The dragon's harem

Walking out of Eris’s room, Arad found himself once more walking alone through the long hallways of the private quarter. With each step, he could feel and hear his other incarnations working all across the world, and each of them was actively busy with something.

What should he do now? Go check on everyone else, help Eris? No, he already knew what he had to do, and that was to prepare as well. As a dragon, he shouldn’t disappoint; he should put his all into a powerful show, and thus, Arad found himself inside an empty, desolate level of Merlin’s labyrinth.

Arad only wore simple pants and a tight shirt as he stood there and stared at the wasteland with a calm face. He lifted one arm, took a deep breath, and then flashed forward with a step, quickly throwing a blinding jab.

He has to train for Eris and make sure he doesn’t disappoint her. He was stronger than her before, but now, he didn’t know. With her having an entire sun inside her, she could very well outclass him in physical strength and weight, but that doesn’t mean she can outmatch him in a fight.

The biggest problem with fighting Eris is that her portfolio was that of murder, one that specializes in brutal killing and violence. The divine manifestation of murder against a mere mortal, a goddess against a prideful dragon.

Eris was one of the few of his wives who could give him a challenge if she got serious. She wasn’t like Linda or Kali, who are extremely hard to face or counter, but she was still powerful enough to erase the entire mortal world just with her presence. She was a sun after all, and if that body showed up, the entire planet would sizzle into nothing like a drop of water on a hot pan.

Arad could help but smile; this might be fun, crowning for him as well. He was a dragon and loved to fight, and it worked well when Eris also loved to fight. Until now, Arad only faced gods on favourable terms, or while using their portfolio against them as he did with the god of war, Alexander. But this time, he intended to face Eris’s divine wrath head-on, fist to fist, a mortal against a god.

“Training for Eris, are you that excited?” A voice came from behind him, and when he turned, Diana and Kali were standing there. Kali was the one who called him, and she had a large smile on her face. “Do you even understand the magnitude of her strength?”

Arad looked at the sky, and his eyes stared straight at the blazing sun without flinching. “This is a fake sun, but that doesn’t matter. Eris is a real sun, and facing her is the same argument used for Amaterasu. The sun is up in the sky; go deal with it if you can.”

Kali smiled, and her eyes turned white. “Indeed, Eris might be a smaller sun, but she is a sun nonetheless. Her weight alone is enough to flatten you into a coin, and don’t even think about opposing her gravity pull, she’ll throw you and the entire world you’re standing on like toys.”

Arad smiled as he slightly leaned forward and stared at Kali with a passive smile. “You’re right, but do you really think I’m that easy to take down? Why don’t you try it?”

She giggled, and cracked her neck. “Well, why not? This usually knocks an archon out cold.” She lifted her foot, and took a single step forward.”

Diana paled; she had been hit by this before, and she was out for an hour. Kali wasn’t messing around; she was going to really test Arad’s durability with this hit. Based on Diana’s expectation, Arad would pass this test if he stayed alive. He’ll be impressive if he just passed out, and that would put him on the level of Kali’s archons.

As Kali’s toes touched the ground, her entire body flashed forward at blinding speed, and her palm smacked right into Arad’s face. He didn’t even have time to see the hit coming or react; Kali was just too strong and too fast for him to fathom.

But Kali felt something off in her palm as Arad’s head was getting jerked backward; he felt heavy. Then, she could see them, his muscles tensing. From his toes, calves, thighs, abdomen, chest and shoulders, his right fist was cocked back, and loaded, and violently exploded forward toward her face.

She jumped, blocked his uppercut with her foot, and used the strength of his attack to jump backward and gain some distance, and landed in a single hand stand.

^Impossible!^ Diana gasped as her face tensed and she started sweating. ^He didn’t just survive, but countered as well?^

“Did you gain some weight while I was away?” Kali smiled and stood back on her feet. Arad gasped for air in his place, took a shaky step forward, and then his eyes finally regained their light. “That was painful. But it worked.”

Arad didn’t gain weight, but instead, only used all that he had. Kali’s attack was a simple hand slam with a lot of force, and so, he only needed a barrier that negates physical damage and enough weight to not get blasted into the other side of the universe.

That weight was the key, and so, where did he get it? The answer was simple: his stomach, which now held an entire world. It seems that he could embody all of that weight as if he himself were a black hole. He noticed that ability lately, and suspected that he gained it either from the Nymph or from whatever happened while he was out at the heart of the dying star.

Arad was half right. While enduring the death of the star, Arad constantly consumed the sun and looped its mass out and into his stomach, which helped synchronize his control. But what allowed him to do this fully was what AO did with his body, and that was to fully transform it into a singularity.

This in itself wasn’t a property of the void dragons, but a trait of AO himself. The entire universe is his body, and so, Arad’s inner world itself was becoming his body, thus giving him weight. He was slowly turning into a massive super void with a singularity at the centre, housing an entire universe.

Arad, being aware of his identity as AO, now also helped embolden and spike his pride a bit, making it easier for him to exert his will on the universe. Kali had noticed the change and was now also aware that Arad might have learned more than he should.