The dragon's harem

Arad landed in the middle of the castle, standing there in his full size, three meters tall, towering over the countless armor stands lined beside the walls. What he saw in the middle of the room made his eyes grow wide, the veins on his face bulge up, and the hair on his head stand.

Shells, a massive pile of them, cracked draconic eggs, all broken and empty. They didn’t hatch; they never got the chance.

Dragons were more akin to animals than humans; it wasn’t strange for them to eat their own kind, which was a much more common thing among the Chromatic dragons than the Metallic dragons.

But there was one spot where both kinds drew a red line: the eggs.

Like how a new lion in a pride would kill the previous male and his spawns, dragons almost did the same. Albeit the Metallic dragons had long since abandoned that tradition, the Chromatic still had it.

But what was in front of Arad wasn’t just some dragon stealing a drakaina and killing the spawns of the dragon before him; it was a monster that stole the eggs to eat them. A thing that even the Chromatic would rage against, let alone the Metallic dragons.

“Come out.”

Arad growled, and the empty shells in front of him were all sucked away into his stomach. He’ll give them later to Kinryuu to find their parents, but for now, he has to keep the remains safe.

No one responded to Arad’s call, so he was slowly getting more pissed off by the second.

When Kali called and told him that there was an egg eater in this castle, he almost didn’t believe her. She had even sent a powerful demon here to deal with the dragon, only for that demon to end up getting killed.

Kali would’ve usually sent Kayden to deal with such a thing, but Kayden was busy in the war now.

Now that Arad saw the eaten eggs, he didn’t need to hear any other reason. “If you won’t come out, then I’ll drag you out.”

Arad teleported out with a void step, leaving the hall empty. As he landed outside, the rest of the armed Metallic dragons had already surrounded the castle and were waiting for something to happen.

Kinryuu rushed toward Arad, “What’s inside?”

Alcott had told Kinryuu that it was Kali who asked Arad to act. Just knowing that allowed Kinryuu to guess what kind of horrors might hide behind the castle’s walls.

Arad didn’t answer for a second, but then spoke in an even tone, “An egg eater.” He then plunged his massive arm into the ground beside the castle’s wall, causing a massive earthquake.

All of the Metallic dragons behind jumped away, some shifted into their titanic draconic forms, and some remained in their humanoid form, ready to fight. One of them even called for more patrols and special forces to storm the area.

But in the next second, even Kinryuu had to back away because Arad didn’t just punch the ground; he plunged his fist down and unleashed a massive wave of gravity magic, trying to tear the castle out from its roots, and he managed to do it.

Arad stood there, lifting the entire castle with one arm up into the air. If not for his gravity magic, the whole castle would’ve crumbled into pieces.

“GET OUT!” Arad screamed and slammed the castle onto he ground, shattering it whole in the blink of an eye.

As the castle exploded and debris flew everywhere, all of the dragons retreated back, even Alcott hitched a ride on Kinryuu’s shoulder and got out of the way.

“ARAD!” Malina shouted. She could remember Aella telling her about the day Arad almost snapped when Zephyr got sealed out. He was expecting an egg now, so seeing or even hearing about a dragon that stole and ate dragon’s eggs was bound to get him to snap.

“He’ll destroy this whole place!” She shouted back at Alcott, but he didn’t seem to care that much. “If he wanted to burn the fortress down, he would’ve blown the castle with a single breath.”

Alcott was right, Arad was pissed off, but he wasn’t raging. “Everyone, get away and don’t get involved, unless you want Arad to skin you alive with whatever is inside that castle.”

As Kinryuu landed, Alcott landed right behind him and sighed, “How come you didn’t pick up on this?”

“Got a report about several eggs going missing, but the case was still under investigation. We don’t have a goddess on the watch for things like this. Bahamut keeps watch most of the time, but dragons usually have tricks to avoid his gaze.”

As Kinryuu was explaining, the debris of the castle moved, and a massive dragon emerged. The shadow of the dragon didn’t last long because he immediately shifted to a humanoid form, walking out of the dust, standing as tall as Arad.

He was a copper dragon, and an Elder on top of that, one that Kinryuu thought was dead long ago. The dragon was tall, with brown hair, a chunk missing out of his head alongside his right eye, and a broken left horn. For original chapters go to NoveI(F)ire.net

The dragon looked around, his one eye barely moving. He spotted Kinryuu in the back first. His lips moved, “Kinr…”

But before he could even finish a single word, Arad was already standing right in his face. Arad’s hand moved in the blink of an eye, grabbing the dragon by the face. The air around them screamed, and the ground melted. Arad wasn’t going to listen, not even for a second.

Before anyone could do anything, the whole fortress tilted aside as Arad threw the dragon into the sky. Only a crater of molten ground was left where Arad and the dragon stood.

The copper dragon realised that he was thrown into the sky when he found himself looking down at the planet a blink of an eye later, with all of his scales charred and falling off from the extreme radiation released from Arad, who was just a few meters beneath him, charging a full breath.

Half a second later, a third sun illuminated the sky as Arad unleashed the biggest breath he could muster to evaporate the dragon whole. This was the kind of breath he would use to dig into the core of a planet and destroy it, but now, he unleashed all of that power on a single dragon to erase him out of existence.

The copper dragon didn’t even get a chance to speak or make a move. The dragons on the fortress below remained silent as they saw the explosion in the sky, fully understanding that if Arad unleashed such a thing on the fortress, he would destroy it whole.

But it didn’t end there. The copper dragon died instantly, and his soul flew away, heading toward the gates of Bahamut to be judged and punished by him.

But before the copper dragon’s soul could reach the gates of Bahamut’s heaven, a hand grabbed him by the head from behind. Arad was there, and he wasn’t anywhere near done.

Arad ripped the dragon’s soul from the light, pulling it away from Bahamut’s gates and throwing it into the abyss, to Kali’s domain.

Kali was the one who wanted the dragon killed, but all Metallic dragons belonged to Bahamut. Usually, the two gods would talk about it and decide who gets the soul to either punish or reward it.

But in this case, Arad got in the way; he didn’t even care. The moment he killed the copper dragon, he grabbed his soul before it could leave the mortal world and threw it right into Kali’s domain.

Arad landed back on the fortress where he had jumped, and the dragons there stared at him with pale faces. They had just watched him erase an elder dragon from existence in the blink of an eye.

Arad had beaten Gamond when he was just a juvenile, before he evolved into an adult dragon. That only meant he was an even bigger monster right now, with power that far surpassed what most can imagine.

Arad took a deep breath and looked back, “Don’t worry, this is another incarnation. I won’t return with a cursed one.”

Arad then walked toward Kinryuu and looked at Loki, “Bring something, I’ve got the shells of over a hundred eggs. We need to get them to their parents.”