The dragon's harem

Chapter 1424: To The Foot of The World Tree

Cerilla had long since finished all of the preparation. She had nothing else to do but start climbing the tree. The trip to the World Tree’s top is perilous, always asking for more than people can endure.

The tree is massive, and its titanic branches are full of vicious and appalling monsters that never once touched the ground. Those beings are so powerful that any of the previous kings who met one never managed to reach the top.

The World Tree Maidens, it’s Miko, would declare a king’s death, the name of the monster that killed him, and how to avoid such a monster in the future.

The previous king had managed to reach the top, but the one before him died trying. A vile worm called the Dark Web Caterpillar killed him. A monster that uses its indestructible black threads to lay traps and poison its prey.

Arad looked at the blond woman sitting on the throne in front of him. ”A caterpillar? A bug, is it large?”

Cerilla looked at him, ”Of course it’s massive. Everything that lives on the tree is massive.”

The blond woman on the throne looked back at Arad and then smiled, ”Thankfully, it’s massive.”

Arad nodded, ”Truly, it would’ve been a disaster if it were a small bug that we can barely notice.”

Cerilla looked at Arad and the World Tree maiden looking at him. ”I see that what you were asking about.”

The World Tree maiden looked behind her, and one of the servants approached Arad and handed him a golden book on a soft red pillow. ”This is a record of all the monsters that were spotted on the tree’s branches and where exactly they showed up. I suggest you give it a read and use it as a reference to help take them down.”

Arad threw the book inside his stomach and had twenty vampires start studying it and preparing plans to deal with each monster. He then looked at the World Tree maiden and smiled, ”The tree is just too massive. I doubt we have a way to clear it out of pests.”

”You’re right. We can’t. Like all other trees, the World Tree is full of ants and bugs. Most of them are so powerful that if dropped on the world, it would be a disaster.” She looked at them, ”Your wife, Meryem, is such a monster. But, she is far too weak compared to the Giant ant queens living in the World Tree.”

Meryem now has a colony of millions of Titanic Ants, each one being as large as a massive house. If she wanted, she could march them across the whole world and kill everything in her path with sheer numbers. Imagining more bugs like her living on the world tree, of course, no normal king could make it all the way up without sneaking and hiding the whole way up.

Now that Arad had the information about what they might face, he wanted to know how long the trip would take. The World Tree is massive, so massive that he thinks it might take weeks, if not months, to climb it carefully. The previous elvish kings must’ve taken years to reach the peak.

”How long would it take to reach the top?”

The maiden looked at him in silence for a long moment. ”The previous king took seven years to reach the top, the one before him died five years into the trip, to caterpillar.”

It indeed takes a long time.

Arad looked at Cerilla and Jasmine, who stood behind him, ”Then I’ll try to clear the trunk by flying straight up, then we’ll make our way through the maze of branches bit by bit.”

”I’d advise against that. The birds that prey on the bugs would attack you. I suggest you use your camouflage and slowly climb the trunk, while hiding if you spot anything flying.” The maiden shifted, ”And I don’t need to warn you. No fire, no large explosions, and no burning things down. You’re climbing a tree.” She smiled, looking at Jasmine, ”And she very much hates to be set ablaze.”

”I know!” Jasmine growled in the back. ”I wasn’t the one to burn it, okay? Stop throwing it on my face.”

”Warning never hurt anyone.” The maiden smiled and stood, walking toward Arad with steady steps. ”Please be careful, I don’t want to hear that Cerilla died, or that anyone died.”

She waved her hands, and everyone got engulfed in radiant light.

”By the power granted to me, by my birthright, by the golden radiance of the everlasting tree, engulfed in light, embraced by like, I send you all to the base of where all started, to the presence of the World Tree. The first plant to ever live.”

Arad, Cerilla, Jasmine, Dalla, and D found themselves standing in front of a massive wooden wall that stretched from east to west. They looked around, noticing the elvish capital on the horizon behind them.

Cranking their necks up, they finally could notice that the wall in front of them wasn’t a wall. It was a root, one root emerging from the base of the massive World Tree.

”So this is the world tree.” Arad reached forward and touched the wood, feeling an endless torrent of mana rushing through it. ”We should start moving. I can sense multiple monsters approaching our location already.”

The four women looked at him, ”So? The carriage?”

”No, just get inside my stomach. There is a small world there with houses and everything you need. I’ll fly up and get you out when I reach the top. Or at least when I find a safe place.” He waved his hand and sucked the four of them inside.

Just at that moment, the ground beneath his feet exploded, and a massive worm swallowed him whole.

A second later, the worm exploded as Arad emerged from it in his draconic form. He roared into the sky and flapped his starry, dark wings. The worm’s body was consumed by Arad’s ghostly dark void, and he hovered above ground. Looking at the tree, the world around him started vibrating.

Who is more dangerous, he or the predators that live in the world tree? Can he establish a foothold here, or will he be a prey that must hide and prowl in the shadows?

To Arad, the answer was simple: he is a predator, a dragon that stands at the top of the food chain. This ecosystem just doesn’t know it yet. The maiden warned him against flying straight up, but he’ll do just that, and eat anything that dares attack him.

With one flap, he burst upward at blinding speed.