The dragon's harem

Chapter 1950: Poppy’s Traumatizing Nightmare

Poppy’s eyes opened wide as she saw those massive tentacles start to move. The water around them boiled, and there wasn’t a single monster around. She could hear it, a loud heartbeat coming from the dark depths, and the moment she tried to stare at its source, her eyes burned, and she felt a horrible, painful headache.

She had gazed upon him for but a moment, but that alone was almost enough to drive her mad and scramble her brain. Cain, the monster of the deep, wasn’t the kind of creature someone like her could look at.

”Arad... this is bad, he is bad news. We can’t fight that thing.” She cried and quickly gathered her courage to try again, hoping that she was just tired. But the moment she took a second glance at the darkness, she pissed herself and started crying. What did she see?

Blood, gore, eyes, tentacles, black flesh, slithering organs, millions of rotten and hole-riddled brains, nerves, and sinew... It melted all together and flew into her mind through her eyes, tried to consume her intellect and soul... she saw fear itself, she saw the maddening reality of an eldritch horror, but her mind was far too weak and fragile to understand it, resorting to images and emotions.

”He is the unaffable, the unknown... he is far above what we could understand or face... Arad, we must run away. This isn’t our fight. Leave it to Yog and Amaterasu.” She was already bawling her eyes out, unable to believe that she had once worked with such a horror.

”Is that what you see?” Arad’s massive eyes glared down, and the only thing he could see was a monster of black tentacles and draconic flesh. ”I see my brother’s draconic form, if it were made of tentacles.”

She gasped, and Arad spoke again. ”Close your eyes and ears, we’re going to fight.”

The horror that she couldn’t even withstand looking at, the one she couldn’t even imagine. Arad was going to throw hands with it, right here and right now.

”What...” Before she could protest again, the fight started. She could hear the water ripping apart, the tentacles getting torn, and a deafening cacophony of explosions, thunder, and disgusting splatter. The magic she was feeling from Arad kept rising and rising, until it far surpassed anything she had ever felt in her life by thousands of times.

^Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck me! He is fighting that thing, I’m inside his throat... if he dies... no, how is he even fighting that?^ She could hear Arad’s deafening roars, the monster’s growls and roars, and the entire cacophony of their horrid clash.

Is this dragon the same Arad she knew? The same man she fought on the capital’s streets, and barely destroyed a few buildings and carts? If he unleashed his full power against her, the entire continent would’ve been wasted to ash. He wasn’t just holding back; he was treating her with more care and gentleness than a mother would use with her child.

She then began to hear the ground rumbling and shattering, the echo of steel being ripped apart, and the entire sea boiling and frothing like a pot left on the stove. Arad wasn’t just stronger than her, he was in a whole other dimension with monsters like Cain; he was an utterly unaffable terror that mortals shouldn’t even interact with.

^Of course, he is a monster like this... what the fuck did I think starting a fight with a horror that bagged two goddesses? Now that I’m thinking about it, how in Asmodeus’s left nipple did I not find it strange that Amaterasu and Yog are just chilling in his central church? No, Death herself was there two... You don’t have the Grim Reaper as your neighbour and be someone normal.^

She was already losing her mind.

^Damn it! Damn it! This is all his fault, Alcott’s fault. I knew he should’ve been neutered young. In whom did he stick it and get such a horror? No fucking wonder no woman bore a child of his, mere mortals weren’t fated for him anyway, that crazy bastard.^

The battle outside was growing tenser and more vicious. With each passing second, Arad’s magic grew stronger, and the deafening echoes of the clash became louder. At this point, Poppy started to have several extreme panic attacks one after another; she was now in Arad’s throat, in a horror’s throat, primed to be swallowed for food.

No, that itself didn’t matter. She had made an enemy of both of them. It didn’t matter who wins the clash; the winner is going to tear her guts open and make her regret ever being born. But she then heard it, a sound so horrid it made her bones crack, the strange, cry-like, tearing echo of something unnatural, rapidly growing louder and louder in pitch, and soon, it became so loud that her ears bled.

It was the sound of rupture, of the very planet crying and groaning as Arad and Cain fought, as it was assaulted by Amaterasu’s heat and by Yog’s dark clouds. Poppy had never thought that such a day would come in her life where she would hear a planet’s death throes.

Forget about Arad destroying a continent; he’ll rip the entire planet apart if he wants to. She had just heard a few days ago that the private maids’ selection had ended, and she had just started to understand the harrowing power those maids now held. One word from them, and this horror called Arad would rip a kingdom in half.

In fact... that little girl Therisa didn’t she just summon Arad on her? That weak, crazy, little girl had exchanged her pitiful and meaningless life to summon a world-rupturing nightmare upon Poppy. She could clearly remember Therisa’s crazed eyes as she summoned Arad; that brat knew very well the kind of horror she was unleashing, and that was probably the reason for her strong belief in him.

And then, she thought back, all the way back to the first time she sensed Arad’s presence, when he glared right at her blood. That digesting feeling of getting violated by his gaze and dominating blood control, to her at the time, it was so offensive that she could confidently say she was never hurt so like that by anything else. But now that she felt Arad’s true presence and oppressive blood control, she became aware of a very important point.

At that time, even though it felt like he violated her freedom, he was, in fact, holding so much back that it was like getting offended at being called. For what Arad was, for how large his power was, that was like a titan trying to gently poke an ant, and the ant getting offended at him for using a bit too much force.

It was then that the fight came to an end, and silence fell for a few seconds. Poppy could only hear bubbling from outside Arad’s maw, and that was probably the sea boiling; it was already hot to begin with. Arad’s magic was rapidly going down, and Cain’s magic had already fully disappeared. It seems that Arad won the clash, or maybe, Amaterasu and Yog got the bastard.

As she lifted her head and looked up, she could see some light coming through Arad’s massive fangs, and so, even while terrified to the bones, she decided to take a quick peek outside and confirm her safety. She didn’t want to end up dead.

As she extended her blood outside of Arad’s fangs and looked, she shat and pissed herself on the spot. The entire sea had evaporated, Arad’s draconic body was now floating on a sea of boiling lava, half the planet had been shattered and blown to space, and right in front of her, Cain walked in his humanoid body, riddled with gaping wounds from head to toes.

As she looked around, she could see what remained of the titanic tentacles, mountains of over a mountain of charred bones and burned ash. The entire place was so hot and radioactive that her blood kept dying over and over, forcing her to send more to keep looking.

Cain turned around and looked at the blood with a smile. ”Ah, Poppy. It seems you get to live another day. Arad lost the fight, but he damaged me enough that Yog and Amaterasu are winning the clash.” She smiled and looked down at his own body. ”Those wounds, they are refusing to heal. I have never been wounded like this before.”

Even though Cain had to hold both Amaterasu and Yog back while fighting Arad, the fact that Arad pushed this far was an impressive achievement, and Poppy knew that best.

”You were a good pawn, but not good enough. If you had better senses and detected Gojo before he approached, I would’ve won.” He shook his head with a gentle smile. ”I’ll look for another pawn, so you’re relieved of your duties.”

She felt a sharp headache, and growled.

As Cain walked away, a massive portal of blue light appeared in front of him, and he walked through with an easy smile. As the portal closed, light washed over everything, and Poppy found herself back in the capital’s street.

”What...” Before she finishes speaking, a foot pushed her head to the ground. ”There you are...” Death herself was behind her. ”I can’t believe you survived that. Now, stay still, and don’t make me kill you.”

Arad himself was nowhere to be seen.

”Where is Arad?” Poppy cried. ”He was...”

”He is alive. His body is getting healed by his wives, and he’ll be back here in a few minutes.” Death glared down at her. ”I suggest you be obedient. This is advice from Death herself, so don’t waste it.”

Death then sighed. ”But I guess, you already saw a nightmare.”