The dragon's harem

“Thankfully, we’ve got one that can see souls here.” Merida looked at Arad with a smile, and he shook his head, “It doesn’t matter if I can see them if that thing already killed one of you. It would be too late for me to notice. The scary part about it is that we don’t know how it can snatch people’s souls and take over their bodies.”

Merida nodded, “You’re right. And that thing can shapeshift as well, meaning that it can take control over a bug and look like one of us.”

“It won’t be able to mimic our behavior or power that way; the best thing it could do is get a sneak attack in.” Arad looked at Cerilla and Jasmine, who were exploring the large, half-burnt crack they were hiding in.

“They can use that sneak attack to get one of us and take over their body. I doubt they can control me, you, or Grace, but the others aren’t safe.” Arad pulled Merida closer to him as he sensed that she was trying to do something. He then felt something sharp stab him in the side, and her fungus seeped into his body, linking them together.

Merida leaned on his shoulder, her voice ringing directly inside his head.

^I think that thing is watching us, it has to be. This way, we can talk without it hearing us. I’ve infected everyone with my fungus. I should know if anything happened to them.^

Arad wrapped his arm around her, replying directly into her mind through the strange link she created.

^I’ve also got Doma to watch over everyone. If anything bad happens, she’ll strike right away. Just make sure you don’t get harmed. I don’t fully understand how your demonic body works. I can’t see your soul.^

^That’s the point, my soul is in the abyss, this body is controlled through my mycelium network. I’m immune to whatever soul trickery that monster can use.^

Soon later, Arad decided that while he would allow Cerilla and the others to get out from time to time, he would keep them locked inside his stomach most of the time, since the place is too dangerous even without the leprechaun prowling the place.

Due to that, he quickly sent them back into his stomach to spend the night, and remained in the tree alone with Merida, waiting for Grace to return from her hunt.

Not long after, Grace showed up exhausted. She had never known that such a place existed. All of the monsters here were crazy, fast, and powerful. She felt like a lion fighting a pack of hyenas alone; she could manage, but was still forced to run more often than she attacked.

Arad could immediately guess what she fought.

“Going for the ants was a stupid idea. Why did you think you could take on a colony of thousands?” Arad asked, and she frowned, glaring at him for a second before she took a deep breath.

“I just wanted to eat a lot of powerful shadows at once.” She lifted her hand up and then smacked the ground. Black spears emerged from Arad’s shadows and stopped at his side.

“Shadow Spears. This is one of my favorite area spells. It spawns sharp shadow spears out of my target’s shadow, and I can set it to activate on every living shadow around me.” She smiled, “Of course I’d test it on a colony of thousands of shadows.”

She then looked away, “I didn’t know that most of the spears would fail to pierce those bugs. I’ve ended up having the whole colony hunting me down.” She looked at her shoulder, “I took to the sky to avoid them, that was supposed to be my safe zone.”

“They spat acid and poison at you from a distance?” Merida could already smell it on her.

“And, the young queens had wings; they chased me all over the place. I can face ten or twenty, no problem, but over a hundred at once, forget it, I’ll die.”

Both of them had faced powerful enemies. Merida with the Rot Mantis and Grace with the ant’s colony, that only left Arad, who faced the great serpent alone, far above them.

“I could sense that snake’s shadow. How did you kill that bastard? It was massive and powerful.” Grace stood and approached Arad, taking a seat beside him. “I can tell just how powerful something is by sensing its shadow.”

Arad smiled, “Why? Can’t you sense my shadow and tell?”

“Your shadow, it’s strange. It’s, feel alive.”

Arad laughed, “You’ve got Ombre to thank for that.”

Grace looked at Arad’s shadow, and the shadow moved on its own, flipping her off, refusing to let her peek into Arad’s power. “And it’s quite rude.”

She smiled, “It feels more like a dragon than you do.”

Merida looked at her, and then at Arad, “He can act like a dragon if you want, but it’s generally better to act like a human.”

“You say that because you’re a human… no, you were a human before. Now you’re a demon.” Grace leaned toward Arad’s other side, “To us drakainas, this feels weird.”

Merida sighed, “Weird? How?”

Grace looked at her, sighed, and then waved her hand, “The first human, Adam, was as tall as a hundred and sixty-five elvish feet. He had the power to punch anything into submission with his bare hands; there are even stories of him punching time to force it to move. That was the power humans had in the past, but they’ve all but lost that might.”

She looked at Arad, “We dragons didn’t lose our power, because we value strength more than beauty and useless emotions when finding a mate. Arad is powerful, don’t get me wrong, but he doesn’t feel like it.”

She scratched the back of her head. “How did Aella call him? A giant teddy bear.”

Merida looked at her for a long moment and then seemed to realise something, “I see! It’s as if you know someone is beautiful, but since they don’t care for themselves, they always look ugly and homeless.”

“That’s it! I know he is powerful, but since he never shows it to me, I sometimes feel like he’s weak, and that’s disheartening.”

Arad looked at her and then at Merida, “Then, what should I do?”

Grace looked at him, and then back at his shadow. “Act more like him. Talk louder, and let’s fight often. We can always find a nice place to brawl in. Eris told me that you fight her quite a lot.”

“She needs someone tanky to test her power on and train, so yes, we fight a lot.” Arad nodded.

“That’s it, just, we don’t need a reason like training. To us dragons, brawls like that are like… what do you humans call that again?” She looked at Merida.

Merida remained silent for a while and then replied, “Cuddles?”

“No, the one where you pretend to fight and wrestle for a bit.”

“Just some rough play, nothing more.” Merida sighed, “For now, let’s focus on what happened here. Arad, how did the serpent fight go?”

Arad looked up, “Where should I start? Yes, the part where that thing tried to swallow me whole from the tail.”