The dragon's harem

“Today, you have helped protect this land and cleansed its darkest depth from the vile demonic corruption. The countless horrors have died, but that wasn’t their all.” He looked at the scared vampires, “They’ve merely retreated back into the abyss and will soon attack again.”

Arad raised his hand and pointed at one of the mountains in his land. The mountain was the smallest among its peers, its dull edge barely reaching up to the clouds.

“That mountain would be yours. Build a cathedral on its peak and start training both paladins and nuns. It’ll be a safe haven for all vampires who seek peace in their lives, as well as those who want to dedicate themselves to a new path of life.”

With how things were going in the Storm Titan’s kingdom, Arad would soon add it to the empire, which meant his dominion would just keep on growing.

While the image of vampires is quite tarnished across the whole world, Arad might still be able to salvage it. Their only problem, after all, was the need to drink blood. But as it looks, that problem can be solved in a few ways.

The first was the blood of Arad, Eris, and Akasha. Those three are very powerful heralds of the vampires’ blood and lineage. Arad’s own blood could be used to feed tens of thousands of vampires without a problem. It seems that the stronger he gets, the more potent his blood gets.

Right now, a vampire paladin in his army only needs to drink a drop of his blood diluted in wine or animal blood to sustain them for a whole week.

Arad doesn’t test it with Akasha or Eris’s blood, but he is certain their blood is potent. Probably not the same as him, but still powerful enough for them to easily command millions of vampires before starting to get anemic.

The vampires started cheering and chanting. Ever since Arad blasted their kingdom to ash, they’ve never got a land to call home. And now, the destroyer of their old kingdom himself is giving them a large piece of land to call their own.

“Zia is still hibernating after her evolution, but I would like to declare her as your queen, your archbishop. Her coffin shall be placed in the inner sanctum of the cathedral you’re going to build, and she’ll take command from the moment she wakes up.” Arad looked at them and smiled.

“This is all for the general reward. Now for the personal rewards. We’ve got the whole night, one by one. Give me your requests, and I’ll grant whatever I can from them.”

Arad pulled a chair from his stomach and sat down. Almost immediately, a long line of vampire lined up to approach him one by one, each having a request of their own.

Each of the vampires had their wishes and needs, some normal, some weird, and some unexpectedly strange.

One asked him to allow her to leave on a quest to find the remains of her long-dead family and bring their graves here.

Another just wanted to shake his hand.

And there was even a vampire woman that Arad remembered from the abyss. She was that Eris fanatic paladin. She requested that he form a special division of paladins that serve Eris directly, and he agreed.

Arad wanted to assign several vampires to protect and assist Eris in her work, and it seems the squad members basically picked themselves.

As much as Arad didn’t care about it, the vampires were now a religious, religious cult that was divided into four extremist groups.

One group worshipped Eris, the ones from Yog’s world still worshipped Akasha, the others worshipped Mira, and the rest worshipped Arad. While they all would follow Arad’s command as the blood lord, it was good for their morale to set them in the service of whoever they worship.

But while almost all of them took this chance to wish for something big and important, that didn’t mean that some didn’t ask for stupid things, Like this one paladin who wanted a new set of armor.

This incarnation of Arad spent the whole night dealing with the vampires in Alina while the other three incarnations were finally going to sleep.

****

In the Storm Titan’s kingdom, Arad returned to his room and found Tyal and Alice talking over some tea, and Claug and Malina were still arguing in the corner. Those two never seemed to get bored from insulting each other.

For a moment, Arad wanted to stop them but then realized that while they looked angry at each other, they weren’t. Claug found the banter amusing, and Malina was taking this chance to learn a bit from the old Claug.

Arad approached the bed and dropped on it, exhausted.

“You’ve returned.” Alice looked at him with a smile, “What did you do?”

Arad was with them just a few minutes ago. But he had to leave.

Claug looked at Arad from the side and smiled, “So? Who wins, me or you?”

Arad looked at her and smiled, “You win, and it’ll be quite fun indeed.” He then turned to Tyal, “Your mother is looking for you. Go see her. And, a piece of advice, don’t drink anything she gives you.”

Tyal frowned, “Are you two saying that mother would poison me?”

Arad shook his head, “It’s not your mother, but your father. To be exact, she might give you an aphrodisiac bottle to help you in creating an heir. The thing is laced with a powerful laxative.”

Tyal sighed with a sad and disappointed face. “Are they for real?”

Arad smiled, “Your father is quite certain that he can win against you. But to avoid fighting you all together and be safe. He’d rather remove you before the fight starts.”

Tyal stood with a tired face. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

A while later, Tyal returned and showed Arad the golden bottle she received from her mother. Arad inspected the bottle and threw it to Claug.

“Diluted Gracie’s Spit, the aphrodisiac poison of the mother of all life. They seem to have mixed it with a few herbs that are both scentless and tasteless.” She lifted the bottle up and poured a single drop on her wrist.

“Purple root, ash of Hindon flower, and lastly, the blood of a sleep demon. The purple root is a laxative, the Hindon flower helps the body retain water, probably so Tyal won’t get dehydrated, and the blood of a sleep demon exhausts and makes her sleepy.”

Claug shook her head and laughed, “What a primitive mix. I picked a commoner who could probably mix something better.”

She then threw the bottle to Arad.

“What will you do now? Let Tyal drink it? The bottle will detect who drank it when the content reaches half.”