The dragon's harem

Eris dodged Baal’s flying body and rushed toward Lilia, moving like a fiery meteor of pure purple plasma. Throwing a fist forward, she aimed right at Lilia’s head, but the tiny woman slipped right beneath her, and with a single kick to the guts, Eris folded like a piece of paper as her entire body was sent flying to the sky.

"B... she hits as hard as Arad, if not harder." Eris growled as her plasma got hotter and hotter, until she couldn’t hold it back any longer. Everyone was now in Merlin’s hand. Can she maintain an all-out Eris here like a summon, or would this entire fake reality shatter from the presence of an entire star?

Eris could see that Lilia was now heading toward Merlin to knock her out, and that was a valid strategy. Killing the healer first, and the wizard always comes after. In this fight, if Lilia defeats Merlin, that is her win. She doesn’t need to fight Eris or Baal.

"Come back here!" Eris activated her gravity, and Baal, who had just healed, did the same. Their goal was to pull Lilia away from Merlin and draw aggro. But to their surprise, even though they shouldn’t have been surprised by that at all. Lilia just cast a spell and nullified all of their gravity as she accelerated toward Merlin even further.

"Magic is useless against her! We have to use our fists." Baal expanded his wings and exploded forward with the crushing madness of an entire black hole flying through space and ripping it apart. His only goal was to reach Lilia before she could touch Merlin. If Arad was technically his father as the one who created him, then all of his wives are his mothers, and Baal would burn the entire universe before letting anyone reach them.

Lilia looked back and saw Baal’s fist shattering the fabric of space as it approached her face at blinding speed. Yet she didn’t flinch. If his fist shattered space, then she only needed to use magic and fix the fabric of space. Through the years, many void dragons had created spells to do just that, and she had all of that knowledge.

The dark void engulfed her body, and the entire power of Baal’s fist got swallowed whole, disappearing into nothing as Lilia spun around and jammed her elbow into his solar plexus, sending him flying away.

Eris was already on her, throwing a kick, but she wasn’t the only one with her toes out. Using her toes, Lilia dodged Eris’s kick and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her head down with one foot while sending her knee up to crush her nose.

As Eris blacked out for a fraction of a second, Lilia was already lifting her up by the neck. "Did you forget that while you’re a fresh goddess of murder, I was already going fist to fist and ass to ass with Amaterasu?"

"I’m..." Eris growled. "Pretty sure you did the second part more." As she glared down at Lilia, the little nightmarish horror smiled. "More than you think." Eris just needed to keep Lilia distracted long enough for Merlin to form her next spell, and even though Lilia was aware of that, she just babbled about how she makes love, giving Eris and Merlin more time than they ever needed.

As the ruler of this space, Merlin made a wish. A wish to the very fabric of existence she rules above, to Arad’s stomach, and divine will, to throw Lilia out. "Cut her out!" As Merlin shouted, Lilia looked at her with a smile. "That isn’t the kind of scissoring I like."

Feeling her entire existence being rejected, for a second there, she almost got kicked out. But when she expanded her own magic, the entire process failed.

"Merlin," Lilia smiled. "Wish spells work by giving a request to the universe itself in exchange for your mana. Outside, it works well since the universe is above everything. But... do you think the universe would be able to reject something alien like Nyar’s true body?"

Merlin growled with sweat dripping down her forehead. "I guess you’re bigger than my universe here."

Lilia looked down at herself, stripped fully for a second, and touched her soft belly. "I’m not that fat... in fact, I might need to eat more." Her clothes then magically covered her again, and in everyone’s memories she wasn’t naked, but had a cloud of white mist covering her bits.

Merlin just stared at her for a second, thinking about how to get this monster out of here. She could summon Kali and just beat her... but that isn’t the point, and what if Lilia just teleports her out? Merlin would have then wasted a vast amount of mana for nothing.

In the back, Arad watched in silence, standing alone with Yog inside his head. This had him realise one thing, and it was that Yog was just his intrusive thoughts made into a separate entity. She had the forbidden knowledge all locked away, so he didn’t have access to his prior knowledge, but he now had access to his full calculating capabilities.

Just with one look, he could already deduce several ways to kick Lilia out safely. Merlin could just poison the mana inside his stomach with her eldritch magic, and then force Lilia to retreat since she doesn’t want to drag that out with her. Merlin could also teleport outside, and then switch places with Lilia, which would work easily if she executed the spells correctly.

{How do you like having your intellect back?} Yog asked, and Arad sighed. "It is of no use without the memories. But I suspect that both my current body and soul cannot handle them."

{You are right. The information itself isn’t the problem. The emotional toll, the capacity of your souls, bodies, and even will is insufficient. Even when you become an Elder Void dragon, giving you all power back would still be a 50/50 gamble.} Yog laughed, {You’ll just burst. By the way, you are only able to think this fast since I’m handling all the process separately. I haven’t merged with you.}

"I already figured that out. Also, that Lilia just wants to grind Merlin from a rough stone to a gem...her methods are questionable." He shrugged and then looked down at himself. "And... this body isn’t enough; it will never be enough."

{Don’t worry about that now, but after you become an Elder Void dragon. You’re still at the start and have a lot of room to grow.}

Arad really wanted to jump in and help Merlin. With Yog’s processing power, he should be able to dispatch Lilia on his own, but he shouldn’t do that; he should let her fight and grow on her own.

"But to think Lilia has this much power and intelligence even without you... How did she gain such power?" Arad asked, and Yog shrugged. {She was a slave most of her mortal life, abused and used like a replaceable toy, but one day, the bastards thought it was a good idea to use her in an experiment to summon an elder god, and I showed up. The exchange was simple: I teach her magic, and I get to use her body as my vessel.}

"So, access to unlimited knowledge and the innate talent of both halflings and elves." Arad sighed, and Yog giggled inside his head. {Also, a complete lack of morals and empathy. She treats everyone else the same way she was treated, so forbidden experiments or cruel ones weren’t off the table for her.}