Demonic Dragon: Harem System

"Ah..." Strax let out a hoarse sigh, looking around with tired, incredulous eyes. The destruction around him was total—as if a cataclysm had rewritten the very map of Vorah's capital.

Towers, walls, temples—all in ruins.

The sky still burned crimson, and the smell of smoke and blood filled the air.

"Where... where in this world is there anything left intact?" he muttered to himself, his gaze lost, as if searching for a single place that had escaped the fury.

But there was none.

And then, without warning, anger surged.

"WHERE ARE YOU, YOU OLD SON OF A BITCH?!" he roared, his voice echoing through the destroyed valleys with a force that made the rubble itself tremble.

He was furious. Not just because of the destruction. But because it had happened in his home. In territory he had sworn to protect with blood and fire.

With a sharp gesture of his hand, he unleashed raw energy. An invisible wave swept across the rubble in front of him—reducing rocks, concrete, and metal to nothing more than floating dust. Each movement dissolved tons of debris as if it were burnt paper.

Beneath them, lives still struggled to breathe.

And Strax freed them.

"Come out. Breathe. Live..." he murmured, almost like a prayer, as he pulled living bodies from beneath the destruction.

That's when he heard quick, almost feline footsteps.

Rogue emerged from the rubble in her cheetah form — eyes hard, body covered in scratches and dried blood.

"There have been many losses," she said bluntly. 'The guild... our guild... has been wiped out.'

The sound of those words made something snap inside Strax.

Not a thought.

But an instinct.

A memory that bled.

He stopped. The world seemed to hold its breath. His body began to vibrate—white vapors rose from his skin. Cracks of energy ran across his chest and shoulders. Wings burst forth, huge and draconic, opening with an explosion of wind and raw magic.

"Strax, wait! We can—!"

She didn't finish her sentence.

He was already in the air.

Only silence and heat remained in his place.

From above, his eyes burning like suns, he spoke. But not in common. Not in any mortal language.

He spoke in Primordial Draconic.

A language forgotten by the gods themselves.

"Who dared to step into my territory uninvited?"

His voice was not heard—it was felt. In the bones. In the blood. In time.

The silence that answered was louder than any response.

But something happened.

The bodies of the dead dragons—dozens, perhaps hundreds—began to levitate slowly, rising like defeated puppets. Not by necromancy. But by a command of force. A call to judgment.

They rose into the skies, silent, like a failed army, before Strax's fiery gaze.

And then, with thunder in his throat, he shouted again:

"I ASKED... WHO WAS IT?" The world seemed to shake again. Not from the roar. But from the promise contained within it.

A heavy silence hung under the burning sky.

Strax descended lightly, hovering over the ruins, his glowing eyes scanning the bodies floating before him like broken puppets. The blood of his guild, the destruction of the capital, the emptiness of answers—all of it boiled inside him like an unrestrained volcano.

And then he felt it.

Something give. Something ancient.

His muscles trembled, the air around him bent, and the flames on his body were swallowed by a deep darkness. The red of his scales burned one last time—and then disappeared.

What emerged was not Strax as they knew him.

It was something older. Vaster. More primitive.

His bones expanded, cracking like thunder. His wings spread until they covered part of the sky. His claws, once flaming, became black as living obsidian, and dense energy dripped from his mouth—black, hot, and impossible to identify.

When the process was over, where once there had been an angry dragon of fire...

...now there was a Black Dragon, gigantic, half the size of the city. But its aura was very frightening.

The ground beneath it sank under its presence. The air trembled with its weight.

Its eyes, still incandescent, scanned the floating bodies.

"Who?" growled Strax, his voice no longer sound—but weight. A vibration buried in the bowels of everything that lived or had ever lived. The world around him seemed to sway, as if each syllable tore reality apart from within.

He advanced.

One of the dragons still floated in front of him. Or rather—it dragged itself along, suspended by force, as if the invisible currents of Strax's presence held it like a worm on a hook. The creature was in tatters: one wing hung twisted, bones exposed; its broken jaw hung down, its tongue cut in half; shattered scales left holes through which blood flowed slowly and warmly.

He coughed.

A sickening noise—thick, almost viscous, as if coughing up wet sand mixed with broken glass and pus.

Strax watched him closely.

The huge black head, surrounded by broken horns and eyes like flaming holes, slowly leaned down until it almost touched the wounded dragon's snout.

And waited.

...

Nothing.

Too afraid for words.

Strax exhaled a dark breath, made of solid smoke and the smell of flesh burned centuries ago. He closed his eyes for a moment... and when he opened them, he devoured him whole.

Its jaw split in two directions, like a grotesque flower opening. The wounded dragon was pulled in as if the world had lost friction—no screams, no resistance, just swallowed, consumed, obliterated.

[You obtained: 'Draconic Essence']

[You obtained: 'Draconic Blood']

Another body trembled further ahead. A smaller dragon, without front legs, panting silently. Strax floated toward it, his black wings spread like a god's tomb.

"Who sent you? Who guided you? Speak... or die like a nameless pawn."

The dragon tried to turn its head. Its remaining eye was half-melted, slowly dripping like black jelly. Its teeth chattered uncontrollably.

Silence.

Crunch.

A bite.

Not an attack. A disdain.

Strax bit into it as if it were rotten fruit—with disinterest, with disgust, and yet... with hunger.

And the soul of the being was crushed along with it.

Each devoured body was not just flesh—it was memory, it was magic, it was sin. And Strax sucked them dry, not just as punishment... but as ritual. As if he wanted to feel the pain they had caused. To understand. To suffer. To avenge.

Another tried to flee, even with half his abdomen torn open.

He could barely move.

Strax didn't even fly — he just blinked... and he was already in front of him.

"Too late."

This time, he didn't bite.

He simply touched him with a claw.

And the body melted. It didn't burn. It melted, as if exposed to the essence of ruin — flesh dissolved, bones dripping like wax, eyes exploding into black bubbles.

Rogue was still watching, but no longer as a warrior. She was crouched atop a broken tower, eyes wide, skin trembling. Even her cheetah form seemed to hesitate to exist there.

"What happened to him?" she asked before Scarlet landed beside her and looked at Strax...

"I'll stop him, get the people out of here." She spoke, but not just to Rogue... The others received a mental transmission, and they all nodded.

Beatrice, Monica, Samira, Cassandra, Daniela, Bellatrix, Tiamat, Ouroboros, and Kali all began to help the soldiers and citizens...

But it didn't stop... after swallowing almost all of the dragons' bodies...

The last dragon, mutilated, missing a leg and with half its face charred, tried to cower, even while floating. Its breath came in spasms. It tried to bow, as if reverence could save it.

"W-we... we were just following orders... we... we didn't know it was y-your territory..."

The voice came out between sobs of pain. Blood spurted out with the words. It was the despair that only the dying knew.

Strax didn't blink.

He approached slowly, like a nightmare that wanted to be remembered forever.

"Who gave the order?"

"... Find someone connected to Scathach in the Human Kingdom... that was the order the Elder gave... In Caelum..." He spoke breathlessly...

But his fate ended up like everyone else's... Devoured.