As the drop of blood touched Arad’s lips, it sank through his skin and rushed right into his bloodstream. Fernanda’s plan was simple, but effective: Infect him and his wives, then use them as hostages to stay safe from Kali and Eris’s assault. As it seems, infecting the gods was more than impossible. Claug was also a problem, but Fernanda would make something even she can’t deal with if given enough time, which she already got and did.

She had hoped to take the two goddesses down as well. But the disease was destroyed the moment it approached Kali’s body, and Eris’s insides were such a violent and hostile environment that even atoms melted into plasma.

Fernanda felt her disease taking hold in Arad’s body, spreading through his entire being, almost winning, but then, something strange happened. She froze in place, and felt a cold chill run down her spine.

Her heart started beating wildly, and she could barely breathe normally. Nothing had happened yet, but she got this urgent urge to back away, apologize, and hope for the best instead of pushing further. Just looking at Arad’s body made her fearful, sensing that she was in for a lot of pain.

Arad’s pricolici blood raged at the invading pathogens, all of his immune system sparked with divine magic, and Shi’s Tarrasque blood exploded into a violent madness, seething at the mere audacity of this abominable infection.

She was late to back away, and the cat was already out of the back.

She took a few steps back and started sweating buckets, her face paled, and her legs gave up as she dropped to the ground. Inside the bath, Arad’s skin flashed bright red for a second, but then turned back to normal. He stood, all the muscles on his body grew larger, and so did his bones.

Seeing him growing bigger, Fernanda started tearing up, her voice cracked, and she had just realized this wasn’t any dragon, but a monster she couldn’t even imagine before seeing for herself.

He had become smaller earlier for convenience, but now, nothing would beat his true size for intimidation. He stood, and the water on his skin evaporated away as he turned and walked toward Fernanda.

She tried to crawl away, but no matter how much she moved, she never got away. It was as if space itself folded to keep her in place.

Each step cracked the stone ground and left an imprint. Veins bulged all over his body, and when he stood above Fernanda, an 11-foot-tall giant, glaring down at her with a mad stare.

Arad didn’t just heal from her infection; her disease was violated, ripped, and torn to shreds inside his body without mercy. Whatever she made, it didn’t stand a chance inside his body, and the horror didn’t even stop there.

Seeing him kiss Merlin’s foot earlier, Fernanda underestimated him. She thought he was sheepish, submissive, and easily controlled. But being beneath him now, she finally realized he was the exact opposite. A horror, a demon, a violent evil, with only his wives leashing him back to morality.

But now she had touched his wives, and those chains holding him back had cracked. She should’ve known! If that vile demon goddess looked happy about spreading her legs for him, he couldn’t be any less dangerous than her.

Fernanda’s disease, the infection she spread among everyone here, every single pathogen that was inside his wives, the maids, servants, or dragons, all were violently ripped apart and consumed. She couldn’t even wrap her head around how he could kill the infection in a random maid in this bath, but that is what happened, and now, even the stockpile she had inside her own body was killed.

With each passing second, her situation looked even bleaker.

"Sorry, lovely witch." Merlin, who was in the water, looked at her with a smug smile, pointing at the sky with a single finger. "I might rule this place. But if you only knew how much I love having him walk all over me."

Merlin was effectively a goddess ruling the labyrinth. Inside, even Kali could feel her will putting pressure. But the sky of the bath is wide open to Arad’s stomach. When he got infected, his immune system healed him, but everyone else was still a hostage.

So, what did Arad do? What did Merlin do?

Since the disease Fernanda used was an abominable infection from the start, he could understand and fathom its power. He recognized it, and then wanted to use his stomach to digest it even if it was in someone’s blood.

Merlin let the void of Arad’s stomach seep into the bath and bowed to his will, which made it easy for Arad to use his void to erase the infection from everyone in the bath. It was possible since, thanks to the open, they were technically inside his stomach.

Arad looked back at Merlin. "Did you know about this?"

She shrugged and shook her head. "No way, I suspected it, but wasn’t certain she’ll do it. So, I took precautions and made sure everyone came to the bath. I just set the stage just to be cautious." She then looked at the maids and shouted. "Everyone whom I forced to come here, you can leave!" But none of the maids or servants dared move.

Some of them were in their period, some weren’t shaved, and some were just too shy to show up. But she still had them all be present. At first, they didn’t understand what she was about, but now they knew she had just saved their lives.

None of the maids left; instead, they all wanted to stay here around Arad, where it is safe. They were teasing Merlin earlier because Arad kissed her foot in front of them, but now they understood why he did it.

Arad turned back to the scared Fernanda. "So, did you infect anyone outside the private quarter?" That was the real question, and hearing it, all the maids and servants paled. Most of them had families and friends living in and around the castle.

Fernanda’s scared face broke into a weak smile. "What if I did?" That sentence drained all of the blood from the maids’ veins. Even Merlin’s stellar preparations and Arad’s power weren’t omnipotent.

Merlin, who was in the water, stretched her legs toward the sky and then started swimming on her back. "Well, Amaterasu is holed up in the church doing whatever the hell she wants. So, I sent her a rent check that says she must deal with any problem, pointing especially to a potential abomination outbreak." She looked at Fernanda with a grin. "Right now, Amaterasu’s sunlight has cleansed everyone outside from your infection."

All of the maids and servants stared at her. Forget kissing her feet; they’ll worship the ground she walks on. Where did she find that head of hers?

Merlin had no idea how Amaterasu could deal with such a thing, but in reality, that power was simple. The sun was extremely radioactive, releasing massive amounts of radiation in the form of sunlight and ionizing radiation.

The goddess simply took control of the radiation and washed the lands clean with a measured dose to only kill the infection without harming the people. It was the same mechanism she used to burn vampires.

Fernanda could remember that the abomination that attacked her world in the past had somehow managed to get rid of the sun and replace it with a fake one. That horror must have known that Amaterasu could wipe it out with a thought.

Merlin giggled. "Just how powerful is she?" While Merlin was amazed at Amaterasu’s power and the extent of her dominion, the maids and servants were amazed at her intelligence. Is that what it takes to become one of the queens? If that was the case, then none of them had a chance.

Arad then shifted his gaze back to Fernanda. "So? Are your tricks over?"

In the back, Plum and Zephyr were sitting beside each other in the bath, watching everything unfold. Plum was having some of her fairies massage her shoulders, while Zephyr relaxed with Nar and Salamander sucking on the fingers of her left hand, getting pumped with compressed oxygen.

Zephyr poked Plum on the side and spoke with a grin on her face. "See? Told you that if Arad was there with us in that fight, it wouldn’t even have been a fight."

"But he wasn’t around, we had to solve it..." Plum replied, but she went silent in the middle of the sentence as a shadow engulfed them. The two spirit queens looked up, sweat dripping across their faces as they saw Merida glaring down at them.

When they first brought Fernanda here, she wanted to just kill her, and they stopped her. Now that she tried to harm them, Merida came to hear what excuse those two could come up with. And before they could escape, she stepped on them, pinning them to the ground.

"I won’t take any excuses." The fairies panicked and tried to get Plum out, while Nar and Salamander stared at Merida, about to tell her to let Zephyr go. They only cared about getting air. But the moment Merida glared at them, the two kissed her toes and fled, waving their hands at Zephyr with apologetic faces.

"You two!" Zephyr growled, but her head was immediately squeezed between Merida’s toes.

Merida wore the two of them as slippers by grabbing their heads with her toes, and walked away.

Arad looked back for a second toward Merida as she walked away with Zephyr and Plum, then turned back to Fernanda and reached down, grabbed her by the neck, and lifted her up.

As she felt his fingers growing tighter around her neck, almost cracking her bones, she had to say something. "I was joking..."

But in that instant, Arad’s hand flew past her torso, and the skin on her side was torn off. She remained silent for a second and then screamed in agony. She never felt such pain in her life before. She tried to struggle, but even with the strength of over a billion living beings, she couldn’t escape Arad’s grasp.

"I’m sorry... I won’t do it again... Please let me go." As she started crying, Arad could look deep into her crazed thoughts. It was only then that he realized her real problem; this witch wasn’t sane, she was already on the verge of insanity and barely holding onto reality.

Considering that, Arad sighed and dropped her down. For a moment, she thought she was saved, but he then spoke, shattering that thought. "I’m fine, but everyone here was touched by your disease. Go apologize to them, and have them decide your punishment. That was one slap earlier, and they can pick from zero to ten." He turned around to return to the water, "When you finish apologizing to everyone, come tell me the count of slaps you’ll get."

When Arad returned to his spot in the water, he looked at Merida who was walking around with the two spirit queens. "Are they okay?"

She stopped walking, lifted her foot, and looked at Plum, then stomped down several times. "They are durable enough."

She then lifted her other foot and looked at Zephyr. "What did we agree on?"

"You’ll let Fernanda live, but if she caused trouble, you can do whatever you want with us for a day." Hearing that, Merida smacked her foot on the ground once, giving Zephyr a smack and asked her again. "That wasn’t what I said."

Zephyr looked fine, unharmed, but a bit embarrassed at her current situation. "Sorry, she said she’ll kill us with her. But I was the one who suggested you could do anything you want with us for a day, as long as we stay alive."

Merida smiled. "Good, next time I try to kill a monster that you picked up from nowhere. Don’t get in my way." She walked into the water and started drowning the two for a few minutes before pulling them up for air.

"Aren’t you a bit too cruel with them?" Aella looked at her, and Merida shrugged. "Arad, what do you think?"

"I won’t get between what you three agreed upon." He looked at her, "As long as they don’t die or get permanently harmed. I think the most humiliating thing for a spirit queen, besides living inside my stomach, getting stepped on and humiliated like you’re doing to them, is them going back on their words."

He sighed, "And, Merida was right. If someone is dangerous, either kill them outright or keep them locked up. Don’t put people at risk." He looked at the maids. Bringing Fernanda here was a bad decision.