The dragon's harem

Chapter 2363: The Succubus Kingdom of Shadows

Within the lightless abyss, the endless hole that swallows all, and down at once into its deepest crevices, past the eternal Minotaur maze, there existed an endless layer of black spiderwebs.

Millions of intertwined tunnels, and trillions of spiders of all sizes and shapes crawling everywhere, feeding and hunting anything that dared end up there. In reality, no one ever dares get anywhere near this layer, and the only ones ending up here were those cast by other demons as punishment.

Some spiders were so tiny that they could drown in a droplet of water, and some were so massive that just one of their legs could be mistaken for a tower reaching above the clouds, even though this layer had no sky to speak of, just titanic caverns and tunnels. But most of the spiders had bodies the size of bulls and legs long enough to make their bodies look tiny.

Even one of those spiders could be a disaster enough to erase a whole city. They boasted three-foot-long fangs that can easily pierce five inches of steel, poison that could instantly kill an adult dragon, and could lay thousands of eggs and have them hatch within minutes. Set one of them in a forest near a city, and you’ll have an endless swarm of horrifying, eight-legged, nightmare-inducing demon spiders that can easily overpower a whole army.

"Back to my home! Hooray, hooray! Even though I’ve never been here before." The tall woman with the short black hair shouted at the top of her lungs, spreading her arms open as she looked at the horrifying cobweb crawling with spiders with glowing green eyes.

Hearing her loud voice, countless spiders stopped moving, looked at her, and locked on immediately. Most of them were smaller than a fingernail, but some were as large as sheep, so Anansi clapped her hands. "What? You little bastards, want a fight?" She shifted into a spider form the size of a large cow and clicked her fangs. "Come here, I’ll bite you all!"

But then, a titanic spider that was almost fifty meter tall crawled out of one of the largest holes in the wall, and all the smaller spiders ran away horrified. Cannibalism was common here, so none of them wanted to get eaten by that big, gluttonous monster.

"Whoa! A big and fat one! You must’ve been eating good." She started moving her two front legs like fists. "Good, good, a fatty meal is better than ever!" Her body then ballooned, growing to match the spider facing her.

The other spider froze for a second, surprised at the quick change, and Anansi laughed. "I’m a dungeon boss! Did you really think I’d be weak? Think again! Wait, you won’t be able to do that since I’ll bite your fat ass!"

The other spider lifted its head, looked up, its eyes paled, and it turned around, bolting back to the large hole it crawled up from, and Anansi cried. "Wait, my dinner! Why are you running? I still haven’t tasted you yet!"

Anansi then turned around with a furious spider face. "That’s your fault! Pay for damages and my meal, danger noodle!" Behind her stood a titanic, serpentine black dragon with glowing red eyes and fags bigger than Anansi’s full-sized spider form.

Anansi herself was the size of a small hill, growing nearly to three hundred meters tall. She could easily tower over skyscrapers and crawl up mountains like a force of nature, and she even looked almost exactly like a black widow, red hourglass and all.

But even with that titanic size that could give anyone a heart attack, compared to the black serpentine dragon behind her, she looked tiny. If she was a regular-sized black widow, the dragon would be a full-sized titanoboa.

That dragon, or drakaina to be exact, was none other than Linda. "Why would I do that?" Linda growled with smoke burning from her nostrils, and Anansi lifted one leg up. "Cause you’re big and scary! How come I look like a tick on your whiskers?"

Linda sighed, and her entire body started shrinking before she landed on the ground in her human form, and Anansi looked down at her. "Like this, you almost look edible." After saying that, Linda glared at her, and Anansi immediately shrank down and turned into her human form.

"Now thinking about it, I’m full." She looked behind Anansi at Arad and the Mother of All Life, who just stared at her.

Linda then looked back at the Mother of All Life. "You said that we’d be in the kingdom right after teleporting through the shadows. How did we end up here?" She then pointed back at Anansi. "And why is she here?"

"The kingdom is at the heart of this spider nest. It has a physical location, even though it should’ve been only accessible in the shadow. I tried to pull us directly inside, but Arad here is too heavy for me to do that." As the Mother of All Life replied in her usual monotone voice, Linda stared back at her with a deeper frown.

"Then why did you bring her here?" She pointed back at Anansi, and the Mother of All Life shrugged. "She knew that demon spiders originate from this brood around the shadow kingdoms, so I thought she might want to visit her homeland once."

"That’s me here! This is my homeland, and those are my people!" Anansi looked around with an excited face, and Arad took a step forward. "I can sense many powerful spiders around. Do you really think this place is safe?"

The mother of All Life turned to face him. "No, it isn’t safe for anyone besides us. Linda is powerful enough to be an apex predator here. None of the spiders, even in groups, are powerful enough to threaten her." She then pointed at him. "You might look like a Nymph now, but you’re Arad Orion, Kali’s husband. You aren’t just the apex predator here in this brood, but in all of the abyss."

Arad looked at her, and then down at himself again. The Nymph’s body certainly didn’t look as intimidating and threatening as his original hulking body, but it was still packing enough magic to scare even higher abominations, so she was right.

He then looked at the winding tunnels ahead of them. "So... do you know the way in? If we can’t directly teleport, you can guide us, right?"

"Of course. Follow me. It won’t take us long." Arad nodded and followed her as she flew forward, and so did everyone after him. The spiders quickly scattered as they sensed the Mother of All Life coming through, as none of them wanted to even get in her sight. Last time they tried to attack her, she gave them hell for a whole century.

And soon, they were finally at the walls of the Succubus Kingdom of Shadows, and they were impressive. The walls themselves were titanic in size, obsidian in color, and made from condensed shadows. Arad approached the walls and touched them, checking the magic.

The shadows have been given form through divine magic, being turned into a physical substance that erases light. They were similar to hardened tar, but far stronger and denser. "Did you make this?" He asked, and the Mother of All Life looked at him.

"Technically, yes. This is my shadow magic, but I wasn’t the sole architect." She then approached the massive gate and shouted. "Open the gate!"

A tired, half-drunk pink-haired succubus who only wore strings on her body looked down at them, yawning and scratching her butt. "Who’s down there? The hell did you make it outside?"

The Mother of All Life didn’t reply and just looked up with a tired face, waiting for the succubus to see her. And when the succubus did, she paled and started shaking. "You...! Your Divinity!" She cried, immediately turning around and shouting down at the shaft-holder. "Open the gate! Her Divinity is standing outside with some guests!"

The titanic gate groaned and moved slowly, while the Mother of All Life approached, and Arad was right behind her with Linda and Anansi in tow. Mira was safely asleep inside the Mother of All Life’s shadow, suspended in time with Linda’s magic so her condition wouldn’t get worse.

As they walked inside, the guards rushed in and prostrated themselves to the Mother of All Life. All of them were succubi, and pretty powerful ones at that. "Welcome Home, Great Mother of Life."

She ignored them, only stopping by their commander, who looked decent enough thanks to wearing full plate armor instead of being half-naked all the time. "Where shall we take the guests?" The commander threw a glance at Arad and his group, trying to assess them, but she sensed no magic coming from them.

"No need. I’ll be the one escorting them around. Those three are Aron, Linda, and Anansi, wives of Arad Orion; you must’ve heard of him, right?" The commander immediately paled and pissed herself on the spot. Those were no mere guests.

The news about Arad had reached the Shadow Kingdom long ago, especially through some of the Demon Lord of Lust people, who described Arad as a black monster of pure destruction that managed to even tame Kali herself, and not just that, he even got her to accept other wives and even had the audacity to have her pick twelve demon lords for him.

That meant those three here are on equal political footing within the abyss as Kali herself, and so... this commander was prostrating herself to the Mother of All Life, a local lord instead of the overlords of the Abyss. Here, where power and violence ruled supreme, that would’ve usually meant her end.

And... while the commander was almost shitting herself, Anansi was in the same camp, horrified to the bones, as this commander succubus could basically one-shot her with a glance. She poked Arad. "Say... why is she doing this? Isn’t she scary?"

"She is..." Arad walked past Anansi and the mother of all life, squatted by the commander’s head, and looked at her. "You, what’s your name?" Hearing the sweet voice, the commander couldn’t even think, let alone reply, so Arad read her mind instead.

"Culnaa? How do you even pronounce that?" He mumbled and looked deeper into her memories. "Cool-na-aa? Is it a native abyss name?" He then tapped her on the head and stood. "I usually don’t like to play by the abyss’s cruel rules, but how about we follow them now? I’ll hit you once, and I’ll hold back enough to not kill you. If you manage to stay conscious and crawl back here, I’ll give you a few droplets of Kali’s blood. You can refuse, and nothing bad will happen. I’m not here to punish anyone."

The Mother of All Life stared at him. "Usually, demons would have to serve for hundreds of years, survived countless deadly battles and suffer for until years before even getting the chance of having Kali look toward them. Getting to drink her golden blood and get stronger is a privilege that not even her close demon lords get that often, and by often I mean decades at least."

"I see... I can’t break the rules, or the other demons might get jealous." He smiled. "Then, Culnna, how about I give you a drop of my blood instead? I’m sure that would mean something."

"That’s even worse." The Mother of All Life sighed, meaning that giving this demoness his blood was something that could be even more dangerous and powerful than Kali’s blood, but the demoness spoke up immediately.

"I’ll take it, My Demonic Lady." The demoness smiled. "It was my mistake; even piss would be wasted on me. Your remembering my name is probably the highlight of my entire life until now."