The dragon's harem

After a whole hour, Isdis and Eris had regenerated enough of their divine magic to be functional, so Merlin relaxed her hold on them, and the two floated to the surface of the water like dead fish. Isdis was out, and Eris growled. "Is it over?"

Merlin stared at her. "No, I’m just letting you off for now. You two have a lot of work to be done." She leaned back, and Eris sat up as she shook Isdis to wake her up. "Come on, it is over for now." Isdis could only grunt in pain.

Looking at the time, Eris knew that while Merlin had only let them off the hook for the pain, she still didn’t give them a long, boring lecture yet. That lecture should be starting soon, and knowing Merlin, she won’t shut up for another hour.

As Isdis crawled back to the edge of the water and sat, she couldn’t even feel her fingers, having grown numb due to the Vibration Divine magic burning her entire body for the past hour. The boiling hot water felt as cold as ice, and her eyes flashed weakly with divine magic. This punishment had hit her harder than Eris, who was much more used to pain.

"You could have just created a small star, one like the purple one the world orbits. You didn’t need to create such a big one that is hard to control." Merlin glared at Eris. "All that risk and struggle you two went through was utterly unnecessary. We were planning to feed Arad those explosives that can destroy a couple of cities at most, yet you thought he needed a whole star?"

Eris crossed her arms as she stared at Merlin with an annoyed glare. "What do you mean? He doesn’t just need it for now; he also needs energy to evolve to the next stage of his age. This sun would solve all of his energy problems." She threw a glare at Isdis. "And we were able to make it happen anyway."

Merlin immediately grabbed her by the face and pulled her closer. "You’re really talking back... No, you didn’t make it happen, idiot. If I didn’t jump in, that sun would’ve exploded and blown a hole in Arad’s stomach. You need to understand that your actions almost caused a disaster." She then gave Isdis a sharp glare as well. "And... you’re smarter than her. You should’ve known it was a risky gamble."

Isdis looked away. "I thought that we could make it happen... you know..." As she looked a bit ashamed, Merlin sighed. "So, you got high on power and thought you could do anything? I should’ve expected that and made it clear that you need to relax." She pushed Eris back and let her go.

"Eris, you’re a true goddess now, so do your job as a goddess, but when it comes to power, count yourself as just a demigoddess and exercise caution. You are now at a level of power where every action, every word, and every look carries meaningful weight." She sighed. "Isdis, you’re a goddess of control, and Eris here is a whole sun. One mistake and thousands of lives may be lost."

Merlin was right. If the sun burst, not only Arad, but everyone inside his stomach could have died. But it would never end at just that. The royal castle in the capital would burst, and the entire region, if not the whole continent, would be blown off the world’s surface. Stars are the most dramatic existences in the entire universe, and they rarely die quietly. A Nova would have illuminated the void; it might have even been a Supernova if Eris had put a bit more power into the sun.

In the middle of Merlin’s lecture, Eris noticed something. What if she made smaller stars with the intention of using them as bombs? Wouldn’t that be quite effective at erasing anything and everything that got in her way? Of course, with the exception of Arad himself, he survived a Neutron star bursting in his face, so killing him was already out of the question.

"Eris! You’re thinking about something scary; I can tell just by looking at your face. What is it?" Merlin asked, and Eris gasped, almost jumping in place. "Does it really appear on my face?" She scratched her chin, and Merlin sighed. "Your eyes glow a bit red, you blush a bit, and your vampiric fangs show in your grin."

Eris straightened her face, wiped the grin off, and then cleared her throat. "Well, I’ll have to mind that in the future. I was thinking about creating smaller, manageable suns to use as bombs. They should be quite effective if I just... didn’t want a world to exist anymore."

Merlin looked at her with a droplet of sweat dripping down her forehead. "So... a world power level attack... no, it should be even more. A world power is a being that could wipe life from an entire world on their own. What you’re going to do is destroy that world, not just life."

Eris leaned back, put one foot on the other, and relaxed as a tiny, burning ball of plasma started spinning above her chest like a sun. "I can manage small ones like this pretty well." She grabbed the sun with her hand and threw it to Merlin, who caught it without getting instantly evaporated or crushed into it.

Eris smiled. "My will overwrites everything. Heat, gravity, magnetism, curse... all of it. If I want it, this sun can exist, and I can even give it to kids to play with it like a regular ball if I wished. Of course, at my current level I need to constantly keep an eye on it, and will it to stay tame."

Merlin felt the sun in her hands and got quickly weirded out by it. It felt soft, warm, and moving as if it were a ball made of living bait worms. Honestly, it felt a bit disgusting. Knowing that this thing could destroy an entire world, she quickly gave it back to Eris with a tired face.

Instead of making the small sun disappear, Eris handed it to Isdis, who also gave the poor thing a strange look. "It feels alive." She looked closely at the star, then shifted her gaze back to Eris. "Is it alive?"

"Yes and no. It isn’t a living being in the same sense we all understand, but it holds a part of my consciousness, so it is alive." Eris stretched her arms. "You can’t keep it as a pet. I have to keep it close to me, and I’m wasting some of my will to prevent it from exploding." She pointed at the sun.

"In its core, matter is getting crushed to make new matter, similar to what Arad can do. That force is far greater than the gravity since this sun is too small, and so... if I don’t keep it stable, it would literally explode and obliterate a whole planet, or at least blast an entire continent into orbit."

"May I try something?" Isdis gave Eris a confident look, and Eris couldn’t help but shake her head. "What? Ask Merlin, not me. She is the one yelling at us for being reckless." She pointed at Merlin, and Merlin sighed. "Fine, try what you want. Eris would use all of her will to make sure nothing goes wrong if you failed."

"Hee? Why me? Keeping that thing stable is exhausting. Can I just erase it?" Eris protested, and Merlin pointed at her with her foot. "If you don’t want to suck my toes, then get to work."

Eris sighed. "Fine... keep those grippers away from me." She then extended her hand toward the sun. "Okay, I’m keeping an extra eye on it. Do your thing." As Eris spoke, Isdis closed her eyes. "Here I go."

Eris’s eyes opened wide as she felt the piece of her will that she was using to keep the sun stable slowly fading away, slipping into Isdis’s control. "I’m trying to take control from you, and it is... not working well."