The dragon's harem

Arad clenched his fist and crushed Damnation’s soul, sending her straight inside his stomach to turn into a mindless, lifeless, void creature. Seconds after, Arad could feel his soul burning with heat as it supplied enough magic to form a void body for the great abomination.

Damnation was by far the strongest and strangest creature he had ever killed and turned into a void creature. The three hell gods that Arad picked, Pain, Darkness, and Madness, were powerful, but hell had long since weakened their souls.

He looked inside his stomach and saw the mass of void pulsing like a heart, then shrinking into a humanoid shape. A tall woman with skin as black as ink, eyes pure white, and hair that’s long, oily, and glows with faint red sparks between the obsidian black strands.

She remained frozen for a second, standing in front of Arad. Her chest rose and fell as she pretended to breathe. Even her eyes slowly moved, looking around.

The void creatures didn’t need to breathe or look around to see. They were technically blind since they didn’t have eyes. They were made from the void and only relied on it to sense their surrounding. They certainly didn’t need to breathe.

Arad had faced Damnation while she controlled Vulkan’s body, but he had never seen what the real Damnation looked like. Even this void body of hers seems to be just a crude imitation of a humanoid shame sculpted from the black void. That writhing mass of flesh must be her true self, a being that is locked in eternal damnation herself.

She was a sad existence, but it didn’t excuse how many people she made suffer. “Now you’ll be of use, not even death can save you. You’ve taken too much of the world, and it is now time to pay up, and work slowly to return the value you cost us.”

Arad didn’t see the laws of humans as they were. His thinking was more straightforward and alien to most. He understood the concept of prisons and killing as a punishment, but saw it as wasteful and immature. Humans are weak, they can’t afford the luxury of such things.

Killing is an easy way out, and redemption is only achieved by trying to fix what has been damaged. He can’t be bothered to waste energy on every ruffian he meets, but the big ones shouldn’t be wasted. Instead of giving them an easy way out, he’ll have them work to pay up for what they destroyed.

He looked at Damnation. “Oh, you’ll have a lot of hard work awaiting you. Like, Fixing the damaged Volcanic Titan kingdom, fighting abominations, carrying missions in the outer void.”

Damnation looked at him for a few seconds, then sighed, as if disappointed. Most of Arad’s void creatures displayed faint hints of emotions, otherwise, Pain won’t get aroused when hurt, and Madness won’t find anything funny anymore.

“I guess you aren’t honest, are you?” Damnation spoke and it was Arad’s turn to freeze for a second. “Beating me to a pulp, exhausting me to the bone, setting that Spirit Nar on me, then finally brutally crushing my soul down… that’s a bit too rough foreplay even for me.”

She started thinking, “Well, I take the first back. Just don’t set Nar on me or crush my soul. I spent my whole life torturing things, it gets me going.” She blushed, “I did get a bit excited when you were punching me, I won’t lie. I just wish you were a bit more methodical with it. I always wanted to know how it’ll feel to be the one sitting on the torture chair.”

Arad lifted his hand and she gasped, ready to take a hit, but he rubbed his face. “Wait, how are you able to speak? You shouldn’t be the same one as before, I even crushed your soul, intentionally damaging it.”

Damnation tilted her head. “Abomination souls aren’t the same as normal-in-universe souls. What you did is destroy my abomination soul and then put it into a void shell.” Damnation looked at her hands, “I’m neither alive nor dead, I do have a soul, but mine is neither like the abominations nor other souls.” She smiled.

“I’m merely a sentient tool, a spell that has a mind and can think, an artificial intelligence that is copied from a once living soul.”

As she was speaking, Arad immediately looked at her soul. It was indeed cracked, just like Tina’s soul, but Damnation’s situation was far worse.

While Tina has a small and weak human soul that would leak all of its energy in months and die, Damnation’s soul was VAST, enough to last her a couple of centuries at least, if not several thousand. But considering how long she lived, that must be like having two extra seconds to live for a human.

A large smile crossed Damnation’s face. “I see! This is a test. Isn’t it? Now I have a timer on me and I must impress you before my timer ends.”

“Arad! What is going on?” Eris flew down and landed beside him. She threw a glance at the still-happy Damnation and then looked back at Arad. “Did something go wrong?”

“She is, sentient. She can think, remember her past life, and also talk.” He pointed at Damnation.

Eris looked at her, “Doesn’t that just mean we can ask her about the abominations and their grand plans?”

Damnation shook her head. “The abominations plans must’ve been changing lately. I’ve been locked down for so long and didn’t have a chance to contact them. You probably know more about the current events than I do. But I can still give you some history and predictions, based on events that are at least several thousand years old.”

Arad looked at her, “What is Nyar’s weakness? How do we kill him.”

Damnation shook her head, “He doesn’t have a weakness. If he has one, he doesn’t trust me or any other abomination to let us know it. All I know is that he doesn’t fear anyone, not even AO like all of us do. But he makes an effort to avoid one person. The guardian of the gate of the forbidden knowledge, a mass of black tar, eyes, and malice.”

“That has to be Yog. With what she knows, he probably avoids her to make sure his plans don’t leak out.” Arad looked at Damnation, “But that doesn’t make sense, does it? If she knows everything, she then knows what Nyar is planning, right?”

“It is complicated. First, she is omniscient in AO’s universe, while Nyar’s true body is outside it, he is outside her limits. Second, she has AO’s knowledge, all of it, which means she could possibly know what Nyar is planning and she is just not speaking.” Damnation shook her head. “She guards forbidden knowledge, the knowledge that would harm those who learn it.”

It was then that Nar flew in and glared at Damnation. “That thing is still alive?”