After dinner finished, Merlin called Arad and the rest to her room, warning them beforehand about the influx of magic inside. They all stood before the door, and Arad reached for the doorknob, slowly turning it open. Pushing the door open, a flash of majestic light washed over them.
Mira gasped as they all walked inside, unlike them, her room was far more massive, several times bigger than their rooms combined. But this wasn't something provided by Hati, it was Merlin's magic at work. She had used this spell multiple times before to make the inside of the carriages larger, but now she had infused it with her labyrinth magic, turning her rooms into something akin to mini-one-room dungeons.
Merlin was already inside the room, resting on her large couch with Astid massaging her shoulder, Frida on the other was painting her nails purple with magic-infused ink. "Welcome to my humble abode, Arad." She stood and looked at them, waving her fingers and tracing a purple thread in the air.
A large ceramic table emerged from the ground; it was large enough to fit Arad. "This should be enough." She looked back at Astrid and Frida.
"Yeah." Astrid replied, "Can we get to work already?" Frida sighed as she approached the table.
"They'll massage you while Mira supplies healing magic and I supply magic." Merlin explained what was going to happen to Arad. Currently, Astrid and Frida are going to be doing the job that Merida and Eris would fulfill, Arad is extremely powerful, and for him to work at his maximum efficiency at all times he needs special care, a care that mostly only his wives could provide.
Using teleportation in the middle of acceleration seemed fine as long as you nail it, but even with perfect execution and timing, the sudden shift in space, the rushing magic, and the turn in acceleration and deceleration cause some cells to teleport before others, leading internal damage that spread across the whole body.
While Arad's outer appearance seemed fine and he didn't feel anything besides being tired, he was in fact suffering from a decent chunk of damage across his whole body. 15% of Arad's cells have already died due to the tiny malfunction in his teleportation magic and he needs healing to be able to go at 100% of his power tomorrow.
This amount of damage might not be clear today, but it's a multitude of tiny and minuscule amounts of damage that accumulated through the day, and they'll keep accumulating if Arad doesn't get attention and proper healing.
Arad took his clothes off and laid on the table, looking down with an exhausted face, "Fine by me. Do what you want." He indeed didn't feel like he had taken any damage, and even his vampire senses didn't detect any damage in his body, trying to heal himself or regenerate isn't working.
Merlin approached Arad and smacked him on the forehead gently with her staff, "I can confirm that now that you're in my labyrinth, your whole body is damaged. Flesh, bones, organs, even your hair is damaged, I'm taking any balding husband."
"Smacking my head isn't going to help that hair grow back." He looked at her with a smile on his exhausted face.
Merlin glared at him, "That damage, it's most accumulated on your brain and spine, did you throw them you?" crouched down and glared at his eyes.
Astrid and Frida who were getting ready to start gasped, they looked at him and Merlin with confused faces. "Throw what?"
"He can regenerate from any wound as long as his brain and spine are fine. This smart one here thought it'd be a smart idea to throw his brain and spine in the middle of a battle and regenerate fully from them." She waved her staff above Arad's head, "Yeah! You did it again!" She smacked him again.
"I mean, he would've cut my head in half if I didn't." Arad looked away, "Wait, he did cut my head, it's only that my brain and spine weren't in my body when that happened so I survived."
Mira and Isdis looked at Arad with scared faces, "Please don't do that again." Isdis said with a worried and terrified face.
"I know that I shouldn't do it." Arad replied, "But I would've died. It's not something that I do for fun, it's my last measure to survive an attack. Believe it or not, only teleporting my brain and spine away is far faster than trying to teleport my whole body."
Astrid lifted her fist, and smacked Arad's back, "If that's the case, then we need to get to work." She said with a confident face, but her cheek immediately turned red as tears rushed into her eyes. She turned back and crouched down, holding her hand and barely holding her tears. She almost shattered her fist when hitting Arad's back, her fingers came in direct contact with his spine.
Frida leaned on Arad's back and started knocking on it with her finger, listening closely. It sounded like knocking on steel, even his muscles were hard enough to mistake for rocks.
"Where you this hard?" she gasped, looking at Arad's head.
"I'm always this hard." He replied, "My scales are tougher than steel." He was able to punch holes through stone with his bare hands, his body wouldn't be as soft as anyone else.
"Sister, this is bad." Frida looked at the half-crying Astrid who was blowing on her red fist. "Our job is to move Mira's healing magic through his body by massaging him. We can't do it." Merlin giggled, "Worry not. That we're doing it here in my labyrinth." She approached them and lifted her hand, waving her fingers before Frida's face.
Merlin used her authority over the space they were in to buff Astrid and Frida's physical power, making them far stronger than before. At the same time, she tried to debuff Arad so he could be easier to work with, but her magic failed to affect him.
"Something felt weird." Arad said as he looked at Merlin, "Did you try something?" He usually isn't that weary of those close to him so he wasn't checking for an attack, and debuff magic is indeed an attack that slipped by him just now.
Merlin approached him and crouched to look him in the eyes, "My Arad, please relax a bit. I tried to reduce your strength stat a bit so you'll be easier to massage, but you're so tense it failed." She rubbed his cheek, "Can you relax?"
"I'm relaxed." Arad replied, that he didn't even react to the spell, let alone tense to stop it. If it failed, that means he was far too strong for Merlin to be able to debuff him.
"{I can help.}" A mouth showed up on Arad's back, scaring Astrid and Frida to the point they jumped back, their tails spiked up.
"Doma? You want to curse him a bit?" Merlin looked at the mouth.
"{That would work, but I've got another idea.}" Doma replied, "{Mira or Isdis, doesn't
matter who. One of you should let Arad hug her for a bit."
Merlin immediately looked at Isdis, "You, Mira is applying her magic to his back."
"Well, let's see." Isdis smiled and approached Arad. He slowly extended his arms forward and hugged her torso.
"{That doesn't work, get a bit down. Arad, hug her across the chest.}" Doma immediately told her to crouch down so he could reach her while lying on the table. The moment Isdis did that and Arad hugged her, Merlin's debuff managed to activate on him.
Even when Arad is calm, his body is always putting a minimum amount of caution and defense. He isn't doing it on purpose, but in this current situation, he isn't in a situation
where he's fully safe.
Merlin, Astrid, Frida, Isdis, Mira, and Tina all where in the room, and Arad could only relax around three of them. Isdis, Mira and Tina. His body is naturally defending itself against Astrid and Frida by remaining harder than they could damage, and by keeping his magic surging stronger than what this small labyrinth that Merlin made could affect.
When even Arad himself couldn't understand it, Doma who was watching him for a long time could explain it to the rest. Arad sets a clear line between his wives, his servants, and anyone
Arad's power is almost completely sealed when dealing with his wife and children so he won't hurt them by mistake. All of his movements become extremely docile and gentle and his magic drops by a massive amount. That is why Mira could drag him by the ear with ease, but sadly that didn't change the hardness of his scales.
While with his servants, Like Zia, Arad's power isn't reserved, but he's also holding back quite
a bit. He treats them with respect and is careful all the time to make sure they are safe from his power. A strange example would be Tina, he treats her more like a wife than a servant now
that he adopted Serin.
While the previous two categories are protected by Arad's unconscious mind, the rest can only be protected actively. His power isn't held back to make sure they are safe, he actively avoids harming them, but sometimes that isn't enough.
After hearing the explanation, Merlin thought back to her coming fight with Arad, she needs
to earn his trust, the trust he needs to treat her like one of his wives. She could see it now in effect, he was still weary of her magic deep down.