The dragon's harem

As Isdis rested in the cold darkness of Arad’s stomach, she could see a blinding flash in the distance. Far away in the lightless void, a bright spark of radiant glow flashed like a flickering spark and then faded away.

That power, that magic, that presence, Isdis knew that she could not compare to her unyielding might. She was just a mortal after all, struggling with a fragile body that was unable to fully utilize the potential of her bloodline.

She sat up with Kory at her side, and the two of them looked around, quickly realizing that they weren’t on a desolate desert of Arad’s inner world, but floating astray on a rogue meteor. They both wanted to return to the fight, but it seems that Arad didn’t want them to keep getting involved.

”Did he abandon us here?” Kory growled, and Isdis feel back to the ground. ”He knows we’ll jump back into the fight immediately, so he is locking us in here so we can rest a bit.”

Kory stared at her, quickly noted the severity of Isdis’s wounds and exhaustion, and then had to agree with Arad. She should rest for at least an hour, and locking her up here was the only way he could guarantee that she wouldn’t jump into action right away.

Kory sat by her side, and looked at the lightless void. ”He might be right... But, what’s that flashing light?”

”That’s Eris. She is probably experimenting with something massive...” Isdis looked a bit sad, ”Every one of those flashes carries hundreds of times more power than what left me this wounded and exhausted.”

It was then that the flashing light suddenly grew bigger, and in a single second, it was brighter than the sun in the sky. Isdis and Kory could see two titanic beams of light shooting up and down, and then they started rapidly spinning like a fan, shaking the entire meteor they were on like it had been thrown in a washing machine.

If not for Arad’s will over this space protecting them, they, alongside the meteor, would’ve been torn into atoms the moment they saw the flashing grow bigger. Then, as quickly as it started, the light faded away, and the shaking stopped.

”What was that?!” Kory asked, and the one to answer her wasn’t Isdis, but Eris herself, who landed behind them, naked and drenched in sweat as if she had just gotten out of a pool.

”A Neutron star... I’m trying to make a small stable one, but I keep failing.”

The two looked back at her, and Isdis cried, ”Wait, the same one you hit Arad with? That almost killed you!”

”Ah, it’s much smaller. The one I forced out against Arad was the size of a small city; this one wasn’t bigger than my fist.” She scratched the back of her head. ”Even with that, I can’t sustain it on my own.”

”The size of a fist... even after making it that small.” Isdis looked at her own hands, and then up at the sky, ”But all of that power... you’re amazing.”

”Not really.” Eris shrugged, ”It might look scary to you, but Arad survived a much bigger one, and if I hit him with what you saw earlier, he would probably just swallow it.” She lifted her palm and summoned a tiny purple sun.

”I can control this one with ease. See? I can even reduce its light, heat, and gravity to keep you two safe. But anything bigger would be pushing my control to its limit, even the purple sun in the center of this world; I can’t really keep it fully under control.”

Isdis looked at the purple sun once more and then sighed. ”This is still far better than what I can do. As you can see, I’m too weak that Arad had to lock me here so I won’t hurt myself.”

Eris looked at her in silence for a second, then tilted her head with a confused face. ”Weak? What do you mean?” She crossed her arms. ”That blast, I saw it. It was under the light of my sun after all. You can’t call that weak, you’re able to wipe an entire nation with ease, and your blizzard isn’t any weaker.”

”Compared to you and the rest, I’m weak.” Isdis sighed, and Eris grabbed her by the head, ”If you’re weak, then how would the others feel? How would the maids feel? Do you understand that you’ve long since surpassed the limits of mere mortals?”

She stood and lifted her up. ”Your body is already freezing; you’ll probably stay alive and look the same for hundreds of years. You have more mana than seasoned wizards, and your blood isn’t weak; it is linked to Stillness, as I’ve heard.”

”Eris, stop it! You’ll hurt her!” Kory growled, and Eris just glared back at her, making her shiver and cower back in fear. ”Don’t worry, she is tougher than she looks.” Then with a single punch to the chest, Eris sent Isdis flying back at blinding speed, and before Kory got to help, she got sucked away by divine magic and thrown back in Arad’s world.

Landing alone in the hills of Arad’s world, Kory roared into the sky, flapping her wings and taking flight as fast as she could. She had to stop those two.

Isdis rolled on the ground and coughed up frozen blood as she barely managed to stop herself several hundred meters away from where she got punched, and she was already seeing double, and barely able to breathe.

”That... hurt!” Isdis growled and glared back at Eris, seeing her take a step forward.

As Eris’s body started faintly glowing purple, she lifted her right foot and stomped forward, taking a low stance as her toes dug into the ground. Her fists were low and ready, and her eyes burned dark purple as an evil smile covered her face, ”I’ll show you that you’re not weak.”

It was impossible. Until now, Arad and Gojo alone were crazy enough to stand up to actual gods, and no one else could even fathom how they could do it. A mortal can’t simply stand up and punch a god, weapons don’t work, armor is useless, and all tricks get read in the blink of an eye.

”I’ll murder you.” Hearing those words coming from Eris, and looking at her face, Isdis’s soul became fully aware of the murderous intent of the murder divine. It wasn’t an illusion; the pain was real. She could feel it before it even happened: how Eris would skin her alive, pick every bone apart, and tear her organs out.

Isdis’s knees started shaking, and her face paled even further. No matter how much courage she tried to gather, it didn’t work. Her very soul knew that the will of a god was the truth, and as a mortal, she could not go against it.

She had to run away, but she couldn’t, her legs were already frozen by fear.

Eris flashed forward, and in the next second, she was already grabbing Isdis by the neck and pushing her back toward the mountains faster than sound. ”If you don’t resist, I’ll end up really killing you.”

Feeling the pain of her neck almost shattering, Isdis reached up and grabbed Eris’s hands, trying to free herself, but her fingers ended up burning.

”Come on! You’re running on an empty tank! Suck up my heat, freeze me, show me the absolute limits of your current self so I can push you further.” Eris swung Isdis down, and smacked her on the ground hard enough to shake the entire meteor.

Stepping on her face and digging her clawed toes into her forehead, Eris smiled. ”If you’re jealous of me, of my power, and that I can stand by Arad’s side and fight, then be jealous of my pain as well. Do you think you’ll ever reach us by crying?” She rubbed her foot harder, as if trying to shatter her skull.

”Every fight, I push myself past failure, to the absolute limit beyond. Even if I can barely control a sun, I forced a Neutron star out, and even if I were to die, I’ll still stand back up and fight. You lack motivation, the arrogance, and crazed recklessness to step into the higher realms.”

Isdis suddenly grabbed Eris’s ankle and growled. ”Take your damned foot off my face.”

Outside, Arad suddenly fell to his knees, grasping his stomach in pain. ”Aggg... this... is bad.”