The dragon's harem

Arad sighed and looked outside the windows, “I have three presences to use. The frightful presence, the awe presence, and the void presence.” Arad looked at them, and Tyal gulped. She can understand how the first two work, but what in the nine hells is a void presence?

Arad didn’t waste time and showed them what void presence is. As his eyes turned draconic, the three girls blinked and finished their drinks like normal. Tyal took a sip of her wine and threw her head back, “I never expected that I’d end up marrying a woman of all things.” Her eyes shifted to Claug.

Claug snorted, “That’s just a facade, isn’t it? For now, we’ll have to make sure your Storm Titans are worth our time.” She then shifted her gaze to Alice. “So what’s the plan?”

Alice took a sip of her wine, her eyes shifted to where Arad was sitting, but she couldn’t see anything. Her mind quickly wandered away, and her lips opened up, “I don’t really know. We’ll know when we arrive there. I should be able to use some spells to make it easier for us to mediate the situation.”

The other two nodded, and then Claug looked at Alice, “So? Since we’re here alone, care to explain it?” She had a smug smile on her face.

“Explain what?”

“How you begged Merlin to marry her. I thought you were a reclusive titan.” Claug giggled, and Alice threw her a chilling glare. “I’m only following orders.” She went silent for a second. “Yog suggested I do that, and I obliged. She knows best, no matter how wrong it sounded.”

Claug shook her head, “You religious folk are really strange, I would…” But she then froze, Arad was sitting beside her, and the three of them noticed his aura. They didn’t know who this stranger was, but one mistake and they’ll all end up dead.

Claug gulped, “A dragon…how did you come here?” She stood up and walked between him and the other two titans, giving them time to start preparing spells to attack. No, in her life had she sensed such a powerful dragon. It was as if his mere existence were enough to kill her. She knows she won’t be able to stall him in combat, so her best chances are words now.

Arad closed his eyes, and the three of them flinched.

“This is the void presence. I fade into the nothingness of the world for those in my range. To them, I never existed, and their brains fill the void on their own. They can’t perceive me either. But that part I can control. I can make it so people can see me, but they won’t sense or know who I am.”

They stared at him with dumbfounded faces, and he shook his head. “It only works in my control area, but keeping it up is hard. Very smart people would be able to figure that something is off, and it doesn’t affect constructs.”

They sat down. Claug scratched her head, “I can’t believe how I got affected by it. I thought I was quite smart enough.”

Arad smiled, “It takes time. I didn’t give you enough.” He looked at Alice with a smile, “But I was honestly surprised. When Claug asked you about begging Merlin, you replied that it was an order from Yog, but then your mind froze for a few seconds. It was struggling against the pull of my presence.” He leaned forward, “I’d say a few minutes are enough for you to notice that something is wrong.”

They looked at each other, and Tyal sighed, “Gods… you can disappear just like that? Won’t you…” She then realised the horror of that power, “You could’ve attacked us.”

“Yes. That would break the presence, but whoever attacked would already be dead.” Arad took a sip of his wine and kept talking with them. In his head, Doma was compiling a list of all the abilities that he had.

He can now see and touch souls. And all of his powers now rely on his soul.

He can rip those souls out of the living beings and put them inside void bodies to serve him, but that would damage the souls, unless they died inside his stomach of natural causes.

He can see wisps of the souls of the dead.

He should be able to fully use the power of his void to erase things. And now, he can even temporarily erase his presence from existence. The more time passes, the more Arad seems to discover about his new powers. Since there is no system to list them all for him.

Right now, she is the one trying to link all of his powers together to give him a chance to study them all. And as the carriage flew away, more was happening back at Alina. Right now, Arad is using four copies of himself to do multiple things at the same time. Two are heading the Strom Titna kingdom, and the other two are left for other missions.

Arad leaned back on his seat and looked at Claug, “But don’t worry. We aren’t that far away, and the presence seems to have affected the people in Alina as well. Except for brother and… Nina. She still remembered me perfectly.”

Back in Alina, Arad walked through the forest with Nina. “I’m sure everyone fell to my presence, how did you brush it off just like that?”

Nina looked at him with a confused face. “You ask as if I would know.” She looked around and then tried to think about it. “I did zone out for a moment, but then woke up immediately.”

Neither Arad nor Nina understood what happened, but it was in fact quite simple. Arad’s presence relies on the brains of living people to create stories and fill the void of his existence. Nina was different in that regard. First, her brain wasn’t strong enough to create stories and fill the void, and second, Arad’s imprint on her mind and soul was far too large to slip unnoticed when it disappeared.

Arad’s presence worked on her, but due to the large, unfilable hole that was left in her heart, she quickly broke through the shackles.

To resist Arad’s void presence, you have to be one of two. Either too smart and able to realise the void and break through. Or be attached to Arad so hard that his presence can’t be removed whole without being obvious. Nina was the latter.