The dragon's harem

In the age of the ancients, in the primordial void before time was born, a massive being swam through the empty nothing of existence, separated from reality itself.

Soon, the being rested, taking hold and forcing a space of reality to be born, just like a bird building their nest in a tree.

Ages passed, and time was born, flowing forward like a great river, forcing reality to move with it toward an unknown future, just as dark and cold as before time.

The being had made its nest, flushed it with life, and was even going around decorating its work of art. Granted, it was a little bit ugly, even he knew that, but it didn’t prevent him from working on it.

Eons were born and passed, even time gazed at their magnificent length, unable to understand how its father even imagined such things, long stretches of the river of time.

But soon, or long, not even time could count, something started, somewhere in the nest. Guests, rude ones, but guests nonetheless. They came, begged his father for shelter, and he agreed with a reluctant growl. Soon, the time came to understand why its father hated those guests so much, and why he gave them a chance.

The abominations asked for a small portion of the universe, and then demanded it all. They saw AO’s gifts as rights, his patience as weakness, and his stern will as arrogance and evil.

They waged war against him, tried to rob him of the very universe he made, and the universe didn’t take kindly to it; neither did AO.

AO declared the abominations banished, cursed, and forever prohibited from ever returning to his universe. He already gave them one chance to live in peace, and they bit his hand.

The primordial laws of the universe, time, space, destruction, creation, existence, fate, destiny, ego, and all of their siblings had picked up their weapons to shun the invaders. The abominations, of course, fought back, spearheaded by one of AO’s children, Nyar, the abominable spawn of the forgotten rue.

But as soon as the war started, AO found a problem: the key that the abomination relied on. The universe itself was inside AO, a part of his very being as its creator. The abominations didn’t want to fight AO directly; they wanted to destroy and consume the universe. Nyar’s main plan was to use the universe’s power to rise and rival his father’s power.

AO could’ve ended the abomination’s invasion by just destroying the universe and starting again. Destruction herself had suggested they do just that. But AO didn’t want to kill any of his kids; they were innocent in all of this.

So now, with the universe being an integral part of AO, like an organ that he can’t just destroy, and his children being too precious to risk, he decided to give himself, give the universe, a defence mechanism that started with the four primordials, Yggdrassil, Adam, Asgorath, and Lucifer, and ended with the creation of the gods.

Those gods were purpose-built, specially engineered by AO, so their powers rely on the well-being of the universe to give them a reason to fight to the death to protect it.

A divine god of the sun, like Amaterasu, needs the universe; she needs the suns to exist so she can retain her power and stay alive. That applies to all of the gods; AO didn’t give them a chance or a say in the matter. They have to either fight the abominations and protect the universe, or die with it.

And now, on this day, Claug was staring at Arad in horror, seeing as her plague was getting wiped out rapidly by a wave of divine magic-wielding immune cells. None of them was powerful enough to even qualify as a cleric, but they instead looked like a powerful healing spell that Arad cast, one that didn’t belong to any god.

This wasn’t something that Claug expected. All of the countermeasures she prepared to deal with Tiamat’s divine body seemed to fail, because for whatever reason, her plague couldn’t recognize the immune system’s divine magic as real divine magic.

To Claug’s senses, it was far too similar to be mistaken, a bit different than divine magic, but close enough to be the same. But to her deadly plague, this was completely alien.

The plague slowly fell apart, consumed by Arad’s rampaging immune system as Claug herself was slowly losing the fight outside. She was nowhere near as physically strong or fast as Arad was, almost no one is, so the moment her poisons and plague became ineffective, the table shifted rapidly.

A minute later, Arad’s body started rapidly healing as the plague was all but eradicated, so he was coming to his senses. By that time, Claug was already broken and bloodied on the ground, barely trying to stand back up. She had never faced someone that her plague failed to kill. Arad was the first, and probably a warning to her.

“Claug…” Arad fell to his knees and coughed a bucketful of blood and torn lung tissue. He then stood back up and rushed to check on Claug. She was alive, but barely. Whatever thing she drugged him with, it was probably several times worse than that time Merlin made him break her hips.

He immediately started healing her with Kali’s holy magic and poured several barrels of healing potions down her throat, getting her back up in a decent shape in a minute.

Dragons are resilient creatures, and Claug was one of the most durable. Even after being pushed to death’s door, she managed to wake up as calm as if it were morning, except that she had a stunned and baffled expression on her face.

“Eris told me that if I fought you, I’m going to get pummelled in the arse, and she wasn’t joking.” She coughed blood, “That was supposed to be enough to kill fucking Tiamat!”

Arad looked at her, then at his hand, “If it wasn’t enough to kill me, it won’t be enough to even make her flinch. You must’ve greatly miscalculated that disease’s power.”

Claug shook her head, “I’m sure I fu…sorry, let me calm down for a bit.” She took a deep breath, then another, then another, “That plague, I spent over two hundred years perfecting to be purpose-built to kill anything, even the gods, given enough time. It should be powerful enough; it can’t fail.”

Arad nodded, “I get you.” He then lifted his hands, “But listen, I have to argue… it didn’t work. So… whatever you made, in reality, it doesn’t work.”

He then looked her in the eyes, “What’s worse, it didn’t work on me. Tiamat is much, much stronger. I have to say, respectfully, don’t get ahead of yourself. Keep working on it, and one day, it might work.”

Claug was silent for a while, thinking of a way to argue back, but she couldn’t think of anything.

Arad was right; she got too arrogant, too confident in her life’s work. She must start working again and perfect her plague even further.