The dragon's harem

As Aella let her arrow loose, the werewolf fighter hid behind the noble lich and braced himself. He hated the cold, and that frozen arrow gave her a terrifying feeling. He couldn’t help but feel his fur stand out, and hear his guts screaming to run away.

The noble lich smiled as his barrier formed.

[Flaming Lich Fortress] The flames of his necrotic magic solidified into slabs of stone and formed a mighty fortress around him, a small castle that can even block a dragon’s breath. It won’t matter how powerful that arrow’s ice magic is; it won’t be able to overpower his necrotic flames and heat.

But then at the last moment, the werewolf gave in to his instincts and jumped out of the flaming fortress. His guts told him to run away from that arrow, and he had to make a difficult decision. In this situation, the lich’s fortress looked to be the most logical and safe place, but he had decided to follow his beastial senses.

The lich stared at him with frown and growled. “Scared?” Unlike how his face looked, the lich wasn’t angry or insulted by the werewolf’s decision not to trust his fortress. He knew better than anyone that a werewolf’s animalistic instincts are second to none, besides Alcott the dragon slayer.

If the werewolf had decided to run away a second early, the lich would’ve run away with him. But now, it was far too late to escape, and he had to trust his own magic and hope for the best.

As the arrow hit the flaming fortress, it burst into flames as the oxygen reacted with the necrotic flames and sparked into a titanic explosion that dwarfed the massive trees of the forest. The lich cried as his entire body was turned into ash in the blink of an eye, and the werewolf who was running away got caught by the fireball, getting flash-fried in a single breath.

The forest was painted red, and the flames reached the sky, but they didn’t spread thanks to Aella’s wind, forcing them to stay in a single spot. And from the remaining embers, the werewolf crawled out, his entire body charred to a crisp and bleeding. “Damn it… I knew it was bad news…”

His regeneration kicked in, and his crispy crust fell off, revealing red flesh and pulsing veins, which healed in seconds. Aella landed a few meters behind him and started approaching. The lich was hit directly by the blast, so he must’ve evaporated, and all that remained was to finish this werewolf.

But the moment Aella lifted her hand to kill the werewolf with a wind slash, a bone hand burst from the ashes and fired a massive necrotic fireball at her. The lich wasn’t dead yet. The moment he got hit by Aella’s arrow, he changed his plan and decided to hide and wait for a good chance to attack.

At this point, it was clear to the lich that they weren’t going to win against Aella in a fair fight, and he had to catch her by surprise even to land a single decent hit. She was just too fast and skilled for them to fight directly.

“Falling water, roaring thunder, and sparking fire. By the force and will, come forth…” Lexi flew right between him and Aella, lifting her right arm with a stern face as mana sparked from her entire body.

[Force Wall] A transparent wall of pure mana formed in front of her right before the fireball could reach her, and the entire area burst into necrotic flames. The lich gasped, and so did the werewolf.

Lexi was far weaker than the lich, almost ten times weaker, and her barrier clearly didn’t stand a chance. It cracked, and her right arm burst with blood, yet she still kept pumping more and more mana out, repairing the barrier each time it cracked.

With a scream, she held her ground and tilted the crumbling barrier upward, deflecting the flames into the sky. Even the lich was surprised to see her survive his fireball. In his entire life, he had only seen a handful of wizards as talented and capable as her.

Yet, he had underestimated her.

“A divine spark, spinning well, call of revenge, begone!” Lexi swung her left arm forward, and her eyes flashed golden.

[Yog’s Retribution]

If a wizard is talented enough to be noticed by Yog, and only if they were to be harmed by something unholy, they can call for her help and summon divine magic. When Betty was at the verge of death, she could call on Yog’s power to heal, and Lexi was now doing something similar, albeit on a smaller scale and in a less refined form.

The damage she and her barrier took would be evaluated by Yog, then unleashed right back out as divine magic, a counter.

The lich smiled. “A one blessed by Yog? It’s been a while since I last killed one of her wizards.” He swung his bone first upward, and punched the divine beam away. “I was one of her fucking blessed you damn flesh bag!”

As Lexi gasped and Aella looked back, the werewolf jumped with open claws. This was his chance to finish Aella once and for all. But before his claws could reach her back, a massive fist crashed into his face, and he was sent rolling.

He immediately jumped back to his feet, only to be punched back to the ground, and the large being who almost put him to sleep growled. “What are you doing to Aella?” Ganta growled as she grabbed the werewolf by the head, lifted him up, and socked him right in the face hard enough to send him flying.

Ganta and Lexi finished their job, so they rushed in to assist Aella. The two-on-one had now become a two-on-three.

The werewolf coughed blood and looked at Ganta with a smile. “So… we took too long her reinforcement arrived.” At this point, his regeneration had started slowing down, and he won’t survive another big attack. He has to finish this quickly and run away.

In the back, the lich seemed to be thinking the same. They have to end this in a single move, one big attack that would guarantee their victory and survival.

Did they have such an attack in store? Yes, both of them had a terrifying trump card, and both were certain they would win.

The werewolf punched the ground with his fist and smiled. “Sorry, ladies, it ends here.”

[Elemental Expansion:…]

“Burn to ash.” The lich’s full body formed as a flaming skeleton, and he lifted one hand, his empty eye sockets glaring at Lexi with burning flames.

[Elemental Expansion:…]

Aella immediately lifted her hands as well and unleashed her expansion.

[Elemental Expansion:…]

Lexi and Ganta jumped closer to Aella at that last moment to avoid being caught by the expansions of those two, but they were aware that in an expansion clash, their presences within Aella’s expansion would hinder her.

[… Vally of Pillars]

[… Hell Rider Parade]

[… Spirit Storm]

The ground cracked, and hundreds of titanic stone pillars burst out, filling the land like the barbed quills of a porcupine. Then crimson flames exploded out of the lich’s flaming heart, unleashing a tidal wave of flaming undead that flooded and flowed between the pillars like a raging red sea.

Aella’s powerful wind rushed forward and kept the pillars and fire at bay, but before she could get a chance to attack and clash directly with their expansions, Arad appeared standing between the three expansions with his hands together.

[Elemental Expansion: Devouring Void]