The dragon's harem

The free Beastlands were a vast, near-endless, and vibrant land of forests, wilderness, and titanic beasts. There were almost no traces of civilization, and countless monsters ran rampant and lived their lives in harmony with nature.

Just by standing at a mountain peak on the borders, Arad could see countless titanic beasts, dinosaurs, and strange horrors that no mortal should lay eyes upon. This was the one place in the mortal world that was untouched by civilization, and all of that was thanks to Hati’s Eternity that bound this land to a single form.

“You are an exception, it seems.” Hati’s voice boomed in his head, and the entire world seemed to shift a bit. The sky became brighter, the clouds slowed down, and the forest surged.

“I just came for lumber.” Arad sighed, waving the scroll in his hand, but Hati’s voice rang again, this time sounding distant, powerful, and overpowering like roaring thunder.

“Can you break the shackles of eternity?” Far away, deep in the lands, right inside her room, Hati sat on her large pillow bed wearing a loose yukata, drinking from a large bottle of liquor, and surrounded by her beautiful daughters as they brushed her flame-like, silver nine tails.

Arad frowned as he could clearly see into the beast lands but not sense them; it was as if they didn’t exist, but he was clearly seeing them. Their form and nature had long since been shielded by eternity, locking them in the flow of time and space. Even if he were to blow the entire mortal world, the Beastlands would remain untouched, free, and never changing.

It won’t matter if Arad tried to fly in, shatter space, or reverse the flow of time. Those lands would never change as long as they were bound to eternity, a power that is so strange and elusive that even he was having a hard time wrapping his head around it.

“Can I just get the wood and leave? I have too many things I have to do, so I don’t think I have time to play around, especially not with eternity that might never end.” He sighed and turned into his draconic form, flew into the sky, and watched over the Beastlands.

Inside the castle, Arad sighed and looked at Isdis. “I don’t know why, but Hati is playing some kind of game. She sealed the entire Beastlands behind a veil of eternity and asked me to try to break it. That veil is powerful, and it forces the lands to remain in the same state as long as the barrier stands.”

Isdis stared at him for a moment, then rubbed her eyes. “Ask Astrid and Frida, those two are her daughters, so they might know how to break eternity.” As Isdis suggested, Arad stood, teleported toward them, and asked if they knew of a way, and they indeed knew something.

The first thing the two told Arad was that their mother probably didn’t cast the barrier intentionally. That barrier is a way for her shard of eternity to vent its ever-growing power from time to time, and while the people of the Beastlands won’t be harmed, that barrier was one of the reasons they had very little interaction with the outside world.

Their mother either was trying to avoid embarrassment by claiming the barrier was a test instead of just telling Arad to return in a few days, or that she was drunk. Whenever the barrier appears, Hati usually doesn’t have to bother herself with protecting the lands or dealing with outsiders, so she confines herself to her room and drinks to her heart’s content.

The barrier’s appearance was basically her getting a vacation where she can relax.

That only left the way to break and surpass it, which was surprisingly straightforward. A divine being can suppress it with their power since the portfolios had a stronger hold on reality than the shards. Someone could also attempt to override the barrier with their own, the same way the barrier of eternity can’t rip a chunk out of Zephyr’s elemental expansion or block it.

Hearing that, Arad knew exactly what he had to do. As the massive black dragon flapped its wings above the sky of the Beastlands, darkness rushed out of its body and rained down like a dark cloud.

[Elemental Expansion: Devouring Void]

Four thousand kilometers in every direction, making an eight-thousand-kilometer sphere of pure nothing. Arad’s elemental expansion was indeed far less refined and weaker than Hati’s eternity, but he had several advantages. The first was that his was wider, and large in size. He could barely fit the barrier of eternity inside, but he did manage in the end.

Now, Arad wasn’t a divine being, albeit having multiple wives who were. He couldn’t just will the barrier to vanish under his authority, so he had to get creative. And so, he got creative. Astrid and Frida told him that the barrier is temporary and that it’ll fade away when their mother’s shard vents the excess power it had accumulated.

He shifted back into his humanoid form and floated above the Beastlands in the utter darkness of his elemental expansion, looking down at the lands with burning purple eyes.

“I might be a weak, little adult void dragon with no will upon the world or your ancient shard, but I am not alone.” Arad shifted a bit, and from the shadows surrounding his body, something emerged.

Those shadows came to life, they moved like snakes, and the entire darkness of Arad’s expansion moved, rippling as a tall woman with hair that is black and white emerged leaning on Arad’s massive chest.

Linda’s glowing red eyes cast a cold gaze on the ground, and her arms extended forward. As her power flowed forward, Arad spoke above her.

“Time shall accelerate.”

Linda is an Elder Shadow Time drakaina; her power over time exceeded even that of Great Wyrm Time Dragons by a lot, and now, she was showing just how ridiculous her might was. Arad had asked for her help, and how could she not show off?

First, she separated the outside time from the time inside Arad’s elemental expansion so that everything ends in seconds for those outside. This was so he could get the lumber back to Mira immediately.

Secondly, she accelerated the time inside Arad’s elemental expansion, aging everything inside rapidly. As she expected, the eternity barrier couldn’t distinguish between the universe’s time and the local time, since it could only operate inside the environment that Hati herself could perceive.

As time accelerated, days passed in seconds, and the barrier rapidly lost its power as Hati and everyone in the free Beastlands aged at the same pace. Right before their eyes, the endless forest flashed, and something shattered above it like glass, releasing a massive shockwave of power that rattled the fabric of space and time.

But this wasn’t all, since Arad needed to fix the time he robbed from those people, and Linda used her power once more, but this time it was to reverse the flow of time. The time those people and beasts lost was all given back, but she couldn’t make them any younger than the universe’s time allowed, because that would rip the threads of fate apart.

That didn’t prevent her from trying, though, and what she felt made her quickly walk back her time magic. While inside Arad’s expansion, Linda had just realized that while protected by his void, the fates couldn’t block her manipulation. While the flow of time outside had man laws to prevent reality from breaking, inside Arad, it was like the universe itself cowered in fear.

No wonder that the Fateless Doma chose to hide inside him to avoid being ripped from the fabric of existence by the fates. Linda had chosen to marry Arad and be the submissive one even though she was stronger out of a whim, but now, she started to rapidly revise. If even fate didn’t want to mess with her husband, then she might’ve struck gold. Once he surpasses twilight and becomes an Elder Dragon like she is now, she was almost certain his power would far outshine hers.

Now she could even understand why Kali, the literal goddess of destruction, chose to do the same. It didn’t make sense for a woman of her power to just lie down and shake her butt to someone weaker than her by several magnitudes, but now, it was all clear.

It was all a matter of time. Should she look into the future of Arad and see what kind of power he would attain, or would she just wait and see it naturally? Would she support him because she saw the power of his future, or would she rather be the one who supported him since he was weak?

She chooses the latter. She won’t look into his future, and instead, she’ll be here for him even if he is weaker than her.

Arad pulled back his elemental expansion and teleported with Linda directly to Hati’s home, landing right outside her room’s door. As they landed, they saw two of Hati’s daughters standing guard, and the two bowed to greet them.

“Mother is waiting, Lord Arad.” They threw their gazes at Linda. “And she is?”

Linda looked at them with a smile, and suddenly, she looked much larger and taller. The two cried, tried to point their claws at her, but were surprised as their clothes got in the way. They had turned back into children.

“I’m one of Arad’s wives, an Elder Time Drakaina, and I control shadows as well.” She took a step forward, and the two girls returned to their normal ages. “Didn’t Astrid and Frida tell you about me?”

One of them sighed, “They talked about you, Linda, right? But from their letter, you were supposed to look much scarier.”

The other one opened the door and allowed the two inside. There, Hati lay on her bed, still wearing her loose yukata and drinking with several of her daughters there to serve and fan her. “Aren’t you cheating, my son?” She pointed at him with a finger, and her long, red nails extended forward like claws.

“I need timber…”