Even before Abaddon had been fully revealed to his family, his new appearance was already horrifying.
His snakelike figure now came to a stop halfway up his body, and expanded into a monstrously large and muscular torso.
He had jagged, bone-like protrusions growing out of his elbows, and the claws on his fingers were sharp enough to cut nearly any matter with a mere touch.
The black scales that covered the entirety of his body were so dark that If he remained motionless, it would be easy to mistake him for a shadow that had come to life.
In the center of his chest, the eye that usually always remained closed was now half lidded, like it was a bit drowsy after a long nap.
The seven wings on his back were folded into his body, but when they were taken out there would be no hope for his enemies to see the sky above.
He had finally recovered his fifth head and come a few steps closer to being whole, but that was not all.
Masks made of bone now covered all five of his scaly faces, and his dark horns now resembled something like a crown.
An additional set of eyes grew right above his old ones, expanding his vision and giving him a more frightening and unholy look.
He had also grown gills on his necks just below his heads, and webs between his clawed fingers.
He was an unnatural horror to anything in the land, air, or sea, any creature that was living or dead.
A horrible roar escaped from all five of his mouths, revealing enormous fangs that were dripping with a terrible venom comparable to mythical eitr.
Just like that of his son and first wife.
Should so much as a drop fall into the sea behind him, the ocean would become drastically less populated, and what remained would mutate into nightmarish abominations.
Abaddon sucked in boatfuls of air into his new lungs and tried to get a good grasp on his new potential.
His initial assessment was that he was 30- no, 40% more powerful than before.
But even with all of this new power flooding his body, he still remained rather indifferent.
The knowledge that he was little more than a big fish in a small pond had always kept him humble, and that would not change just because he'd grown an extra head.
"Whoaaahhh!!"
"Scary."
Almost on cue, two white dragons around thirty meters tall flew into view.
One had a western style build with four powerful wings and razor sharp teeth and claws.
The other had an eastern style build, with a long serpent-like body and a regal appearance.
If Mira was a malicious monster who looked likely to swallow men and women whole, Gabbrielle was a deity who demanded their worship.
But both were the most precious children that Abaddon could ever imagine.
"Are my daughters impressed?"
"Yea!"
"Father looks like a monster."
"I am a monster, dear."
"Yes, but now you really look like one."
Abaddon used his five heads to carefully analyze his new body from multiple angles.
He had to admit, he looked a lot scarier than before.
It was easy to see why Gabbrielle said that he now looked more like a monster.
If he were someone else, he'd probably be scared of the way he looked too.
"Well... your mothers seem to like it." Abaddon realized.
The eight of them were all floating beside each other in the air, staring at Lisa and Seras with looks of true concern.
The two dragons were holding onto each other like they were trying to keep each other from tarnishing their image in front of their kids and friends.
It was a miracle that they had maintained the presence of mind to do that, since they were clearly so delirious as to have hearts in their eyes.
Abaddon had seen his wives display nearly every possible level of attraction for him before, but this was rather special.
This was the first time he ever actually believed that they were going to force themselves on him in front of everyone.
He had yet to decide whether or not he would try to dissuade them or merely enjoy their acts of blind passion.
Seras: "H-Honey, I'm happy for you but can you return to normal now..? Y-Your new appearance makes me feel really funny inside..."
Lisa: "W-Wait, before you do that can we go to our cavern until the morning...? I would like more children...!"
Just like that, Abaddon decided that he definitely would not try to dissuade them if they decided to jump him tonight.
"This is a bit repulsive...Your appearance always seems to interfere with the instincts of female dragons in such a dramatic manner, father."
"Instincts?" Mira asked.
"Do not explain it to her." Abaddon said to Gabbrielle.
His daughters prepared to offer their own individual complaints, when suddenly his new sister Kanami called for him.
"Ah, b-b-brother? This one is unwell."
Looking down, he found her, Tita, Rita, and Malenia, all surrounding Erica who looked to be suffering horribly.
She hadn't completely lost her sanity, but she had lost all strength in her legs and fallen onto her bottom on the sandy beach.
Her breathing was heavy and labored, and Abaddon could clearly hear her heart thumping inside of her chest.
His massive form compressed and shrank until he was around eight feet tall, and he used his new body to slither over to the group of girls.
Erica seemed to be the only one having a problem, as the rest of the girls were looking at him either normally or with a great deal of reverence.
When he slithered closer to her, she instinctively tried to crawl away and had to be held down by the girls surrounding her.
"Mira, do you mind?" Abaddon asked.
"Kay!"
The young ice dragon pricked herself and allowed a tiny bit of her blood to fall through the air.
Using blood manipulation, Abaddon caught it easily and brought it towards Erica's full lips.
She initially tried to fight it, but he slipped the blood into her mouth before she could wipe it away.
The terror that she had felt previously was slowly melted away, replaced with embarrassment and a mild sense of awe.
"Are you calmer?"
Erica was briefly mesmerized by the forked tongues slipping out of Abaddon's mouth's before she clawed back to her feet.
"Y-Yes, I'm sorry for showing you something so disgraceful."
"There is no need for you to apologize. This is partially my fault after all."
Erica looked Abaddon's monstrous form up and down and could not help but make an obvious comment.
"You look... quite a bit different from your normal appearance."
"Does it displease you to see me like this?" He asked.
"I would not say that, but I think I prefer your other look a great deal more."
Abaddon revealed all of his gleaming white fangs in an unnatural smile that sent chills down the phoenix queen's spine.
She hadn't made a joke, but still he found her words to be quite funny.
"W-What are you smiling at, dragon?" She asked.
"Something amusing... and something reassuring."
He was now certain that Erica's feelings for him weren't real, and she likely wouldn't bother him for too much longer.
To love him was to admire every aspect the same as the last, irregardless of which of his three forms he may have been in.
His wives were obsessed with him no matter what he looked like, be it man or monster.
He had never seen any of them look at him any less lovingly as long as he had known them.
It was why he chose to be with them everyday for the rest of eternity.
Erica had no real knowledge, nor understanding of how intense the love they had for him was.
The level of obsession and depravity that filled their minds was mind boggling, and would not be a stretch to say that they lived solely for him, just as he did for them.
It wouldn't be as stretch to call it insanity, and that was the way that they all preferred it to be.
It may have been overly sentimental of him, but he adored the love that they had built that transcended their bodies and locked their souls together.
After all, his favorite fairy tale from earth was about the beast and the great beauty.
Almost on cue, Abaddon felt a familiar weight land delicately on his back and he knew immediately who had come first.
"Congratulations, my love. Seems we've given you something this time around, haven't we?" Lisa asked.
"You have indeed. And I could not be more grateful."
"Oh really? How will you express that gratitude to us?"
In the skies above, the rest of Abaddon's wives were slowly descending towards the ground and wearing equally seductive looks.
It was a good thing that he had so much raw energy now, cause he likely wasn't going to get to sleep tonight.
"You all seem to already have a method in mind."
"Maybe~"
In a teasing gesture, Lisa gave Abaddon's neck a long lick before placing a small kiss on the side of his snout.
"We're proud of you, you know that? It seems like you become more and more incredible before our eyes."
Had Abaddon been capable of blushing in this form, he would have undoubtedly been wearing a rather large one.
One by one, the rest of his wives dropped to the ground below and immediately pelted him with congratulations and flirty remarks.
For some reason, Erica couldn't help but feel like she'd lost.
But nothing undesirable had actually occurred, so she could not make sense of why exactly she felt like this.
However, the longer she watched the celebration of Abaddon and his beloved wives, the more she began to feel like she was getting a small understanding.
'I see... so that is how sincere my feelings have to be to reach him.'
It was unknown what exactly the phoenix queen was thinking of, but if one looked at her face they could see her locked into a deep trance.
As Abaddon was besieged with congratulations from his wives and eventually his friends and children, he felt a familiar, sad gaze piercing into his back.
He knew immediately who it was, but there wasn't anything he could do about it.
So even though he hated it, he did as he always had whenever he received this look from her.
He tried his best to ignore it.
----------------------------------------
Okay, so today's chapter is a bit shorter cause we're trying to put an end to an ongoing topic.
So for like two months or so now, I've been getting messages about putting Tita in the harem.
Some of you bastards should be lawyers, cause your arguments were so damn compelling I changed my own mind like six fucking times.
And I'm the damn author!
But I digress, today we're going to put all of the debating and shit to an end.
We haven't done this on here in a while, but today we're gonna vote.
Yes Tita in the Harem?
No Tita in the Harem?
Also, I'm not gonna just throw her in there like a square peg in a round hole, she'll likely have her own little arc where you guys can get to know her and fall in love with her as a character.
I'm really trying to be fair and respect the wishes of all of you guys who support me so much, so I'm leaving this entirely up to y'all's discretion.
Again, if you don't vote I don't wanna hear any complaints!
And even if you don't like the result, don't get mad at me and be like:
'Oh well, I'm dropping this novel then.'
Like wtf am I supposed to do with that?
I'm just trying to make people happy here, there's no reason to tell me that you hated a choice I made so much that you're gonna drop the novel after clearly coming this far.
So we cool?
We gonna be democratic about this shit?
Bet.
Have fun voting.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m