Demonic Dragon: Harem System

BOOOOM!

The lightning tore through the sky like a blade. It didn't come with warning. There was no thunder before it. Just the light - white, dry, brutal. It put out all the torches in the square. Silence. For two seconds, no one understood what had happened.

Scarlet's eyes widened. She was still holding the arrow that had pierced her forehead a few moments ago. "Holy shit..." She muttered, looking at the flash.

The sound had died away completely. The screams stopped immediately. The rebel elves stopped marching and looked up. Then at each other. What had once been a mob ready to kill was now a bunch of confused and frightened faces.

And then came the pressure.

It wasn't magic. It wasn't wind. It was as if the air had thickened. The ground seemed heavier. The body itself seemed heavier. An uncomfortable silence overtook everything. Not even the hostages were moaning anymore, everyone was static.

Lyana looked around. "Do you feel that?"

'That... is...' Scarlet didn't answer. She was still, as if listening to something the others couldn't. Evelyn staggered a step. She reached for the necklace around her neck. The stone glowed. Faint, but alive.

The crowd moved back a little. No one said anything, but fear was in their eyes.

And then... everyone felt it.

Something got in there. Not physically. But it did. Like a presence crossing the skin. A discomfort at the base of the neck. Tough people began to sweat. Warriors with blood on their hands dropped their weapons without realizing it.

The pressure became a memory.

Everyone saw something. Something from the past. Something they didn't want to remember.

Hostages saw their families. The rebels, the victims' eyes. The deaths. The cowardice. The wrong choices. It was quick, but direct. It wasn't punishment. It was exposure.

Evelyn took a step back. For the first time, she looked around as if looking for a place to run. "That's not elf magic," she said, her voice hoarse.

"No..." Scarlet replied. "That's Spirit Magic of the highest class there is."

The name fell through the air like lead. Someone - or something - was judging everyone there. And no one knew where it came from. Or why.

From high above the clouds, something began to form. It had no face. It didn't even have a body. But it walked as if it did. As if it were floating. As if it had always been there.

Scarlet clenched her fists. "That wasn't part of the plan. Something must have happened to Strax."

Evelyn fell to her knees. Not out of pain. Not out of faith. Out of recognition. "It's the Guardian. The Judge of the Threshold. He appears when someone tries to desecrate the Spiritual Realm." She spoke nervously as her body trembled. Her insides screamed.

Lyana didn't understand. "But hasn't the Spiritual Realm ceased to exist?"

Evelyn looked at her. Her eyes were fixed. Serious. "It seems... He brought the Spirit Realm back."

From above, the figure grew larger.

At first, it was just a speck in the darkness. An amorphous figure, shaped by shadows and light. But as it descended, it took on an outline. Not like an ordinary body - but as if the world around it was forced to give shape to its presence. The air trembled around it. The light distorted. It was like looking at a fire through cracked glass: everything around seemed broken.

Long, skinny legs, formed from a mixture of smoke and bone. Arms that didn't seem to end, floating beside the body with the wrong joints. And in place of a face, just a plain mask, as gray as a tombstone, with three vertical slits through which nothing came out. No expression. No sound.

But everyone there knew they were being watched.

With every meter the being descended, more people fell to their knees. Some out of desperation, others out of instinct. It was impossible to stand with that weight crushing the world.

The thing didn't walk. It slid. As if it were standing on something that the eyes couldn't understand. It wore no clothes. It wore no armor. What covered its body was the very spiritual fabric of the Kingdom that everyone thought had disappeared: fragments of soul, particles of ancient energy, pieces of things that had lived and died a thousand times. Everything revolved around him like a field of broken orbs.

He stopped in mid-air. About ten meters off the ground.

Then he looked down.

Straight at Evelyn.

She choked on her own air. There was nothing else around. No screams, no presence. The whole square had disappeared from her perception. There was only her. And him. The Guardian. The living manifestation of the will of the Spiritual Realm.

'I have to get out of here!' She tried to move. She couldn't. Not a finger.

The mask turned slightly to the side. A small gesture. But it was as if the world had shifted with it.

Scarlet tried to intervene. "Hey!" he shouted, raising his blood sword. "Look at me, you son of a pu-"

The Guardian's head turned back. A single glance.

Scarlet flew twenty meters. He crashed into one of the balcony columns like a rag doll. Blood sprayed into the air. She fell flat on her face and didn't move.

"NO!" Evelyn shouted.

The thing went down some more. It was now a few steps off the ground. Standing in front of her. It made no sound, but Evelyn could hear it. Inside her head. Inside her chest.

"You're a failure as a protector. I will execute the Order of the Spirit King."

She squeezed her eyes shut. She was crying without realizing it. It wasn't fear. It was weight. It was shame. It was the truth.

"Last words?"

Evelyn couldn't answer.

The Guardian stretched out his arm.

The hand floated to Evelyn.

Cold. Empty.

Definitive.

She felt the air disappear from her lungs. Her heart froze. Her eyes went wide.

It was the end.

But then -

CRACK!

A dry, brutal sound.

Like a rock exploding inside a wall.

The Guardian's body was thrown upwards, with a speed that the eye could barely keep up with. His head bent on impact. His mask cracked at the corner.

The ground shook.

Strax was there.

With his foot still dangling, just after the kick.

Taking deep breaths, his eyes narrowed, covered in a red shadow.

Evelyn could only stare at him. Her body was shaking. She wanted to speak. She couldn't. Her throat wouldn't listen. Neither did her face.

Strax turned to her. "Excuse me, are you all right?" he asked worriedly.

Nothing.

She tried to move her lips. Nothing came out.

He nodded slowly. "I'm fine. I understand," he said. Then he put his hand over his mouth, wiping away blood that didn't look like his. "But now I'm going to have to kill this bastard."

He turned his neck, cracking his vertebrae. Then he looked at Scarlet. Stretched out on the floor, still bleeding.

"Stop playing dumb, woman. You're going to help me," he said, as if she had only stumbled.

Scarlet stood up.

No drama. No difficulty.

She spat blood on the floor, wiped her face with her arm and craned her neck as if she'd woken up from a bad nap.

"Fuck, Strax..." she said, looking up, where the Guardian was starting to descend again, slowly. "What have you done, eh? That guy's trouble..."

Strax smiled with the corner of his mouth. And he's not even really pissed off yet."

The aura around him began to boil. This was no ordinary magic. It was something older. Dirtier. Something that didn't respect the laws of the physical world. And Scarlet... she was smiling.

"So... we're going to fight together for the first time..." She murmured with a smile, really, it was the first time anything had required the two of them to fight together. And that was exciting. After all, she loved this man more than she loved her daughters sometimes. Sure, maybe that's an exaggeration, but she really is obsessed with this man.

"Right," Strax said, holding Artorias' sword. "I'll take the right and you take the left. Don't let him get away from us. It looks like he wants to kill Evelyn." Strax said, smiling.

Scarlet paused for a second. "Where are Ouroboros and Tiamat?" she asked, now that she noticed... Strax had gone with the two women to find out how to bring the Spirit Realm back.

"It's a long story, but... they're containing that thing over there," Strax said, pointing to the white light beam that flew into the sky. "They're better at controlling it than in a fight."

"Well, that I agree with. Not least because they're Dragons. Controlling human bodies in a fight like this wouldn't be so easy." Scarlet shrugged, "But let's get down to business... Looks like our friend over there really wants to fight." She smiled.

Strax nodded. "Then let's give him the fight he deserves," he replied, twirling Artorias' sword as if it were light.

The Guardian was once again hovering a few meters off the ground.

The mask's three slits now glowed with an inner light, something between white and pale blue - vivid, intense, inhuman.

The crack caused by Strax was still there. A small dark line breaking the symmetry of the smooth mask. But it didn't seem to bother him.

In fact... he seemed to like it.

Scarlet advanced first.

She disappeared in a blur of movement.

A second later, she was at the Guardian's left side, her fists wrapped in black energy, her nails growing like sharp claws. She attacked without hesitation - a direct blow, intended to cut in half.

The Guardian turned its body unnaturally - as if it had no bones.

He dodged.

But Strax was already there.

On the opposite side, coming at him with his sword raised. He swung down with the weight of a monster and the fury of a lost cause. The impact ripped through the air.

The Guardian blocked with his forearm, but the ground cracked beneath him.

Scarlet didn't stop.

She spun around, caught momentum in the air and landed two kicks to the being's back.

Again, he didn't fall.

But he was pushed.

The dust rose. The spiritual field swirled, swirled, vibrating faster and faster around him.

"He's tough." Strax said, taking a step back.

"And that's just it too." Scarlet replied, licking her own blood from her lips. "He has no creativity. Only strength."

The Guardian replied at last.

He raised both hands.

And the light around him disappeared.

All of it.

Torches. The sky. Reflections.

Erased.