The dragon's harem

Chapter 1716: Eris’s Paladin Powers

Before searching for the sewers’ dumping ground, Arad had another matter to tend to. He couldn’t focus on it in the past two days as they scouted, but now, he has to get it done before they have to fight anything serious.

With how powerful those steel golems look, he didn’t want to take any risks when fighting them. One kick from such a huge still creature could kill him or turn Haru into paste.

The thing Arad had to test was about Haru and her switching gods to give him power. She had managed to switch from Asmodeus to Amaterasu, then from Amaterasu to Eris, and now was the time to use that power.

Now it was time to see if Eris would just give him power, or if she would ask him to pray nine times an hour and worship her for it. He knew Eris probably wouldn’t do it. But he was sure that Cerilla could convince her not to give him power for free.

That was one part, but Arad knew that Amaterasu had quite the influence on Eris as her goddess and mentor. In fact, he was aware of the shenanigans between Asmodeus and Amaterasu since Eris was there watching, so he had an inkling that Eris might end up turning like Amaterasu.

So, if she asked him to do something weird, would he do it? Of course, he’ll do it. She is his wife, and he won’t mind entertaining her, but it’s not like he has to.

Amaterasu’s entire pride and arrogance come from the literal fact that she is unreachable, too powerful and dominating to be anything but prideful. The sun is in the sky for those who dare challenge it. But Eris doesn’t have the power to back such a personality and pride; her sun is literally inside Arad’s stomach. She can’t just hover around his head like she owns the place.

Coming back, Haru was a devil, and a powerful one at that, due to her coming from the ninth layer of hell, despite her not being a fighter. Not all devils’ powers were fighting abilities after all.

Haru is the kind of devil to whisper sweetly in your ear at night, tell you about how your next day would be, and then warn you about a coming disaster. To get details and find a way to survive, you have to grant her your soul.

Haru is the devil you wake to at night sitting on your chest, crushing your lungs. She is the one to walk into your dreams and show you a horrid image of the future, and then forces you to pay for her help.

She is the evil fiend whispering in the ears of every hag cradling a crystal orb; she is the one every fortune reader worships, and every lost soul begs for knowledge.

She could’ve always signed a contract with Arad to grant him power, but he didn’t want to use either Asmodeus or Amaterasu’s powers. Especially, the Fates. If Haru knew anything about the nebulous triplets, it is that they are nothing but trouble. So she made sure Arad knew that, and he won’t be asking for their power either, simply because they don’t get along with Doma.

Arad knew that Asmodeus had to be powerful, and he already saw firsthand the terrifying power a paladin of Amaterasu can pull out; Lydia had made it clear that she was built differently.

But Arad wasn’t familiar with either one of those two gods, and even if he could probably endure more divine power than Lydia, he wasn’t sure he would be able to get much from Amaterasu herself.

He would play along with Eris, but not Amaterasu. One is his wife, and the other isn’t.

So now, he had to rely on his wives, and one of them, to be specific. Eris, Sol, the divine goddess of the second sun. Also known as Los, the divine goddess of murder.

As he signed the contract with Haru and finally felt Eris’s magic trickling into him through her, he smiled. It’s been a while since he felt her divine magic, and now, he should be even able to with her.

“Eris, how are you all doing out there?” Arad asked, and he almost immediately heard a response. “You idiot! That’s my question. Are you okay? You aren’t hurt, aren’t you?”

Hearing her voice once more was quite nice. Arad didn’t know how much he missed his wives until now. Until now, he had only planned to slap Entropy once for dragging him here, but now, he’ll break all of her limbs for getting him apart from his wives.

He won’t kill her because the world needs her, but at least he’ll maim her. Even though he knows Eris would get such a massive boost if he were to murder Entropy.

He chuckled. “No, I’m fine. You know me. Tough as a bear.” He went silent for a second. “How are you all there? Nothing bad happened?”

“Besides Mira going crazy for a few minutes, nothing. Her father became the demigod of War, Fighting, and Violence. He seems to be recovering quite well.” Eris giggled. “And you should’ve seen Lyla dragging him away by the beard.”

Arad could just imagine that. Poor Lyla, not just having her daughter become a demigoddess, but even her husband had turned into a divine being as well. Some might say she is lucky, but to Arad, she seemed to be more exhausted with it all than happy.

Lyla just wanted her daughter to have a happy and calm life, free from all pain and troubles. But then, Arad came and turned all of that upside down. Now, Mira is married to an Emperor who could fight and kill gods, and his whole life is that of blood and destruction; he even married the goddess of destruction.

It was stressful, especially since now she is the only mortal left in her family.

Standing up, Arad cracked his neck and looked at the cave’s walls. “Since everything is fine, I’ll be going to test your divine powers. I need to make sure I know how they work before fighting with them.”

Eris laughed. “Yeah, you’re a human now. Do you really think you’ll die with my divine magic coursing through your body? You’ll heal just fine.” Eris knew firsthand how painful the recoil from divine magic could be, but she couldn’t see Arad’s massive, hunk of a body crumbling with her divine magic alone.

“I can’t heal through powerful attacks that could kill me instantly, and we have one blizzard creature that should be able to do just that.” Arad, too, wasn’t worried about the recoil but more about getting injured in battle and not being able to heal fast enough.

Arad looked at his hand. “By the way, how much power can I draw?” Now that was the important part. The last time he tried to pull power from Eris, he was a dragon, and she started crying. As a dragon, he could suck so much divine power from her that she almost died, and so he had to be careful.

Divine magic is like the gods’ blood; if they lose too much, they’ll die. And to Eris, Arad would be one nasty wound that doesn’t stop bleeding.

“How much? Everything. I’m not going to put a limiter on you. Just keep in mind that Haru is a conduit between us, so don’t get her burned.” But realistically, as a human, Arad won’t be able to even dent Eris’s reserve of divine magic. But Eris was also worried that Haru might not be able to endure what Arad could.

As Eris’s voice faded away, Arad walked out of the cave and headed outside. The days here are short, but he should be able to find something to test Eris’s divine magic on.

Eris’s divine magic consisted of the usual heal and smite abilities that every paladin gets, and that was good for Arad’s basic attack combo. Then, he had access to both aspects of the purple sun and murder. He could’ve had access to vampire powers, but since he isn’t one and can’t find a way to turn here, he won’t be able to get any blood powers.

Arad formed a stone halberd and swung it around, charging it with a divine smite to test the divine magic out. It was as he expected, with just regular smites, both Haru and his stone weapons could hold up.

To be clear, Arad knew well that regular paladins, especially when starting up, would struggle to pull a divine smite. But to him, that was just his auto-attack.

But with a divine cleaver, the halberd shattered before the attack could even fully charge. Haru was fine, though. So he clenched a fist and swung it, finding out that he could release a full-power cleave with his bare hands if he wanted, but it hurt a lot.

The power of the divine magic was almost ten times that of a divine smite, and it made his bones tingle; they might’ve even cracked. But now that he has access to Eris’ divine magic, he can heal his way through the damage.

Then there was the purple sun’s powers, which were mainly waves of superheated purple plasma that he could unleash and use as ranged attacks. The purple plasma also protected him from the cold, which would be extremely helpful against the Blizzard Monster.

Those two were called [Solar Arc] and [Veil Of the Bright Queen]

Then came the murder abilities, which were far simpler than he expected. The first ability allows him to make wounds worse, so his enemies would die faster. And there was another ability that allowed him to get faster and stronger the more bloodshed he caused.

Those two abilities were called [Target] and [Massacre]

At first, Arad thought that this was where Eris’s powers ended, but he then found that he could imbue those powers into the innate smite abilities to create new moves for his basic combo.

So now, besides just [Divine Smite] and [Divine Cleaver], He also got moves for murder and the purple sun.

From murder, he got [Meat Hook], which worked just as it sounded; he could fling a meat hook made of divine magic to pull targets toward him or pull himself toward them. Then, he also got [Skull Hacker], which allowed him to unleash an aura of fear and bloodlust that could even paralyze those who saw him when [Massacre] is active.

But from the purple sun’s side, he got four more abilities. The first was called [Flare], and it allowed him to shoot a burst of purple plasma from his palm like a cannon, and the second one was called [Purple Sun Wrath], which allowed him to hurl a ball of super condensed plasma in the shape of a mini sun that would explode upon impact.

The other two abilities were a bit strange, though, because they were gravity-based. One was called [Purple Sun Pride], which allowed him to pull anything toward him with gravity, and another was the [Gravity Well], which allowed him to stick the [Purple Sun Pride] to his projectiles.

Arad couldn’t help but chuckle. “Hold up, all of those spells. Are you telling me that Lydia had a similar list and only used [Divine Smite] and [Divine Cleaver]?”

Eris replied a few seconds later. “Yeah, in fact, her list of divine spells is far richer than anything I can grant. But, Lydia only cared about her basic attacks, which were just the [Divine Smite]. Then her burst attack, which was [Divine Cleaver], and lastly her healing magic.”

“So she could’ve used gravity magic or something crazy all those times she fought?” Arad sighed, and Eris laughed. “She could, but she never wanted to. I talked with her about it when we were at the university. She basically said: Why would I care about using gravity magic when I can just [Divine Cleaver] to the chest and be done with the fight?”

Arad would agree if he wasn’t going to fight some crazy monsters that might need every trick he can muster.

“So, one last question.” Arad cleared his throat. “Give me the bill. How much is all of this?”

Eris giggled. “Well, about that…”