The dragon's harem

As Arad jumped into the frozen water, he could feel a powerful shockwave washing over his whole body and forcing his muscles to tense up for a moment. It wasn’t a hit, nor was it an impact, but it was the sheer cold of the seawater hitting his bones and almost forcing his organs to shut down for a second.

Any human would’ve passed out and died on the spot, but Arad was massive, energetic, and most importantly, motivated like a raging animal. His mind refused to give up, sending a rush of adrenaline to all of his muscles and forcing them to move at full force.

Arad could move and fight, but he knew he couldn’t last long. He has to make it to the other side of the river as quickly as possible, and he has to stay underwater so the Yetis can’t pelt him with rocks and boulders.

Arad’s heart started beating like a violent pump, and his arms flapped, propelling him forward in the dark and cold waters. With his eyes open, he could see somewhat well. It was blurry, but still illuminated thanks to the luminescent algae at the bottom of the river.

It was a stark difference. From the outside, the river looked as black as ink, but its bottom was well illuminated, yet still as foggy as a murky lake.

He could see many creatures swimming around him, normal fish, strange sea snakes, and what mattered most, several Qallupilluits who were already swimming toward him with malice in their eyes.

The Yetis had a good reason not to cross the water, besides the cold or getting pelted by stones. Those waters were the Qallupilluits’ territory. Any poor Yeti that found itself here would end up getting eaten alive by the Qallupilluits.

Behind the rushing Qallupilluits, Arad could see a large, fat, blubbery, elephant-seal-looking Qallupilluit, the ugliest of them all. Their mother, their queen, and she was the one he had to get to.

^Damn, you’re ugly!^

Now, Arad only had one question. Those Qallupilluits, can they use their water beam attack under the black sea? The water here should block all mana, but he had to make sure.

Then he saw it, one of the Qallupilluits opened her ugly, frog-like mouth wide, and he got a bad feeling in his guts, forcing him to dodge out of the way. The water beam only grazed his left shoulder, leaving a sizeable wound. Those monsters can still use their water beam underwater, but why?

Blood seeped into the water, leaving a red trail as Arad swam, trying to reposition himself. Losing blood underwater was very bad; he needed it to remain warm, so that was a lot of his heat wasted.

Arad swam toward the Qallupilluit who fired at him and circled around her, but she easily turned to face him and swung her claws, moving much, much faster than he could.

This was their territory, and Arad was just a human swimming around. Competing with a marine creature is one thing, and trying to keep pace with a sea monster was a whole other league of impossible.

But thankfully, Arad didn’t need speed here; all he needed was to be smarter than the Qallupilluits, and to his luck, they were as dumb as fish.

Arad shifted the position of his spear and put it in the path of the Qallupilluit’s claw, piercing her palm with ease using her own force. He then twisted his arm and used that to circle around and grab her in a choke-hold from the back.

Now, he’ll either use her as a shield against the others’ water beams or force her to shoot a water beam at the queen. He pulled his spear from her hand and stabbed her side, forcing her to open her mouth, trying to blast his head with a beam.

Arad didn’t have much time, he needed to breathe, and more than seven Qallupilluits are closing up on him. He had just one split second to make a decision. Would he aim at the Qallupilluits, get an opening and swim to the surface for a breath, or fire at the queen and risk getting torn apart?

Are those monsters ignorant enough not to defend their queen? Arad would bet they aren’t that stupid. Besides, a dragon always goes for the home run first, so he aimed the Qallupilluit’s face toward the queen, forcing the beam to fly in that direction.

As he expected, almost immediately, all the Qallupilluits who were rushing at him turned around and stood in the path of the beam to protect their sizeable queen. She was such a massive target that Arad almost didn’t need to aim, and even if twenty Qallupilluits stood in the beam’s way, their bodies wouldn’t cover her up.

The beam silently flashed through the dark waters, cutting three Qallupilluits in half and slightly wounding their queen, but it didn’t kill her. She was too massive for such a wound to matter, and so, Arad found himself in a tough spot.

He was running out of breath and was cold, too cold. Just to stay alive, his heart had to beat like a drum, and his muscles needed to keep moving or shivering to generate heat, and he was finally reaching his limit. It was a deadly loop.

To get warm, he needed to move, and to move, he needed oxygen, which he didn’t have any of, forcing him to slow down, getting colder, and needing to generate more heat, thus needing more oxygen, and the cycle kept spiraling out of control.

His lungs burned, his heart started getting weaker, and his vision blurred as he slowly sank in the cold waters. The Qallupilluit he was grabbing was still alive, and so she managed to overpower him for a second, turned around, and bit him on the arm, trying to drag him deeper and drown him.

It was then that Arad’s mind finally figured it out, how those ugly monsters could use magic beneath the black sea. It was simple, but genius. The water itself blocked mana, and the space weakened it.

Any patch of skin covered by the water can’t release mana, and thus, the caster is unable to cast magic. And getting deeper overall weakened magic, meaning that the bigger the spell is, the more wasteful it’ll be.

So… Arad had no solution for the second problem, but swimming up, but the first one can be easily solved.

Arad’s mouth opened, and bubbles escaped as he gasped. That was the last bit of air inside his lungs, and for a moment, the Qallupilluit thought she was going to drown him. But then, he smiled, grabbing her in a bear hug.

Her body tensed up, her lower half spiked, and she started violently twitching as smoke bubbled out of her skin. Then, she stopped moving and floated up, a charred corpse.

Arad floated in place, smiling with bubbles leaving his nose and lips; he was breathing.

The water around his arms boiled and bubbled, and each time he breathed out, those bubbles would combine and burst into flames, heating the water.