The dragon's harem

Faced with this hundred-meter-tall titan of pure steel and lightning, Merlin could sense a great wave of magic rushing through its solid joints. This wasn’t just a golem but something even better.

”Is that your staff? Your arcane focus?” The rift that Beatrice forced open was small, and it led directly to her lab, where she kept this giant mech. She had made it over the years using the government’s unlimited funds to be the perfect war machine, and everyone seemed to like having bigger weapons, so they approved everything.

The orcs’ approach to magic was more scientific than mystical, and they had spent centuries studying the way mana worked, which veins and sinews it used, and how it spread in the orcish body. They learned a great deal, and using that knowledge, Beatrice, who was a genius of her generation, had managed to build this mech.

The mech, named [The Last Hero], had been created to mimic an orc’s body, mainly that of Beatrice herself, but in a denser, mechanical form that was perfected beyond what flesh alone could endure. It was sinus moving mana anymore, but titanic ion cables and magnetic accelerators.

The head steam as the giant optical lenses zoomed in on Merlin, locking on her location in the blink of an eye. The giant steel arms crackled with lightning as the forearms spun around the elbow, and the fingers clicked open and then closed a few times. The hip and waist adjusted themselves, and Merlin could hear the countless engines inside rumbling and kicking into high gear.

Inside the mech, Beatrice landed inside her cockpit, and the giant wires plugged into her spine and the back of her head, easily piercing through the bone and establishing a direct connection with her nervous system. She had never piloted this thing directly, but if this is her last fight, then she will go all out and test even the functions she was forbidden to use.

Feeling the great power of the machine she had just linked to, Beatrice realized the weakness of her own flesh, and she had now found solace in steel. All of her fears faded away, and by the will of steel, she can even take on the gods themselves.

The mech’s back opened up, and from its spine, hundreds of compressed beams were fired, and Merlin immediately flew away, breaking the sound barrier several times as she barely dodged them all as they tracked her like heat-seeking missiles. Those magic missiles, ones that were overcharged by the sheer output of this great machine.

Yog’s voice rang in Merlin’s mind.

^Careful, that thing is abusing all of the laws of magic. It’s consuming the very weave of mana, and if left alone, it would shatter the magic as we know it.^ Hearing those words from the goddess of magic, Merlin felt a bit better about wetting herself earlier.

^Then shut it down! You can do that!^ Merlin yelled right back at Yog, and then got a response that made her piss herself again.

^I already did, but that thing isn’t working on my rules or laws. It had broken into a system of causality outside my control. The same way a god can’t prevent a mortal from picking up a gun and shooting another mortal, that machine is just a tool that is outside my will.^ Merlin could see Yog’s ghost by her side as she ran away, dodging the endless magic missiles, lightning bolts, and the raging waves.

^A godless race had built a machine to rival the gods, a mechanical marvel that directly harnessed the fabric of mana the same way they harvested the sun for its energy. This thing was supposed to be forbidden knowledge to all mortals, except that brat.^

Merlin turned around and swung her hand, freezing half of the sea alongside the giant mech in place. ”Then fucking blast it to pieces. Why are you letting this thing exist?”

^Because you and she are the same. You were blessed by magic, but cursed with a weak and crumbling body. To reach the height you’re on, you modified and improved your own flesh to survive. You’re a chimera at best and an abominable monstrosity at worst. She was also blessed with magic, but granted a smaller, weaker, and more fragile body than the other orcs, so she resorted to pushing the limit of their science, and instead of violating her own flesh, she made a whole new body of steel.^ Yog laughed, ^If I’m not kicking you down, then I’m not kicking her down. If nothing, I am fair and open to all.^

Knowing that Yog won’t be of help at all, Merlin has to deal with this thing on her own. It was far too big a task, and if she could, she would’ve left for a heavy hitter like Arad. At this point, the ice around the mech had started rapidly melting as the engines rumbled, and the daunting steel arms moved, shattering the ice as if it were glass. The waist creaked, and the legs submerged in the water moved. This thing was massive; it should’ve been slow, but it moved decently fast.

From its arms, a wave of spreading magic burned across the air, and Merlin immediately read it. That wasn’t a simple spell; the machine was trying to take control of the fabric of mana in the labyrinth to starve her of mana, such a repulsive and disrespectful thing to try in her own domain.

As much as Merlin had to admit it, she was losing the tug of war even inside her own labyrinth. The orcs had no concept of an [Elemental Expansion], but this machine was doing something similar, trying to establish superior dominion over a space through magic, and it was working.

Unlike all other expansions, The Last Hero didn’t expand anything but instead reached into the existing fabric of mana and, through its advanced mana pathways, extended its own dominion to all of the mana nearby, effectively preventing other wizards from casting spells or controlling the same mana.

To be able to cast spells normally, Merlin needed to have a body capable of rivalling the great machine, and from what she understood, she needed a body of at least Arad’s level to be able to resist this thing’s pull.

”What a pain! Fine... I’ll do it!” Merlin screamed as she flew through the rain, and clapped her hands together as her eyes flashed pink, and from the depths of the earth, far underneath the raging waves, a second titan was being born.

Stone and magic fused together, taking the shape of a body that Merlin had studied for years now. She knew every corner, every hair, every vein and nerve. She didn’t need to perfectly clone it, just mimic the mana circuit and make it bigger, and even bigger still.

A titanic, hundred-meter-tall statue of a naked Arad emerged from the ground. It was made of marble, stone, and obsidian, carried enough magic to scare a god, and moved just as fast as the mech.

”You’re not the only one who can make golems.” Merlin hid at the back of the neck of her Arad statue and fused her own magic with the golem, turning it into an extension of her own limbs.

”Why is its thing out!” Beatrice growled out of the mech’s speakers, and Merlin shouted back with magic. ”Cause I’m going to fuck you with it!”