The dragon's harem

The black drakaina roared, opened her jaws wide, and blasted the hydra with an acid breath.

The hydra started getting pushed back, but it roared, moving its cyan head, and started countering the drakaina's acid breath with a water breath. The hydra's breaths were generally weaker than those of true dragons, but for some reason, it matched the drakaina's breath in power. No, it wasn't the hydra's breath that was stronger than normal. It was the drakaina's breath that was weaker.

The drakaina started getting pushed back as her breath clashed with the hydra's breath. Even though she hoped her acid would halt the hydra's regeneration and that it would eventually die, that started to look impossible as the water diluted the acid.

The hydra lifted its red head, and blasted the drakaina with a fire breath, sending her rolling back with a fiery explosion.

The drakaina roared, rolled back, ran away deeper into the caves, and started digging to go around the hydra and blast her from the back. She can't risk a direct confrontation, her arms and legs can barely carry her weight, and can't keep wasting mana by unleashing her breath in vain.

The hydra could see the drakaina retreat, and it extended its light green head, breathing a gust of toxic gas that quickly rushed behind the drakaina, filling the cave behind her.

The drakaina could feel her heart rate rising and her legs felt even weaker as her head started throbbing.

"Poison gas?" She gasped, turning back, "No, this is different." She started rushing to bury herself in the dirt.

The hydra started grinding its blue head's teeth together and created massive sparks between its fangs. With a flash, the whole cave burst into fire, shaking everything around them and causing the ground it to collapse on the drakaina.

The hydra approached the place where the drakaina got buried and found her tail poking out. Using its pink head, she bit the tip of the tail and pulled the drakaina out of the dirt, throwing her away with a violent jerk.

The drakaina rolled on the ground, hitting the wall at the end of the massive cavern. She opened her eyes, looking to the side, and saw the hydra charging at her.

Move! Move! She growled inside her head.

This monster shouldn't outclass me, neither physically nor magically, I should've been able to melt him with a single breath. She stood, refusing to give up even though her body refused to move as she wanted.

The draconic fundamentum, an organ that lies beside the heart in dragons, helps regulate mana, elemental energy, and several hormones that allow dragons to grow stronger as time passes, a marvel of their evolution. But the drakaina could feel her organ twitching inside her, her mana had become unstable in the past centuries, and she even began to lose weight, her muscles had slowly disappeared. She had even lost her appetite and had been feeling weaker and weaker, hibernating for longer and longer periods.

She rushed forward, jumped on the wall, and pounced on the hydra, grabbing one of the heads with a bite and clawing at its countless necks with her front claws.

The hydra started blasting her with a fire breath.

At that moment, the drakaina felt her draconic fundamentum quiver, a decent rush of mana came out, and she immediately took the chance and charged a breath and blasted it directly into the wound inflicted by her bite, exploding one of the hydra's head with acid.

Like a giraffe, the hydra smacked the drakaina with one of her heads, sending her rolling the sidewall with her burned scales falling off.

At the moment, the hydra expected the drakaina to be reaching her last leg, but dragons weren't that easy to kill. The drakaina stood right back up, growling as acid started to leak out of her wounds.

Unlike most living beings and monsters, dragons were tuned to their elemental energy the same way humans are tuned to their blood or flesh. It flows in their veins, covers their organs, and protects them. A black dragon's blood is mostly acid, one of the reasons why most weapons dull rapidly against them, and some even melt when stabbing one. The same goes for all chromatic dragons, a blue dragon's body is always charged, and just standing near them with a metal sword is enough to compel an arc to jump at you and fry you. Red dragons are extremely hot, weapons melt and bend when wounding them, and even a single wyrmling is able to heat Arad's whole village just by existing.

The drakaina opened her jaw and the hydra readied her cyan head to counter with a water breath.

CRACKLE! A large magic circle appeared in front of the drakaina's jaw, and a powerful lightning bolt burst forward, hitting the hydra who unleashed a water breath out of instinct.

Dragons can learn magic, and they always do it to cover the weakness of their elemental energy. The simplest counter for a black dragon's acid breath is water, and so they learn lightning magic.

Albeit the water produced by magic is pure and none-

conductive, the one produced by natural monsters like this hydra or cyan dragons [Sea dragons] is salty and conductive. Only a few of the cyan dragons have managed to create a natural breath of pure water. This hydra will never have the needed intellect to purify its water breath.

The drakaina started rushing forward as fast as her body allowed, trying to reach the hydra before it fully regenerated.

I must claw it out, the core, the heart of the beast! It's there, right below the middle of its spine, encased in a hard cage of bones.

The drakaina pounced at the hydra.

Stay down, vile beast of the underworld. I might be far weaker than my prime, and I might be close to the end of my days, but this is still my land.

Pinning the hydra down, the drakaina used her powerful jaw to trip the skin of the hydra's back and then tried to rip its spine out using her claws.

The hydra's countless heads started biting the drakaina's legs and wings, trying to force her to retreat.

"So you want a bite-off? Very well, I'll rip you to shreds for coming to my land!" The drakaina roared, pushing through the pain like a frenzied wolf, chipping at the hydra's back one claw at a time.

The hydra unleashed an electric shock from its blue head, but the drakaina didn't flinch. When a dragon's claws lock-in, they never let go. Even if the drakaina were to die there and then, her claws would remain latched to the hydra's spine as the tendons were locked and needed a conscious order to unlock.

The hydra clumped its multiple heads beneath the drakaina's chest and used the combined force of all its necks to push her away. As expected, the drakaina's claws never opened and the hydra's spine got ripped in half, but the regeneration started kicking in as the hydra fell paralyzed from its stomach to the tip of its tail.

The drakaina tried to stand. This is my chance to finish it off, the core is exposed. I can't let this chance. But as she stood, she fell on her face, her two front limbs refused to carry her weight, the violent throw caused the muscles in her arms to tear, and now her claws are closed shut with no way of opening them back.

To a dragon, this was like a lion losing his front paws, a disability that greatly hinders his ability to hunt and sentence him to certain death.

The drakaina still didn't give up, pushing her body toward the hydra using her hind legs, trying to reach it to bite the core out.

CRACK! At that moment, something large emerged behind the drakaina. She knew that magic and feared it, the worst timing for such a thing to appear.

How didn't I expect this? I've been almost inactive for decades, of course, this would happen! She slowly turned her head, seeing a second hydra standing a few hundred meters behind her.

This one was a female, and she was here to mate. Those two are monsters that use large amounts of magic to nourish themselves and their eggs during their mating season. They came here seeking a large amount of mana and flesh to feed on, this female had been sending waves of her magic through the ground, I thought she was taunting me, but I was wrong. She was calling for a mate, and here he was behind me.

I'm the source of their food. She finally realised. To the hydras, the female usually matures first and goes out looking for a place suitable to lay eggs, preferably with a decent source of food and mana. When she finds the place, she settles down and starts sending signals to notify nearby males that she's ready. Then the first male to pick her signals would mask them with his own and seek her.

The drakaina was the source of food and mana that the female hydra found. A sick dragon is a prime target for a lot of powerful creatures and even humans seeking wealth and fame. That is why most of them go into hiding when sick or injured, but this time, she failed to do so, she didn't realize the signals sent by the female hydra would lead her into such a trap.

Now fatally injured, struggling to stay alive, the drakaina found herself stuck between a regenerating female hydra, and an angry male that was far larger and stronger than the female, pissed off that his woman had been ripped to shreds.

CRACK!

Arad's humanoid torso peeked out of the ceiling as he stared at the female hydra with a horrifying smile on his face, his eyes slowly turning toward the male.