The dragon's harem

Arad and Nina's fight had indeed reached her second phase. After eating more of his arms than he cared to count, she suddenly felt full, satiated. It was a feeling that she hadn't felt for weeks.

To most humans, starvation and famine weren't that common a feeling; rarely do people need to spend weeks without food. But Nina was thrown into an even greater level of starvation, and for such a long time that not having to deal with it was disorienting.

Nina stood still for a few seconds, not moving an inch. Arad could even hear her thoughts getting messed up; she had gotten used to enduring the hunger, but now she felt empty.

Arad, on the other hand, was a bit surprised. No matter what she was going to hunt, nothing compares to the flesh of a powerful void dragon. He was certain of that. Seeing how much she ate, it won't be strange for her to devour a whole mountain of monsters.

That left Arad with a question, and a dire one. True, she can digest all of that food. But that alone didn't explain anything. Her body would've burst apart from all of that energy. Of course, unless Nina standing in front of him wasn't the real Nina. Or at least, not the current real Nina.

Nina's expression slightly changed, and her feet started sinking into the ground. She had eaten her fill, and it was now to find a safe nest. This instinct had come from the ancient, long-forgotten dark ages.

The Tarrasque is the last of her kind; a whole race of them had lived in the ancient past, the time when the whole world was overrun with abominations. They were AO's pest control; they came out, ate as many hideous abominations as possible, then slid back into the safe bowels of the earth.

In a second, Nina disappeared into the depths. If she were allowed to reach a safe spot and hibernate, she probably wouldn't wake up for centuries. Arad can't let her do that, which means it was now the second phase of their fight.

Arad suddenly disappeared into the ground as well, following her.

As Nina sank into the ground, she finally came back to her senses. She still couldn't control what her violent body was doing, the same way a human can't help but laugh when tickled. But with her hunger no longer an issue, she could think better.

Nina fully understood what she was doing now. Her body is looking for a suitable boulder, as close to the center of the Earth as possible. Just like how humans fear spiders and snakes, she understands that the surface isn't a safe place to hibernate. It never was.

She was now only a few hundred meters beneath the surface and still sinking down, gliding through the ground unhindered. It was a strange but pleasant feeling, like falling onto a soft bed after an exhausting day.

The Tarrasques were also able to sense their kind beneath the ground, simply for the purpose of avoiding territorial disputes. But now with them extinct, the earth felt empty. Nina could sense all of the tarrasques, including her own location, all three of them.

She was the first, gliding down peacefully. Far deeper, she could sense the woman who trained her, the true Tarrasque. But… There is the third signal, right behind her.

Nina slowed down, her eyes turned to look back with a menacing glare. A male Tarrasque, and a powerful one, was approaching. She could feel it in her bones, fear, worry, expectations, and a sense of sheer dread.

A hand landed on her shoulder, and Arad was there. "If I invited you to lunch, you can't just eat and leave." She stopped, and so did Arad.

She was too hungry and starved before to feel it, but why did this one smell like a tarrasque? Why does he have the presence of one? She couldn't tell, only a faint him of familiar recognition kept ringing in the back of her head.

Arad wasn't a tarrasque, he is a void dragon. But what he has is the soul of someone who almost became one. Shi resided in the depths of his soul. Using all of the power of her soul, he could only glance at one ability of the tarrasque. Earth Glide, and he used that to chase after Nina.

Shi's faint presence inside him got mixed with his draconic presence and was amplified several times, making it feel like he was a true Tarrasque. Of course, until someone looks closer at him. The True Tarrasque could tell the difference. Nina knew that Arad was a void dragon, but even she had started as a human before becoming like this.

Nina's body, on the other hand, didn't understand the difference. He was already too close, invading her space in the safe depths of the earth.

Nina expected her body to react in a more… restrained way. Seeing that there isn't any male tarrasque out there. She thought that this was Arad's plan to get her under control, but she was wrong about herself.

A deep growl escaped her lips as spikes started growing from her back. Her eyes shifted, burning with a mad radiance. The response was violence.

The earth shuddered and the sand shifted. A second later, Arad was flung out of the ground, his arms shattered. Right after him, a shockwave exploded and blasted all of the sand away. ^So much for protecting the desert.^

Arad's arms healed, and he turned into his draconic form, a titanic dragon that's several kilometers long from head to tail. His wings blocked the sun, casting a massive shadow over the desert.

From the ground, a massive maw emerged. Several hundred meters wide, riddled with several rows of sharp and jagged teeth. It looked like Earth itself had grown a mouth, but it was indeed a monster.

The beast lunged from the earth like a sharp and closed its maws on Arad's neck, pulling back to the ground.

As the two landed and the earth shattered, Arad could finally get a look at what kind of horror stood before him. "Explains where all those arms of mine went."

The harrowing monstrosity walked on all four, with most of its weight supported by its powerful hind legs. Its body is covered by a thick layer of black, leathery skin. A large, spiked carapace with two massive spikes extending forward rested on her back, and two prominent black horns emerged from her forehead.

With her thick tail extended for hundreds of meters behind her, Nina shifted her monstrous face, glaring at Arad with two burning red eyes, a deep, threatening growl escaped her maw.

She could turn into a whole tarrasque. And unlike how Arad's draconic form was described as majestic and beautiful, all he could describe was Nina's tarrasque form as harrowing and terrifying.

The second phase started: Clash of the apex predators.