The dragon's harem

Seeing the nightmare twitch, Neige immediately jumped again to pummel him down, kicking and clawing at his head and upper torso, avoiding the already dead stomach. While the small critters were powerful monstrosities, none of them was strong enough to harm Neige, who was two whole classes above them.

[Animal]

[Monster]

[Monstrosity]

[Horror]

[Terror]

[Nightmare]

Neige can harm the nightmare since it’s only one class above her. Albeit, she was outclassed in all aspects.

The nightmare moaned, crawling away with its head still smoking from the lightning bolt. It’s vile, milky eyes twitched, glaring at Neige with rage, malice, and vile hatred. It looked confused, weirded out, and unable to understand where this Terror came from.

The nightmare’s creepy maw slowly opened up, and a rattling, gargling voice came out of it. Just hearing it was enough to make Neige think the nightmare was drowning. “Food!” The nightmare seemed to smile, such a large, clean, and succulent piece of meat.

“So you can speak.” A large grin crossed Neige’s face. “Didn’t expect your voice to be uglier than your face.” She charged at him like a bull, ramming him in the face. But… the nightmare’s superior strength finally showed up as he managed to catch her charge.

Neige’s face paled, it felt like she hit a solid wall. The nightmare grinned and opened its mouth, trying to take a huge bite out of her shoulder. But it was then that a sharp pain surged through one of its legs, causing it to lose balance and fall to the side. Something had cut one of its hind legs.

The nightmare looked back, seeing the shadow of Neige’s tail. As it didn’t have time to think, its mind immediately blamed Neige for the injury and turned toward her with a furious glare.

By that time, she had already backed away and lifted one of her arms. Even though her massive terror body was made out of viscera, blood, and intestines that all intertwined into the shape of a massive goat with a humanoid torso, just looking at her made the nightmare drool. He wished for nothing more than to lick her, take a bite of that juicy, dripping, tender organ meat.

CLAP! But what came next was another flash of bright light directly at one of the nightmare’s eyes, sending it recoiling back. Another lightning strike was flung down by Arad, but all the nightmare could guess was that it was one of Neige’s powers.

The nightmare recoiled back, a pain moan escaping its horrid maw. Its limbs twitched, and it gave Neige an angry stare. It’s been so long that it has forgotten that food usually resists being eaten.

As the two titans clashed, Arad ran above the nightmare, looking for another opening to strike. This was their plan: Neige distract it, and he’ll strike. Slowly but surely, the nightmare would fall.

Seeing Neige kick the nightmare in the face with her hind legs, Arad immediately threw his third spear. With a deafening thunderclap, the whole floor flashed with blinding light, washing the darkness away.

Looking at the nightmare, Arad smiled. He could see damage slowly accumulating. The multiple tongues this thing used to walk were twitching and barely managing to support its massive weight. He was right, brain damage works. As long as Arad keeps targeting the nightmare’s head, they’ll eventually win.

After the tenth spear of lightning, the nightmare finally fell to the ground, followed by all of the small critters. The horrifying spire flashed with magic, extending into the sky and connecting with it in a bright flash of light.

Arad landed on the ground, and the injured Neige finally plopped down. Her massive body was covered in countless bites and gashes. She shifted to her humanoid body to preserve energy and sat down, her side open with organs spilling out, a large chunk of her left thigh bitten off, even the bone. But those wounds didn’t last long as they started healing on their own.

“Still scared of it?” Arad asked with a smile, and she giggled, coughing blood in pain, “We killed it. It isn’t scary anymore.” As bad as her injuries were, they were nothing to a Terror. She’ll be fine in an hour or two.

But then, the spire suddenly darkened and disconnected from the sky, the nightmare’s eyes shot open, and it glared at Arad with malice, “Got you, rat.” Everything happened so fast that no one could react or understand it. The nightmare wasn’t dead; it opened the path on its own, pretending to be dead to draw out the silent attacker. When did it notice that Neige wasn’t the one attacking it? Only it knew.

Neige should’ve been able to tell if the nightmare was dead or alive by her ability to see the truth, but after seeing what she saw in it before, she never used that ability on the nightmare again.

Still standing in place, Arad failed to move in time as the massive maw of the nightmare flew at him. His vision darkened, warm feeling covered his whole body. For a moment, he thought that the nightmare swallowed him.

Neige, who gasped and was about to transform, suddenly fell silent, her eyes opening wide with both fear and hope. Arad’s foot was resting on the nightmare’s caved nose, pinning its massive body down. Radiant golden light flashed from Arad’s eyes, his skin looked strangely orange-brown, his eyes flashed with light, and his back was filled with sharp spikes.

The shadow coming out of Arad’s feet wasn’t his, but that of a tall woman; his own shadow was silently sitting aside, hugging his legs. Arad’s mouth opened wide, revealing one too many rows of sharp, jagged teeth. A deafening roar burst from his lungs, shaking the floor.

To everyone, it was nothing but a raging scream, but the nightmare understood it like words. ^You know nothing about starvation.^ Shi had taken over Arad’s body, drawing on the power of the earth to block the nightmare’s charge like a solid boulder.

That last impact was all it took for the nightmare, who was already close to death to fully perish. While her powers weren’t great, she could more than finish the dying nightmare and put an end to its suffering.