The dragon's harem

The cave was wide, long, and twisting. Each corner hid another five corners and a crack wide enough for a man to fit in, and that wasn’t all; the stalagmites and stalactites filled both the ceiling and floor, making it hard to cross due to how slippery it got.

It was still cold, but nowhere near how it is on the surface. The temperature underground was relatively stable, which seemed to be allowing the water to flow unfrozen.

Looking up, Arad could see droplets of water raining from the ceiling, and some water even seeped out of the cracks on the walls.

But as the water dripped on them, Gojo’s light flickered.

The magical light that Gojo created and Arad carried in the front barely lit a few meters ahead of them, and it was quite troubling. The deeper they got, the harder it was for Gojo to maintain that light, as if something was interfering with his magic.

There weren’t that many things that could interfere with magic like this. In cases, it’s an immediate shutdown of spells, or a power that forces them to fail; not many effects could make magic unstable like this.

If this were any other place, Gojo would’ve been worried that some ancient horror lived inside, especially with the cave’s strange name. But he wasn’t, in fact, he got even more curious. This effect that’s blocking his magic felt similar to the black sea.

The dreadful sea of black water outside could block the flow of mana for anything that falls in it. While submerged or wet, the mana couldn’t leave the skin, and thus spells would not even start.

Right now, Gojo and Arad weren’t fully wet, but the water dripping from the ceiling and wall must’ve touched them, and some of it had to come from the black sea.

“It seems the seawater isn’t the only thing that blocks magic; going down below the sea level does the same thing.” Gojo made his light a bit stronger, and the two kept marching deeper. They had to explore the cave deeper and mark all possible paths near the entrance.

And as they got deeper, Arad suddenly stopped walking as he spotted a massive shadow moving ahead of them. He lifted his hand, and Gojo stopped walking and got ready with a barrier spell.

From the darkness, it walked out. A massive humanoid shape, covered in thick white fur, and with two glowing blue eyes on its massive, ape-like face. The creature, a Yeti as tall as Arad, slowly approached the two brothers, glaring at them with its teeth out.

The Yeti took a few steps forward, and it approached them. Arad did the same. Since it’s human-shaped, he could wrestle it better at close range.

A fat shark, a white bear, a monster bison, a brider, and now a Yeti of all monsters. Arad seemed never to get a moment of rest.

Back at the camp, Haru slowly stirred awake, reaching with her hand down to feel her surroundings, and then stopped, sensing that if she kept extending her arm, she’ll get burned.

Her visions weren’t visual, as weird as that sounded. She felt the pain, the heat, and the damage she would take in the near future, and with that, understood what would happen.

“Careful, you’re beside the flames.” Liliana approached and grabbed Haru by the wrist and pulled her hand away from the fire. She then pulled her up, helped her sit, and covered her in the fur hide.

“You got knocked out by the cold. We brought you here to recover.” Liliana knew that Haru had to be confused about what happened. Most people won’t remember the exact details of what happened to them before passing out. And it must’ve been even harder for Haru, who was blind and had to juggle the near future in her head and separate it from the present.

She stared at her, then smiled. “We’re inside the cave. Gojo and Arad had gone deep into the cave to make sure it’s clear of monsters.” She approached and sat beside her.

“I took the liberty to check on your whole body and found no frostbite or wounds. I healed you anyway, so you should be fine.” Liliana looked at Haru’s face. “You don’t mind, right? And if you do, then sorry, but I don’t care. I don’t want to end up having to cut your toes or tail thanks to frostbite.”

While living in Gojo’s castle, Liliana had seen and heard of many people whose stubbornness ended up in their death or the loss of a limb. In the deadly cold, people lost toes, fingers, and some even lost nipples or their meat-stick after being frozen in the snow.

Haru remained silent for a second, then lifted her head up as if trying to look at the ceiling. “I don’t mind, it was urgent. But, I didn’t get knocked out by the cold.”

She shifted and froze in place, her head looking toward the flames. “I can see… I use other people’s senses to support myself.”

Haru pointed at the fur. “This is brown, and this is the flame, and this is the food you made. Another soup.” She smiled. “Sorry, I’m using your eyes as my eyes for a while now. I tried to use Arad, but I couldn’t. I can’t follow his fast eyes.”

Liliana nodded with a smile. “I heard something like this. They met you in hell when they went in to find Mira’s father, right, and then you were using something like this to see.”

Then, Liliana’s face twisted into a frown. “Wait there you bitch! Sara said you can’t turn that off for days…”

Haru lifted looked at the soup. “This looks nice…”

Liliana sighed. “I almost forgot you’re a devil.” She growled and rubbed her head, then sighed again.

Liliana lifted an eyebrow as she handed her a bowl of warm soup. “Let’s forget your behavior for now, but you certainly did pass out of the cold. Here, eat something nice.”

Haru took a greedy sip of her bowl and then turned toward Liliana. “Don’t worry, I didn’t look. I never did if we weren’t out in the snow.” She then took another sip and sighed, feeling the warm soup gliding down her throat.

“What took me down was recoil from the sun fading behind the mountain. I was in the middle of switching divine magic from Asmodeus and Amaterasu, and the link was suddenly cut.” She looked at her hands, feeling a bit of Amaterasu’s divine magic as well as Asmodeus’s divine magic.

The two were similar, but different, and weren’t supposed to be wielded by a cleric at the same time. Thanks to that, she now can’t heal or use any holy or divine magic and has to wait until morning to finish switching.

Liliana stared at her in silence for a few seconds, then asked. “And Asmodeus just let you switch? She didn’t disagree?”

“She didn’t sound happy about it. But she is Amaterasu’s archon, so the switch is possible.” Haru smiled. “She gets the divine magic from Amaterasu and distributes it among us priestesses. The source of my divine magic is still the same, just the middle man is cut.”

Haru frowned. “The hard part is yet to come. After this, I would have to switch again to Eris… Or should I call her Sol?”

“Trying to work around Entropy’s restrictions isn’t going to be easy.” That was a reality, and Haru had to find a way to slip past the primal concept’s detection.

“Don’t worry. I’ll find a way.”

And back down in the cave, the Yeti approached Arad with a deep frown, extending his hand toward Arad’s face.

“GORO!”