The dragon's harem

Chapter 2326: Four Goblins In a Trench Coat

Abel stared at the tall, shadowy figure of the Emperor of Nothing, and inside his black hood, he didn’t see Arad’s face, but Agnar’s face, hidden with void magic. Inside that massive coat, it wasn’t Arad, but four different people.

Yuwaku stood up, and Agnar sat on her shoulders with Ignis and Theresa on her arms, the four of them fully forming a huge, bulky body that somewhat matched that of Arad. Thanks to Yuwaku’s void magic and a few illusion tricks from Merlin, they could easily shift her aura to feel denser and more threatening than it really is.

Granted, Yuwaku herself was threatening enough, but clearly nowhere near the rabid madness Arad could cause.

"She really sent you four? Can you even fight here?" Abel sighed, and then threw a glance at the forest. "But I guess your job is to just scare those fools and push them toward me." He pointed toward a massive boulder that was at the edge of the forest. "Go there, and head straight into the forest. Those devils would sense you immediately and flee."

"They won’t attack us?" Agnar asked, and Abel laughed. "They are scared shitless of Arad. The moment they spot you, they’ll flee without even thinking."

That was true, as all devils here feared Arad more than anything. The Emperor of Nothing was now to them like monsters and ghosts to children, an eldritch horror that some of the higher-ranked devils wouldn’t even dare go near.

Many would just laugh and call his existence a baseless legend until they see him and shit themselves. Which means that Agnar and the girls won’t have to fight anyone in the best-case scenario, and all devils would just flee from their path.

Agnar put his hood back on and sighed. "Fine, but we’ll fight back if any devil attacks us. Of course, we’ll try to maintain this disguise as long as possible." As they floated away, Abel looked at them with a smile, and then teleported away to the forest. He had to move fast and set up a trap for the Wolf Rakshasa.

As Agnar and his group moved uphill like a floating ghost of pure darkness, Abel was already circulating behind the Wolf Rakshasa gang, watching their backs. As he watched, he kept his eyes on the bandit’s crow, and he saw the moment when the crow spotted Agnar.

The crow immediately emptied his bowls and paled so much that his red skin looked pale pink; his eyes opened wide, and he cried. "The Emperor of Nothing!"

The moment the crow screamed, everyone in the camp froze for a second, and then five devils flew up to the canopy to look and confirm what the crow had seen. As they saw the shadowy, dark figure approaching the forest, they too paled like ash and cried. "Code Black! Retreat immediately, leave everything behind; we got no time!"

The rumors about the Emperor of Nothing were absurd; some talked about him being the will of hell taken form, and some called him an elder god from long-forgotten eons. Some of the people at the Temple of Treachery claimed that the Emperor of Nothing is Amaterasu’s son, and some sinners claim he was the first sinner to ever land in hell. There is even someone claiming that hell itself was built to contain him specifically.

When Asmodeus herself was confronted on the matter, she only said that the Emperor of Nothing is a walking eraser, and that it doesn’t matter who you are; facing him is a suicide that not even hell can revive you from. She even pointed at the three dead gods(Pain, Darkness, and Madness) who disappeared after facing Arad, and she claimed that he erased them.

The Rakshasa asked Maharaja about the Emperor of nothing as well, and she called him an apex predator, and that the two of them had even raced once.

Abel watched as the devils ran away in horror, abandoning everything from their weapons and tents to valuable goods and sinners. And that was the perfect time to strike.

In the blink of an eye, heads rolled on the ground, and the running devils didn’t even dare look back. They all just turned around and fled as fast as they could, not daring to even try to figure out or understand how some of them were killed.

"What was that!" One of the devils who ran away in the front cried as he heard the heads rolling behind him with a crackle of lightning, and another devil replied with a terrified cry. "We’re probably in his range; we must get away fast!"

Abel couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome. He got to pick them up one by one as they fled in terror, which made his job far easier than it should have been.

But then, trouble started. Two of the Rakshasas, a large black wolf and a tigress, decided to turn around. "We’ll slow him down! You run away!" The wolf bolted away, and the tigress yelled at him. "Wait for me, you fool!" And she followed him immediately.

Abel was now sweating, as those two devils were extremely powerful, and even he would struggle against them in a direct confrontation. Should he stop what he is doing and go back to help Agnar, or stay true to his mission?

It only took him a few seconds to make that decision, and it was quick. He will keep killing the devils and let Agnar handle it. That kid isn’t a brat anymore, but a horrifying monster on his own.

As the wolf Rakshasa ran on all fours, accelerating to horrifying speed as he rushed toward Agnar, he growled, and the hair on his back stood up.

[Summoning Magic: Cerberus]

From behind his back, a titanic three-headed black pitbull emerged, roaring and growling as molten magma splattered form his lips instead of slobber. "Let’s die a beautiful death, we’re going with a blaze!"

Hearing that, Cerberus roared as he ran behind his master, ready to charge at the entirety of hell with him.

"You stupid mutt!" Tigress finally caught up with him. "I’ll haunt after death!" She roared, and from her voice, a ghostly figure emerged. It looked like a shapeless cloud of white mist that had two glowing dots for eyes.

[Summoning Magic: Coagulated Gasp]

"Hunt me if that thing leaves our souls intact. You know that we won’t revive from this. It’ll be the end: pure darkness and nothingness afterward.

The two finally could see Agnar’s shadowy figure, and they could easily feel the faint hairs on their bodies stand up. All of their senses screamed danger, and if the two weren’t already at peace with their death, they wouldn’t have even dared to get this close to such a monster.

"Lord of Nothing!" The black wolf devil roared, "I challenge you to a duel!" He jumped forward, extended his massive claws, and swung his massive hand at the shadowy figure of Agnar.

Yuwaku’s darkness emerged from beneath the massive cloak and swung toward the wolf’s body like a swarm of blades. But since that alone wasn’t enough, Agnar dodged to the side and let the wolf’s attack miss.

As the black wolf devil rolled on the ground with his body filled with fresh wounds, he growled and turned to glare back at the tall, dark figure. "Going easy on me?"

"Kageru!" Tigress shouted. She had never once seen someone injure Kageru like this before. In the blink of an eye, those tentacles of darkness moved, formed into blades, and slashed him like that.

She charged headfirst at the shadowy figure, and unlike Kageru, she didn’t swing her claws but opened her maw wide open, trying to go for a bite to the face. But before her bite could land, a burst of crimson flame shot out of the dark hood and flew directly into her open maw, searing her throat black. At the same time, one of the black tentacles smacked her on the side and sent her flying back with a painful crack and a pained scream.

"Kita!" The black wolf caught her before she could hit the ground and poured his blood into her mouth, healing her in the blink of an eye. "Are you alive?" He cried, and she nodded, still coughing violently.

"Kill him!" Kageru shouted, and the large Cerberus charged fearlessly at the shadowy figure of the Emperor of Nothing, but suddenly stumbled and rolled, whimpering on the ground with bleeding eyes.

The Coagulated Gasp attacked as well, but it was immediately knocked back by something invisible and almost evaporated.

"We won’t be able to even touch him like this. We need to work together." Kita growled, and Kageru nodded. "Yeah, do you think she’s on the same level as Asmodeus?"

Kita was already sweating, even though her fur masked everything. "Probably even stronger. We’re archdevils, and it’s toying with us." She then paused for a second. "Wait, she? How did you figure that out?"

"She smells like one." Kageru smiled. "Our horrifying eldritch horror is a lady, just like Asmodeus and Maharaja are." He stood, walked a few steps forward, and bowed slightly. "Emperor of Nothing... or should I say, Empress of Nothing. I am called Kageru, heir of the black wolves of Rotfinberg."

He extended his claws forward and smiled. "If I’m to die, I’ll at least be killed by someone of your class." His entire body then burned with black flames.

[HOWL!]

[MAHARAJA!]

Like Agnar, he has the blessing of Maharaja.