Chapter 2287: Primary Reaction

AO’s emergence wasn’t even what horrified the angels and gods; his momentary appearance was met with reverence. The terrifying part was what came before it, when it was just Arad fighting Vorvadoss and the Avatar.

All of the void dragons present there could feel Arad’s presence, as unlike Gojo, he didn’t bother to hide his own existence. He came out of Eris’s blood furious and everyone sensed him as he shattered the Gravastar and clashed with Vorvadoss.

When the void dragon saw Arad, it could only feel one thing: fear. Their magic was nowhere near his; their aggression didn’t match him either, and neither did their own will to fight. They couldn’t even come close to understanding how he fought. His space manipulation far surpassed their; his mana reserves were just absurd, his size was horrifying, and on top of it all, he didn’t seem to care about ranks, orders, or the gods either.

None of the dragons here would dare jump in to fight like that, and probably not even the Elder dragons would if they carried valuable encampments. But that wasn’t even what scared them... they could feel it. This dragon didn’t just jump in to fight, he absorbed Goddess Eris, Death herself, and Former General Luminous and that horrifying shadow time drakaina called Linda.

Not all of the void dragons here, but some of them had heard of Luminous before. She is a powerful, arrogant, and absurdly hard-to-approach drakaina, and also the princess of the chromatic dragons.

She isn’t the kind of drakaina who’ll just let any dragon touch her... They could hear elder dragons’ stories of void dragons approaching her, only for her to scoff and burn them to ash with a beam of light.

For her to easily let a dragon suck her into his stomach... no, this probably was an emergency, but that also poses another question.

Eris is a fucking sun! How in the nine hells could a mere adult void dragon swallow an entire divine goddess like she was nothing?

One of the dragons looked at Merlin, who was taking a short rest as the fight had just ended. "Say, you know that dragon, right?"

"He is my husband, so yes." She looked at him for a second, then waved her fingers, summoning a bottle of fresh, cold water. "Got a question about him?"

"Of course, what was that just now? He shattered the star and fought that thing... No adult void dragon can do such a thing. And how can he absorb a whole goddess?"

"Eris is his wife, same with me, Luminous, and Linda as well. From what I learned from Yog, his stomach is far bigger than normal." Hearing that, the dragon looked horrified. "You call her like that? The goddess of magic doesn’t take too kindly to people using her name casually like that."

Merlin chuckled, "Well then, she should consider herself lucky that I’m not calling her a midget or a gremlin, because that’s what she is." The dragon couldn’t be more appalled and was about to voice his concerns a second time, but Yog suddenly poked her head out from underneath Merlin’s robe. "I don’t mind!"

Merlin sighed and stared at her. "Don’t manifest in weird places. I’ll kick you like a ball."

Yog laughed and stood up, patting herself clean. "Well, I separate people into three camps. Those who know no better, and I don’t mind if they call me however they want; this includes regular mortals. Those who know, so I’ll murder them if they break magic, insult, or disobey me."

She looked at Eris and smiled. "Lastly, those who know. But are so valuable and powerful pioneers of magic that I won’t mind even if they pissed on me. They are worth more than my inflated pride. Merlin here is in the third camp."

She jumped back and sat on Merlin’s lap. "So... Sir... Finn of Almoria. Merlin here is worth that much to me, and before you even ask, yes, she can kill ten of you if she is motivated enough."

Merlin grabbed Yog by the head, lifted her up, and stared at her. "What do you want? Why did you come here? You didn’t just show up to chat."

"Amaterasu said to come take Arad back home. I came here to call you over." She answered with a smile and disappeared as quickly as she appeared.

Merlin stood, looked at the void dragon, and called one of Amaterasu’s archons. "I’ll leave the rest for you. I got some of them temporary camps, but I’ll believe you’ll set more permanent ones later, right?"

The archon nodded and bowed. "Please leave it to me." She then slowly lifted her head. "Mind if I asked something private?"

Merlin lifted her hand, flicked her fingers, and the two of them were locked in a sealed black cube. "What is it?"

"That dragon, your husband. I’m pretty sure I sensed him absorbing both Archangel Azrael and Death herself... no mere mortal or god should be able to do so." She looked at her face. "Just... what is he?"

Merlin crossed her arms. "Can’t you ask Amaterasu?"

"I did, and she didn’t answer me. She simply said that I’ll find out when the time is right. But... with what happened today, I won’t be the only one to ask this question."

Merlin thought about it for a while, but even she didn’t know if it was fine to talk about this now. "I don’t really know if I should speak or not. The best one to ask is probably Yog; she’ll know what can be said or not."

"No wonder one escaped my net." Yog landed inside the cube. "Merlin, you snared one."

"Your net? You were using magic?" Merlin gasped, and Merlin shrugged. "Huh, skilled enough that you won’t even bother checking my great magic? I was wiping this very question from everyone’s minds. This angel seems to have barely escaped since you locked her in this cube."

"So, we aren’t supposed to know yet?" The angel mumbled, and Yog nodded. "For an archon, you’re smart. You angels shouldn’t know, and surely the gods shouldn’t know either."

The angel looked sad for a second, and then smiled. "So be it. I won’t ask anymore questions."

Yog wiped the question out of the angel’s mind, and the three of them teleported to Amaterasu’s tent, where Arad was now locked inside a basketball.sized black hole to evolve.

Inside the room, Merlin found herself standing there with Kayden, Amaterasu, Yog, Gojo, Lilia, and a few angels and archons. The rest were either too injured or already recovering inside Arad’s stomach.

"What a mess..." She approached the black hole. "I wonder what the rest are thinking in the elves’ quarter."

"They should be fine. Take him back, put the black hole in a safe place inside his private quarters. I would’ve preferred to let Gojo or Murasaki seal him so they could care for him, but sadly neither of them was available at the time." Gojo was already out of energy at the time, and Arad’s mother was dispatched to another frontline.