The dragon's harem

Chapter 2216: The Beast is Hunting

No more than an hour later, Nina was back home, but not to her house in Alina, nor the castle. She was back at the barbarians’ village on the other side of Mountain Alina, and the reason for that was simple. She wanted to get her grandmother’s advice on a very important matter.

The two sat facing each other inside a large tent made from monster hide that the clan hunted, and they were the only ones inside. None of them said a word for half an hour, until Nina’s grandmother was the first to open her mouth.

”Arad... Big. Food... big.” The old lady mumbled, and Nina looked at her for a second, then stood up, having learned all she needed to. The barbarians were people of few words, especially when talking with each other. To them, the concepts of life were simple, all easily accessible and understood with just gestures, expressions, and emotions.

The moment Nina’s toes touched the ground outside the tent, it started. All competent wizards around the world started preparing for the apocalypse as their magical sensors had picked up the signals of the beast.

Since Tarra, the original Tarrasque, and Nina’s ancestor lived here in the mortal world, hibernated deep within its core, and came out once every few centuries to feed, the wizards of the world were always listening to her, trying to predict when she’d show up to feed.

Nina, who was also a Tarrasque, left the same signal, and those wizards had picked her up.

The location: Alina’s outskirts.

Disaster Class: S-class+, apocalyptic. Imminent destruction of the entire region is guaranteed and the beast might end up destroying half of the continent as it feeds.

Regular reaction: evacuate everyone and keep the Tarrasque contained.

The Tarrasque was the only creature that all of the world’s wizards and adventurers would band together to fight and neutralise, because unlike other world powers that could be bribed, deceived, or even reasoned with... the Tarrasque only cared about feeding.

”Sir! Isn’t that the land of the Black Emperor?” A woman shouted, looking at her glowing crystal orb, and then turned around, staring at the wizards gathering in panic. They all looked at her, thought about it for a second, then one of them spoke.

”Can we even trust him?”

Other wizards were just as worried, but they couldn’t take any risks this time. ”Send a warning to the Black Emperor and request support. The Tarrasque rampage is a worldwide disaster, and everyone is responsible for stopping it.”

The woman growled and then turned back to her crystal orb, trying to contact the wizards in Alina and Orion. But then, she pissed herself sitting on her chair as she saw something horrifying, a pattern that the previous Tarrasque never did.

”It’s... moving...” She mumbled, and another wizard immediately rushed in to check, and he paled immediately. ”By the realms!”

Tarra always stayed in the same spot she emerged in and consumed everything in her wake. She only moved after all the dirt and vegetation in the area had been exhausted. Nina, on the other hand, started moving immediately.

She jumped into the air, moving at supersonic speed through the sky without even having the ability to fly, and that was what horrified the wizards. She was like a missile, and they didn’t know where she would land.

”Warn all kingdoms in the direction the Tarrasque is moving! Hurry! Wherever she lands, it’ll be their end if they don’t run away!” All of the wizards were shitting themselves, unable to react quickly enough to the current situation as it had already derailed from all of their previous encounters.

In a faraway land, the human nation of El Doro, the golden capital of the west, a woman heard a faint rumbling outside her window, a rumbling which had woken up her newborn baby, making him cry his eyes out.

She lifted her cute little baby, shook it a bit to calm it, and finally smiled as the kid stopped crying. ”Really, what was that? Did a ship crash onto the port or something?” She approached her window and pushed the wooden frame open.

What she saw outside almost made her scream and drop her kid, but she didn’t. Because when faced with such a horror, humans, all equally, fail to register two of their innate survival tactics. Neither fight nor flight would save her and her kid now, so the only option this mother was left with was to freeze in place.

The mother wasn’t alone. Everyone reacted the same way. The entire city had shut down as everyone froze, looking out with hollow eyes and utter terror. Not even the animals dared make a sound, as anything could attract the attention of this nightmare to them.

It was dark brown, almost black, and stood as tall as the mountains. The entire city that spanned several kilometres fit easily between its front and hind legs, leaving so much space that it could easily fit another city. They could barely see the spikes on the horror’s back due to how massive it was.

The creature’s horrifying red eyes glared at the endless sea with endless hunger and malice for a few seconds, then it took a step forward, and everyone thanked every god in existence as it somehow didn’t step on any building, skipping over the city as if it were just an ant nest in its path.

The Tarrasque, the titanic creature that had just appeared out of nowhere, had now disappeared into the sea as quickly as it had shown up. When the wizard’s warning arrived, it was already a minute late, and they immediately got a panicked reply, informing them that the Tarrasque was acting strange.

The Tarrasque wasn’t rampaging and consuming everything in its path as it should be, instead, it felt like it was tracking something... it was...

”By Asmodeus’s left nipple! That motherfucker is hunting!” An old wizard growled as his eyes almost popped out of his skull. And what he heard next, it almost made him go insane.

”Sir Jahol! Based on our records, this Tarrasque looks different from all the prior versions. The number of spikes on its back, the color of its carapace, and even its eye color are different. All of the previous reports were consistent, but this one is off.”

Jahol visibly turned bright red as his veins bulged out from fear, rage, and utter confusion. ”The fucker gave birth? That is impossible...” He then froze. ”Wait... if it gave birth, did it split into two like worms... or... Asmodeus preserves us, there is a third one loose!”

He didn’t know if the previous Tarrasque was male or female, as it had no visible reproductive organs, but if it reproduced normally, then there has to be a second Tarrasque of the opposite gender on this planet.

He stood and rushed to his lab. ”Keep monitoring the beast! I’ll summon a devil and see what they know.” To him, that was the only way to get information about creatures above mortal understanding, but other wizards had their own ways as well.

As the entire world panicked, Nina herself was unaware of the commotion, as she could only think of one thing at a time, and now, she was tracking the biggest hunt she could find. Two hunts, in fact. A Primordial Kraken, and a Mega-sized Bloop.

When the wizards finally got a response from Orion’s Castle... they could barely believe their eyes and immediately accused them of lying to avoid issuing support in this global disaster. The castle’s response merely stated that the Tarrasque was one of the emperor’s wives, and that she was out on a peculiar shopping trip.

It was then that Jahol finally managed to summon his devil, a horrifyingly beautiful woman with red skin, long black horns, leathery black wings and tail, and who only wore chains. She looked at the bowing and terrified old wizard, then at the cage behind him with her sacrifice, a young, terrified boy.

”Isn’t that a cute one? But... you’re asking me about that Tarrasque. I indeed know what it is.” She smiled, approached the cage, and magically teleported the kid out. The kid started thrashing and screaming, so she put him to sleep with a spell.

”Yes, is the sacrifice not enough?” The wizard asked with a horrified voice, but the devil woman smiled.

”No, not at all. It is more than enough. That Tarrasque is Nina Fangborn, the S-ranker Bloody Berserker and Arad Orion’s wife. She isn’t the same Tarrasque you’ve feared.” She walked with the kid back to the summoning circle, then disappeared.

On the other side of the circle, she appeared back in hell, and the kid in her hand was protected by a magical barrier that she created. She sniffed him and smiled. ”As I like them, young and orphaned.” She disappeared once more, and this time, appeared back in another world beside an old shrine, and walked inside.

”Mizary! You foul devil!” A deep voice growled from the darkness, and the devil woman smiled. ”Come out, I got a new one.” From the shadows, a disgusting and horrifying demon emerged. It looked like a human with rotten skin and bones exploding out of its back, with maggots everywhere.

The demon approached the sleeping kid, sniffed him, and then growled. ”Another orphan, fine.” He pulled a glowing gem of demonic magic, gave it to Mizary, and took the kid, dropping him on the ground.

”Love doing business with you.” She threw the demon a kiss and then disappeared.

The demon sighed and then disappeared into the shadows as he left some food beside the kid. This was a shrine of Kali, and this kid had just been transferred to another world, and to his luck, he was sold to a demon instead of being turned into a test subject.