The dragon's harem

While Arad struggled to consume Betty’s abundant light, Jack attempted to suppress Lydia’s unyielding radiance. She stood at the heart of the open field, leaning on her longsword with pure divine light seeping out of her body like a beacon of hope, holiness, and unfiltered godly arrogance.

Jack held his wakazashi in one hand, took a deep breath, and stabbed the ground gracefully.

[Eclipse]

Darkness rushed out of the wakazashi’s blade and flew toward Lydia, drowning her in a massive half-sphere of pure, onyx shadows.

Jack noted several things about his [Eclipse].

First, [Eclipse] is a power of the wakazashi, not himself. Thus, it’s unbound by his physical condition. That allowed it to keep working even when he was asleep or unconscious, but also limited how long it could be used and how frequently.

For now, he can keep [Eclipse] active for two minutes, and it has a one-hour cooldown. Of course, that is at its maximum range and potency. That would be a ten-meter radius and pure darkness.

That also meant that he could increase or decrease the range, change it to light shadows, or even attempt to change its form for a more efficient use.

The source of the [Eclipse] can also be the wakazashi or anything cut with it. This allowed Jack to strategically place and use it as a darkness trap that he can couple with everything else he has.

Lydia had recently fought in hell, and her opponent could use true darkness. She was quite surprised. The darkness that the creature used was far weaker than whatever this wakazahi could pull with [Eclipse]. The blade’s darkness was ancient, far older than whatever Lydia saw in hell.

Now, Lydia was standing in the middle of [Eclipse], but her figure didn’t falter. She knows Jack better than anyone else and how he’ll attack her.

Unlike her or anyone else in the world, Jack can see clearly in the darkness conjured by the wakazashi. That allowed him to set traps with ease and move around his target with ease as long as he didn’t make too much noise.

Five seconds was enough for him to spread several lines of steel wires around Lydia and set over ten traps for her to trigger just by moving.

Jack would then attack in a way that forces her to dodge or fall into those traps, which can include, but are not limited to, razor-sharp wires, exploding landmines, poison darts, toxic clouds, and magical restraining spells cast from scrolls.

Of course, if this were a real fight, she would’ve unleashed a destructive wave of divine magic to blast all the traps away and wash the darkness, but this isn’t that kind of fight.

Lydia thought about jumping out of the darkness, but Jack must have set several sharp wires around her. She’ll only mutilate herself on them. She knows from experience. She can’t underestimate Jack’s traps since he prepares them for each target, and she is the target he knows best.

He knows that she’ll drop the fight for some creamy sweet rolls and a mug of fresh, honey mead. That’s how he got her once. She felt like a little rabbit.

It was then that Jack’s attack came from behind her back, a stab straight to the major artery on the neck. The goal of this attack was clear: to push her to dodge to the left.

CRACK! The ground shattered beneath her iron boots as she exploded into movement, rapidly turning around with a powerful backhand flung to meet Jack’s face.

Her fist phazed through the air, and her eyes widened. Jack wasn’t attacking her neck to make her dodge; he already expected her reaction and was now crouched down, pointing his arm cannon at her stomach.

BOOM!

A flash of blinding light illuminated the darkness, and Lydia flew back, a dent on the stomach of her now charred armor.

Lydia’s eyes caught a glimpse of Jack in that short burst of light. Her fist almost ripped the upper part of his scalp away, and his head was now covered in blood. He risked getting that close to her in exchange for blowing her away with his cannon.

“That is my Jack!” She smiled and then landed on the ground. Her expression immediately changed as she didn’t sense any new attacks coming at her. That only meant one thing.

The ground beneath her feet exploded into crackling magic, and countless chains wrapped themselves around her body, pinning her down.

As expected, Jack calculated her trajectory well and placed a spell trap right where she would’ve landed. This is only doable if he knew many factors, like how much she weighs and her armor’s weight. Jack, of course, knew all of that.

Lydia dropped her sword, she won’t need that anymore. And instead, her whole body burned with divine magic as she growled, ripping the magic chains apart like a wild beast.

Unlike Jack, who can only rely on mundane senses, no matter how much trained his senses are, they’ll never approach the superhuman senses of a paladin.

He was injured, and she could smell his blood. Like a monster, she charged forward, ripping the ground around her. Jack gasped as he saw her heading straight for him. Each time they fought in the darkness, Lydia would get a bit better at navigating through it. It had reached a level where he sometimes thought she could actually see him.

Jack ground his teeth and got ready for a melee fight. Even with Lydia holding back most of her power, each fight ended up with him losing at least a couple of teeth and breaking several bones. She always healed him later, but that didn’t mean the wounds didn’t hurt.

Lydia had no problem brawling like a rampaging gorilla, swinging and throwing him around like a ragdoll. He can’t challenge her in a direct fight, she overpowers him in all aspects, both physically and magically. The only thing he had was his mind and petty tricks.

But those two things didn’t work against an irrational target, and Lydia now was that crazy monster lunging at him. She had rushed right through the sharp wires, mutilated herself, healed almost instantly, and was now upon him, ready to give him a harsh beatdown.

He lunged at her, “Fine by me. Let’s see who’ll cry last.”