The dragon's harem - Chapter 1606: Under Her Nose
Chapter 1606: Under Her Nose
Gojo woke up and sighed, prompting Arad to look at him and ask. “Are you okay?”
“Nothing, just trying to keep Lucy sane.” He leaned back on one of the boulders and took a deep breath.
“Is the divine portfolio taking hold like it’s doing with Eris?”
Gojo shook his head. Unlike Eris, Lucy didn’t have any problem dealing with her divine portfolio; it was as if she were born to be a goddess. She is special, and that was the problem.
Gojo wanted her to live her life as any other girl her age. Even as a divine goddess, she will be fine living as she wants, eating all the food she wants, and playing the entire day. She can leave all the dirty work to her angels and agents. That’s what Gojo expected her to do.
What he didn’t expect was her going out on her own, walking down an unknown street, and eating people alive. He felt like a parent watching their baby crawl out to the street and shove stones in their mouth.
What made it worse is that he knew Lucy wasn’t a clueless girl; she knows, and knows a lot. Her actions are rarely driven by emotions or impulses when she does something. She knew what she was doing, she knew where she was going, and knew what kind of people she was baiting.
When Gojo disappeared, Liliana became the ruling queen. Lucy, who was a goddess under Gojo’s control, was now free to do as she wanted.
“I think Lucy herself is changing her portfolio to fit her and not the other way around.”
Deep underground, Lucy finally reached the end of what looked like an infinite staircase covered in dust and spider webs. She had two reasons for being here, the least important of which was finding clues about the whereabouts of Gojo’s jewel.
Lucy’s true reason for wanting to come here in person was far simpler than that. She is the divine goddess of this land, the one responsible for its people. She could feel their hunger from her temple, but she also could feel that something was missing. The burning waves of starvation weren’t whole; they lacked a lot.
She knew that many people remained unaccounted for, thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, starving to death without catching a glimpse of her divine light, yet something blocked her gaze and prevented her from reaching them.
Looking at the walls around her, she could finally understand the reason, the thing blocking her perception. Ancient runes of magic, especially made to avert the gaze of the gods. They were either engraved on the walls by an ancient, powerful wizard or gifted to the people by powerful demons and devils.
She looked at the massive stone door in front of her. Whatever the people behind it were doing, they didn’t even want the gods seeing it.
She reached forward and put her hands on the massive stone door. The thing was so big and heavy that it would need ten men to push it open, which explained the number of the thugs outside.
As Lucy’s small, skinny hands pushed on the frame of the door, it groaned and cracked. The ancient dust on its seams fell off, and the door slowly opened up, giving up under the harrowing might of Lucy’s divine strength.
As the door opened, a tall man approached from the other side, smiling. “Yo, you guys are back? It’s…”
He froze, only seeing a little girl in a white shrine dress, barefoot and looking famished.
“Who are you?” He started reaching toward his sword, and she looked at him.
The man froze for a second and fell to the ground, shriveled and dried as if he hadn’t eaten for a whole year.
Beside Lucy’s feet, an angel appeared prostrating herself. “Your divinity, you willed me here?”
“Throw the corpse away and take his place.”
The woman stood, bowed once, and the man disappeared. She bowed again, and this time was already looking like the man. “As you order.”
Lucy kept walking and left the angel as a guard behind her. She had a lot of work to do in this accursed underground city, community, or whatever the denizens of this place would call it.
As she walked through the small entrance and looked down, her eyes opened wide. A vast cavern expanded in front of her, illuminated by glowing mushrooms. At the bottom was a massive underground lake, and at its center, a massive island with a city as big as the one on the surface, if not bigger.
As stunned as she was, she wasn’t surprised by what she found. This city looked similar to Rita, the city of thieves and criminals that Claug buried while saving Arad and Alcott.
It seems that the criminals of each kingdom needed a place to hide, and this was their hideout in Gojo’s kingdom. From what she could see, this city was hidden from the world far before Claug destroyed Rita.
She took a step forward, lifted her foot, and stomped down, sending a wave of invisible divine light that washed over the whole city. All of the hunger, pain, suffering, and agony she felt were missing; it was hidden here. The horrors her divine eyes saw almost dropped her to the ground. She frowned, the veins on her forehead bulging, and a deep growl escaped her lips.
At that moment, one of her angels appeared in front of her. “Your divinity, please go back home. We’ll clean this filth. You’re too young for it.”
Lucy heard the angel; she fully understood what she meant. “No, that would take a few minutes, and I won’t let anyone else suffer, not anymore.”
With a second stomp, her divine power washed over the whole city. At that moment, everyone there felt full, sluggish, and on the verge of throwing up. The thieves didn’t want to get any more money, the killers lost their interest, and even the other filth lost all of their energy and carnal desires.
From that moment, all activity in the city halted, silence fell for but a second, and then, something exploded in its center. Like a burning red flash, something flew straight at Lucy.
The angel standing there conjured a sword from divine magic and blocked the attack. Flames washed over the whole area, melting the stones. The angel could see him, a tall and muscular man, no, that was no mere human, but a dragon.
“A humanoid form without Tiamat’s blessing, you’re quite the achiever for a wyrm.” The angel pushed the dragon’s arm away and kicked him in the guts, sending him back a few meters.
“Who the fuck are you? An angel at my doorstep?” He stood unharmed by her kick.
Before the conversation could go any longer, a wave of divine magic rushed out of Lucy’s body, drawing the dragon’s attention. He noticed a few things about her, and the first was that she was standing barefoot on the molten stone without getting harmed. That she oozed with so much power that the world itself was suppressing her, and that she looked pissed off.
At that second, over a thousand angels appeared around them. “Go save everyone in that city, kill anyone that gets in your way. I’ll deal with this lizard.”
The angels hesitated to leave her, but they didn’t dare refuse the orders of their goddess, so they left.
“I see, are you the wanna be goddess the new king was playing around with? Fucker thinks we’re stupid.” He smiled, “Got yourself a platoon of half-angels and all that shit. But we’re not falling for your tricks, faker.”
He then slowly lifted his hands. “I wonder how much you’ll sell. Those half-angels would give me enough money, so I’ll keep you for myself.”
As he was babbling, Lucy noticed a few things about him. The first was that those runes that protect against divine magic were engraved on all of his scales. He was probably the one who masked this place from the gods’ gaze.
That sadly also meant that he is pretty much immune to her divine magic. Of course, she is certain that if someone like Kali were here, his protections would be useless, but she is one of the weakest gods out there.
It was all fine, divine magic wasn’t her only trick. She still had her wild magic, and what mattered most, the martial skills she learned from Gojo.
She glared at the dragon with two glowing, sapphire eyes. Then, her frown shifted into a mocking smile.
The dragon saw her move; she wasn’t much faster than he was. But since she took him by surprise, he found himself flying back with a broken nose, looking at Lucy, who was flying after him to deliver a second punch.
