The dragon's harem

The mountain peak exploded into a storm of debris, fire, and ice. From the cloud of smoke, vapor, and dust, Undine flew back, barely using her spear to block a clone’s radiant green fist.

All of the spirit Queens besides Undine have turned into clones; their outer appearance has changed, but their harrowing power looks to be still present. This quickly explained how the abomination took over the world; it didn’t just give birth to all of those clones; it infected all living beings and turned them into clones.

“Damn! Get back to your senses! Zephyr!” Undine growled, using all of her strength to twist the spear and deflect Zephyr’s fist aside.

As Undine deflected Zephyr’s fist, a burst of air exploded forth like a shockwave and ripped the mountain’s top away, turning it into a cloud of dust.

All of the Spirit Queens have fallen. The abomination was a disease, and it had infected them, morphing their bodies and minds into clones. How did it reach them? Undine didn’t know, and she doesn’t have time to think about it. Under the assault of all the other Queens, one moment of distraction is all they need to kill her.

So, how did she survive being infected and turned into a clone? It was a combination of luck and her habit.

While Undine looked like a regular spirit from the outside, beneath her skin was nothing but water, always keeping her body as elemental energy. She had liked staying like that because it allowed her to change her appearance with ease and ignore most physical attacks.

She had spent centuries living alone as a walking glacier, so that state was a second nature to her, which made her body a harder environment for the abomination to invade. But what made it even better for her was that because the abomination stumbled in her water, she noticed its influence and did what Arad taught her, setting her water ablaze and incinerating all traces of the monster.

In short. The abomination’s infection entered her body, found it made of water, and was surprised. It tried to adapt, but that allowed Undine to notice the infection early. Then, instead of trying to fight the infection directly, which would’ve resulted in her losing, Undine set her water ablaze and burned the infection with fire.

^So, what Arad taught me works even here. Getting my ass saved by him even when he isn’t around.^ Undine smiled.

From that, Undine had learned a few things about the abomination they are facing, besides it being a disease. It can almost adapt to anything, but is unable to keep up with rapid change. The spirit queens would’ve been fine if they shifted their bodies to elemental energy in time, but it seems the abomination had crippled that ability first when it infected them.

She relied that information to Plum as fast as she could and started fighting. But many things kept spinning inside her head. First, why didn’t the abomination infect the spirits as they killed the clones? It could’ve done that from the start.

The answer was simple, it’s intelligent and wanted to get the drop on the queens, so it hid it’s true power and waited to ambush them at the end.

^An alien mind that we can’t comprehend.^

She hit the ground like a meteor and immediately bounced back, just in time to avoid a hand that rushed at her from the dirt. The clone had the same face as every clone they faced before, but Undine knew that beneath that skin was Gaia.

If Gaia grabbed her, it’ll be over. Trying to escape the clutch of her fingers is akin to trying to escape being caught between two colliding continents.

She spun around and thrust her icy spear down, aiming at Gaia’s head, but the clone had long since dived into the ground to escape her attack. Gaia and Undine had trained together before, and she ate a full-power punch to the stomach from her. She was shitting blood for a whole week.

^Ground is bad, gotta cover it with a thick layer of ice. I don’t want her grabbing my ankles.^

Undine flew back, her eyes darting around the battlefield and glowing deep blue. This was bad, far worse than she ever expected. Those clones don’t seem as powerful as the queens were before, but they are slowly getting used to their power, meaning she doesn’t have time.

^That horror need time to get used to their power.^

The sky above turned bright red, and a rain of fire swarmed the ground, painting the earth crimson. The heat was unbearable, and the air itself looked to be on fire.

^Nar’s flames… I saw her once begging Zephyr to give her some compressed air, and she looked submissive and tame… but when I fought her… bitch can melt mountains just by looking at them.^

Undine spun her spear and unleashed a wave of cold and frozen ice, instantly freezing the immediate area around her to prevent Nar’s flames from reaching her. She won’t risk a direct contact with Nar’s inferno.

The entire region boiled and seethed from the depths; the crust of the planet flipped and had turned into a roiling sea of lava and raging red waves. Gaia’s earth magic brought the magma from the unknown depths, and Nar’s fire made them burn even hotter, and Zephyr just added fuel to the fire.

^Good… the abomination is wary of me. He’s keeping his distance and trying to slowly cook me. I got time then for a big move.^

Undine’s tiny island of ice and safety, was quickly melting, but that wasn’t the only problem. Around her, Salamander and Rilyeh flew right above the surface of the lava. Salamander was protecting Rilyeh from the heat while Rilyeh concentrated on interfering with Undine’s water control to weaken her.

Undine had tried to fight Rilyeh once; both of them were water spirit queens, so it made sense for them to clash just once. But the fight ended miserably for Undine. It wasn’t even a fight. Rilyeh just used her superior authority over water to force Undine to kneel and kiss her feet. She then used her as a slave for a day before letting her go.

^Good, I wanted a chance to get back at you. We’ll see who’ll dance naked to amuse the other after this is over.^

It was a good thing that the abomination couldn’t pull Rilyeh’s full power out; otherwise, this fight would’ve ended before it could even start.

She looked around, sweating as the ice she had made quickly melted. That, in fact, wasn’t sweat. It was condensation, all thanks to the deadly heat melting and evaporating her snow, so the water condensates on the only cold thing, her body.

Soon, she’ll get overwhelmed and taken down. She can take on one of the Queens, but not all of them, not to mention that Zephyr, Gaia, Nar, and Rilyeh were all far stronger than her.

^I’m only holding on because that abomination can’t use their powers that well… so, a few minutes is the best I’ve got.^ She took a deep breath and pointed her spear up, getting ready for something she hadn’t done in ages.

The ice around her started rapidly growing. Expanding from beneath her feet to her surroundings, and then rising like spikes.

All of that magma and fire had dried the ground, forcing all the water out as vapor, and Undine was going to use it. All of the water in the region is hers to control, as long as that abomination can’t fully use Rilyeh’s power.

Zephyr flew down from the sky, Gaia burst from the ground, and Nar surrounded Undine from all directions like a flood of raging flames. But at that moment, time seemed to slow down.

^Five Queens against me. Ah, I feel like a legend once more, like that first day I became a queen and all the powerful spirits tried to take me down.^

Undine stopped spinning her spear and pointed it at the ground, her eyes flashing dark blue.

^I’m Undine, the undying last hero of Nine Seas. Kneeling won’t save you, Abomination!^

[Elemental Expansion: Iceberg]

The world had already been forced down by the harrowing power of one queen and the rampage of many others, now, it had to endure the daunting presence of another one unleashing her full power on its already broken back.

Ice bloomed around her, exploding into massive spears and spikes, large fractures of shattered glaciers, and soon rose into a towering iceberg that reached the clouds, matching Plum’s world tree in size and magnificence.

Undine integrated herself into the core of the iceberg, turning it into a walking mountain of blue ice, a walking glacier of titanic proportions that dwarfed the highest of mountains with its towering and jagged peaks.

Before the other queens could mount a counterattack, it arrived. A daunting blizzard that spanned across hundreds of kilometers, bringing frost and deadly cold with it. Snow fell like a blanket and all of the molten magma beneath the glacier’s presence froze back to stone.

It was so cold that the clouds themselves froze in the air and fell down like hail, adding to the endless blizzard’s deadly might.

The fairies inside Plum’s world tree looked out in horror, seeing the winter titan slowly crawling across the horizon, its size and aura engulfing the entire continent in a bitter winter, spelling the end of their much-loved greenery.

They had heard before. Pixies were cute little prankster, no stronger than a human. Fairies were powerful elemental wizards and fast fighters, matching the greatest of mortals in power. Spirits were forces of nature, powerful enough to force entire kingdoms to bend the knee and respect their authority.

But Spirit Queens were something else. When they take a step forward, mortals can only pray and beg, hoping they won’t be squashed under their feet.

A pixie would put ice in the back of your shirt and laugh it out. A fairy would freeze you solid with a spell. A spirit would drop a whole avalanche on an entire city and bury it whole. But a Spirit Queen, they do this.

They all looked at Undine walking titan of ice and cold.

“REPORT! Undine is going all out; she has summoned the titanic calamity, the Walking Glacier.” One of the spirits rushed in and looked at Plum as they slowly set her back on the throne.

“That’s good news…” Plum gasped for air. “If that abomination could fully control the queens’ powers. Undine would’ve died before being able to summon that thing.”

The entire continent shook with each step the Walking Glacier took, then trembled with each shockwave of the chaotic battle fought beyond the horizon. The spirits could only watch, seeing countless flashes of light, towering pillars of fire, and mountains being thrown around as massive cracks burst across the entire continent.

No humanoid empire could withstand the might of a single Spirit Queen, let alone the clash of many of them… But then, the fairies and pixies remembered Arad actually beating that Walking Glacier somehow in Yog’s world.

The fairies were a bit skeptical about their Queens shaking their asses to Arad all the time, but seeing the Walking Glacier up close and knowing that he beat it made them reconsider. Maybe that carefree guy is powerful enough to stand above their Queens.

Undine was holding her own now, but that won’t last long. She had the same magic capacity as Gamond, but not quite the same quality. While Gamond’s innate power was cold and ice, Undine’s innate power is water itself, so it takes her more energy to freeze it. She could use water directly to fight, but Rilyeh would hard-counter her authority easily that way.

Besides, it’s harder to melt ice than to evaporate water, which works great when fighting Nar and Salamander, and the ice’s hardness works well against Gaia’s stones and Zephyr’s deadly wind.

“Are they… dead?” One of the spirits asked, and Plum looked at her with a smile. “No, just disconnected. The queen’s power lies in their elemental energy.

Gaia’s real body is the mortal world’s earth; the same goes for the rest. They either have their power sources in the mortal world or inside Arad’s small world. All we need is to knock them out, and they should turn into elemental energy and regain control.”

Plum looked forward with a pained grin. “So, we need people with low magic footprint but capable enough to hunt them down.” It’ll be painful, but she has to call more people in using her roots.