The dragon's harem

Morning came faster than anyone expected, right at dawn, the castle mages detected a Cronos Raptur signal and informed Gale and Arad.

Northeast of the capital, a hundred and fifty kilometers away, and over three hundred kilometers deep into the chasm.

The one they detected had a signal similar to that of a scout who died in the chasm five years ago. The whole team was wiped out by monsters and washed into the chasm by an avalanche. Something similar might’ve happened to yesterday’s scouts. If Arad hadn’t gone with them.

The Cronos Raptur would minimize the powers of its host and amplify them at a base level. But it can also mimic the powers of the person fighting it.

One of the knights soon arrived and delivered to Tyal a detailed report of what she should expect to face. A tall woman with blond hair and blue eyes, a master of lightning and mist magic. She could teleport for short distances and turn into mist, becoming immune to physical damage. The woman was also a master of hand-to-hand combat, trained by Zeus himself.

Tyal frowned; she knew the woman well. Her name was Zenia. She used to be Tyal’s sparring partner when they trained under Zeus. Her old man had a whole dojo of students that he taught.

“Can you take her down?” Arad asked, and Tyal looked at him with a forced smile. “I can defeat Zenia most of the time, but not when perfected by the Cronos Raptur.”

She folded the report and gave it to Arad, “Her death was a shock a few years back, and now I have to beat her corpse into the ground.” She went to prepare for the fight.

Arad sighed and closed his eyes. He gave Darkness and order to observe the Cronos Raptur from afar. And he also sent Pain to assist Madness in killing the Genius Loci, which is taking him quite a long time to deal with.

Soon, Gale approached Arad with a large smile on his face. “Don’t worry about Tyal, she’ll be fine.” He said with a proud face. “But in case something bad happens, I’ll be standing watch with a hundred of my strongest knights. We’ll swoop in and save her in no time.”

Arad looked at him for a long moment and then giggled, “You think you’ll be faster than me?”

“Don’t be hasty, that thing can easily infect anything that isn’t a living Storm Titan. You’ll turn into another monster for us to fight.”

Arad smiled, “All I need is to teleport in, snatch Tyal, teleport away, and then blast the monster to ash.”

Arad’s plan was actually quite simple and easy to understand.

Get in, get out quickly. Quite possible and safe considering his power.

King Gale remained silent for a second and then nodded, “Fine. That’s reasonable. But if you failed to get her away in time, we’ll jump in to kill the monster. Don’t blast us to ash.”

He then looked outside and sighed, “But with your plan, we won’t have any resurrection potion to harvest.”

“You’re right.” agreed, that would be a huge waste.

After a moment of silence, Gale asked. “If Tyal got the potion, how would you use it? Keep it as a trump card, or do you have someone you want to bring back?”

Arad remained silent for a long time and then answered in a calm tone, “If I’m to bring someone back. I’ll probably bring Zeus back to life. It hasn’t been long since he died.”

Gale froze, and so did his wives.

“My esteemed father? And why would you want to do that?” Gale asked, struggling to hide his worried face.

“Did you know, he came to me a while ago, when Zephyr was first sealed. We had some agreement by then, and now Zephyr is back. She asked me to bring him back with me, and only now do I understand how I could bring her a dead man.” He looked at Gale with a smile. “She said that she’ll come get him herself next time if I can’t.”

Gale’s face paled a little. Arad’s plan seems to have worked. While Arad still sounded like he thought Zeus was dead. Those words sounded like a threat from Zephyr to Gale. She is telling him that she knows Zeus is alive, and is also giving him a way to keep face and send him to her.

It was now up to Gale. He can either take Zephyr on her offer, give up, admit that Zeus is alive, and send him to live in Arad’s castle. Or keep pretending and wish for the best.

Arad had hoped that Gale would break right now before Tyal needs to fight the Cronos Raptur. But the Titan seems to still need some time to think about it.

Soon, Tyal walked onto the platform wearing a black leather armor and holding a long sword in one hand. Her white hair danced in the wind as she looked down at the mountain range.

It was almost time. They’ve located the Cronos Raptur, they’ve found out who the host is. She is now armed and ready to slay Zenia.

All they need to do now is wait for the monster to enter their range, and then she’ll jump down to face it.

Arad was standing behind her with Alice and Claug. He approached, “How do you feel?”

She smiled back, “I’m fine, don’t worry about me. What did father say?”

“Nothing, probably, would decide after the fight.”

She sighed. Tyal was ready for the fight, but a part of her still hoped that her stupid father would change his mind and she wouldn’t have to go and kill her old friend.

No, she shouldn’t look at it like that. She isn’t killing her friend. She is putting them out of their misery, killing the monster that infected their dead body.

Arad smacked her on the back. “Don’t worry about it too much. I’m here. If anything started going wrong, I’ll deal with it.”

Seeing his smile, she couldn’t help but giggle. “I’m sure you’ll do. Just don’t blow them to ash. I still want to bury Zenia if possible.”

“Got it!”