The dragon's harem

"What's going on with her?" Aella gasped as she was sitting with everyone else inside the demon castle, watching Arad and Eris's fight.

Kali looked at the screen, "Eris is the demi-goddess of murder. She told me that the first time she met Arad she was trying to kill him, that feeling never changed. That feeling is now driving her divine portfolio forward."

"Are you saying that her divine power is growing by just trying to kill him?" Mira gasped, "That can't be right." She stared at Kali, but the goddess of destruction shook her head.

"Prayers, the number of believers, the act of your portfolio being performed, all of those grant power to the gods." She looked up, "It's in her nature, following that is bound to lead her to her true power."

"That power…" Asmin, the head of the demons gasped, "It's on par with Sawless…"

"Eris is stronger." Merida said as she was sitting cross-legged behind them, "Don't underestimate her."

Asmin wasn't underestimating Eris, she compared her to a demon lord, an existence with enough power to terrify the whole world for thousands of years…yet that was still underestimating her.

"Look! She's running at him!" Isdis pointed at the scream with a gasp. Eris, who was just waddling like a penguin finally started running, and with each step the ground beneath her feet melted with crackles of purple plasma.

Arad remained standing in place, he was taking her punches earlier and wouldn't mind taking another one no matter how powerful it was.

Eris pulled her right fist back and lightning roared from behind her back, forming two rails between her and Arad. Purple dragons are born from the union of a red and blue dragon, they have both the power of fire and lightning, but generally only use their plasma as that is far stronger than anything that fire or lightning can achieve.

But…Eris doesn't need strength, she needs Arad dead, killed no matter what.

As the two lightning rails traced her path to Arad she could feel the current roaring in them, pulling her fist toward him. By gathering a massive amount of blood in her arm and compressing it, she managed to both make her right arm stronger, more durable, and fill it with enough iron to be pulled by the magnetic field generated by the two rails.

Eris's fist reached Arad, aiming directly at the center of his torso. Plasma flashed out of her bones the moment her fist connected and Arad's body flashed with light until his bones became visible. His body inflated as if he was about to explode as her fist stretched and bulged his back and sent him flying back with nine roaring shockwaves exploding around him. That wasn't a rail gun, but a plasma rail fist.

Eris's whole right arm evaporated from the impact, too much power was released that even her durable physique couldn't handle the recoil.

The whole layer violently shook from the impact and Asmin even fell to the ground and almost broke her nose. It was only then that she realised why comparing Eris to Sawless was underestimating her a lot.

Arad smacked through two mountains before rolling to the ground like a heavy piece of steel, coming to a halt while still smoking from the heat.

"Did he get hurt?!" Tina cried, covering her mouth as she saw Arad not moving. "We need to heal him quick! The impact must've at least scrambled his organs!" Lala stood, ready to fly there to heal him.

"He is fine." Kino said with a smile, "He is just happy." She pointed at Arad, he was indeed smiling.

Arad stood as if nothing happened, "Good, good…" He lifted his hand, "Come here, this is worth praising."

With a roaring flash the mountain before him melted and Eris flew out of the burning magma, drifting past him with a lightning storm raging behind her. Her right arm had already healed and she is coming for a second hit.

She punched Arad with a hook straight to the liver, sent him flying to the layer's ceiling in the blink of an eye. And before he could hit that ceiling she was already there and kicked him back to the ground.

The moment Arad fell to the ground, Eris fell on his face with a stop, cracking the separating layer between the two layers.

"She can use that multiple times? And consecutively? How much mana is she consuming?" One of the demon maids gasped and Kali shook her head, "Probably 80% of her full tank for each hit."

"Then how did she use it more than once?!" Everyone was confused by Kali looked at them with a disappointed face.

"Did you think gods can only grant power to their believers? They can also suck the power of their believers to fight." Kali looked at the scream with a smile.

"If she did that, then many people would die." Isdis glared at Kali, "We must stop her."

"No need." Kali grabbed Isdis and pushed her down, "Sit, the believers with the largest amount of mana get naturally prioritized when a god sap power. Who do you think is the largest tank that Eris can draw power from?"

It was just then that the girls realised, "It's Arad! She is sucking his mana to fight him?! Wait, how much mana does he have?"

"Our lord worships her?!" Asmin couldn't believe what she was hearing, this was news even to Lala, "Why did she tell me?"

"Not just her." Mira looked at them, "He worships me too, but we couldn't leave him be, so we all worship him as our god as well. But from us it's just a sentimental thing, he doesn't get any power from us besides the divine magic we can give him."

Arad sat up like nothing happened, he looked at Eris for a second. "You used the same fist and leg to hit me. Smart." He smiled, "Your nails, beautifully painted. Just tuned by Gamond and Doma."

He looked closer at her toes and finger tips, "But when your limbs get destroyed and regenerate, those nails regenerate unpolished."

"What is he talking about?!" Asmin asked and Aella looked at her. "She is a witch, a wannabe witch. She had her nails polished like witches do so she can have a bigger magic output. What Arad is referring to is that she lost half of her magic output when she got an arm and a leg destroyed."

Isdis stood, just realising that Eris's previous attacks weren't so simple. "So the mana cost is just one determinant, the other is losing a quarter of her magic output with each destroyed arm?!"

"Half points." Tina looked at her, "Eris only lost about a quarter of a tenth of her magic output, not half."

"How?"

Tina grabbed the back of her hand and pulled on the skin, "Remember, she is half a dragon. She has many scales all over her body that can release magic."

"How did you get that number?" Kali looked at Tina, "Do you know how many scales are on her body?"

"Yes, she has 412 scales total. I counted them for her." Tina replied with a passive face.

Everyone stared at her, "You had her naked and counted them all? For what?" Lala looked at Tina with a smug smile.

"So she can track the progress of her dragonification, the more scales appear on her body, the closer she is to a real drakaina." Tina looked at Lala with a smile, "And besides…she isn't the only one that has secrets with me. But she is the only one who said that she doesn't mind that I tell anyone."

Kali laughed, "You serious?" She looked at the girls and realised from their flustered expressions that Tina was serious. "You've got enough dirt on them? Didn't expect it from you."

"Enough, the fight didn't stop." Tina pointed at the screen.

Arad stood and patted the dirt off his shoulders, "Your nails had quite the magic on them. What a waste." He suddenly disappeared from Eris's vision. She looked everywhere but couldn't find him, until she felt two hands grabbing her butt from the back.

Arad was sitting behind squeezing her cheek, "The right one is a bit smaller than the left…you didn't regenerate perfectly."

Eris immediately spun with a round kick aiming at his neck, only to find her foot below the ankle missing, he bit it off.

"And don't aim for the jaw while I'm more durable than you. I only need to open my mouth for your limbs to hit my teeth and get cut." Hearing his words, Eris jumped back with a spin and landed on one leg, glaring at him as blood veins bulged all over her body and her foot regenerated.

All of those attacks and she couldn't even scratch him, something seemed off. "How are you unharmed?"

"Two things, I'm heavier than you, so the attacks just hurt you more than me. When your arm explodes, for example, that wastes a lot of power instead of delivering it to me." He looked at her with a smile.

"My body is too soft to endure that power, this is one reason. What's the second?" She glared at him with a stern face.
Discover more content at My Virtual Library Empire

"You're unconsciously afraid of hurting me, you're limiting the heat of your plasma. You're afraid of damaging the layer above us and causing trouble for me with another demon lord. You're afraid that if you didn't make a flashy enough show then I'll come to hate you…" Arad rested his fists on his hips, flexing his chest and abs, "Clean those thoughts out of your head."

Eris growled and he looked at her with a smile.

"Eris…listen to me." He said in a gentle tone, "You won't be able to harm me no matter what you do so don't fear anything, come at me with all you've got. If a demon lord came to complain, then let him come, those monsters kill and terrorize humans anyway, I'm not going to care that much about them, you can terrorize their land a bit." He approached her with a smile and grabbed her by the hair.

"Look at my eyes! You're a drakaina, aren't you? It's more shameful to care about flashy moves than not impressing me. So come…with all you've got." He let her go and she fell to her knees, shaking.

"What do your believers say? Yeah…" He bent forward and glared at her, "Murders drowned in gore and laughter, praise the goddess of slaughter."

"You're…about me." She stood, "If I only used my draconic and vampiric powers, then I have no hope of defeating you." She reached forward and grabbed him by the neck, "Then I should just enjoy myself tormenting you."

Her divine portfolio started tingling.