The dragon's harem

Soon, Arad returned with the scout to the capital and dropped them beside the lift. Hundreds of titans, including their military and royal guards, were gathered.

They had one question: “What in the nine hells was that?”

The scout explained what happened. How they were surrounded by the winged wolves, how Arad carried them all, and flew away. How he blasted a bloody hole into the mountainside, and how he did it a second time, sneezing an ancient horror into oblivion.

Arad’s power was just unmatched.

A second later, Tyal, Alice, and Claug arrived and rushed at Arad. “What was that?” Tyal asked, and Arad pointed at the still-molten mountain in the distance.

“Just some wolves.” He replied, and then something strange happened. Darkness seemed to writh from cracks of the chasm, crawl out toward the molten mountain side, chasing a tide of powerful monsters.

There were hundreds, if not thousands, of monsters crawling out and rushing toward the city. It was Darkness who heard them like that outside of the chasm.

The first breath showed them his power, the second made them question everything they knew, and now, he needed to sow fear and awe.

“Damn it, more of them?” Arad’s body shifted into his draconic form and glared at the tide of monsters in the horizon. Pure white light crawled from the depth of his stomach, up to his chest and neck with a rumbling hum.

Seeing Arad’s breath charging, all of the Titans ran away, hiding behind the buildings and houses. Soon, Arad opened his jaw, and their ears almost exploded from the loud burst. They could see it, an incandescent stream of blinding white light flashed from his maw and struck the horde of monsters on the horizon.

Soon, the world was drowned in light, the clouds washed away, the winds were killed, and the mountain range trembled as a massive fireball rose into the sky.

Soon, the devastating shockwave washed over the city as a powerful boom that almost cracked the streets.

The Titans crawled out of their hiding spaces and looked at the third hole Arad blasted into the mountain range. The monsters were nowhere to be seen, just glowing red-hot lava streamed down. The ancient darkness had long since crawled back into the depth of the chasm, chased away by the purifying white light.

Arad walked in his draconoc form and perched over the edge of the Titan’s plateau. His eyes stared straight into the depth of the chasm. Then out of nowhere, Arad started charging the fourth breath, and the Titans paled in fear.

Some ran away, and some just stood there in shock. “Do you want me to come down there, perhaps?” Arad’s voice was steady, deep, and charged with his draconic presence. That was a threat, a deadly threat to something that lived deep inside the chasm.

Arad then unleashed his fourth breath directly into the depth of the chasm, washing it in pure light. If he kept firing like this, the Titan’s capital might crumble from the shockwaves.

Arad was now looking at the chasm where his breath had gone and shook his head, smoke still rushing from between his massive fangs. “Good. That thing is gone.”

He shifted to his titanic humanoid form and looked at the Titans behind him. Among them was Chef Joey, still pale from witnessing the destruction Arad caused.

“Chef Joey! You came out to watch?” Arad approached him, “You believe this. We were ambushed by a hundred winged wolves.”

Arad started telling the story again and yawned in the middle, pretending to be getting sleepy, a signal of exhaustion.

This was telling the Storm Titans one thing: he can fire at least four blasts like that in a row before getting exhausted, and he can maybe even force a fifth one if needed.

Tyal was confused, Alice mortified, and Claug was amused by Arad’s acting. She didn’t know about the wolves, but was certain he made the other three attacks up. She also knew that those breaths were far weaker than what he could unleash.

The Titans might’ve already suspected that Arad was stronger than what their information about his clash with Vlad told them. Now this will prove their theory with a false result, clearing their doubts while still hiding Arad’s power.

It was almost sunset, so Arad was escorted back to the castle with everyone else.

At the start, the Titans were skeptical about his power, most thinking it was mere inflated rumors. No being could erase a whole kingdom with a single attack. But now, they saw that attack with their own eyes. And Arad could unleash it more than once.

The Titans’ stares were now mixed of awe, fear, and relief. This walking disaster was marrying their princess, which makes him an ally. Whatever strings King Gale pulled, he didn’t make a mistake this time. No one wanted to be on the receiving end of those blasts.

Even if they didn’t understand what Nuclear meant, they at least could see where the Chaos part in Arad’s nickname came from when they looked at the destruction he left.

To King Gale, this had thrown a wrench in his plans for the future. At first, he expected Arad to be twice as powerful as their information foretold, so he was certain that the main power of Arad’s empire was his wives.

Gale was sitting with his wives inside the royal quarter, “What did I expect? He has that Claug for a wife.” He held his head between his hands.

“But it’s a good thing now, isn’t it?” Tyal’s mother looked at him, “I was a bit angry at first when I heard that Tyal is just a concubine, but seeing his power now, I can understand that his other wives might be far stronger than Tyal is.”

“You don’t understand, that is the problem.” Gale looked at her, “We aren’t the only ones who sent a powerful daughter to marry him. Now he is collecting them like chess pieces. His power might be great, but the kingdoms of the world have granted him even more power now.”

The other wives looked at him, and one of them spoke in an even tone, “We need to tread carefully. Depending on his temper, we might get blasted if Tyal gets harmed while facing the Cronos Raptur.”