The dragon's harem

Arad lumbered from the shadows, taking a step into the light. He was massive, titanic in size, and his mere presence caused the room to grow colder, sending shivers down everyone’s backs. Arms thicker than a woman’s hips, legs the size of tree trunks, and a large torso that resembled a brick wall, even the biggest chair looked like a toy in front of his immense, hulking mass.

Everyone in the room beside Peara was far stronger than any Master, reaching realms only touched by the strongest of this world. But with Arad there, none of them dared take a single breath. They might be arrogant, but they weren’t fools.

Several layers of arrays and barrier magic sealed this room, making it impossible to get in and out of it undetected. Not even Elders could sneak in, but Arad did it.

Arad didn’t just sneak past the barriers, but past everyone in the room, and he even managed to hide in the shadows undetected by those who could sense a fly in absolute darkness.

He didn’t say a word and just approached the meeting table, pulled back, and sat on it. Looking at everyone around, he maintained his calm, aloof face. For half an hour, he sat there doing nothing, and they were forced to stare at him in horror, unable to do anything.

It was then that one spoke; Peara’s mother opened her mouth. “Do you know where you are?” She could barely get those words out of her throat, but in the next moment, she regretted opening her mouth.

Arad didn’t answer her question; he gave her a glare and a single order. “Sit.” Pointing at his lap. She paled, froze in place for a while, but when she noticed everyone growing more terrified, she stood, approached Arad, and sat on his lap.

Her husband looked at her with a broken, distorted face, and Arad didn’t pay him a single glance. He remained silent afterward, and another half an hour passed with everyone just looking at him.

When Peara noticed her mother almost dying out of terror alone, she gathered all of her courage and spoke up, expecting Arad to smack her away the moment her lips moved.

“Why… are you doing this?”

Hearing her daughter speak, Peara’s mother felt all blood drain from her veins, and she almost passed out despite being a powerful Grandmaster capable of cracking mountains.

Arad instead looked at her with a smile. “Just testing something.” He patted her mother on the head. “Get back to your seat.”

Hearing those words, she quickly rushed away, gasping for air.

As he leaned back, he cracked a smile. “You think I’m here because of your offer, but that isn’t quite right.” He looked at them, almost taking all the space in the room. “I would’ve accepted it normally. Believe it or not.”

He then looked at one of Peara’s aunts, “You there, your turn.” He didn’t even need to point. She stood on her own, and with a pale face and shaking knees, she made her way to him and sat on his lap. Her husband opened his mouth as if to speak, but then closed it, unable to utter a word.

They expected Arad to explain, but he didn’t. He wanted them to burn in silence for a while and let the terror sink in. For another half an hour, he didn’t say a word and waited until Peara’s aunt was about to pass out of fear.

“So about…” When he suddenly spoke, Peara’s aunt emptied her bladder right there on his lap. For a moment, she thought she was dead. To her and everyone’s surprise, Arad remained dry.

He even seemed to ignore her. “… the offer. There was one part of it that I didn’t like.”

He grabbed Peara’s aunt by the hair, pushed her to the ground, and then kicked her across the room to where her husband was. “You’re the one who suggested the idea, and everyone here agreed to it. Except her.”

He pointed at Peara with his thumb. “You tried to sacrifice her, throw her into the flames to empower your bloodline.” He stood, and approached Peara’s aunt.

Seeing him approach, her husband pulled a sword and stood between him and her, only to get pushed aside like a toy. His sword, no matter how sharp, empowered, and pristine, was never enough to scratch Arad’s skin.

“If you wanted a kid of mine in your family, why not offer yourself? Why force Peara to bear that instead of you, the fools who want it in the first place?” As he stood over her crumbling figure, her head was no higher than his ankles, and when she looked up, she noticed that sleeping with this giant would kill her.

Her husband kept attacking Arad, but all of his attacks did nothing, and Arad didn’t even care to react to him.

“Peara is the first real friend my wife got here, and trying to force her on me rubs me the wrong way a bit too much…” He turned around and walked back to his seat, resting there in silence. Peara’s aunt cried alone for a while, then her husband came and picked her up. As they couldn’t leave the room, the two were forced to sit back on their chairs.

Arad laughed at them for a second and then went silent for a minute. “That was just sitting on my lap, and you’re all that hurt. You were trying to force her to sleep with me.” He then looked at Peara. “Bring me the money, I got something to sell them.”

She was just as scared as they were. She knew that Arad was powerful when she saw him cut Leon’s father’s arm, but she never expected him to be this level of horror, able to belittle even Grandmasters.

She reached into her hand with shaking fingers, and took one of the rings she wore off. “Here, it’s all in here.” The ring was special, a storage ring. But with just one glance, Arad could tell it was a far weaker magical item than he saw in the mortal world.

The ring barely had three cubic feet of space inside it, and so it could only be used to store small items, like a pile of precious gems.

Arad looked at the ring, and before she could tell him how to open it. Her father threw her a subtle glare, warning her. He didn’t want her to tell Arad and give him the money. That gesture was so subtle that no one could notice it, and it was a secret technique passed through generations in the family, a language only they understood.

Arad smiled. “You can just speak; signs are easily read.” Arad noticed and called him out, quickly threw a glance at the man’s wife. “I’ll let this slide now, but next time, she’ll get naked.”

Then, before Peara could tell him how to open the ring, the ring opened, and all of the money poured into Arad’s massive palm. He didn’t even need their code to open it; he was a master at space magic, and this ring was so simple in its magic that it was laughable.

As they all looked at him with terrified faces, Arad frowned. “So little…” He put the money back into the ring and handed it to Peara. “You can keep the money as compensation from them.”

As Peara took the ring, Arad lifted his hands, and hundreds of jades and rare ores started pouring out of his palms, covering the entire floor in riches. “I don’t need their two rusty coins.”

As they all stared in shock, all of that wealth disappeared right away, getting sucked right back into Arad’s legs. He then stood, turned around, and approached Peara. She was just as terrified as everyone else in the room, and almost feel to the ground as he towered over her.

But instead of doing anything, he just extended his hand, handing her several jades, seven of them to be exact. “You can have those, for you, not them.” As she grabbed what he gave her with shaking hands, Arad turned back to the rest of the family.

“Not a word of this shall get out. And don’t press Peara about it anymore. Live your lives as if this never happened, and you’ll be happy.” Then extended his hand forward and threw a pile of undergarments in front of them.

At that moment, everyone screamed in mad terror. Those undergarments belonged to all the women here except Peara. The ones they were wearing, and Arad had somehow taken them in the middle of all of this.

“If you don’t comply, then I’ll give you what you want. And you…” He glared at the men of the family, “If you don’t want your women to get what they asked for, then keep them, and this family in check. This is a threat, and no one has been harmed so far.” He turned around, walking into the shadows, and disappeared, leaving only an echo, a warning, “I’ll be watching.”

Back at the cottage, Arad stood with Tina, ready to haul her back to the mortal world to see her daughter. Outside, in the shadows of the forest, a tall man, an incarnation of Arad, watched silently, contemplating what to do from now on. Dark clouds and eldritch tentacles crawled beneath his skin for a moment before they all faded away.

Just as Gojo started his fall into Cain, Arad’s fall was also taking place, slowly shifting the tides of his mind, as one incarnation faded away back into his soul, keeping a watchful eye on the ruby clan in this world.

Tina must survive, and they were the firewood.