The dragon's harem

Chapter 1937: Beasts of Flesh

While most flesh magic only affects a single living body at a time, Poppy, thanks to Cain’s blessing, can affect multiple people at once. That mass of roiling blood outside was made from the combined bodies of several thousand people that she hunted through the years, and even countless monsters that Cain himself gave her.

Unless Arad is able to understand that, and separate all of the bodies that are entangled in that mess, he won’t be able to erase, teleport, or suppress them with magic.

Arad wasn’t able to do that, and none of his wives had the power for it. He was stuck; the former Overgod was making sure that it stayed the case as long as he could without getting exposed, because if he came to light, all of the powerhouses hiding in the city would attack.

Poppy knew that Amaterasu, Yog, Death herself, and the Mother of All Life were in the city, and she would rather give up and submit to Arad than start a fight with them. Now, she had two goals that she must accomplish no matter what.

She looked at her tiny hand and thought about it. She must reach Arad’s mother and then set a trap for Yog. Her goal was to kill Arad, the only other pricolici to survive, and for the Overgod to help her achieve that, she needed to help him first by doing his bidding.

Cain Lisworth’s goals are AO’s brain and heart, which are with Yog and Violet, respectively. If he can get his tentacles on those two, he could start the resurrection process and finally walk past the gates.

“Really, you’re a pain.” Poppy sighed with a grin as a woman appeared far behind her. She turned around and giggled. “Go ahead, call for help.”

The woman was a vampire, one that Arad had hired a few days ago to survey the area and look for Poppy. She had just spotted the house Poppy had ravaged a moment ago and was on the lookout.

The woman gasped. “What? I can’t contact them?” She noticed far too late that her blood magic wasn’t working, and by that time, Poppy’s clawed fist was already an inch away from her eyes. All of her vampiric senses exploded, and she barely managed to dodge in the last moment.

“You’re fast!” Poppy’s smirk looked horrifying, but the woman didn’t flinch and immediately retaliated with a fist of her own. She needed to get some distance away from Poppy and take an actual, useful stance, which she luckily managed to do.

Poppy deflected the woman’s fist and landed on some old barrels. “Hardened blood, so you’re that kind of vampire.”

The woman looked at her arm for a second. Her blood manipulation still worked, but only in short range. She can use blood to heal, cover her body in armor, or create small, sharp weapons, but anything beyond that seems impossible.

“Jamming my blood magic with so much ease… you’re a real monster like our Blood Lord said.” She wiped the blood from her cheek, covered her arms and legs in blood armor, then conjured a sharp combat knife.

“Shouldn’t you be protecting your torso? That’s where your soft and vital organs are.” Poppy smiled and licked her lips. “Let me guess, internal bleeding to directly cover your organs with blood armor, now, you leave your torso open to bait me into an attack.”

“Tch!” The woman cursed under her breath and lunged at Poppy. Her tactic had been easily exposed, which meant this little girl, who looked younger than her daughter, was a far older and much more experienced vampire.

Poppy jumped away from the barrel and landed on the wall. The woman followed her, and the two immediately clashed there.

The woman swung her knife at Poppy’s neck, aiming directly at the throat, but the little girl easily dodged the slash thanks to her small size and swung a kick at the woman’s head.

The woman took the kick directly, only to be able to grab Poppy by the leg and smack her against the wall. She didn’t waste a single second and aimed at the heart. She felt her blood knife hitting something as hard as stone, and then the blade shattered. Immediately, Poppy kicked the woman in the gut and sent her rolling.

“What? Did you really think you could end the fight like that?” From the tear in Poppy’s clothes, the woman could see a harrowing row of teeth. Poppy’s main magic was Flesh magic, and thanks to it, she can modify bodies at will as long as she understands them well enough.

“Flesh Magic is like the bastard of Life Magic; you can say I use magic that is an inferior version to what Queen Sena has.” Bones burst out of Poppy’s arms and back, “Let’s see how far you’ll last.”

It was at that moment that the woman understood that she had messed up. Her head was already hurting, and her eyes felt like they could pop out at any second. “What… are you doing to me?” She growled and stood, taking a stance as she fixed her knife.

“Your blood is hard to control, so it’ll take me a minute or two to control you.” Poppy licked her lips, “I’ll then be able to easily morph your body, and use it to approach my goals.” Teeth opened up in her arms as she lunged at the woman, and the fight between them kept going.

Far away, right outside Mira’s great hall, a large and disgusting horror of arms, legs, and tails crawled across the streets like a train, tearing and knocking every cart and stall in its path as it screamed. The nobles and people hiding inside the hall cried, and Camilla walked out of the front door.

“You there! Get back!” One of the guards hiding behind one of the windows with a crossbow at hand yelled at her, and she didn’t even look back. Camilla pulled her sword and stood in front of the gate, glaring at the charging monster with a stern face beneath her helmet.

“Accursed Beast, this is a sacred ground.” She lifted her sword and shield and struck the rim of her shield with the edge of the blade three times.

The monster was already upon her, throwing more than ten punches at once with his long, hairy, and disfigured human arms. Camilla’s sword flashed with divine light as it swung down and cut two of the arms; her shield deflected the rest of the attacks, and then her blade quickly twisted and roared with divine magic.

[Divine Smite] With a thunderclap, five arms were severed and torn away from the monster as its massive body finally stopped charging forward and took a step back, staring at Camilla with its multiple heads and its strabismic eyes.

Camilla swung her sword to get the blood off and watched as the monster’s arms regenerated in the blink of an eye. “So you can regenerate as well.”

She lifted her sword, took a wrath stance, and got ready for a lengthy fight.