The dragon's harem

Agnar growled as he blocked Kageru’s claw attack, and he could feel his bones groaning under the titanic weight. It felt like he was trying to block an entire mountain falling on his head, and Maharaja’s powers were quickly failing him.

"To think the Emperor of Nothing was four different people, and that one of them is aligned with Her Eminence Maharaja!" Kageru smiled as he pushed down harder. "Tell me, brat! Does this mean that Her Eminence controls the Emperor of Nothing? Is he her agent?"

Agnar growled as he tilted his sword and deflected Kageru’s attack aside, and then, with a slide, he slid back while keeping his eyes on the Archdevil. He can’t brute-force his way through this fight; even regular skills won’t help. Kageru had Maharaja’s powers for far longer than Agnar and was far more skilled with them than he was. Agnar really was a thousand years too young to face him.

Agnar stood, lifted his sword up, and took a deep breath. He must end this fight quickly before Kageru gets serious enough to kill him, and for that, he had to accelerate even further. With a single leap, he blasted forward with a downward swing at Kageru’s head.

Kageru blocked the attack, but Agnar immediately twisted his arms and changed the direction of his attack, aiming at Kageru’s shoulder. This time, Kageru dodged and hit him with a nasty backhand to the face, sending him flying back into a large boulder that had been unearthed by the previous nuclear explosions.

The moment Agnar hit the boulder, he bounced back even faster than before, swinging his sword toward Kageru’s stomach. The Archdevil smiled as he swung his foot and kicked Agnar back.

"You smell like a human, but like a Rakshasa as well. You were a human not so long ago, right? Her Eminence’s powers turned you into one." Agnar kept attacking faster and faster, and Kageru always smacked him back like a pinball. "To think a human child could grow so fast; not even other Archdevils are powerful enough to fight me like this."

Kageru laughed. "How absurd, how amusing, how intriguing. I’ve seen heroes crawl in fear and terror when faced by devils far weaker than myself, yet here you are! A brat! A kid, one who was blessed by her Eminence and can withstand the harshness of the hells!"

He clenched his fists and, with one move, punched Agnar to the ground and pinned him down. "But you’re still far away from matching me. The disparity of power before devils can often be so vast that humans cannot fathom. Not all Archdevils are the same, and I myself could be several times stronger than the worst devils humanity can imagine facing."

Kageru lifted his fist, and Agnar coughed up a mouthful of blood as his body was crushed to the ground. "I won’t kill you; neither will we kill your friends. I do not wish to get in the way of Her Eminence’s plans"

But at that moment, he could hear Cerberus’s terrified howl. To Kageru, that howl wasn’t just a scream, but meaningful language. "FUCK! THAT’S A DANGEROUS ONE! MASTER, THE TRUE EMPEROR OF NOTHING IS WATCHING!"

"Before Everything, there was Nothing." Agnar mumbled, and Kageru jumped back, with sweat drenching his back.

"Born from Nothing, to become Everything." Hearing the chant, Kageru could see dark smoke gushing out of Agnar’s wounds.

"Blacker than black, darker than darkness." The entire flow of magic around them started shifting, and Kageru growled. "Fool! What kind of horror are you trying to call!?"

Agnar was faced with a hard choice, the power he was pulling from Maharaja was easily countered as Kageru knew it better than him. He could pull power from Yuwaku, but that would weaken her. They could fuse, but Agnar wasn’t sure he could take on Kageru and Kita at the same time while protecting Ignis and Theresa from the aftermath.

That’s why he decided to push further, even deeper past Yuwaku’s own power. He could see everything forking into several paths. One was verdant and green, howling with spirit magic, and the other was darker than darkness and seemed nearly infinite.

Since he wasn’t that familiar with Zephyr’s complicated magic, he decided to pull Arad’s power.

"I said stop it, you fool! That dark magic is abominable! Are you trying to form a contract with something even the gods fear!?" Kageru could only understand one thing: The blacks mike coming out of Agnar’s wounds was abominable magic. "Do that, and you’ll make all of existence your sworn enemy!"

The entire layer started shaking as the black clouds in the sky started swirling like a tornado, with black lightning illuminating the darkness with several faint flashes. Everyone stopped fighting and looked up, some horrified, and some smiling.

"I guess... Dad is now powerful enough to grant warlock contracts." Yuwaku smiled, and Kita growled at her. "That fucking horror is your dad?!"

With a grin, Yuwaku kicked her away. "And he is far gentler than I."

"Muwahahahaha!" Theresa burst out laughing as the Coagulated Gasp was swept away by the violent wind. "MY BLOOD LORD! MY LIEGE! MY MASTER! AND MY GOD! BLOOD FROM THE BLOOD LORD! OBEDIENCE FOR THE LORD OF DOMINATION!" She shouted with an excited grin, and Ignis had to fly in and catch her before she could get swept away by the wind as well.

"Stop laughing and gather yourself." Ignis growled as she pulled Theresa away and looked toward the terrified Cerberus. "Father is about to destroy this entire place."

"What I seek is a torrent of power, an endless well of pure strength." A bleeding heart appeared in the middle of the sky, and it started beating loud enough that the entire layer could hear it.

Kageru jumped back. "It can’t be!" The endless torrent of eldritch magic had changed in the blink of an eye into demonic magic, and the heart beating in the sky was one that Kageru knew well; all devils knew it far too well. "That’s... Alaric’s heart?!"

Everyone knew Alaric, the Former Demon Lord of Lycanthropy, and many couldn’t find out how or why his entire Abyss Layer got destroyed out of nowhere. Many speculated that it was a territorial dispute, since Sawless’s domain was destroyed as well, but no one could make a clear guess.

The bleeding heart flashed with light, and all of its filth started to be burned by searing golden flames. "Again?!"

Kageru could see the heart’s demonic magic shifting again, but this time, it was turning into divine magic, being converted right in front of his eyes. But then, the heart stopped beating, and the divine magic started failing. The sky grew angrier, and the entire layer shook violently.

Then, a massive purple eye burst out of the clouds and started glaring down, moving at blinding speed as it glared at every single Rakshasa in the entire layer. Kageru couldn’t help but throw up as he felt his entire body being licked by black tentacles, as if someone was counting every single hair on his body.

Kita was shaking as she hugged herself and hid behind Kageru. "That thing, it’s inspecting us with its eldritch magic. What is it trying to do?"

But just a few seconds later, the heart pushed again with renewed power as its demonic magic started moving smoothly again as it transformed into divine magic. Less than a minute later, the red heart had turned pale yellow and was bleeding golden divine blood. It had turned from the heart of a demon lord to that of a lesser divine, the Heart of the Beast God.

As the heard turned divine, it flew into the sky and disappeared into the storm, only leaving a stream of golden blood falling, which poured directly onto Agnar.

"RUMBLE AND ROAR!"

Agnar’s entire body flashed with blinding golden light as the entire region shook, and Kageru covered his face with his arms. "The bastard! He absorbed some of that divine magic... Is this the power of the Emperor of Nothing?"

As the light faded away, Agnar was standing there, fully healed, with blond hair and golden eyes, looking directly at Kageru as he carried a long golden blade. "ASGORATH!"

Kageru smiled. "Asgorath? The First Dragon God?" He started walking toward Agnar as his claws extended. "Is he the Beast God? Or is he the closest named existence to the power you just got? I heard that the dragons were the first of the Beasts and their strongest, but they were classified as something else due to that..." He then punched his fists together.

"Gah! Details be damned. Brat, just who are you?"

"Agnar, the Blade of the Capital." Agnar finally replied. "A self-proclaimed hero." Then, with a single leap, he flashed forward at Kageru with enough speed that Kageru couldn’t even reply in time.

As Agnar’s blade moved and cut into Kageru’s neck, it sliced halfway through before Kageru’s body moved and dodged, causing him to land back with blood gushing from his neck. "Damnation! You’re fast. Chosen of the Beast God."

Kageru healed his neck, and his entire body exploded with cursed magic. "Let’s see who is superior then! Our Maharaja or your god!"