The dragon's harem

Arad blinked as he looked forward, seeing Betty appearing between him and Nina, blocking both of their attacks with her bare feet.

"Hold it there! Merlin said to stop the fight. Nina would get a bit too hungry, and Gaia said she found where Loci’s child would come." Betty proclaimed as she pushed them both back and landed on the ice.

Nina glared at her for a second, then growled before getting out of her rage mode. "Betty, don’t jump between us like that. You can get hurt."

Betty smiled and clenched her fist. "Don’t worry about me. I’m far more durable than anyone expects." She then turned toward Arad. "Shouldn’t we get moving? Gaia wants you to go with her."

Arad pulled his fist, and so did Nina, causing Betty to land on the ground. And then jumped back up, crying. "OW! My toes! It’s cold!" She landed on Arad’s shoulder, and then sat down. "Should we get moving?"

Arad immediately teleported the two of them right back to Merlin’s room, and he stayed behind to dispel the ice he created. Of course, one of his incarnations teleported directly to Merlin’s room as well.

As Betty and Nina looked back, the one they saw standing behind them was the Nymph. "You’re using this body?" Betty asked with a smile, and Arad nodded.

"Well, my other bodies are all busy." He sat on the bed beside Merlin. "Let’s focus on what’s important. Gaia, where is it?"

"I’ll take you there if you’ll follow me." She flew around his head, and he smiled. "Let’s go. Nina, you’re coming with me."

Luminous, who was on her bed, called them with a smile. "Before that, Nina, as much as I love seeing you naked, I’ve had enough modifying the fight’s feed to the barbarians, so can you put some clothes on?"

Nina looked down at herself. "Yeah, going naked probably isn’t... wait! What did you just say?"

"I don’t mind seeing you naked." Luminous replied with a smile, and Nina immediately growled at her. "Not that! The part about showing the fight to the barbarians! That might cause a disaster." She rushed at her. "The men won’t come for me since I’m the one submissive to Arad, but the opposite isn’t true! The women would leave their families to come to him."

"Don’t worry about that. I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen." Merlin sat up and smiled as her maids were busy wiping Betty’s oil from her hair. "As barbaric as your clan is, they are quite reasonable and listen when talked to nicely."

She then shifted her gaze back to Arad. "What I’m more worried about is the integrity of the entire capital. Can you and Gaia really make it work?"

Gaia flew into the air and looked at Merlin. "Imagine this: a pregnant woman lying on her big, round stomach. Then she gives birth, and her stomach deflates, so her back drops. What we’re trying to do is support her hips and chest so that even if she deflates, her back won’t fall."

Gaia then inflated her own stomach and lay on the table, formed supports with dirt up to her waist and chest, and then deflated her stomach. "Like this! We aren’t going to be exactly compensating for size. We are going to give her more support."

She then stood up and created a large ball of stones in her hand. "But the most important thing is catching the baby Ooze before it falls into the depths of the earth. For that, we will need Arad and Nina, who can use Earth Glide." She flew to land on Arad’s shoulder.

Nina had just finished putting on her clothes, so they were ready to go. "Let’s go." Arad teleported himself, Gaia, and Nina all the way to the peak of Alina’s mountain, where they landed in the snow, looking down at the capital and everything below it, from the forest to the newly carved rivers and farmlands.

Nina landed in the snow, looking down at her feet, and then jumped to a nearby boulder. "This place is always cold and covered in snow." Gaia quickly flew and landed on her head. "Of course, the higher you go, the colder it gets. After a certain height, many mountain peaks are covered in snow all year round."

Arad, in his Nymph form, removed his hood and let his long hair dance in the cold wind, looking over his territory. He could see far beyond what mortal eyes could, and he was the only one to be able to understand this much about his own land.

He could see every single person there, their souls, all animals and monsters, count every bug, and even see Loci’s entire body beneath the ground. She was a titanic and round slime that was several hundred kilometers wide, fitting the entire region of Alina on her back.

"Arad... what are you trying to do?" Gaia asked as she felt Arad charging a horrifying amount of mana inside his body.

"I’m going to try something." He let a bit of his beauty seep out and spread all over the region using his dominion over the land as its lord, and when Loci’s authority over her own body got in his way, he simply forced his way past that with sheer willpower.

"Are you trying to root your Nymph self here? That won’t work. The base of your beauty is dark matter, not regular land." Gaia flew to his back, and he smiled. "I know it won’t work; that’s why I’m trying to mix it with something else."

At that moment, the Nymph’s body disappeared into pure darkness, and from the smoke, Arad’s titanic draconic body emerged. Everyone in the capital looked up, surprised and horrified as this dragon curled around the mountain like a serpent and wrapped his tail around the walls of both Orion and Alina.

He once more reinforced his own dominion over the land and spread his magic even further, consuming even the regions beyond Alina’s regions of tens of dragons. He wasn’t there to rule over them, but to set boundaries. This was a warning call. His land was now in a critical condition, and anyone who dared bring harm would be killed and eaten.

This was a natural approach for dragons that they used when laying eggs. While some dragons preferred to keep the news of them laying eggs a secret to protect them, those were the youngest and weakest of the dragons. The strong ones always announced it as a warning call.

The other dragons immediately returned the call, confirming that none of them would even fly above Arad’s land and that they would stop any powerful existence, dragon or otherwise, that tries to get close.

He was the strongest dragon around, so everyone had to respect him. One Young Red Drakaina who had just moved nearby sent back a call to Arad, saying that she wouldn’t mind giving him more eggs, and he had to tell her to wait until she grew older.

In fact, the only reason she managed to get a piece of land for herself at such a young age was that she hopped into Arad’s land and he let her have several tens of square kilometers.

Arad shifted back to his humanoid form now that his body had finished dealing with the ice in his inner world, so he looked back at Gaia and Nina. "We can go."