Chapter 1535 - 1535: Eris, The New Divine
Eris appeared right beside Arad, and unlike before, her whole body was now engulfed in a faint golden aura, making her appear well illuminated, as if shadows were forbidden from touching her pale skin.
“That was quick?” Gamond was sitting a few feet away, munching on a piece of meat alongside a barrel of healing potions.
Eris slowly turned and looked at her, “How long was I out?”
“From the start? Several minutes. From the time you showed up after the ascension, no more than a minute and a half.” Arad replied and looked closer at her. She seemed fine, from what he could see.
“Would it be short enough?” Eris mumbled, and Gamond laughed, “Short? In that time, I would’ve been able to rip your guts open and freeze each limb on its own mountain.”
Eris smiled, “Then I would’ve won.” She lifted her hand, and blood rushed across her skin.
Gamond looked closer at Eris and drowned in her thoughts for a few seconds, “You’re the goddess of murder, so…”
Eris nodded, “I cannot be murdered. You tear me apart and kill me, but I’ll just come back stronger than before.” Eris looked at Arad, “I’m sure I have a weakness, but as I’m seeing myself now. I’m immortal, and not just immortal, getting killed literally feeds back into my power.”
Arad looked at her for a few seconds, then at the sky. “I see… your existence is tied both to that sun and the one inside my stomach. If someone wants you to be destroyed, they need to get past me and Amaterasu first.
Eris blinked twice. She could indeed feel that her connection to those two suns was extremely powerful.
Claug laughed, “So what? It goes like this.” She pointed at the two suns in the sky, “Gamond, there is the sun. Go kill it if you want to defeat Eris.” She then smiled, “I know that’s impossible, so how about you try the easier option?” She pointed at Arad.
“Ah, wait. That’s a buff, angry Arad with enough hands to make Kali blush. You aren’t getting past either.”
Gamond listened to Claug laughing for a long while and then looked at Eris, “I can freeze her for a while. But for now, I can be the loser. No matter the god, you always need to know their weakness before fighting them.”
Arad looked between them and decided to get in the way, “No, it’s a draw. You aren’t here to kill each other, remember?”
Gamond looked at him, “You’re right, but we’re here to decide who can die fighting.” She stood and cracked her neck, “When we have eggs, hopefully a lot, those eggs will be our weakness. We need someone to always stay at the nest to protect them. I need, they need, we all need to know which of us can defend the eggs and for how long they can do that.”
Claug looked at her, “And we need to decide who gets in bed first. Nobody likes waiting here.”
“That’s as well.” Gamond smiled and then turned toward Arad, “That’s what we need to find out.”
Arad looked at them, “If it’s protecting the kids… that’s why I’m here, no? They are staying in my stomach.”
He looked back at everyone else. Balina smiled, “Who else? I doubt any of us beat him in a fight.”
“Surely, we can work together and do something.” Denki exclaimed.
“He’s strong; some of us will die.” Ryan nodded, trying to think of a way to defeat Arad with everyone’s combined effort.
“Don’t count on your luck.” Zul glared at them.
“Come on, it’ll be fun.” Betty smacked Zul on the back.
Kory growled in the back, “You better spread your legs and pray he gets exhausted before you die. He defeated my mom, and she is a problem.” A red flame burned in her eyes.
Gamond smiled, “What do you say? Our new goddess.”
Eris looked at them, then at the sky, “Half of my power is in his grasp, the other is in Amaterasu’s grasp.” She looked at Arad, “I just asked her about it, and she said that she’ll protect me from everything, except you. In her words: If he came looking for you, I’m handing you over on a silver plate.”
Arad looked at her, “You can talk with her?”
Eris nodded, “I was her paladin. I could communicate with her before, but only at the biggest churches dedicated to her and by spending a lot of power. But now, as a goddess, I can just will it and she’ll hear me. Of course, she can ignore the call if she wants.”
Arad shrugged, “That’s up to her then.” He then looked at everyone, “With this, the fights are over. At the top, we have Eris and Gamond, followed by Claug, Balina, Betty, Kory, Ryan, Denki, and Zul, who will need another fight after she fully recovers.”
“Where would Grace fit?” Eris looked at him, and Arad shook his head, “I don’t know, but I’d say she would have a lot of problems dealing with Betty. I also can’t see her dealing with you or Gamond.”
“I got deadly poisons for each dragon type. I might even be able to kill Gamond.” Claug waved her hand with a smile, and Arad smiled. Only he knew the true horror of Claug’s plague. She wasn’t second to Eris and Gamond, but was standing with them at the top.
“I’d say between Betty and Balina, depending on the situation.” He turned around, “We’ll have to wait and see later. For now, what about all of them?”
The one thousand drakainas were still sitting there, waiting for their orders. But strangely, most of them looked worried and terrified than anything else.
Of course, they just got beaten by Arad, saw Gamond fight, and then Eris ascended to godhood and almost tore the entire world apart. Arad looked at Eris. She probably looked like a horrifying monster to everyone in the world, a woman with enough power to create a sun and spin it around the world like that was an existential crisis.
How could the world ever be safe with someone like her walking the earth? Sadly, to everyone, they don’t even know about Gamond, who can freeze the entire world to death, or Arad, who can just blow it up.
Hold up, Arad only then realised that the scariest part was that both of them were his wives.
“As we said before, you’ll split apart and work on what you’ve been given.” Arad stood in front of the drakainas, “You’ll live inside the small world inside my stomach and build your lairs there. Of course, you can leave whenever you want.”
Everyone there looked at each other. There were a thousand drakainas there, but they couldn’t even hope to defeat him, let alone when his wives joined in. The terrifying part was that a goddess was just born, and she was the half-dragon that the great wyrms in their ranks thought they could defeat.
And did they just hear them talking about another wife that didn’t come? From which hellhole did Arad crawl out of, and how did they end up stuck here with him, getting asked to live inside his stomach? Yeah, thanks, Lola.
But in reality, none of them cared that much. The reasons were clear; Arad was in no possible way a normal dragon. He was far too powerful for his age, too smart, and surrounded by powerful people enough to need a nerf.
When Eris ascended, one of the gods had to smite her down to keep her from destroying the world. Most would expect Amaterasu to have taken that role because she also ruled over the sun, but it was Arad who jumped in to stop her.
Soon, the drakainas split between Arad’s wives, leaving a hundred for Grace. So now, each of Arad’s draconic wives had just as many servants as his other wives did. Albeit Eris was the one with the most servants now, having thousands of powerful angels, a hundred drakainas, and many human maids.
Eris walked past Arad and approached her drakainas. Most of them were either blue or red drakainas, with a few purples mixed in. She would’ve wanted a white drakaina for cooling, but Gamond and Kory had picked them all up, rebuilding a whole servant force for the castle.
“The arena had gotten awfully quiet.” Lola appeared behind them and approached, “Keeping your father in check is proving to be a pain. The moment we lose sight of him, he disappears.”
Arad looked at her, “You saw what happened. And about my father, he’ll show up when he wants.”
Lola looked at Eris with a smile, “First, congratulations. Second, you don’t need to worry about anything. Amaterasu is already sending work to all of her churches, informing them that you aren’t some harrowing and world-ending monster.”
Lola pointed at the sky, where two suns were shining, “That’s why she allowed you a seat beside her. For what you are, she said, you’re a goddess of sun, decay, and death.”
“I’m a goddess of murder…” Eris lifted an eyebrow.
“People would get scared knowing that. From what she is explaining, you’re a mortician of sorts, being the mediator between Death and Ereshkigal.” Lola smiled, “They’ll contact you soon.”