The dragon's harem

Asmodeus opened a portal for Arad and everyone to leave hell, that one led them straight to Arad’s castle in Alina. He did ask how in hell she knew the location of his castle and was able to create a gate there. All she replied with was that she can sense all devils that travel out of hell, so she had seen at least the devil locked inside Sara’s necklace be summoned by Merlin.

Returning to the castle wasn’t anything like what Arad expected. The whole castle was still calm, but stress seemed to be spreading through everyone like a plague. Merlin knew they were alive because her devil was alive, Eris knew Arad was alive because of their blood link, and she even knew that Sara was alive because she had left a life candle in Alina, in the lord’s mansion where she lived.

But everyone expected Arad to return with everyone in a day after leaving, not almost a week later. But there was also another detail. While Arad spent just a few days in hell, Matilda and the rest had spent over a month lost in the darkness. Either hell’s time moved differently, or the darkness had done something to them. Arad himself had found it a bit annoying to enter the darkness at first and only managed to get in when a sudden spark of divine magic flashed inside.

Speaking of Lydia, she seems to have disappeared hours after being summoned by the coin, sent back to university where she was before. Either the coin’s power had a duration, or Amaterasu herself had pulled her away. But anyway, Arad couldn’t imagine the coin being able to summon someone or an angel indefinitely.

But the last thing Arad expected to see when returning to the world was a whole bunch of nobles lined up in the castle’s courtyard. It seems they’ve come to see the new emperor after the news of his return spread, only to be told that he left again.

Now he could hear some claiming that Baron Arad didn’t even exist and that he was only a fake created by the elvish queen and the dark elf queen to absorb the human kingdom into their lands. Some were even calling Aella a spy for the elves and demanded that she be executed unless she could produce Baron Arad from her pocket.

Arad could see Aella and Isdis trying to speak to the masses from one balcony. And Arad could also hear some people mumbling something about a drunk fairy who told them that she’ll kick them out of her land. That was probably Zephyr. People tend to forget that she owns the land of Ruris’ kingdom, the elvish kingdom, and even the coastal dark elf kingdom.

Luckily enough, not everyone seemed to be rising up in arms. The barbarians are about to rampage, not to attack the castle, but to beat the rising nobles and protect the castle. Nina was doing her best to keep them calm. They understood the people’s slander of Arad as a slander to Nina herself, and they were more than just offended.

The survivors of Riverside were the same, standing against the raging nobles. Arad was surprised that Merida hadn’t just killed everyone down there. But… she might be a ruthless killer, but she at least understands that she can’t just kill them now that she is a queen. Arad hoped that Aella had at least taught her that much.

Out of everyone in the castle, only Zephyr seems to have noticed his return due to her connection to the wind. Everyone else is too busy to pay attention to the magic floating in the air, and Arad himself is keeping his magic low not to scare everyone away.

Now he had to think of a way to show up and an excuse for his absence. He is sure the noble might just call him a fake if he just walked in, so he has to do something to prove himself to be real.

Arad was a juvenile dragon before and after consuming the overgod’s dead heart; he seems to have jumped ages. Instead of turning into a young adult dragon, he ended up directly becoming an adult. No wonder Kayden had to train him on many things; his knowledge about magic and barriers seems to have helped him adjust to the changes the most. But that didn’t matter now; what mattered was that his magic range had extended from 40km to 4000km instead of 400km, which was a massive jump.

That had meant he could probably do a stupid stunt across the world in a few seconds. And with that, Arad disappeared. After a single shadow step, he ended up standing at the door of a familiar house deep in the beast lands, Hati’s house.

One of Hati’s saw him and almost dropped the laundry. He was then quickly led to Hati, who enjoyed her tea in the living room. Soon, the two of them teleported again. After two jumps, they were standing in the middle of a vast snowy field. In the distance, they could see a massive white city and a large temple being constructed by thousands of people.

Arad closed his eyes for a moment, and Gojo suddenly appeared in front of him. Little Lucy was sitting on his shoulder in her strange temple clothes. “What brought you here?”

Arad didn’t need to speak much and just transferred his thoughts to Gojo’s mind. This is how void dragons usually talked with each other in the vacuum of space, through telepathy. A second later, Gojo’s clothes shifted into a royal robe and a long fancy coat, a crown of blue ice appeared on his head, and a crystal scepter emerged in his hand. “Let’s go.” He said with a smile.

The four disappeared and appeared again in the university, where they picked up Tempo. He was training with his sword in the forest north of the swamps when Arad appeared. The fire titan prince didn’t even ask Arad what he needed and just smiled, “Need Help? I’m coming.”

They quickly teleported again several times and now landed in a vast land covered by titanic peaks that spread as far as the eye could see. The peaks were engulfed in an everlasting storm, and Arad frowned. He could sense the person he was looking for inside one of the mountains.

Tempo growled, “So it is like this? That shameless bastard.” His anger was directed somewhere in the depths of the storm, but luckily, that wasn’t where Arad was going. After another teleport, they appeared inside the mountain, which looked to be a massive prison cell with a single titan chained inside. Old man Zeus, the former king of the storm titans, seems to have been overthrown by one of his sons and is now jailed here.

“I was just about to ask for a favor… but what the hell did happen?” Arad lifted an eyebrow and frowned.

Zeus giggled, “Now I’ve lost my mind and I’m seeing things.” But before he could figure it out, Arad silently destroyed the chains and freed him. “Do you think they’ll check on you?”

Zeus quickly came to his senses and replied. “No, I’m supposed to be locked here for the rest of time. They aren’t strong enough to kill me, and no one risks opening even a small hole to look at me.”

Arad smiled, “Then we’ve got time. I need your help, we can deal with whatever is happening in the storm land later.”

Zeus took his human form and smiled, unable to believe how easily Arad came and freed him. Soon, they teleported again and landed in the land of the half-angels and found Lucifer drinking wine alone atop a mountain. He looked at them with a confused face. He only saw Arad once, but now Arad appeared at his door much stronger than before, and even with a bunch of old powers.

“Need your help, have time? Also, we’ll pick up the other one, Gabriel.”

Arad didn’t need to explain much as the sovereign of the half angel stood with a large smile on his face. He was already bored to the bones and wouldn’t mind a short trip.

They soon appeared in the middle of the Half-fallen angels’ land, and saw Gabriel fighting with two other half-fallen angels, two women. They seemed to be accusing him of something, but the man found Arad’s sudden appearance as an excuse and got Arad to teleport him away immediately.

Soon they were all standing on the mountain. Arad explained why he needed to find them and sighed. He wanted to make a trip to bring the two draconic queens as well, but he isn’t sure if bringing those two anywhere near each other is a good idea. And those two aren’t the kind of people he can just go and see.

But to his surprise, two women were already standing at his sides. “Do you think we didn’t sense someone teleporting all over the world with too much power?” The chromatic draconic queen was standing at his side, her long rainbow hair sparkling with light and her eyes like two mirrors of blinding and rippling hues of colors.

The metallic queen was at his right side, her sword already drawn, “And I was about to cut you in half.” She sheathed her blade soon after.

Arad’s arms tensed as he explained things. He didn’t take his eyes off any of the two queens as he expected them to last at each other at any moment, but Hati soon told him that the two don’t hate each other. They actually get along pretty well. It is just that their people don’t seem to tolerate each other.

With all of them, Arad teleported back to his castle, he finally found an excuse for his long absence in just ten minutes.