The dragon's harem

The red dragon crawled inside his lair and then made his way up to the mountain’s peak. Using his scales, he camouflaged himself to look as white as the snow covering the mountain’s peak, and took a look directly at Alcott’s carriage. Should he kick them out, or pretend like he didn’t see them and stay quiet? The latter one was clearly the wisest decision, but a part of him wanted to find out what they were doing here in his land.

”Are they famous?” He asked the white drakaina that was hiding behind his titanic tail, and she sheepishly crawled out. ”I only know two of them. The old-looking man with the white hair and beard is called Neil, and he is a powerful S-ranker. In terms of power, I’d say he is on the level of an adult dragon on a good day. She then gulped. The other one is the biggest problem: the man with luscious black hair and a short beard. That’s Alcott Demorian, the dragon slayer.”

The red dragon’s eyes opened wide for a second. ”He hunts dragons? How many had he killed so far? Is he liking those apes of the northern east?” He turned his massive head back, and she jumped back. ”No, he isn’t like the apes. He is powerful, extremely powerful. Even great wyrms avoid him, and he has killed several hundred dragons solo.”

She looked at Alcott and could feel her scales itching. ”I heard he even caused a massacre in the flying rainbow mountain of our Queen.” Hearing that, the dragon couldn’t help but laugh. ”Wait, really? Did they grow that lax and weak? Or is he that kind of monster?”

She could feel it in her bones; this red dragon wasn’t believing a single word of what she was saying. ”That man, he has a son called Arad Orion; he took the Queen’s daughter Balina as one of his many wives, and the Queen even granted him a thousand drakainas as their wedding gift. I even heard rumors of Great Luminous being spotted with him.”

”Luminous?” Learning that Arad had the queen’s daughter was scary, but the fact that the monster Luminous was hanging around him was even more horrifying. She wasn’t just infamous; every single chromatic dragon had heard of her, and they all knew of her power. She is the fastest of the dragons, and most likely only second in power to the queen.

The white drakaina pointed at Kali, ”I believe the smell on that little girl belongs to Arad Orion.”

That part, the red dragon had no doubt about. He could tell immediately that fighting Arad was stupid; the difference in power between them was just far too great for his draconic pride to even kick in. If he was a house cat, Arad was an entire tiger, and that was just the difference that he could tell through the smell alone.

”So... judging by their earlier fight with the briders, I would say that the only one of them we can kill is Neil. The other three are outside what we can handle.” The red dragon sighed as he turned to head back into his lair, and the white drakaina followed him. ”Are we leaving them alone?”

”Yeah, I don’t feel like dying today. Unless they attack us first, I won’t get in their way. We’ll sit and observe for now.” As he curled above his bed of gold and gems, the drakaina curled by his side. After a moment of silence, he spoke again. ”I thought you mock me for not fighting them off, or are you scared that I’ll tear you apart?”

”No, there is no winning a fight when Alcott is involved. Even if we had the entire chromatic army, he would still win.” As she spoke, the dragon laughed. ”The entire army? Not even the queen herself can survive if all dragons banded against her.”

She laughed and he gave her a weird look. ”How is that funny?”

She looked up at him. ”You know, that wasn’t a metaphor. A few decades ago, the Chromatic army and the Metallic army banded together to kill Alcott, and the result was a massacre. Hundreds of dragons fell, and Alcott made it out with the generals’ tails. A total humiliation. He understands dragon biology inside out and has the power to put it to use. The only thing we didn’t try was to have both queens fight him together to see if he can still survive.”

”That pink-haired little girl. The smell of Arad Orion on her felt strange; he isn’t a chromatic dragon, nor a Metallic dragon. Is he a magic dragon like Luminous?” He looked at the white drakaina, ”That would explain his power.”

”He is a magic dragon, but not a Light Dragon. From the rumors I’ve heard, he is a Void Dragon.” Hearing that, the red dragon froze for a second. ”Wait, a void dragon?” He stood and started digging through his golden hoard like a golden retriever digging a hole.

From inside, it pulled an ancient, crumbling tome and opened it. ”Here, it is written that there are multiple worlds, and that each world is protected by a single void drakaina. It also says that our world is under the Hunter, who is the void dragons’ Empress, an existence to them similar to what the queens are to us.”

She looked at the tome with him. ”The Hunter?”

”Yes, the Hunter, the Orion Constellation. Didn’t you say that his name is Arad Orion? He is the prince of the void dragons.” The red dragon then stared at the white drakaina. ”Are you saying that human Alcott bred the Void Empress?”

It was only then that the white drakaina realised the crazy scope of that discovery. ”Hold on... You didn’t smell her on him. That should prove she isn’t...” But before she could finish speaking, the dragon cut her off. ”It is still possible. As powerful as Arad Orion is, he can’t be older than Alcott himself, and he can’t have lived longer than I was asleep. By all measures, he should still be an underdeveloped kid outside of his power. Orion herself should be able to mask her own scent and presence better than him.”

”Do the void dragons even grow the same way as us? I’ve heard that time dragons can instantly grow to the Great Wyrm stage upon being born.” As she added, the red dragon nodded. ”To us, it is instant, but to them, they had spent that time. Time dragons live through several timelines all at once, so a second to us can feel like years to them.”

She frowned. ”Yeah, Light, Void, and Time... those dragons aren’t the same as us Chromatic and Metallic.” As she shook her head, the red dragon nodded, pointing at another tome. ”There are mana dragons out there as well. But they are far too rare and only move on behalf of the goddess of magic.” He then sat down. ”All we need to worry about now is that there is a good possibility that this Alcott had an affair with Orion, and that we now have her child on the loose.”

She scratched her massive jaw. ”Well... about that. The King ruling the Arctic now is Gojo Orion, Alcott’s other son. He had two kids, and they are both monsters.”

”Two Orions on the loose... and their mother is also around...” He sighed, ”This world has gone mad.”