The dragon's harem

Chapter 2142: Three Mothers

As the Mech Angel screamed one last time, Merlin lifted her hand and clenched a fist. In the next moment, Beatrice’s soul was ripped out of the Mech Angel, separating the two with only a bit of struggle on Merlin’s side. This magic wasn’t easy to use; it was dangerous and could have countless unforeseen consequences. But thanks to Doma’s curse, as long as Merlin only uses it inside her labyrinth, those consequences can be contained safely.

When the two were separated, neither faded away, which was a surprise. Beatrice’s soul died and passed into the afterlife, while Mech Angel’s existence remained inside Merlin’s labyrinth, still struggling to free itself. Eldritch magic was quite effective against everything in the universe, gods and angels included, and with the addition of Doma’s curses, chaining an angel down wasn’t that impossible a task.

"Why isn’t it fading away?" As Merlin growled, Doma leaned on her. "Like I know. I never did anything like this either." She smiled, "So, how about you keep it like a pet? Or lock in a glass tube to experiment on later." As Doma tapped her on the back, Merlin could only look at her with horror.

"Keep that thing? It’s scary; I want it gone!" Merlin growled and pushed Doma away from her. "And don’t get too close; I’m naked."

Doma shrugged. "Why? Do you have a problem with me?" She then looked at the struggling Mech Angel. "You should have a bigger problem with it. If you want it gone, then you’ll have to study it first, and then find a safe way to dispose of her."

"She is breaking free." Merlin spoke in a calm tone, slowly summoning a simple wooden staff to her hand as she pointed toward the screaming Mech Angel. Doma moved to her side, and she also summoned her arcane focus, a glowing and fiery skull with a third hole on its forehead.

"Even if she breaks free, she can’t take on us both." Doma smiled as her pink eyes flashed with light, and her hair danced with burning black curses. Merlin, beside her, sighed, and her naked body started steaming as all of the tattoos she had started glowing with dark magic.

A titanic ball of flames started burning above their heads, and Merlin pointed her staff forward. "A simple fireball, but massive." And Doma giggled as she tapped on the skull floating in front of her. "How about I make that angel vulnerable to flames, but give it immunity to cold magic? But that change is to her, not you. For you, I’ll curse you to feel the burning pain of the flames you created, but in exchange, they’ll get much stronger."

"You think I can take the pain?" Merlin growled, and Doma laughed as she started floating. "You surgically removed your own organs and endured that pain; you can play around with this." As she burst forward, Merlin’s flames turned pure white as she growled, feeling as if she were getting grilled alive.

The pain itself was unimaginable, yet she could still move. In fact, it helped her focus better. [FIREBALL] This was the one spell all wizards loved to cast, and it was the hill they’d all die on. Not because it was powerful, and not because it was useful. But only because it was cool to throw massive balls around and watch the fire explode in a beautiful rose.

As the titanic white fireball flew forward like a blinding star, the Mech Angel opened its titanic, disfigured maw and cried, forming an orb of blinding light between its disgusting, blood-soaked, metal mandibles.

That orb of light then exploded into a radiant beam that aimed toward the rushing white fireball. The Mech Angel wasn’t going to get chained down without a proper fight, and it had already ascended beyond mortal limits. This thing was now a fetus, an unborn divine existence, one crying for power.

Doma, who flew ahead of the fireball, saw the divine beam approaching her at near light speed, yet she wasn’t worried. Her entire body was soaked in divine magic, and while the natural order is for those two opposite powers to cancel each other, she had another plan. Drawing on power from Eris, she coated her entire body with a thin layer of divine magic, so she could be repelled by the divine beam.

When treated right, divine magic and cursed magic act like the opposite poles of magnets, and Doma was one of the few who could understand and use that property as well as she did. As she flew around the beam, it clashed with the fireball behind her, unleashing a titanic explosion that both masked Doma’s approach and covered Merlin out of the Mech Angel’s view.

Doma flew past the Mech Angel in the blink of an eye, spinning behind and looking down at the horrific existence with a gentle smile. She wasn’t here out of malice or evil; all she wanted to do was put an end to this madness, to give this angel peace, and let her rest.

[Voodoo] She pulled a shiv out of a tiny magic pocket and bit her own lip to spit blood on the blade. "This will hurt me as much as it will hurt you." And she swung at her own chest, stabbing herself in the heart, and the angel buckled at the same time.

Merlin appeared beneath the buckling Mech Angel as she had teleported there, and she pointed her staff upward, aiming right at the bleeding wound caused by Doma’s curse. She now had to do two things: blast this thing to pieces and catch all of those pieces and seal them away. The first spell was shattering, and the second was chaining. She picked a form, and wanted the first to look like an arrow, and the second to take the form of chains.

[Elemental Burst]

A flash of magic exploded up from Merlin’s staff as a beam and pierced the Angel’s bleeding wound, expanding inside it, and then quickly blooming into a titanic explosion that almost shattered this entire labyrinth. As the Mech Angel’s body was broken and spread all over the place, the chains of magic that Merlin created came to life like vipers, and they all swarmed the pieces of flesh that were still alive.

Each chain grabbed a piece no bigger than a melon, and they were all pulled back to the ground and pinned down. "Doma! This won’t last for long, so I’m counting on you!" Merlin shouted, and Doma was already moving ahead of her.

"You don’t have to remind me." In her hand, she carried several cursed talismans, all made of human skin instead of paper, and written on with demonic blood. Instead of using curses to seal a divine creature, she wanted to use the more stable demonic magic, and to avoid the seal being broken, she used mortal skin to hold the divine.

Doma gathered all the pieces of flesh in seconds, and then put them all together, wrapped them with the pieces of paper until they looked like a hanging sack, and then chained the entire thing to the ceiling with Merlin’s chains.

On the giant sack, several words were written in blood. "Here rests the Steel Angel. This is a womb. One day, she shall be born. A child of her mothers. Beatrice, who created it. Merlin, who bore it. Doma, who incubated it.

Merlin looked up and frowned. "Mothers? The hell you mean?"

"What is written, down to the letters. Beatrice’s soul is what created the angel, so she is her true mother, albeit it is better to call them twins. You’re the one who bore her, since she’ll be growing here inside your labyrinth until she is born. And I’m her third mother, the one who is incubating her, meaning that I’m the one allowing her to stay alive within your magic to grow." She approached Merlin, and Merlin sighed.

"Do what you want. I don’t care anymore." She looked at the sack, and then they both remembered that they had left Gamond and Arad fighting.