The dragon's harem

As Zephyr and Kossuth glared at each other as if they were going to start throwing hands, Arad suddenly flinched as something massive had happened. ”It’s coming!”

The two looked at him, and he smiled. ”Loci’s child.”

***

Back inside the underground cavern, Arad looked up as he was mid-thrust into Nina’s back end with Meryem handling his jewels. ”Nina, we should get ready.” They all looked up, and they could see the silver patch on the ceiling shifting.

Gaia teleported into the cavern at that moment and appeared in her small form, standing on Arad’s head as she looked up. ”Yeah, it’s coming out.”

Arad slowly pulled out of Nina, and she jumped out of the pool. Before her feet could touch the ground, Arad had already gotten both of them to put on their clothes by teleporting them out of his stomach onto their bodies.

As Meryem stood in the water, she waved her hand and ordered all of her daughters to spread and empty the cavern as her exoskeleton covered her entire body.

Gaia swung her hand with a large smile on her face. ”Nina, you transform and hide underground. Arad, you’ll be here and try to catch it.” Nina nodded and sank into the ground, turning into her titanic form right beneath the ground while using Earth Glide.

Arad turned into a massive, formless cloud of void and spread across the entire cavern to act as a net to capture the Ooze child. When that cloud spread to where Meryem’s daughters were, they almost shat themselves, sensing the dense mana he had.

Arad’s void, while it was empty nothingness without even light, still felt as dense as stone. They all had a faint aspect of his void, so they could understand the power he held now that they saw Arad’s void. Even if their army was made purely of Queens equal to Meryem, they wouldn’t scratch him.

”The plan is simple. Arad tries to catch it gently with his void, if he fails, then it’ll hit Nina’s back and stop. When that happens, I’ll handle the rest.”

The silver patch in the ceiling expanded and grew even larger until it covered the entire ceiling. Arad could clearly sense the earth magic charging inside it, and he knew that whatever was going to come out was going to be quite powerful.

And then, it happened. The ceiling shattered, and what fell from it was a large brown blob of condensed magic, and Arad had to react quickly. He made his void cloud thicker, increased the density of his magic and activated his Earth Glide.

As the brown blob of condensed magic hit Arad’s void, it suddenly disappeared in a flash of golden mist. Arad thought it had slipped past him, but Nina below didn’t catch anything either.

”Where...” As Arad reformed his human body and looked around, ”... is it?” He threw a glance at Gaia, who looked just as confused as he was. But they had no time to think. Gaia had already reinforced Loci’s body and given it all the support needed, so the region should be safe.

”Did it fall?” Nina climbed off the ground and asked. Arad looked at her. ”I don’t know.” And Gaia also shook her head. ”I have no idea,”

”I’m here...” Said the foot-long, bug-like fairy with fly eyes that was standing right above Arad’s head.

Arad looked up. ”Loci... you’re awake... wait, what?” He gasped, and she flew around his head. ”What do you think? It’s been a while since you saw this form, right?”

Arad’s eyes opened wide as he grabbed her and looked closely at her face. ”Wait! Wait! Wait! This isn’t a projected image!”

She smiled. ”I’ve been working on this for a while now.” She slipped out of his hand and stood over his fist as her body shifted into more fairy-like features. She had clean, almond skin and glowing honey-colored eyes. Her hair was long, silky, black, and shiny, burning with earth magic.

”Hold up, wasn’t this supposed to be your child?” As Arad gasped, Loci shook her head. ”I’m a slime. I can choose whether I want to create a separate entity while splitting, or just form a second body.” She grabbed her head with both hands and split open, showing Arad that she was just a bunch of slime inside.

”I should’ve been able to take a human form with my true body, but that would cause everyone that is built on my back to crash. That is what brought me to the idea of splitting and creating a second body that I can use.” She jumped and landed on Arad’s head again. ”Now, I can be free without hurting anyone.”

Gaia landed beside her and gave her a long look. ”I never seen an Ooze like you do such a think before.”

Loci shrugged. ”Because most of them aren’t as smart as me. It took me a lot of power and energy to achieve it...” She then scratched her chin. ”It helped that Arad and Nina live on my back and keep leaking their power into me.”

Nina approached and looked at her. ”So? Are you a fairy now?”

Loci jumped, lifted both hands, and smiled. ”No, I’m a slime.” Her body turned into a brown blob and jumped at Nina and swallowed her whole. As Nina struggled to escape the blubber, Arad crossed his arms and watched. ”A slime...”

Meryem stood beside him and watched with a smile on her face. ”At least she doesn’t need to keep using flowers to speak.” She then waved her hand. ”Loci, put her down. If she starts using her true strength, she’ll hurt you.”

Loci finally spat Nina out and shifted back to her humanoid form, this time being as big as Nina was. Nina, who landed face-first on the ground with her butt up, growled and then stared back at Loci. ”That wasn’t fun...”

Loci stepped on her butt. ”Remember that time when you landed hard and left a crater on my back? That place still stings to this day.” She started grinding her foot on her. ”The time you punched that hole in the side of the mountain. The red wyvern you dropped, the party that asked if they could blow the basilisk’s cave and you let them... all of those hurt a lot.”

”I’m sorry... especially about that party. I didn’t expect them to blow it up like that.” Only then did Loci pull her foot back, and Nina sat up. ”I’ll be more careful. It is just hard to land gently when jumping from afar.”

She then looked toward Arad. ”But... didn’t Arad do more damage than me?” Loci immediately kicked her in the face, which did no damage at all. ”Arad can do whatever he wants. Everyone else isn’t the same.” She pulled her foot back and hopped back toward Arad, hugging his torso. ”And now that I’ve got a body, I can play a lot better.”