The dragon's harem

Chapter 1868: A Burst of Power

Dragons are tenacious, ancient, and war-born creatures. Their father, Asgorath, was created by AO for the sole purpose of fighting and carnage, as the perfect living being for warfare and chaos, for the sole purpose of eviscerating hordes of abominations and burning their camps down with lethal efficiency.

No dragon ever falls silently unless awfully overwhelmed by a gap of power so great that they couldn’t do a thing. And even then, some could still struggle and claw their way out with their sheer spitefulness and rage.

Draconic bloodlines were the same. While they are called bloodlines since the power rests in their flowing blood, that wasn’t necessarily true. The power of the bloodlines rests within the bones, within the marrow where the blood is produced.

When a draconic bloodline wielder falls and is pushed to their limit, their fight or flight reaction gets triggered once more, but without the flight part. The bones start to rapidly create more blood to overcome any bleeding and supplement the body with a myriad of hormones and chemicals: Adrenaline, painkillers, psychedelics, and even toxins that break down organs and mana for energy.

The blood pressure rises, the heart rate reaches unimaginable levels as it starts beating like an engine, the lungs suck oxygen like a vacuum, and the muscles expand with blood and turn bright red beneath the now hardening skin.

The brain that had once fallen into a coma gets jolted back into reality as if electrocuted, and the sole purpose its new consciousness bears isn’t survival, but evisceration of whoever injured the body. Pure, unadulterated draconic vengeance.

A dragon pushed to their limit and cornered won’t fight for survival, it would fight for spite, for death, and for the sole purpose of dragging everyone down with it.

Matilde’s eyes flickered with light, turned off, and then burst into a radiant purple haze. Her heart rumbled like a revving engine, and her jaws twitched. As she inhaled the rancid air of the Tallneck’s mouth, her veins bulged, and her claws extended out.

Then, it happened. Her jaws clicked open, showing her massive fangs, and immediately exploded into a deafening roar so loud that the Tallneck’s body vibrated, and all the monsters around the area fled.

The Tallneck had made a fatal mistake. It didn’t finish Matilde off before trying to swallow her. Now, it was going to pay for that. Frenzied, Matilde swung her claws inside the Tallneck’s mouth and ripped several massive gashes into its soft tongue and palate.

The Tallneck tried to chew her off, but it only ended up biting its own tongue, increasing the damage and making the bleeding even worse. Matilde, on the other hand, had used a Void Step to teleport outside the mouth and swung at its eyes.

It all happened in a fraction of a second. The Tallneck’s tongue was almost severed, its palate torn open, and its left eye gouged out because it didn’t finish Matilde off. But just like how tough Matilde was, the Tallneck wasn’t going to fall just like that. It whipped its long neck around like a whip, trying to throw Matilda down. Since one of its four legs was injured, it couldn’t whip its neck as fast as it should’ve been able to, but that was still enough for Matilde’s claws to slip off.

The moment her claws couldn’t hold onto the Tallneck’s face anymore, Matilde’s guts expanded, her lungs dilated, and her eye burned even brighter. When her jaw opened this time, it wasn’t a roar that came out, but a silent wave of darkness, a void breath.

A void dragon’s base breath is like an instant vacuum bottom. It creates a true vacuum in a cone in front of the dragon, which erases all air and unprotected matter. While living beings, magical items, and dense materials like swords and armor can resist it, it still can erase blood and torn flesh.

But the erasure part wasn’t where the breath deals damage; it was what came after. When a true vacuum is created, the world tries to compensate for it; the air rushes in to fill the gap. That air, the entire weight of the atmosphere, crashes down into the vacuum and then explodes outward in a violent shockwave that rips and tears anything caught in it.

Matilde wasn’t a true void drakaina; she just had the bloodline, and so her breath was extremely weak. But it still felt like getting punched in the face for the Tallneck due to how injured its eye and mouth were.

This is where it ends for Matilde; she was midair, unable to dodge or move, and her breath couldn’t knock the Tallneck down. What she saw now was a rush of crimson energy building in the beast’s chest, and she knew that a fraction of a second later, she would be blasted away with a fire breath powerful enough to incinerate her bones to ash.

It was over.

As the flames traveled up the Tallneck’s throat, a massive black claw grabbed it with extreme violence, crushing its windpipe and preventing the flames from moving any further. Before the Tallneck could even realize it, a massive jaw bit its head off, and another claw caught the falling Matilde.

Immediately, divine magic rushed out of Arad’s massive claw to heal Matilde’s wounds, and his other claw slightly opened up, allowing the flames still stuck inside the Tallneck’s throat to burst out of the severed neck like a crimson fountain of inferno that illuminated the sky.

Matilde was still confused and even tried to escape Arad’s claw, but that was just the side effect of what happened to her. Arad knew that she needed only a few seconds of silence and peace for her heart rate to drop and her system to stabilize once more.

When her heart rate finally dropped, she was hit with exhaustion like a hammer, which instantly knocked her out. As Arad made sure she was fast asleep, he teleported her back to the private quarter in Alina to rest, while he turned back into a humanoid form to finish logging and get the lumber Mira needed.

Matilde had performed amazingly compared to how she was before. She was indeed growing stronger by the day and getting more used to her draconic blood, which would eventually turn her into a powerhouse if given time to grow.

Arad knew that if this Tallneck wasn’t a veteran, she would’ve taken it down, a feat that could only be achieved with a full squad of beast people. She is powerful, tremendously so, but what amazed Arad even more is how determined she was. He had called her out of nowhere, then put her against a monster hundreds of times her size and power, only for her to just go with it and almost win.

Matilde opened her eyes on a soft bed back in the private quarter. Beside her bed, Selina sat with a worried face and quickly jumped at her the moment she noticed her waking up.

“You’re awake! What did happen?” As Selina cried, Matilda blinked a few times and then looked around. “I was fighting a big Tallneck… where is Arad? I’m pretty sure he finished him off.”

“I’m here.” The door suddenly opened up, and Arad walked inside. “I did finish that Tallneck. You’ve done well. I didn’t expect you to get that far.”

Matilda sighed. “But I still lost. I couldn’t kill it.” She looked at the ceiling. “I guess I’m still too weak.”

Arad smiled. “Well, I would’ve said you lost if the wound to its leg is all that you’ve done. But, ripping its tongue and eye open worked well. Even if you died, that Tallneck would’ve died right after from blood loss.” He reached forward and sat beside her on the bed. “A dragon never dies alone, and you took that titanic monster down with you.”

He patted her on the back. “Be proud, you’re strong, probably one of the strongest beast people. People there are already talking about how Matilda the Brave was eaten by a Tallneck, yet still came out and tore its tongue out.”

“Wait… what people?” As she gasped, Arad chuckled.

“All the beast people, your mother was horrified, but your father couldn’t stop boasting. And do you know what the best part is? Can’t you feel it? Your draconic blood is flowing nicely now.” He lifted his hand and formed a sphere of void.

“The more you use your blood, the stronger it’ll get. The more you bleed, the more of your regular blood would get replaced by draconic blood, and the more stress your body feels, the stronger you’ll become.” He made the void sphere disappear and pointed at her. “Volume, intensity, and load. Just like muscles, your blood needs constant stimulation to grow.”