The dragon's harem

Arad and Jack landed at the front door of Jack’s house, and the two looked at the door. “I’ll also be counting on your guys, but don’t put them in danger.” As Arad spoke, Jack smiled. “Well, of course, don’t worry. We’re skilled at our job.”

Jack had already started the thieves’ guild, and it was doing very well for a starting business as shady as it was. That was only possible since Jack was backed directly by the royal family and the holy church.

There was no one to stand in the guild’s way, and so, even if Jack had just started business, he could already set contracts and quests for the thieves to take off. Right now, Arad had given him an information gathering quest, which is probably going to be carried out in collaboration with the assassins’ guild, which was located beneath Eris’s great church.

“So, this is the woman they talked about.” Lydia looked down at them from the balcony and soon floated down in her armor like a true angel of divine proportions. To many, she looked like a beautiful woman who was too massive, standing at over three meters tall, but to Arad, she was far more than that.

Lydia was now the same kind of creature as Diana and Mathilde, an Archon who is powerful enough to destroy an entire world on a whim, the strongest class of angels, and the gods’ weapon of mass destruction.

Right now, she looked human enough, but if she wanted to fully spread her wings, then they would engulf the whole world from east to west, one stop would crack the planet’s crust, and a single flash of divine light would melt the entire continent down to a blob of boiling magma.

Lydia’s sheer existence was equivalent to the sun itself, and a good way to guess how much damage she could do was to imagine what would happen if the sun itself touched the earth. The whole planet would just sizzle and evaporate like a droplet of water on a hot pan.

But that wasn’t all, saying that is the limit of Lydia is like thinking her limit as a mortal was that of a regular, trained woman. She had proved time and time again that she wasn’t made of flesh and bones, but of sheer steel will and violence.

Lydia looked at Arad’s face and quickly scanned the body he now used -a beautiful Nymph of magnificent proportions that far surpassed the confines of beauty. She could feel like she had seen a similar kind of mystical nature, and that was none other than Amaterasu herself.

Arad is the same kind of creature as Amaterasu now, and Lydia couldn’t believe her eyes. This dragon had far surpassed the limits of mortals, violated every law in the universe, and still flapped his wings with pure pride and arrogance over the divines.

Lydia didn’t have that much interaction with Arad directly, besides helping Jack, fighting with them, or the occasional conversations or tales she heard from Eris, but now, she came to understand that Arad is more than just powerful. He was a Juggernaut, an Anomaly, a raw singularity of the entire universe, a being that no one can match or mimic.

Arad was a problem, an unstoppable one, and if he told her he could kill Amaterasu, she would believe him. In fact, right now, she could smell the stench of a dead star on him. This dragon, this lizard of pure nothingness, had just survived the death of a star, as if it were a regular Sunday morning.

That meant even if she was to use most of her power, summon the entire damned sun and throw it at this gecko’s head, he would just tank and survive it. How do you even stop a creature like that?

Right here, right now, in front of her humble doorstep, two creatures that could destroy the entire world stood, one was her, and the other was Arad. Was it too much to ask for a peaceful place that doesn’t have world-ending horrors casually strolling down the street?

But it was all good. Arad had proved himself to be a close friend, an ally, and a direct supporter of her husband, Jack, so she could rest easy. Better on their side than anyone else.

“You look better than I expected.” She smiled, and Arad could sense a hint of sarcasm in her voice, as if she was looking down on him. He wasn’t going to read her mind to understand, so he had to go just by her expression and speculation, and quickly came to a guess.

Lydia had just seen him like a guardian dog, a beast that protects the lands, too powerful to be left alone, and too strong to be taken down.

He smiled and shrugged. “All thanks to that goddess of yours. I might not have gotten this body if she weren’t lazy.”

She giggled. “Just lazy? I would say she is more than that.” She then looked at Jack. “So, what the story so far.”

He pointed at the door. “We can talk inside. It’s not a matter we can discuss on the street.”

Inside the house, Arad and Jack explained the entire situation with Poppy and the wizards, how Arad intends to deal with all of it, and the potential disasters that could happen as a result. Like all problems before, they did have a single final boss that they could just kill to solve it, but that wasn’t an option this time.

Unlike everyone they faced so far, Poppy was a new kind of threat. She wasn’t arrogant, she wasn’t stupid, and she won’t take risks. Poppy won’t ever show herself to Arad willingly again, and she will keep striking from the shadows, keeping risk to a minimum.

Poppy understood well just how much of a scary monster Arad is, and that even if she took him down, she would have to deal with more than a dozen mad wives who are just as rabid as their husband.

Lydia knew well that the last thing Poppy would want is to start a war with them, so she had to point out one thing. “What if she is just scared?” She pointed at Arad. “Even if she is a Pricolici like you, I doubt you two are similar. Like, a vampire dragon and a vampire human are close but utterly different horrors.”

She was right. Poppy had sensed Arad’s entire existence glaring at her from the depths of her blood, and might’ve just freaked out, thinking that he was coming to hunt her down. She might’ve gone crazy before, but no amount of madness could make it sensible to antagonize Arad.

Even Aether had pointed it out, Amaterasu herself isn’t trying to directly go against Arad, the strongest of the gods, the most arrogant and free woman isn’t willing to turn Arad into an enemy, so what would a lost little pricolici brat do?

“So? You’re saying that we should see negotiation instead?” As Arad looked at Lydia, she shook her head.

“No, she would just see the proposal as a trap. Learned this from Jack. Imagine Poppy like an actual human little girl being lost in a forest filled to the brim with wild animals and monsters, then the most scary and terrifying dragon terrorizing the entire continent stares right into her very veins, smirks, and then she runs away with a terrified face.” She leaned forward. “I’ll ask you this, what will happen if you and she came face to face? What are her chances of winning?”

Arad thought about it for a second and then frowned. “Even if we are both Pricolicis, she won’t win.” Arad scratched his eyebrows. “It is like…” He waved his hand, and a vampire nun emerged from his shadow. She looked around and immediately knelt down.

“This is Frea, a Vampire Paladin that can both use some of my power and Eris’s divine magic. She is strong, brave, and smart.” He then pointed at Lydia. “Say, Frea. Can defeat her?”

Frea looked at Lydia, and then back at Arad. “My Lord… Are you, serious?”

Arad shook his head. “No, you don’t need to fight her. This is just an example for scale.” He then shifted his gaze to Lydia. “Simply put, if Poppy and I were to meet face to face, if I were to even spot her magic signal within my range. Her best chance of not dying is to submit and stop resisting. She cannot win a fight against me, no matter how much she tries.”

He then knocked on the table with a finger. “But she is still very much a deadly threat to the empire, the people, my wives, and everyone else.”