimize damage, and that was the only place I could send her to since one of my incarnations was already there.”

Arad reached forward, touched Mathilde’s shoulder, and then teleported her to the abyss to bring Eris.

Aether looked at Arad for a moment, then turned around. “Is it locked?”

Arad nodded, “Yeah, no one can hear or see us here.”

Aether cursed as he sat on nothing as if he had a chair, rubbed his eyes, then pulled another cigar. “Fucking hell… I’ve seen some shit now. I want to puke.”

“What really happened?” Arad asked, and Aether looked at him for a second. “Believe me, you probably won’t want to know. But you should.”

“Is it that bad?” As Arad looked concerned, Aether chucked. “Yeah, it’s a violation of my mental health and safety.” He smiled, “So, what part do you want to hear first? The bad, or the worst?”

“Whatever you think is right.” Arad pulled chairs for them both, and took a seat.

“First, I need to lobotomize my brain now. I saw that Nymph of yours naked, and do you remember when I said that Amaterasu was the finest bitch I’ve ever seen? Now, I take that back.” He seemed to be able to puke. “But, as expected from an ancient deity, I suppose.”

“What are you taking about?” Arad looked confused, and Aether wasn’t done yet.

“You know what’s worse. Amaterasu, that nasty woman, is my elder sister. Explains why we can’t see eye to eye. Do you believe that?” Aether shivered, “I’d rather drink hot oil and pick off my scales with a toothpick.”

Arad looked even more confused, and now, he was also concerned. What he was hearing didn’t make any sense, and it seems that Aether was still avoiding a crucial piece of information.

“Well, that was the not-so-funny part. But what is weirder is that Amaterasu thinks you’re the reincarnation of some ancient divine being. The horror that created this entire universe.” Aether leaned back on his chair. “Reincarnation is quite common, since those who don’t go to either hell or heaven end up reincarnated, also those in heaven who get bored, and those in hell who have suffered enough.”

Hearing that, Arad had to rethink everything from the start. “If regular souls can reincarnate, then the creator must be able to do it as well. And, I doubt he would’ve been content in heaven or chained in hell. Both don’t make sense, so getting reincarnated seems like the only option.”

“Exactly, and you’re him. Also, it seems she wants to keep this a secret, but I don’t think they should, so I’m telling you. Pretend that you know nothing for now, or at least until I find out what my debaucherous older sister is up to. By the way, Mathilde also seemed to know, but I don’t think angels can do anything about it.”

Arad nodded, “We can talk about it later. Mathilde is coming back with Eris.”

Aether stood. “Got it, Dad. I’ll keep an eye out. Just don’t get yourself killed again. We don’t want that thing waking up. I’ve seen enough nightmares for a single day.”

Far away, outside in the mortal world, Amaterasu appeared in her church and looked around with a smile, then broke into a tired face.

“The universe is spinning, changing the battlefields and making most of our plans useless. Several abomination settlements were erased from existence, and millions of nightmarish abominations were slaughtered like ants in a forest fire.” She looked at the archons surrounding her.

“Was that… really AO? We did sense the power, but it wasn’t as potent as expected.” As one of the angels spoke, Amaterasu looked at her with a grin. “You’ll be today’s toy. That was AO. It is just that the core of his power is still sealed within Violet, meaning that he caused this much damage to the abominations’ ranks and made the entire universe spin once more using just the meager power Arad currently had, after being weakened by his injuries from that collapsing sun.”

She grabbed the archon by the neck and pulled her closer, “Even with so little power, he could still cause so much chaos.” She let her go, and then headed toward her private chamber. The moment she opened the door, she saw Yog, the Mother of All Life, and Death herself all sitting around a tiny round table drinking tea.

“Damn it! Lilia! You knew about this, didn’t you?” She glared at Yog, and the halfling smiled. “About AO? Yeah, that’s why I told you it’s fine to let Eris try crushing a sun now.” She then pointed at Death herself. “I am also the one who told her to go and tell Mira that the child would die.”

She then pointed with her other hand at the Mother of All Life, “And I am also the one who got her to move her shadow kingdom to keep Arad busy on a goose hunt in the abyss… It seems that everything worked nicely, and AO is still conscious. I had to check since we couldn’t fully resurrect him if he had gone fully mad as Cain did.”

Amaterasu stared at Yog with a deathly glare, her eyes burning with divine magic as the little halfling looked back at her with a grin, two large, sparkling blue puppy eyes, and an innocent smile.

“What are you up to?” After a few seconds, Amaterasu had to calm herself down and get to the bottom of what Yog’s game was.

“I really want to tell you, but with how impulsive you are, I’m certain you’ll just ruin things.” She then reached toward Amaterasu’s neck and touched it. “But, if you calm down, and be rational enough to have the patience to not just want, but pleasure me for the night, then I’ll explain everything to you in detail.”

Yog floated up to look directly into Amaterasu’s eyes and touched her red lips. “Those have their uses, don’t they?”