The dragon's harem

Isdis took a deep breath and looked at Roberta. The python was coiled on her wrist like an intricate bracelet of black jade. It looked harmless, but that little thing had just shattered her ice sword before she could even see it move.

^Right, that little thing is a massive and powerful python that survived the deadly Storm Titan mountains until it faced Arad.^

Isdis took a step forward, and her ice boots dug into the soft soil of the training ground. Soon, a gust of chilling wind rushed from her body, covering the dirt in a thin layer of ice.

Isdis now has an idea about how fast the python is and can make a plan. She suddenly burst into movement and rushed forward as fast as she could. The python won't attack her, but she'll do everything in her power to keep Roberta safe.

As Isdis expected, when faced with an unknown danger, the python grew to ten meters long and surrounded Roberta like a spring. She looked both terrified and surprised inside its coiling body, cute and a bit adorable.

But if Isdis knows Roberta as well as she thinks she does, the poor girl must be terrified.

Isdis slid past Roberta and conjured a long sword, swinging it at the python instead of Roberta herself. It was now just a fraction of a second after she started moving, but the python was still able to keep up, and its tail already swung to face the ice sword.

With a loud boom, the ice sword shattered. That was expected, the python's body is made from Arad's void. That's the power of an adult void dragon on Uranium. Isdis never expected that her ice could scratch it.

But that wasn't her plan at all.

The ice shards of the shattered sword flew straight at Roberta, threatening to wound her.

The python's body twisted and contorted as if trying to squeeze Roberta's life out. But it formed a barrier with her body to block the ice shards.

The python hissed, clearly unhappy by Isdis's attempt at Roberta's life. She had gotten a mission from her master, her lord, Arad Orion. She was told to keep this woman alive, to protect her.

The python wanted to bite Isdis's head off, and she had the chance to do so. But didn't. Arad had also ordered her to just defend. The blond little ice woman was lucky that her master loved her.

The python's eyes burned with inhumane, disturbing intellect. She was ordered to just defend Roberta, but isn't offence the best defence? Even she, as a monster, had lived long enough to learn that a dead enemy can't attack her.

But she was also smart enough to understand that Arad didn't just want her to defend Roberta, he didn't want this blond little ice woman to get harmed.

So now, what would a monster like her think? What can she do to win? She found an answer before Isdis launched her next attack. She has to make the blonde little ice woman exhaust or kill herself on her own.

Isdis swung her ice sword, and suddenly, the python and Roberta disappeared.

Isdis's sword cut the air, and she could feel the heavy presence behind her. She immediately turned around with a swing. But then, she was surprised.

Isdis was swinging up toward where Roberta's head would be, that was the easiest place for her to attack. But the python's tail is swinging from below, aiming at her legs.

The python isn't supposed to attack, so this means she predicted an attack from below, and the tail is swinging to block. The monster made a wrong prediction, as expected. If this were a normal fight, then Isdis would have won, but her sword is going to kill Roberta. The python's tail won't have anything to block and would shatter Isdis's knees.

This was as smart as monsters get, nowhere near humans. In the blink of an eye, Isdis shifted her sword down to stop the python's tail.

Suddenly, the python's tail stopped, and she looked at Isdis with burning eyes, as if smiling.

It was just then that Isdis realised that she was fooled. She had cut her own thigh in that rapid and improvised move she made. The python had never made a wrong prediction; she planned and outsmarted her.

Isdis growled and glared at the python, "I see! Arad said you can't harm me. So you'll make me harm myself."

A faint hiss escaped the python's maw alongside her long, forked tongue. Arad still didn't try to stop them, so the battle was as he expected.

Isdis could only wonder how long this python had lived to build such a high level of intelligence and planning. She knew about the Storm Titan mountains being filled with powerful monsters that fight amongst each other for decades to survive, but she didn't expect this.

It wasn't that the monsters there are overly smart, it was just that those who aren't lucky to be born as prodigies of their kind end up eaten by the rest.

The two kept fighting. With each second that passed, Isdis's body kept accumulating wounds and sprains. The python kept forcing her to do wrong moves, shifting her weight in ways that would strain her joints and make her regret most of her attacks.

But Isdis wasn't any less smart. With each second, she was slowly digesting the python's tactics and solving them one after another. Reading a human's feints was easy, but those of a monster were quite hard to read.

After half a minute, Isdis was finally able to read all of the onyx python's moves and adapt to them, quickly ignoring all of the tricks and focusing only on offence.

It was then that the python decided to put some distance between them. While Isdis relied on a sword, she could avoid all of her attacks by just being out of range.

The python coiled her tail like a spring and jumped away with Roberta inside her. But Isdis wasn't letting her get away. She swung her sword up, casting a spell for the first time in weeks.

An ice glacier emerged from the ground, and its sharp peak flew at the python. The thing was massive, at least fifty meters tall and ten meters wide, a great spear of ice.

The python grew even larger and swatted it with her tail, shattering the glacier with ease. But it was already late, Isdis had called on her mount.