The dragon's harem

Abel stretched his arms as he stood and cracked his neck. The naked waitress on the bed behind him sat up and looked at him. "Really, why is a devil of your power getting ragged here like a homeless imp?"

Abel started wearing the new clothes she had gotten him earlier. "Well, I do have to fight a few troubling devils. I got a job to take care of." He smiled and looked back at her. "I need to bring the Lord of the Seventh Layer to the mortal world so she can help with a potential fight."

As he brushed his hair, he pointed the comb at her. "And guess what the price she asked for was?"

The waitress thought about it for a second, and then gasped. "Wait! You were the one fighting the Black Blood Hunters!"

The Black Blood Hunters were a large devil bandit group that killed and stole from other devils, and they were notorious for highway robberies and coordinated attacks on transport caravans, resulting in them being hunted by many powerful devils.

"They were the first ones now; I need to hunt the other two. The Wolf Rakshasa and the Blood Blades." Hearing that, she stood. "You can’t do that. There are rumors that those two are backed up by Maharaja and Asmodeus directly."

"And I’m backed by even bigger people." Abel opened the door and walked out of the room. He was indeed backed by scary people, mainly the Pale Night, Kali, and most importantly, the Emperor of Nothing. While the bandit gangs would attack him, he doubted Maharaja and Asmodeus would interfere directly."

As he walked across the hallway, his body shifted. His skin grew softer, his chest inflated, and his entire figure shifted to that of a woman as he approached the stairs and walked down, quickly blending into the tavern crowd.

Looking around, he could clearly see a few devils watching the stairs, waiting for him to come down to start tracking him. Thankfully, they don’t know that he can shapeshift, and thus it was time to start playing some games.

After sitting in the tavern for more than an hour, he could see the devils tracking him, having gotten irritated from sitting for too long, as he was supposed to come down a long time ago. Since while he had just come downstairs an hour ago, he had, in fact, spent a whole day up there with the waitress. So they were here far longer than just an hour.

Then, one of the devils finally moved. He stood up and walked toward the tavern’s door, looking both tired and grumpy. He had been sitting here for a while. So Abel waved a finger and summoned a tiny demon that was the size of a finger.

"Follow him." The demon, which had been granted to Abel by the pale night, nodded and disappeared. The first rule of tracking someone was to never follow them directly.

Since the demon Abel summoned was quite small and weak, only having the abilities to turn invisible and mask his sound, most devil detection spells won’t pick him up here. They are in the ninth layer of hell; the devils here are more concerned about horrifying devils with the power to shatter cities, not a demon who isn’t strong enough to wrestle a rat.

Soon, the waitress came down, and all the devils waiting for Abel looked surprised. They remained still for several minutes, and then one of them decided to approach and ask her. They could’ve used force, but they didn’t. That was a wise decision because that waitress was a horrifying devil herself, one able to blow a whole city, an Archdevil.

She told them that Abel had left yesterday, which quickly prompted them to leave and search for him somewhere else.

As they all left, the waitress picked up a clean tray and a large mug and approached Abel’s table, leaning on it and looking at him with a grin. "Don’t you have a pretty face. Want anything to drink?"

"Pick me something." Abel replied with a smile as he leaned back, closed his eyes, and focused on the tiny demon he summoned. The devil he was tracking left the city and headed into the Deadwood forest up north, where the Wolf Rakshasa band had their hideout, or at least one of their hideouts, as that place looked too small to be their main hiding hole.

The Rakshasas looked mostly human; their bodies couldn’t be differentiated from regular humans at first glance. But there were a few key differences. For example, the weaker ones had two left hands instead of a right and a left hand, and some even had more hair on their bodies than regular humans, which was because of their lackluster shapeshifting skills.

Those were the same kind of devils as Agnar, as he had become a Black Jaguar Rakshasa not that long ago.

The reason those Rakshasas shapeshift into humans was quite twisted, as they have a taste for human flesh and agony. Especially a keen taste for despair, betrayal, and horror. They spent untold ages trying to bond with a human, only to betray them later and consume them alive, bite by bite, as they screamed in pain.

They can then have a half-animal form, and then a full animal form that they transform into. But to Abel now, he didn’t need to care about that too much, as he just needed to get rid of them all. They were cutting supplies going into and coming from the seventh layer, and sorting that out was now his job.

But then, the tiny demon froze and hid behind a stone, looking into the camp with a scared face. The Rakshasa weren’t alone, but they were accompanied by several werebeasts. Werewolves, Werebears, Weretigers, and Weregoats.

One of the werewolves noticed the tiny demon by smell and was now looking at him like an excited dog having spotted a rat. The werewolf didn’t ring the alarm immediately, so Abel could easily guess that he only noticed the demon’s existence, not that they were an actual demon, since it was fairly impossible for a demon to make it all the way down here.

Since Abel had already found out the base’s location, he quickly ordered the demon to hide and then sent him back to the abyss.

Abel stood, finished his drink, and was about to leave when the waitress approached him again. "Mother wants to speak with you."

Abel lifted an eyebrow. "For what? I gotta leave."

"It’s important; just come with me." She dragged him to the back of the kitchen, where her mother sat and waited. The two looked horrifyingly similar, except that the mother, for some reason, looked younger than her daughter. While the waitress looked to be in her late twenties to early thirties, the mother looked as if she was in her early twenties.

"What did you need me for?" Abel asked and sat at one of the kitchen tables, and he could see the waitress locking the door. "Is it true that you know the Emperor of Nothing?"

As the mother asked, Abel smiled. "I do, but I doubt I can get him to move." He put one leg on the other as he shifted back to his male form. "It’s the same as you knowing Asmodeus and working for her, but not being able to make her move. If you want a favor with him, I can hook you up, but not make the favor happen."

The mother smiled. "That works for me. What’s your price?"

Abel smiled. "I’m sure your daughter told you about what I’m working on. I would appreciate it if I could use your home as a temporary base. It’ll also help you build up favor with the Emperor of Nothing. Or at least one of his associates."

With that settled, Abel now had a temporary safe house and quickly left for the forest to deal with the Wolf Rakshasa. He needed to either wipe them out or at least destroy their whole operation. But since this was a small encampment, he needed more info.

^Sara, can you check if we got anything on the Wolf Rakshasa band?^ He called his sister as he walked out of the city and up the hill toward the forest, and got a quick reply.

^I asked Haru, and she said they are spread across the entire ninth layer. They claim that they work for Maharaja, but that’s the same as saying the rats in the sewers work for the crocodile there.^ Sara was inside Arad’s Private Quarter with Sena and Haru, checking on the hell’s documents they got.

^Is there a way to mess with them?^

Sara smiled. ^I’m sending help.^

Abel blinked. ^Sending help? What kind...^ As he looked back, he saw him. Three meters tall, wearing a black, shadowy cloak with no face visible, and with enough dark void magic leaking out to make Abel’s hair stand.

"Wasn’t he asleep!?" Abel gasped, but after just two seconds, he noticed it. If he didn’t know Arad personally, he would’ve been fooled. This wasn’t Arad, but it was more like four goblins in a trench coat.

"For a brat, you got some balls messing with two of Arad’s daughters like that."