The dragon's harem

Chapter 1670: Reflected Beauty

“Where did you hide them?” Fractal asked with a gentle smile as he stared at Agnar. He had finally managed to catch up to him, but now the slime and succubus are nowhere to be seen.

Agnar had no intention of conversing with a devil. Even as a kid, he understood several fundamental things about the world thanks to those around him.

Kali had once explained to him that demons are violent and destructive monsters. Trying to put any sense into their erratic impulses is a fool’s errand. In that same way, Maharaja taught him that devils are similar. They are evil and manipulative jailers who have learned from the worst and most vile villains of the universe and now use that knowledge to further their own goals.

When a devil speaks, their words don’t matter. Never try to decipher or play around with the words of a devil’s contract; the mere fact that you are considering signing it is a sign that you’re losing. When a devil gives you a contract, burn it. When they speak, it’s lies, and when they ask questions, remain silent.

Never listen to the devil.

Fractal had asked about Obelisk and Filly’s location, and Agnar wasn’t going to answer. Instead, he was going to attack, using that opening to press an advantage.

Fractal swung his spear and blocked Agnar’s slash, staring at him with a gentle smile. “I’ve never seen a kid with such potential…”

But before Fractal could finish, Agnar’s sword slashed right through his spear and cut a massive wound across his chest.

Fractal bled and flew back, frowning as his wound rapidly healed in a burst of flames. His eyes looked at Agnar, trying to figure out how to deal with him.

He already figured out how Agnar’s sword works; it compares beauty and deals damage based on it. But it was a reality that Fractal couldn’t honestly believe himself to be more beautiful than a Nymph. Using magic to protect himself against her beauty is a testament to that.

Agnar’s speed and strength weren’t that much different from when he was a massive Black Jaguar, but now, Fractal couldn’t simply block his attacks.

“With that mirror sword of yours, it’s hard to block your attacks. Why is it a mirror?”

Fractal summoned another spear and got ready to block Agnar’s coming attack. He had to find a good opening to finish him off in a single slash.

But at that moment, his eyes suddenly exploded into a torrent of blood, his brain overloaded, and his entire soul quaked.

The beauty sword was a mirror; it was the maiden’s mirror that she uses to check her image with. It reflects her true beauty, making it clearer. While the wizards’ magic helped Fractal deal with direct visuals, like blocking Agnar’s figure or the tattoo on his back, those needed tuning beforehand, a conscious decision.

But the ancient devil failed to account for reflections, those pointed directly at his eyes. Agnar had simply used the sword’s reflective nature to reflect the image of Yuwaku’s tattoo toward Fractal’s face, blinding him.

Even if the reflected image was just that, a reflection, it was still a copy of the harrowing and boundless amount of information encoded into Yuwaku’s beauty, simply using that allowed Agnar to double the beauty output.

Usually, this won’t mean anything since just seeing Yuwaku is destructive enough, but it didn’t mean such a possibility wasn’t out there.

As Fractal stumbled back, teleported right behind him, and thrust his sword, stabbing the vile devil through the heart. Then, without wasting a second, he swung the blade up, cutting the devil in half up to his brain.

Agnar was sure the devil died, but he wasn’t going to care about what he felt or sensed. Just to be even more sure, he unleashed a torrent of black lightning to char Fractal’s corpse into ash.

He should be done. It was surprisingly easy to take him down when he got caught off guard. That goes to show that what Alcott told him was right: just understand your opponent’s weakness and your own power to be able to end fights quickly.

That was a golden piece of wisdom… but… Agnar wasn’t a fool; he was a kid, and he had learned the hard way when fighting Arad that when people get killed, it doesn’t mean they are dead, and it by no means signals the end of a fight.

As per Arad’s words, a fight is only truly over when you’re back home, sleeping with your family in peace.

Just then, the lightning faded away, leaving a massive mass of conflagration and inferno. From that fire, Fractal flew out at blinding speed, throwing his spear toward Agnar’s chest.

“No one had ever managed to kill me since I got this jewel!” He shouted with a wide smile. “Thanks to you, I know that I can resurrect pretty quickly as well!”

While Agnar could resurrect from hell’s lightning thanks to his connection with Maharaja, Fractal seems to be able to revive from its searing heat and fire.

Agnar’s arm moved as fast as it could, and he barely managed to deflect Fractal’s spear away from his chest. The fight wasn’t over, and the two immediately clashed.

Flame rose from the earth, turning into titanic pillars of crimson light, and black lightning roared in the dark clouds, raining down like a divine rampage.

As the two flew through the sky, each clash of their weapons resulted in a massive shockwave that shattered the air and sent waves of magic powerful enough to rattle the whole region.

It was no longer a mundane fight, but a war between two devils. A rakshasa born of black lightning, and a devil born from flames.

All of the devils nearby had to run away, and the poor sinners were left to die and crumble in the fallout of the clash.

Far away in the mountains, Filly hid behind the titanic stones with Obelisk clenched in her arms. She was scared, crying, and terrified. Did she really try to enslave that kid on her own? That is no kid, but a demented devil from the depths of hell. How didn’t she see that?

He didn’t just have a contract with Maharaja; she was giving him power for free, and limitless as long as his body could endure. Thinking about it now, if she had managed to enslave him, that would’ve meant Maharaja coming for her personally.

She dodged death; there were very few beings that could permanently kill devils or sinners, and Maharaja, the God Eater, was one of them. If she wanted, she could even eat the gods and erase them from existence.

But not really, it was a fate worse than getting erased. They’ll be stuck inside her stomach, getting digested for nutrients, resurrected, and digested once more. Cursed to fuel her for the rest of time.

At that moment, the clash was nearing its end. The flames faded, and so did the lightning. Even those two can’t sustain such a burst of magic for a long time. So while their mana recovers, they turned once more to clashing blades, causing the ground to shatter and the lakes of boiling acid to splash into the sky, raining back down.

And at that moment, it ended. Once more, Fractal got hit by Yuwaku’s beauty even though he had already made the magic block her reflection in Agnar’s sword.

So what did get him? It was her reflection in the acid raindrops. While Agnar did run out of Maharaja’s curses and would need time to recover, he didn’t run out of Yuwaku’s mana, and this was his plan all along.

Exhaust the devil and then rip the ball out of his tongue. So as Fractal screamed, Agnar flew in and shoved his small hand into his massive maw, ripping his tongue whole out.

Fractal crashed down, and Agnar barely managed to land, shattering his legs. With Maharaja’s mana out, he couldn’t reinforce his body anymore using the Black Jaguar’s strength, turning him once more into a brittle brat.

The pain washed over him, and he screamed, getting separated from Yuwaku.

What looked like a victory was a tie. Fractal lay on the ground, drained and robbed of his power source, and Agnar was just the same, broken, tired, and dying.

“Agnar! Agnar!” Yuwaku cried, trying to keep him awake while she healed him.

Fractal was better at dealing with pain and exhaustion than Agnar, and he was already back on his feet, coming to retrieve the jewel.

“It’s over, brat. You’ve attained a height no human kid was ever supposed to.” Fractal lifted his spear and wasn’t going to waste any time. He’ll kill Agnar first, then take the jewel and run away.

But as he thrust his spear, it hit something hard, something so hard that the spear bounced back, making a sound as if it hit steel.

Squatting between Fractal and Agnar, a slightly muscular cat-girl was looking at Yuwaku with a blooming blush and a wide smile. Fractal had hit her on the back of her head.

“HOOO-Nya! You’re more beautiful in real-life-Nya… it’s making me go into heat-Nya!” She giggled, then her eyes shifted back at Agnar. “You’re one lucky brat-nya.”

Then, her eyes shifted once more, looking at Fractal’s severed tongue and the golden jewel on it. Her blush faded away, and she frowned in disgust. A moment later, she was shoveling dirt with her hands to bury it.

“Selena! Why are you adding ’Nya’ again?” A booming voice rumbled from the sky, and when Fractal looked back, he saw a claw, a claw five times bigger than the mountains nearby, and that claw was attached to an even bigger black jaguar. The clouds were lower than the thing’s paws.

But it wasn’t alone, two, twenty-four-headed dragons were on each side, a massive slug engulfed in lightning, and two devil queens were flying above.

The twin queens of hell, the twin Tiamats, the twin Maharaja, and even Beelzebub were here.