The dragon's harem

Chapter 1473: For The Emperor!

Bending the rules. It seems that before Arad could even fit a single world inside his stomach, he now has to start planning to swallow an entire universe, meaning multiple worlds and their gods.

It slowly started to dawn on him. The reason they spared him from enlisting and allowed him to carry many portfolios without the gods ever trying to retrieve them.

The void dragons in the war are already carrying worlds inside them to act as mobile war bases, allowing the gods’ troops to rest, recover, rearm, and prepare in relative safety. And now, Arad seems to be the newest module, a void dragon that carries a whole universe. That would allow multiple gods to move, carrying their whole portfolios and fight at full power as long as he was close.

Arad knew that it was better for him and his wives to stay out of the war, but for a moment, he did feel it was an insult to reject him before he could even try. It was not even a call for duty or the glory; he just had many reasons to want to kill the abominations.

”If I’m to build a universe inside my stomach. A small one with a few worlds, but enough to sustain the people. Won’t that mean we could retreat there and abandon the universe?” Arad stared at Sylph, and she burst into laughter. Elis also laughed, even Yggdrasil. That was a stupid thing to think about, but... Yog wasn’t laughing.

And since the clown herself wasn’t laughing, Arad understood that this wasn’t the first time such an idea was thrown around; he could bet it was brought at least once to the current overgod, to use Arad as a backup universe if they lost the war.

”If we lost the war.” Yog spoke, ”Anyone who isn’t already hiding inside your universe would be pretty much fucked. So yes, you’re right. But I speculate that only a small amount of the universe population would survive, like 5-10%.”

Yggdrasil stopped laughing, ”I mean, it will be funny if the universe just lost. But, that’s one reason it’s better to have Plum grow inside your stomach, that way, she won’t die with me when the universe gets invaded and eaten from the inside out by the abominations.”

Plum looked at the tiny replica of the World Tree. ”So? You can’t move to another place?”

”Finding another universe is near impossible, and even if I did, I’m already rooted to this one. I live and die with it. As long as the universe exists, I’ll exist, and I’ll die when it dies.” The leaves moved, ”I know that is a problem. Won’t Cerilla lose her power in the future if I die? No, because Plum would be growing as a World Tree in Arad’s universe, so she can just start getting power from her.”

Plum looked at Cerilla, ”You want her. To take me as a divine tree? Let’s keep the future in the future.” She sighed, ”I don’t want to think about it.”

”So the reason for us coming here is to first, tell Cerilla that she must become a demi-goddess of the elves, and that Plum must be replanted inside my small universe, her true body, not a sapling tree as it is now.”

Sylph nodded, ”Exactly, I believe Jasmine came here wanting to ask something, but since she didn’t ask already, I believe either Dendron or Mathilde already solved that problem.”

”I wanted to move the dark elves back to the roots of the World Tree.” Jasmine looked at her, and Sylph nodded, ”You don’t need to ask me or Yggdrasil about that, just move, and don’t set anything on fire.”

Elis smiled, ”Did you know? Of all the elvish kings of the past who tried to make this pilgrimage, ninety percent of them failed because they brought a dark elf with them.” She leaned forward with a grin, ”And don’t get me wrong, we’ve let them through, it’s just that every one of them tried to set the World Tree ablaze the moment they camped inside the trunk.”

Cerilla glared at her, ”I’m not trying to discredit your words, but the previous kings only took high elves with them.”

”They were disguised as high elves and snuck into the ranks of the massive army. Remember, dark elves are just tanned high elves; they only needed to take a year to get rid of that tan, and they would just blend in.” Elis looked at Jasmine with a smile, ”I’m sure you’ve heard of them once before, the fire cult, which was eradicated a few centuries ago. Well, they weren’t eradicated, and they are coming back.”

”Wait!” Jasmine rubbed her eyes, ”Those... the people wanting to get revenge on the world tree that cast them away, for setting her ablaze?” She looked at D, ”They are still around?”

”We didn’t get any report about them in...” D thought about it for a few seconds, trying to remember when she heard about them last. ”You were still, yeah, you weren’t even born yet, around like six, seven hundred and something years ago.”

”They are good at blending among the common folk, and they have something that shields them from my eyes. That’s why you coming here might be a stroke of luck.” Elis smiled and Yog laughed, ”Suck my toes, luck doesn’t exist. Ask the Fates, those sisters are the sneaky hand behind everything.”

She closed her eyes for a second, ”Oh, ah...” She frowned and scratched the back of her head, ”Fuck it. Luck indeed doesn’t exist. A rebellion is starting in the Dark Moon capital, and the cult is probably behind it. They claim the high elves killed the queen.”

Jasmine stood, ”What... this is bad.”

Arad lifted his hand, ”Don’t worry. The situation should be under control.”

”What? Isdis is in Ruris, it’ll take her weeks to arrive there, Betty can help, but quelling a civil war won’t be easy.”

”I know. But you sent some servants and maids back to Ruris, and I was present on the dark moon. Do you remember anything?” He smiled, and her eyes opened wide.

”Wait, Light Keeper Frella! The guards saw us bring her in; she is in the castle!”

****

Far away, in the royal castle of Dark Moon city, a platoon of armed soldiers rushed in, kicking the throne room door open. ”The Queen isn’t here! The high elves took her away, and we must fight back!” A noble who took the lead pointed at the throne with his sword, ”We’ll take the throne and control over the Dark Moon Bay high magic, and with it, we’ll crush those pale bastards!”

But he suddenly fell silent, seeing someone kneeling before the throne, where a tiny black dot burned with magic.

She was a woman, clad in heavy, black armor from head to toes, leaning on her greatsword. ”So, you’ve come, as his majesty said.” She moved, standing up.

”Who are you?” The noble gasped, and the woman pointed her sword forward, ”For the Emperor!”

She was fast, too fast. The noble’s body was cleaved in half before his soldiers could even react.

”THEY ARE HERE!” She shouted, and several more soldiers jumped from behind the curtains, all ready to assist her in battle against the rebels.