Claug smiled, her heavy footsteps shaking the ground as she approached Arad.
With each step closer to him, she got more wary, finding herself approaching him in circles.
Arad stood on top of the dracolich’s bones, his six wings slowly flapping to push the dust away. He glared forward, seeing Claug getting closer.
“You came? This one must have gotten you into a lot of trouble in the past,”
“His brother once sought me as a mate, but he was too weak, so I ate him. This one wanted to kill me as revenge, but I managed to pit him against an angry army and he was slain by them.”
“His brother sought you as a mate? If he’s as weak as this, that was a stupid decision.” Arad said, his head tilting to the side as his six eyes blinked.
“He was as strong as his brother, but I was a fair bit weaker in the past as well. I ate his brother since he was too small for me,”
“Size matters?” Arad giggled, “But, you’re bigger than the average ancient green dragon,”
“I was always a bit brawny. I might do well with a big red dragon, or even a gold one if I felt like taking a risk.” She giggled, “Sadly, you’re too small currently,”
“We voids grow far bigger than the rest of dragon kind, let’s see how big I will get in a year,” Arad stated, staring at Claug with a sharp glare.
Claug giggled, the tip of her tail wiggling, “You’re still weaker than me, and you’re almost a quarter of my size. But your growth rate speaks for itself,” She prowled around Arad, “If you were to be a shred as strong as your mother, I might consider you.”
“Let’s leave that for later. What brought you? It wasn’t just this one.”
“Alice asked me to come help you. She didn’t know about the dracolich,” Claug shook her head, “She’s a good woman. But I say a bit too invested in the goddess of magic, and this time was fooled by her.”
“Titans, I’m not that keen on getting friendly with them.” Arad growled, “I was about to fly and eat all of her projections for this,”
“Leave them. The world needs them.” Claug approached Arad, staring at his neck and back, “You got severely wounded by healing. I can smell the dracolich’s bone dust inside your body.”
“He got my neck pretty bad,” Arad sighed, “I’m lucky that all my organs are hidden in my void. Otherwise, his second slash would have gutted them out.”
“All dragons cover their organs with their elemental energy. If I was struck with a sword. My toxic blood will splash out.” Claug explained, “The insides of a red dragon are searing hot, while a black dragon’s organs swim in acid. That’s the case for all dragons.”
“Then it’s common to stab a red dragon only for your blade to melt,” Arad looked at Claug, “But mines work better,”
“It’s the void, hiding your organs all together is an advantage.”
Eris approached Arad, staring at him and Claug, “Arad, She is…”
Claug looked at Eris, “The half-dragon woman that ran away the moment she sensed my approach in Rita. That was a wise decision.”
“Since when fighting a dragon could be considered wise? It’s always something that you shouldn’t do unless there is no other choice,”
“You’re right,” Claug turned around, expanding her wings, “I need to go. I left some important matters unattended. I can’t stay for long,”
“Is it something I can help with?” Arad looked at her, and she turned to look back at him, her opal white fangs reflecting the faint moonlight.
“Very serious business. The politics of a whole kingdom rely on it.” Claug smiled, thinking in her head. ^I wonder if they kissed or not. I’m going to mess that whole man’s fields if he chickened out now.^ To her, nobles’ relationships only existed for her amusement. Even Arad’s relations weren’t safe from her scrying eyes.
Claug expanded her wings and soared into the sky, staring back down at Arad and Eris on the ground. ^Well, even if those nobles didn’t get on, I still have the life of Arad to watch.^
Arad growled, shaking his head and neck from left to right. This transformation was powerful, but it made him feel a bit weird. His muscles ached, and his mind slipped through a hazy mist as if he were fighting to remain awake.
^Doma, is it safe to fight like this?^
^[Yes and no, there is always an inherent risk in using curses. That’s the main reason most people avoid them. As a void dragon, you can resist it extremely well, but that exhausts you mentally and physically.]^
Doma looked deeper into Arad’s mind, discovering that he was in fact, exhausted. ^[You better sleep soon or at least once between each transformation. Otherwise, you might end up passing out in the middle of it. I’m sure no one wants to deal with a rampaging Arad or do they?]^
^No they don’t,^ Arad took a deep breath and stared at Eris by his side, “All the bandits have turned into vampire spawns and are inside me. The giants were exterminated and the gobins gave up. I say we finished here.”
Eris looked around with a smile on her face, “It’s been a while since I smelled so much blood in one place. It’s sad that I don’t have any corpses to cremate.”
Arad thought about it for a second and then asked, “Does Alina have a funeral house?”
“I asked around, but it seemed they buried everyone directly into the ground. Funerals are usually carried out by the family of the deceased, everything is prepared by them.”
“Then how about you create a funeral house? You can use the spawns and hire some workers for a start.” Arad pointed out, “I have enough money for that, and if not, it won’t be that hard to make it by killing powerful monsters.”
“And the dragon gets a cut of the profit, I like that. With me, Roberta, the kobolds, and Mira, you would have a lot of extra income coming in.” She nodded, “You wanted to build a castle in the mountains for dragons to meet, didn’t you?” ｎ𝚘𝚟ｌ.ｃｏ𝚖
“And that needs funds.” Arad confirmed and then looked toward the bandits’ camp, “We should clean this up, we’re already past midnight.”
***
After half an hour of Arad and Eris walking around, using his void to clean all the destruction, they could feel Five’s barrier slowly fading away. She canceled her magic and left, leaving them alone.
Arad transformed into his half-dragon form and flew to the sky, scrying the forest around the camp only to find what he sensed. Only animals and monsters prowled around with no intelligent creature in four-kilometer radios.
^We’re alone, but I still can’t be sure.^ Arad flew down and transformed into his draconic form to dig a large tunnel leading deep underground. Eris rode on his back, protected by his wings.
“Your digging skills are amazing. Clawing down with your claws, sucking the dirt into your stomach then taking it out through the tip of your tail to close the hole behind you.” She looked back, thinking this looked similar to something that everyone was familiar with.
“As long as it works.” Arad didn’t care how the whole operation looked, as long as it allowed him to burrow through the ground while making sure no one followed him.
Crack! After several minutes, Arad finally reached an underground cave large enough for him to land into.
Eris looked around, and even though she could see in the dark, she could only make shapes and not colors in a place with no source of light.
Arad shifted into his humanoid form and stood beside her, lifting one finger and forming a tiny fireball. “You can ignite a light.”
“I know,” Eris lifted her hand and created a purple plasma ball, “I even can do this!”
With a large grin, she created several more plasma balls and sent them flying around to illuminate the place with a purple haze.
“Now this looks better,” She looked at Arad with a smug grin, knowing he didn’t have the fine control to achieve such a thing.
Arad looked around, the cave consisted of one large cavern with multiple stalagmites and stalactites covering the floor and ceiling. He could hear a waterfall in the distance as the humidity in the air was quite high.
Searching for signs of life made Arad sure, they were over eight kilometers deep and the only beings around were monsters that avoided him like the plague.
“No one will see or hear us again, perfect,” He walked around, stretching his arms as he looked for a nice place to set the furniture.
Thud! Eris touched his shoulder, her fingers slowly reaching up to his neck. He could feel the sharp point of her nails scratching on his skin, “Before that,” She giggled, “Can I get a sip?”