The dragon's harem

Chapter 1436: At the Center of It All

Arad was standing in the middle of the charred insides of the trunk, looking down at the sprawled Dendron. “First off, wear something.”

She opened her eyes, looked at him, and then shrugged. “No thanks, I was just reborn and I’m quite sensitive. I need a few minutes so my nerves calm down.”

Arad wanted to call Cerilla and the rest, but he still wasn’t sure whether he could trust Dendron not to attack them. He looked once more at her. And then sighed, “What’s your goal? It isn’t to stop us from reaching the top, and it’s not killing us, so what is it?”

Dendron looked at Arad with a passive face for a long while. “I don’t know.”

Protecting the World Tree was Dendron’s job. In the Night of Flames, when the Dark Elves set the World Tree ablaze, it was she who cast the great magic that doused the flames. It was she who chased down the arsonists and killed them all. One by one, she grilled them all alive, one by one, as the rest watched.

When the previous kings attempted to climb the tree, Dendron’s job was simple. To either aid them in their journey or make it as hard for them as she could without outright massacring everyone. If the king was a failure by her standards, she needed to leave them alive so they could be as useful as possible, passing their knowledge to a more successful heir.

Neither the World Tree nor Sylph, the goddess of the elves, had any influence on her decisions.

Right now, Cerilla was a failure and disgrace by Dendron’s standards, for she brought two descendants of the Dark Elves with her, descendants of the sinners who once set the World Tree ablaze.

She had planned to kill Jasmine and D, take their places, and force Cerilla, Dalla, and Arad to retreat and abandon the trip. Her plan had crumbled down when she failed to estimate Arad’s power.

All the previous kings had brought armies with them, countless heroic warriors and wizards. Yet, Cerilla only brought her maid and this strange, ten-foot-tall man.

The two dark elves were destined to die by her hands. Dalla was a decent fighter, but her role was that of a servant and a maid, not someone who could brave the tree and protect her queen.

That only left Arad, whom Dendron assumed to be the one Cerilla counted on for protection. Dendron had never seen such a foolish queen, counting on one man to do what a whole army failed to. The guy is a powerful dragon, but that’s it. The tree has many more harrowing monsters that could even put lesser gods to shame. Who is he to challenge the whole place alone?

That was where Dendron made her mistake. Arad wasn’t just any dragon, nor any man. He was a monster far beyond anything she had ever seen before. His massive size wasn’t for show, but it was the bare minimum flesh needed to house his power.

She first tried to avoid him and deal with Cerilla and everyone else first, but it seemed that Arad had a way to summon people here, even if the World Tree maiden didn’t send them here. Merida got on her way, and soon Arad arrived.

Usually, she’d expect someone to take a more careful approach. But Arad threw that all out and called her directly, sending a challenge and threat to burn the World Tree, a threat that she couldn’t ignore.

She would’ve tried to kill Arad anyway for daring to make such a threat, but when the World Tree itself shunned her out, Dendron started to get a feeling that Arad’s threat wasn’t a mere boast.

When their fight started, Dendron was optimistic, thinking this would be just another day, drowned in the countless days she had lived, to be forgotten. She was wrong, and Arad started overwhelming her with a stupid amount of magic and aggression that rivaled the most crazed beasts of the realms.

He was powerful, capable of pulling more power from the gods than some angels, and coupled that with a keen fighting spirit and skill that dwarfed all talented fighters.

She could keep up with him for a while, and even managed to kill him. All that effort, only for him to respawn back with four clones of himself, an ability that set the world ablaze and filled it with the death curse, and even time magic to top it all.

She lost, died before she could even put up a decent fight against his second phase. Which gave her a question: Was that the limit of his power, or would he pull a third phase out of nothing?

She didn’t know, but now that she is seeing him standing in front of her, she is more inclined to take all of his words seriously, no matter how ridiculous they were.

“The World Tree restored my link to her. That is how I was reborn. Which means she only rejected me at first, so I can get beaten up by you.” Dendron sat up.

“She set me up. I bet she knew I would lose, meaning she knows how powerful you are.” Dendron looked up. “Now I have the same question as you: What is she thinking?”

“You can guess better than I,” Arad replied, and Dendron smiled.

“Of course I can guess.” She pointed at Arad, “That fairy you are hiding, the Plant Spirit Queen. She is an epigone of the World Tree. So she might be the reason.”

Dendron flew up, stretched her arms and back, then cracked her neck, testing to see if all of her joints were fine. “The universe is besieged by abominations from the outer void. Those abominations had to feed on something before attacking us, meaning that our universe isn’t the only one outside.”

She pointed at her lower belly. “I bet the World Tree’s goal is the same as most women out there. She wants an offspring. She is confined to this universe and can spread her saplings all over its worlds, but going outside, she was never able to do that.” She slapped her belly.

“Believe me, no one, no tree, flower, or spirit could get born with a power that rivals Yggdrasil, unless Yggdrasil had a hand, or should I say, a child in the matter.”

She flew around, buzzing like a bee. “I’m asking, but she isn’t replying. That little twig you’re hiding might really be her daughter, the one she wants to send to another universe to populate.”

“So you’re saying all of this is for Plum?”

“No, I’m not saying that. Her name is Plum? I’ll keep that in mind.” She flew closer to Arad. “What I’m saying is that the World Tree, as great as she is, might be worried. If Plum is her sole daughter, she probably wants to find out if you can protect her.”

“That depends on a lot of things that we aren’t sure about.”

“We’re sure about one thing.” She pointed at him, “You’re at the center of it all.”

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