The dragon's harem

“Camilla!” From the castle’s walls, a guard leaned on the battlements and stared at the divine hall in the distance. His distressed scream boomed across the sky, and his daughter, who was now standing face to face with the disgusting horror, smiled.

Her father was watching, and she shouldn’t put on a pathetic show. This is the first time ever he is seeing her fight, and it happened to be against such a terrifying creature of nightmares that could easily mow down tens of soldiers with ease.

Golden flames engulfed her blade, and her eyes glared at the charging horror. “Arms Up! Legs down! Charge!” She shouted, and her feet dug into the stone ground as she burst forward at blinding speed. The ground shattered, and her sword slashed through the horror’s arms like a hot knife through butter.

As she ran through the monster’s arms, she had a large smile on her face. Right now, she is charging a divine cleaver and using the golden divine flames to increase the damage of her slashes. Unlike experienced paladins, she still needs time to cast powerful attacks.

^Keep going! Let the momentum build up, and feel the connection with Lady Mira, deeper, harder, harsher, and let the flames burst into an inferno.^ The veins on her arms and legs bulged as the blood flowing through them burned golden, and her heart started beating faster and faster.

Paladins are the weapons of the gods in the mortal world. To fully bring out their potential, they must understand that and allow the gods to guide the blades. At the last moment before unleashing a big attack like divine cleaver, the god would attempt to fully take control of the paladin’s body to refine divine magic and distribute it, and the paladin must not resist that pull. It feels like drowning; the paladin must relax and stop resisting and let the divine magic flow undisturbed.

^I’ll behead this thing with a single swing, I’ll cut through all of those muscles and thick bones with Mira’s divine magic…^ Her arms started moving, and the divine inferno burned hotter. But then, a second thought rang in her head as the divine magic reached its peak.

^No… what if it regenerates? I’ll slash in half from head to groin, destroy the brain, heart, spine, and organs with a single big attack. All or nothing, a greedy move, high risk, high rewards!^ Her eyes flashed with divine magic, her muscles burned, and at that moment, the divine magic flashed bright white, surging with so much power that it looked like a blinding flash exploding from her sword.

[Divine Cleaver]

The entire city shook with a thunderclap, everyone who was watching the fight had to close their eyes, and even her father screamed as he saw her jump straight at the living horror.

“Camilla! NO!”

But when the flash ended just a fraction of a second later, Camilla was standing in the middle of the street with the tip of her sword digging into the ground, bright red and smoking. By her sides were the two halves of the horror, cleanly severed in half, and the black blood immediately splashed out around her, masking her bleeding arm.

She had managed to pull it off, a divine cleaver. Her goddess is Mira, the divine of greed, so she shouldn’t fight reservedly, but instead always charge forward and be reckless. She had never felt such a thing in her life before, all of that power, speed, and divinity flowing through her veins, seeping through her flesh, and finally exploding out of her blade, it was addicting.

“Is this why wizards get it off firing fireballs?” All of that destructive power at her fingertips felt both terrifying and amazing, but at least for now, she knew it wasn’t the time to marvel at her newfound strength.

Her father, who was watching, was now staring at her from afar with a gaping mouth, wide-open eyes, and a face drenched in sweat and disbelief. It hasn’t been more than a few days since she started being a private maid, yet she already has this much power.

As a guard in the royal palace, he knew a few things that most people don’t. Like how some of Arad’s wives are gods, and how there are actual angels crawling around the private quarter. He knew that all of the women who entered that place already belonged to Arad, and that his daughter was most likely getting held by the emperor and all of his wives, slowly being empowered to survive among them.

At this rate, it might be long before she actually becomes a mistress or even a concubine. Of course, all of that didn’t matter now. “There are more! Run away! You’re surrounded!” He screamed.

From the buildings near the divine hall, many more deformed monsters rushed toward Camilla. Her fight wasn’t over, but just starting. The large horror was just leading the charge, and the horde of nightmares was just arriving.

Camilla smiled. “Surrounded by unholy abominations and cursed terrors.” As her eyes burned with divine magic, her sword flashed with light. “The gods above, the dead below, and all that surrounds me is the dying and soon to be dead!”

Her body moved at blinding speed even though she wore heavy armor, her legs swung back, her shield smacked one of the horrors in the face and tore his head off, and the sword flashed so brightly that no one could look at it.

[Divine Smite]

Three monsters were already torn apart by her swings, and she quickly jumped forward, bashed one with her shoulder, and kicked another, and then dodged several attacks with ease as she stomped on one of the horrors and used it as a stepping stone to leap into the sky, and land with both knees on another disgusting creature.

She was the only one, a beacon of light shining brightly in the middle of the flood of blood and horrors, valiantly swinging her sword and shield with blessed violence and merciful murderous will. Even though she had just recently become a paladin and wasn’t used to it, becoming a werewolf at the same time helped empower her enough to fill that gap so her performance wasn’t lacking compared to any other paladin with a few fights under their belt.

The strange way she moved, the big swings, the blinding fast reaction time, and the unnatural will to fight and spill blood, they were all sparks of her beastial blood slowly boiling in the heat of battle. At this point, she even had to make a conscious decision not to transform into her werewolf form.

As the monsters fell around her like flies, many of them started ignoring her and running forward, and what was scarier was that some had heard her father screaming at her and had turned their attention toward him. They had come from many directions that by the time Camilla noticed, those horrors were already climbing on the houses beside the castle walls, aiming to jump and enter the bailey.

Camilla rapidly turned around. The monsters around her were almost all killed, and what little remained of them wasn’t a threat to Mira or the others in the hall. She has to change her objective and go slay those who escaped her blade, the ones aiming at the castle where her father is.

But she was already far too late, she would never make it in time, she isn’t fast enough. Mira’s divine magic only granted her increased attack power and impressive healing powers, but nothing to increase her speed, and even with her newfound werewolf physique, she was nowhere near fast enough.

As she took one step, she could feel them: Arad’s massive arms wrapping around her body and holding her tightly, his claws digging into her flesh, and the agonizing pain of her bones cracking. A voice rang inside her head, and she stopped breathing.

^If you want power, I’ll give it to you.^

She blinked, and she could feel her blood rushing. That oppressive and terrifying feeling just now was Arad’s gaze and dominion over her; it was scary, painful, and humiliating, just like how the vampires and other werewolves described it. He was the alpha, sigma, and omega of whatever pack he entered, a being that she must bow and submit to, but in exchange.

The muscles on her legs burned, and in the blink of an eye, a shockwave exploded around her whole body as she accelerated faster than the speed of sound, and the windows in the surrounding building all shattered. Everything blurred around her, and it all happened in a flash.

She was already on the castle’s wall before the monsters, her sword bright red with their blood, and her entire body burned with both pain and pleasure as a deafening shockwave exploded around her and sent all of the guards flying away, including her father.

^So this is Arad’s Lycanthropic powers?^