The dragon's harem

Arad slowly shifted his gaze toward the tables and looked at the countless plates full of food. Whole roasted lambs, pigs, and even half-cows. Tens of plates of soup, different types of bread, and baked pies, enough food to literally feed everyone in the city.

The old lady was mainly pointing at the roasted lambs, but Arad’s senses were looking for something else: the countless strands of smell lingering around the food, barely surviving through the dense aroma of spices. One of those strands was a scent leading right back to the old lady, but it was a bit different.

He smiled, ”You helped cook. That one lamb there in the corner smells nice; I can at last guess that you cooked it.” While Arad said that, the truth was that he could smell the old lady, her husband, and their granddaughter on the food. Their entire family had helped cook for today, and he could even track every one of them across the entire city.

As Arad moved his massive arm, an entire lamb, one of the ones that the old lady and her family cooked, flew to his palm. Between his fingers, the lamb looked like a tiny cat or a rat, barely amounting to anything against his bulk.

Opening his mouth, he munched the entire neck with a single bite. Bones, flesh, and everything were just torn apart with ease. To him, he could barely feel the difference between the flesh and bone; they were equally as fragile to his teeth.

”Bones and all?” The old lady looked at him with a surprised face as she heard the bones crunching between his teeth like biscuits. ”You can do that?”

”I can eat pretty much everything. Food, earth, metals, literally anything.” Arad took another bite, tearing a massive chunk of the lab’s chest. ”And I eat a lot... this is just... like a pea to me.” Even that comparison was highly inaccurate. One single lab could barely even register, and he would need to eat hundreds, if not thousands, to start considering it a snack.

The old lady sat there by his side watching and listening as he consumed the entire lamb in just a single minute. He didn’t leave anything, not even the bones. Seeing that, the old lady started to slowly feel the large gap, the titanic rift that separates Arad from herself and everyone else.

This man... he isn’t weak; he isn’t small. He won’t grow old or die of old age. He is built entirely differently from anyone else. He eats but doesn’t need to. He lives with them, the weak mortals, but doesn’t need to do that. He has all the power and wealth in the world, yet here he is entertaining the whips of a decrepit, old hag who doesn’t even have a few years left in her life.

”With all of that power, couldn’t you have gone to a better place? A world where you won’t have to confine yourself to our mortal limits?” The old lady asked, and Arad looked at her, thinking about what she had just asked.

”Couldn’t I have gone to a better place, where I don’t need to limit myself too much... yeah, I definitely could’ve left the mortal world a long while ago. Many mortals and gods don’t leave their home worlds for security; the universe is a dangerous place.” He then looked down, ”But... to me... it isn’t that deadly.”

With Arad’s power and standing as AO, besides the abominations, he could live pretty much wherever he wanted. Nothing can stop him, nothing can get in his way, nothing can ever hope to directly threaten his existence anymore. The abominations are a problem, and their strongest are indeed a pain to deal with, but to him, that’s just like a mortal lumberjack living in the woods and having to worry about wolves and bears. They are deadly, but manageable.

Is he prey? Impossible. Is he the predator? Maybe. But one thing was true. This universe is his toy box, and the bugs infesting it are the abominations. The old lady was right: Arad had long since stopped being a mortal, and he didn’t even stop at divinity.

He isn’t a weak mortal. He isn’t even a god; he doesn’t require worship and doesn’t need it. He doesn’t take; he only grants, makes, and erases. He is neither benevolent nor malevolent, just neutral. Arad could see them, tens of chains wrapped around his neck and limbs, chains that keep him linked to the humble mortality, and the ones holding the chains are his wives.

If his wives were to one day disappear, only a monster would be left behind. Why does Arad care about the people of Ruris? Because they are Isdis’s people. Why does he care about the people of Alina? They are Sara’s people, Mira and Merida’s friends.

Does Arad himself have any connection to his mortal existence outside of his wives? Is it his parents? Friends, those he knows? No, all of those won’t manage to get such a big hold on his existence. He is a watcher, an observer, a being who once dreamt of a vibrant life and made his own dream come true.

In the end, his answer to the old lady was the only truth, and it was surprisingly draconic. ”This world is mine, and I won’t let anyone touch what is mine. I’ll protect it and everyone in it, for they are all a part of my treasure, my hoard.”

”Oh, my...” She looked at him and smiled. ”You own it all? Even this old, decrepit me?” She opened her eyes wide and could see a maid standing there in front of them, staring at her with burning pink eyes. ”I’m glad.”

As she stood, Arad extended his arm in front of her. ”Sit back down. That’s not a maid.” Arad’s eyes glared right back at Death herself. ”What brought you here?”

The old lady was the one to reply. ”Me, it is my time. I’m surprised; you can see her as well? Even though your time didn’t come yet.” She reached with her shaking hand and pushed his massive arm down.

Death looked at them and then spoke in a cold voice. ”If he wishes it, you can live. He has the strength to enforce his will.”

The old lady shook her head. ”Everyone has to die, and when their time comes, no one should be treated differently.” She threw a glance at Arad. ”Even if you can, don’t upset the laws of nature; don’t break the very rules that allowed this life of ours to exist. All that lives must die, even you, Great Emperor.”

She walked away with Death herself and disappeared behind the crowd of people. She felt weaker with each step until she was forced to sit back down on a bench. Took a few breaths, and then... she was gone, spirited away to the other side.

When she opened her eyes again, she was in her early thirties, naked, and at the edge of a titanic black river, surrounded by sheer darkness. There wasn’t a single thought in her mind, and the only thing she could do was walk forward.

It is time for her to cross to the other side, and there, she has no one to speak for her.