The dragon's harem

The Hydra’s six jaws approached Aella at blinding speed. Each of the monster’s massive fangs dripped with drool and flaming sparks. It was just away from adding Aella to its daily caloric intake, but it was a bit too late.

Aella’s face was dark, her eyes glowed green, and the sky above her head fell silent.

[Elemental Expansion]

Her magic expanded through the air, engulfing herself and the Hydra whole. Aella might not match Zephyr’s power, but she was just as terrifying. The Hydra’s head burst into a bloody mist, and so did most of its titanic body. The ground was ground to dust, and the chunk of the forest around them was no more.

Aella’s elemental expansion had gone through several stages of growth alongside her own power. At first, she was only able to expand her wind control and use it to direct her arrows, and then she was able to summon storms, and even a rain of wind arrows.

Right now, she had once more evolved her elemental expansion to increase its lethality and damage.

Aella’s elemental expansion now held three different attacks. Wind arrows that deal piercing damage, wind slashes that deal slashing damage, and shockwaves that deal bludgeoning damage. Hundreds and thousands of them exploded forth each second at the Hydra to grind its meat into a paste.

But that wasn’t all. Since Aella controlled all of the wind inside her elemental expansion, those attacks didn’t need to travel from her to the target; Instead, they just spawned from the air an inch away from her target, which is the Hydra in this case, and moved faster than the speed of sound. To add to that, those attacks were invisible and odorless, like the air they came from.

The Hydra only had a fraction of a millisecond to dodge several tens of thousands of point-blank attacks, which was impossible with its massive size. No one could dodge them all, except Betty and Luminous.

Lexi slapped her palms over her ears and growled in pain, staring back in horror at the bloody blender Aella had thrown the Hydra into. A hundred-meter-wide sphere in each direction of pure carnage and destruction, nothing in it was spared, and everything got torn to shreds.

The ground violently shook, the explosions were so loud that they caused her to feel her chest on the verge of bursting, and it was almost impossible to breathe. The guards on the walls were horrified and baffled, Lexi paled and hid behind Arad, and the people of the capital all jumped out of the houses to see what kind of titanic terror was rampaging outside the city.

Everyone was terrified. This was the first time they saw how Aella fights, and no one had expected her to be this destructive and brutal. The gentlest looking of the queens, the one who was preparing a feast for the people, the same queen who can be taken down with a piece of bacon.

Zephyr, who sat above Aella’s head, sighed. “Stop it. Your spirit magic is unstable; it might affect your body.”

“I’ll be fine. If I keep this going for a few minutes, that Hydra is bound to run out of energy.” At that moment, the Hydra was still alive. All of its scales and flesh were torn away by Aella’s expansion, only for it to rapidly grow back in the blink of an eye. This regeneration speed might even rival that of Arad.

Alcott looked at the blood mess with a curious gaze. “It’s holding up. I guess the Hydra’s natural regeneration and the gray dragon regeneration it got through its bloodline stacked up.” He looked at Arad. “Gray dragons don’t have any elemental type, but they are powerful brawlers with extreme regeneration, physical strength, and agility.”

Through the blood and relentless slaughter of Aella’s domain, the Hydra marched forward, regenerating through the damage with endless hunger and malice. Aella’s elemental expansion might be terrifying, but this Hydra tanking it was harrowing and appalling.

“I said, stop it. Your body isn’t only yours.” Zephyr punched Aella on the head, and only then did she stop her elemental expansion. Zephyr was right. Aella was now pregnant, housed Zephyr herself, and was Arad’s wife. She can’t go around and abuse herself like this as if she isn’t responsible for anything.

The moment Aella’s expansion halted, the Hydra’s eyes flashed, and its scales covered its mangled body.

“Fine, let’s lead it away and kill it with a small oxygen destroyer.” Aella flew high up enough so the Hydra couldn’t reach her by jumping and fired an arrow down. The plan was simple: The Hydra is now pissed off and would chase Aella to the end of the world to kill her, so baiting it away won’t be a problem. The problem was getting it far away from Alina’s domain, from Loci’s back.

“Good thing it doesn’t have wings.” Aella sighed as she fired a second arrow and saw the Hydra doing several jumps to try to catch her, but to no avail.

The Hydra boiled with rage, but then seemed to calm down for a second. It had six heads; those peanut brains weren’t a waste of blood. It was time to show the world what power it holds and why it should be the Alpha of this land instead of the new dragon called Arad.

Four out of its six heads looked at the ground, and their jaws opened wide. As a hiss came out, Aella paled, and Arad lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me…”

Flames gushed out of its maws, and the fire consumed hundreds of meters. Arad had to erect a second barrier to protect Loci and the city walls from the inferno, and he growled. “This bastard!”

As the flames grew stronger, their propulsion quickly surpassed the Hydra’s weight, and just like a space rocket, it started launching upward.

“That thing can fly!” Lexi screamed her lungs out, but her voice was drowned by the harrowing roar of the Hydra launching into the sky after Aella.

Arad clenched a fist, “Maybe I should just go and punch him down.” But before he could do anything, Alcott stopped him. “What are you worried about? If he can fly like this, it means he’ll have only two heads to fight Aella with, and the sky is her domain. He won’t win.”

Arad sighed. “You’re right. If it’s in the middle of the sky, then Aella won’t have any reason to hold back. He’ll regret stepping into her domain.” He pulled the still terrified Lexi closer to him. “Calm down, it’ll be fine. You’ve done well.”

Lexi might be a powerful woman, but she was nowhere near the level of a monster like this Hydra. In fact, this Hydra might just have surpassed the S-rank scope of power and stepped into a higher realm, an SS-rank? Super Special rank perhaps? He had never heard of a ground monster, a wingless Hydra that should live underground, being able to fly like this.

What was amazing was that the Hydra wasn’t just flying upward. Since it used four heads to propel itself upward, it could shift those heads to change its direction and velocity, albeit slowly. Arad didn’t know how long it could stay airborne, but he was certain it wouldn’t be for more than a minute or two.

If Aella doesn’t kill it quickly, she might need to fight it on the ground once more.