The dragon's harem

Chapter 1897: Arad Vs Violet I

A mother should be gentle, loving, caring, and gracious toward her children. She is the role model and teacher at home, and that was especially true for dragons. While the father would spend most of the time out hunting, the mother is the one who spends the most time with the eggs and wyrmlings.

Violet was no exception to that, even though she preferred a more distant approach to parenting, giving her two sons the bare minimum care and knowledge before letting them be forged in the furnace of life. Since dragons grow in power only when faced by the harshness of life, keeping the wyrmlings too protected would stunt their growth.

But she was still probably a bit too harsh, even by a dragon’s standards.

Faster than anyone could see, and with power enough to crack mountains, Violet’s fist shattered the fabric of space as it rushed forward, burned the air, and smacked right into Arad’s upper abdomen, twisting his body like a piece of paper.

He tried to stand still, he tried to resist, endure, or deflect her blows, but none of his efforts mattered. All of his strength, magic, power, and size didn’t matter. His mother’s fists felt heavier than any attack he had ever faced, and none of his tricks or spells could get past her radiant purple eyes.

Every void dragon had a unique take on their void magic, and no two were the same. Arad’s void magic preferred to devour matter and convert it back and forth from energy. Gojo’s void twisted the fabric of space and bent it. Altair could easily teleport matter, which she used for guns, and even Matilda had a unique trait allowing her to teleport her own body and limbs to attack.

So what was his mother’s specialty, what was the unique trait of the empress of the void dragons, of Violet Orion, or, like how many knew her, Vasilissa Orion. His mother was already an Elder Void Drakaina, and just in size, she should be larger than the entire mortal world by a lot. Arad would bet that the sun that almost killed him yesterday would be just a tiny piece of candy in her titanic jaw.

It was then that he could finally see and notice the utter darkness, the nebulous terror, and the truly horrifying nature of what he calls a mother. His Nymph’s body froze in place, sweating like a hot as he barely stood after taking a direct hit. His eyes dilated, his face paled, and his entire being almost turned into a terrified little cockroach.

His mother’s unique void trait was both simple, yet absolutely unfair and domineering. It made sense; she was the Void Empress and had never found a worthy mate even among her kind. They were all too weak to be looked upon by his mother, and now, he, too, knew why that was the case.

If he were a fire wizard, his mother was an infernal elemental, he was a mere blaze, then his mother was the entire elemental plane of fire. Her unique trait was a definitive claim over all space and void. It didn’t matter what or where it was, she owned it.

Arad jumped to the side, and his beautiful arm disappeared without a sound. His eyes looked aside with blood rushing into them, and then his gaze turned sharply toward his mother. Everything has void, even the atoms were mostly void with a lot of empty space between the nucleus and electrons.

All void dragons could sense that and control to an extent, which is how Arad can digest matter into pure energy or erase things with his breath. But there were limits to what could be done, for example, it was impossible for a void dragon to control the void directly under another void dragon, even an elder dragon shouldn’t be able to overstep on the body of a void wyrmling.

Arad can’t erase Altair’s arm, for example; he cannot command the void she naturally occupies. So how did his mother manage to erase his arm? Of course, that was the trait of her void.

Violet Orion, the huntress of the void dragon, had gained that time because she was once tasked with tracking and hunting other deserter void dragons and eliminating them. Her void was of royal blood, taking hold of all else as her birthright.

Violet was to the other void dragons what Vlad was to a weak, powerless vampire spawn. She ruled over them by her void, and no one could resist the control and domination of her void. No one could ever hope to fight or even challenge her, and so she got the title of the Void Empress. Many powerful void dragons tried to court her, but all ended up on her dinner plate, eaten one after another like hens thrown into the jaws of a tiger.

For untold ages, she was undefeated, unmatched, and utterly alien to the concept of defeat. She carried her job perfectly, hunting the deserters and erasing the foul gods from the threads of history by throwing them into her ever-hungry void.

Of course, that lasted until one day she was marching through the mortal world, hunting a fallen lesser god who had deserted the war against the abominations. It was then that she met a young, arrogant human called Alcott. He was hired by that fallen lesser god, who now masqueraded as a nobleman.

It seems that the nobleman informed Alcott that a powerful and rare void drakaina was hunting him down for gold and treasures, and so Alcott accepted the contract to slay her. Violet herself didn’t see Alcott as a threat, and that might’ve been the biggest mistake of her life.

She had tracked the fallen lesser god for two months, located him, and was finally about to slay him. It was then that Alcott made his move, and he had been preparing for the fight for a long time. Violet didn’t think that any time of preparation could help a mere mortal man stand up to an elder void drakaina, and one of her level no less. But she was wrong, got defeated, and the lesser god who tricked Alcott was also slain.

When she opened her eyes at dawn, she was naked on a haybed, having had her back pounded for the entire last night. Alcott was asleep by her side, so she took the chance to erase his memories of her as Violet and come up with the persona of Vasilissa.

At some point, she had expected that Arad would come to be just as deadly as his father, but she was wrong. No one can match Alcott’s skill and meticulous planning when it comes to slaying dragons, but Arad still had a hint of that.

She smiled as Arad flew away, barely dodging a void blast from her, and landed back on his feet.

”I thought you’d be less used to that woman’s body. But it seems you’re just as nimble with it as your old one.” She looked at him. ”Heal up, and let’s test your beauty and see how far it can go.”

”Say, mom. I know that Father had defeated you once before, and I doubt you were going all out at the time. But, how did he do it? I can’t imagine a human taking you down, even if you could only use a fraction of your true power.”

She smiled. ”Bringing old memories. You know, son. That night was the first time I ever lost.” She scratched the back of her head. ”But I’ll at least give you a hint. All dragons have a weakness in their elemental powers, and we void dragons are no exception. Your father just found mine and capitalized on it.”

She looked at Arad with a grin. ”Your father is quite observant, smart, and most importantly, he knows to stab someone where it hurts.”