The dragon's harem

Chapter 2182: A Short Trip Into the Elemental Plane of Fire

”Are you okay?” Altair stared at Arad’s massive head with a scared face, and he looked back at her. ”Yeah, I just can’t control my powers as well, and I’m easily angered or stressed now. So, I’ll probably act more like a dragon than a human.”

Eris approached them. ”That isn’t a bad thing in itself. Of course, we can’t have you walking on the mortal world like this, as your death curse would kill everyone, but the Elemental Plane of Fire is a different story.” She smiled as a large fiery portal opened behind her.

”Look, Merlin really works fast. To think she can open a gate to that plane just like this, and on the moon from the surface. She is really powerful.” Eris looked at the portal, and Arad snarled. ”She used my stomach as a medium to get her magic all the way here, and she isn’t the one opening the portal; she just got Nar on a leash, and she is forcing her to open it.”

After that snarl, Arad looked at Eris’s draconic body once more. She wasn’t just massive, but titanic. Her Amethyst scales glittered like the gem they looked like, and even her massive eyes seemed to hold a burning star in each. Half-dragons who evolved into dragons always age differently, but it had gotten even weirder with Eris being a goddess and a vampire, which made her look even younger than what her power suggested.

She was as big as an Elder Purple Drakaina, but far wider and more muscular. Her scales glittered with youthful light, and even her aura burned with a flame that only the younger dragons got. In short, and from what Arad could see, she was in the realm of elder purple dragons, but was in fact only a mature adult.

She was like him, far stronger than his age implied, and could be easily mistaken for being much, much older. This is the way he liked his drakainas. Powerful, but with a lot of room to improve and grow.

Eris noticed his gaze and looked back at him. ”What are you looking at? We have work to do.” She watched him walk to her side and could immediately feel it. An oppressive aura of pure devastation and destruction. She had just fought him not long ago, but she could already feel that he was already much stronger than her. This was the same rabid Arad that went on a rampage and killed all of the former gods of murder she summoned in their fight.

Arad was still there, but his emotions were completely different. ”Listen, Arad, if you feel like doing anything, talk to me first. You’re not right in your mind with your human soul damaged.”

He chuckled, ”What harm could I do? I’m still me, and I should be able to hold back quite well.” She immediately shook her head. ^Merlin, get ready to pull him back at a moment’s notice. We just don’t want him starting a fight with Zaleria or the goddess of fire.^

^That’s why I’m sending him with you. Those two are fire dragons that lived for eons. They are the most traditional of the dragon kind and would only understand the way of the dragons. Arad now is probably in the best condition to reason with them using their own logic.^

”Let’s go.” Eris shook her head and gave Altair a smile. ”Wait here, we’ll be back quickly.”

Altair flew away from Arad’s back and landed on the moon’s surface. ”Maybe you should wait a bit, call Mother Violet, or leave it to Nar to handle.” Arad glared back at her, and she shivered, jumping back as she felt for a second that he was about to smack her away with his titanic tail.

”We will be fine. You don’t have to worry. Kossuth had already invited me to visit and even gifted Mira a shard of her flame to forge with. She was also watching my fight with Eris, so she won’t mind us showing up uninvited.” He also lowered his tail and pulled it away from Altair since he could read her thoughts, and she wasn’t wrong. If he wasn’t keeping a close eye on his own actions, he would’ve swatted her away on instinct.

”What if things don’t go as well?” Altair gulped, speaking while making sure she was hiding behind Eris’s massive tail. Arad looked back at her with a grin. ”Well, I’ll have to see what those are worth.”

Eris and Arad walked through the flaming gate, and Altair sighed. ”He’ll get them killed if he does anything stupid.” As she sat down, Merlin’s voice rang in her head. ^Don’t worry, Eris is with him; she would keep him in check. Even if he ended up causing a problem, I already got Kali and Amaterasu on the matter. They both vouched that Zaleria is a good teacher, but admitted that she is quite harsh and had killed several disciples in the past who sought her training. She allegedly burned their bodies to help them achieve a mythical fire body, which only she had ever achieved.^

That was true. Upon contacting Kali about the matter, Merlin’s worries became a reality. She had learned that Zaleria took many disciples in the past, and all of them died to her training. Spirits, fire djinns, even other elder fire dragons. No one had managed to fully burn their body away and only exist as a soul as she does.

When Eris and Arad came on the other side, the first thing they noticed was that it was hotter than anything in the mortal world. Arad had swum through molten magma before, and the air here was even hotter than that. Eris herself was fine, since her divine body is made from pure plasma, which was even hotter, but Arad could have been in trouble, so she looked right back at him, and he was absolutely fine.

There was no air to breathe, and everything was on fire, as if they were walking inside a blast furnace turned to twice the normal output, yet Arad was fine. To burn him away with mere heat, that heat has to first get through the countless layers of insulation his void provides, which is nearly impossible in any reasonable amount of time.

”You seem fine.” She looked at him with a smile, and he lifted his massive head with pride. ”This much heat is nothing. Just a warm day.” He was even making his own oxygen inside his stomach to breathe, so he didn’t even need magic to stay alive here.

But due to his and Eris’s size, they were immediately spotted by the Fire Djinn’s royal guards and, in seconds, were surrounded by thousands of them, which looked like flies around their titanic draconic bodies.

”TWO DRAGONS! I REPEAT TWO WYRMBORNS! ONE PURPLE, THE OTHER BLACK. THE PURPLE ONE HAS A DIVINE SPARK, THE BLACK DOESN’T!” A djinn shouted as loud as he could so everyone could hear him as he phoned the message back to the divine castle of flames, and then flew toward Arad and Eris’s faces.

”DRAGONS! CAN YOU UNDERSTAND DRACONIC SPEECH?” But before he could finish speaking, what he saw was Arad’s massive jaw flying toward him at blinding speed. For a second there, the poor soldier thought he was dead, if Eris didn’t throw her arm in and catch Arad’s jaw. ”What are you doing? Trying to eat him?”

Arad blinked twice and then pulled his head back. ”Isn’t he mocking us? How could dragons not understand draconic speech?” She sighed, feeling a headache slowly creeping into her skull. This is going to be exhausting.

”Listen, don’t attack anyone without telling me first. Otherwise, we’ll get in trouble a lot.” She then threw a look at the terrified guard. ”Sorry, he is in quite a bad mood. Yes, we understand draconic. I’m the Divine Goddess of Murder Eris I am also a part of Amaterasu’s pantheon as the purple sun, and I’m here to meet Divine Kossuth and Hero Zaleria.”

The guard composed himself, but still looked troubled. ”I’m sorry... but are you a new divine? I never heard of you, and the last god of murder I’ve heard of was Katal.” He looked at Arad, as if ready to be attacked again.

But what he saw was Arad looking right at the royal castle. ”There she is, in the pool in that castle over there.”