The dragon's harem

At the same time, every other demon was baffled and confused. The fight happened over the course of five seconds outside, and another five or so inside the black hole. The only chance the demons got to watch was through those early five minutes, but the combatants were moving so fast that it looked like a blurry storm of violence. They couldn’t even tell who was fighting.

Not even Merida could see how Nyar and Cain were fighting, so, in all honesty, even she couldn’t tell if Nyar was on their side or not. All she knew was that it happened too fast for her to help, and that if not for Arad protecting her, she would’ve died.

Merida knew that she was strong, far stronger than any mortal could hope to ever be. She was a demon lord, and one directly supported by Kali. But she still wasn’t at a high enough power level to stand beside Arad in fights.

What would Eris have done if she was here? Could she have helped? Even if all of Arad’s wives rejected the idea, it was clear that a hierarchy was forming between them, and it had nothing to do with Arad himself directly.

It was a hierarchy of power and strength. The wives who couldn’t fight alongside Arad would be able to spend as much time by his side, and the more time passes, the wider the gap of strength between them would be.

If she doesn’t up her game, she will eventually be left in the dust. It was just that matching Arad’s growth speed was nearly impossible. The fact that she could match him months ago, and now he could fight an outer abomination that she, as a demon lord, couldn’t even see... this only showed her that reaching him might just be impossible.

Merida looked at Arad, ”How could you move like that?”

”Time slow, space magic, gravity, and muscle memory. I can try stopping time, but more likely that would trigger the opponent to use more extreme powers, so I’d prefer avoiding it.” As he explained, he looked at her with a smile. ”You don’t have to worry about anything. You’ve already grown strong enough.”

Merida sighed. ”I know... it is just frustrating that I couldn’t help. As if all of my power is just useless, or not enough.” She smiled. ”But I’m not a fool. I know that those aren’t people just anyone can fight.” She then threw a glance at Kali. ”When you need her to come here as fast as she can, that clearly means something really bad has shown up.”

Soon, they were back at the hall of the fungal tree, looking at the unconscious paladins lined up. Those poor paladins were lined up on the floor like corpses as the demons didn’t have extra beds for all of them.

”They aren’t waking up.” Arad looked at them, and Kali shrugged. ”Cain really messed up with their brains. They’ll probably stay knocked out for days. I can’t believe that this many of them survived.”

In the end, a third of the paladins perish in the clash between Nyar’s avatar and Cain, and most likely in a few days, more of them will die from the mental damage they received. The problem now was the goddess of peace herself. What did happen to her? Why did her paladins end up as Cain’s pawns, and when did all of this start?

Kali gave the paladins a sharp glare, then teleported away with Arad and Merida directly toward the heaven of the goddess of peace. Normally, it was against the rules for a god to show up uninvited to another divine’s heaven. But this was an urgent matter, and no one would dare get in Kali’s way; not even Amaterasu would bother stopping her.

But when they arrived at the titanic, divine mountain of peace, they were greeted by no one. There were angels standing at the gate, fully armed and glaring right forward with a stern face... but not a single reaction came from them. The angels were unconscious with their eyes wide open, staring at the distant horizon like they were statues.

”Their consciousness had been shut down by force; Cain can’t do that.” Kali touched one of the angels and then looked at the entire mountain, expanding her senses. ”All of the angels and archons are the same, knocked out.”

”All of them?” Merida looked at her, ”And you’re saying that Cain can’t do this? Who did it then?”

”Eirene herself, the goddess of peace. She must’ve noticed Cain’s influence taking hold, so instead of letting all of her angels fall victim, she used her power over them to shut their consciousness and prevent the madness from consuming them.”

They started walking up the mountain, each step at a time, and they walked past hundreds of unconscious angels, all of them standing mid-motion as if frozen in time. ”Gods can do this?” Merida mumbled, and Kali looked at her with a smile.

”Yes, gods have full control over their angels. For me, I have full control over demons, including you.” She moved her arm up, and Merida’s arm moved. ”See?”

”You can control me!?” Merida didn’t know that to Kali, she was like a doll in her fingertips.

”I usually don’t do it. But I can even get a copy of all of you.” Kali smiled, ”For example, I know that you can’t wait for this to be over and for you to sleep with Arad.”

Merida shrugged. ”To be fair to myself, I was thinking about that since this morning.” Hearing that answer, Kali giggled. ”That’s just like you. You know that you two don’t need to follow me here? You can go back. I’ll just check on Eirene and see if she is still alive or not.”

Arad looked at them. ”She is most likely alive, but has already gone insane. We’ll have to put her down.” Arad stared at the peak of the mountain. ”If she somehow absorbed all of the madness Cain inflicted on the angels...”

Kali sighed, ”You’re right, most likely, I’ll end up having to kill her. It’s such a shame; she is probably the best healer the gods’ army had in the past few thousand years.”

”She at the private quarter just a while ago to stir trouble... I can’t believe she’ll be dead soon.” Merida sighed. ”Isn’t there a way to help her?”

Kali looked at Merida in silence for a second. ”I only know how to destroy, not fix things.” When they reached the peak, they found themselves walking into the palace of peace without a single angel getting in their way, and when they reached the throne room, she was there.

There she was, sitting on the golden throne, drool dripping from her lips as she giggled with a distant look on her face. ”She is the goddess of peace; even when made, she won’t cause trouble. She probably knew that eventually, someone would come to put her down.”

But then, her eyes moved. Eirene glared directly toward Arad and then moved her body, falling to the ground. They all looked at her for a second, confused, but she didn’t seem to care. She started crawling, dragging her body on the ground with her hand as she headed directly toward Arad.

As she stopped beneath Arad’s feet, she already couldn’t move her body, so... she started opening and closing her eyes, as if worshipping him, and then she gasped once, twice, and then the light of life faded away from her eyes.

They didn’t need to do anything; she died on her own, and the portfolio of peace burst out of her back like an orb of light, floating right in front of Arad.

Far, far away, Cain emerged in a white room, looked around, and saw a robotic maid giving him a vile glare. He approached her, smiled, and she almost spat on him. But she didn’t, because she is a machine that can only follow orders. ”She is waiting for you.”

The maid opened the door behind her, and when Cain walked inside, Yog was there, watching the throne room of peace on a large holographic projection screen. ”So, he got peace?”

”It is really bold of you to come here.” She turned and gave him a smile.

Cain returned the grin. ”You and Amaterasu are the only ones confident enough not to attack me on sight. Nah, I bet you two will still let me have a bit of fun if I asked.”

”Me? With a ghost? It’s better if I just use my hand and imagination. You know that you’re nothing more than a thought without a physical existence.” She kept looking at the screen. ”Besides, I’m immune to madness, so you can’t affect me.”

”Now, that hurts my feelings a bit.” He shrugged, ”Well, I should leave the past to the past.” But then, he felt a hand on his shoulder. ”Yog, you got a snitching maid outside.” Amaterasu was there, leaning on Cain’s back with a smug grin on her face.

”She immediately called me, saying that Cain showed up to greet you.” As she gave him a glance, he giggled. ”Well, I was planning to call you anyway. Here, you can have this.” Cain reached into his chest, and from it, it pulled a pale-glowing orb of pure white flames.

Yog turned around, flicked her wrist and the orb of flames flew to her. She gave it a look, and then smiled. ”All of your memories, read only and as sterile as a rock.”

”You’ll need...” As Cain spoke, his body slowly disappeared into nothing, and when he fully faded away, Amaterasu sighed. ”Can we give that directly to Gojo, or is it too risky?”

”It’ll take me a while to check it whole, but it looks safe.” Yog stood and floated toward Amaterasu. ”It is almost time.”