Demonic Dragon: Harem System

The withdrawal ended during the early hours of the morning, when the final group crossed Asgard’s walls accompanied by wagons loaded with wounded soldiers, damaged equipment, and sealed boxes containing the few fragments Frieren had considered safe for analysis. There was no reception, celebration, or attempt to present the result of the operation as a public victory. The twelve outposts had been destroyed and the adaptive network had stopped functioning as a single consciousness, but everyone who had taken part in the battle knew that they had merely uncovered a far older threat. Monica ordered the eastern gates to remain closed, temporarily suspended the rail lines coming from the southeast, and transformed part of the military district into an isolation zone, refusing to allow soldiers to return to their homes before undergoing a complete inspection.

Strax was taken directly to one of the underground chambers Frieren used for high-density magical experiments. The place had been built beneath Asgard’s ancient foundations, surrounded by three walls of black metal and protected by runes capable of interrupting communication, teleportation, and mana transmission. Even so, the mark on his arm continued to pulse. The dark lines had advanced to his shoulder during the journey, following the channels of draconic energy without attempting to damage them. That behavior was precisely what concerned Frieren. An ordinary infection would try to consume the body. A curse would attempt to weaken him. This thing merely observed, learning where every part was supposed to remain.

"Stop moving your arm," Frieren said while pressing a crystal plate against the marked skin. "Every time you release energy, the lines reorganize."

Strax sat in the center of a containment circle, wearing only part of his clothing because the wounds remained exposed.

"I am breathing. That releases energy too."

"Then breathe less."

Monica, who was examining the results beside a table covered in maps and instruments, raised her eyes for a moment.

"Do not kill Strax before we discover what is happening. We still need him."

"I am not going to kill him."

"That was not reassuring."

Frieren ignored the comment and removed the plate. Small symbols had appeared inside the crystal, forming lines resembling an ancient script, although none of the words were complete. The elf compared the result with the map recovered from the observatory and realized that both reacted in the same way. The seven layers of the seal appeared on the parchment whenever the crystal approached Strax’s arm, but an eighth line attempted to form between the center of the desert and the northern region.

"The mark is not only a means of locating you," she explained. "It is an attempt to add a new connection to the seal."

Strax looked at his own arm.

"Between me and Vex."

"Between you and the crown that exists through her. The entity called you a key because your energy can interact with more than one layer. White Fire destroyed the network built over the prison, while Black Ice reinforced the ancient chains. You opened one part and closed another at the same moment."

Monica approached the map.

"So the entity does not know whether Strax can free it or imprison it."

"It probably wants to find out."

Strax released a short breath and leaned back against the chair. Since leaving the desert, the buried presence had not tried to invade his mind again. It remained on the other side of the mark, waiting for a reaction, like someone holding one end of a rope without pulling it. The lack of movement was more unsettling than a direct attack. It meant the entity understood patience and knew that any premature attempt could alert them.

The chamber door opened after the barriers recognized Mercedes’s mana. She entered alone, still wearing the armor from the operation, although she had cleaned away most of the blood and black residue. Her expression remained controlled until she looked at Strax’s arm. Cold spread subtly across the floor, forming a thin white layer around her boots.

"Vex is safe," she reported before he could ask. "I took her to the Heart Chamber in the North. None of the maids know the complete route, the orders were transmitted without names, and every secondary passage has been sealed."

"Is she awake?"

"She is now. She does not appear injured, but she continues feeling something beneath the castle. She said the ground is calling her."

Frieren raised her eyes.

"She used those exact words?"

Mercedes nodded.

"Then she asked why there were six other children crying in places she could not see."

The room remained silent for several seconds, not for dramatic effect, but because that information changed the interpretation of the six remaining crowns. Monica was the first to recover the rhythm of the conversation. She pulled the map closer and asked Mercedes to show where Vex had been when she experienced the vision. The Ice Monarch indicated a room located directly above the castle’s ancient core, where the first rulers of the North had built the protection system.

"That confirms the other crowns are still active," Monica concluded. "They may not be awake in the same way, but there are people or consciousnesses connected to them. The entity is trying to make Vex perceive all of them at once."

"For what purpose?" Mercedes asked.

"To overload her," Frieren answered. "A living anchor does not need to be physically destroyed. If she loses her own identity and begins answering for the others, she will no longer sustain only her own chain. The entity could use the connection between the crowns to spread pressure across the entire seal."

Strax stood despite the elf’s disapproving expression. The mark reacted immediately, darkening the lines near his shoulder.

"Then we are not going to wait for it to try."

Monica had already expected that answer.

"And what do you intend to do? Fly north with a connection to the entity attached to your arm?"

"No. I want to use the connection before removing it."

Frieren did not reject the idea immediately, which caught Mercedes’s attention. The elf brought the crystal near the map again and watched the eighth line attempt to complete itself.

"The channel works in both directions. The entity can send pressure, images, and part of its authority through it, but Strax also sent energy in the opposite direction while he was in the desert. That is how he reinforced the chain."

Monica understood before the explanation ended.

"We can make the entity open the path to us."

"Exactly," Strax replied. "It wants to reach Vex and believes I am the key. We will allow it to think it managed to use me."

Mercedes placed one hand on the table with enough force to freeze its edge.

"Vex will not be used as bait."

"She will not."

Strax looked directly at her.

"I will take the crown’s place long enough to pull the connection toward me."

Frieren began shaking her head, though not because she completely disagreed.

"You cannot replace a living anchor without understanding the bond. Vex possesses a natural connection to ancient cold. Her body was born around that function. You have enough authority to touch the chain, but that does not mean you will survive sustaining it."

"I do not need to sustain it for long."

Monica moved several instruments aside and opened an ancient blueprint of the northern castle that Mercedes had sent during the withdrawal. The Heart Chamber stood at the deepest level, surrounded by walls of ancestral ice and built over a point where the crown’s chain crossed the physical world. There was only one main entrance and three maintenance passages that could be sealed. It was the ideal place to prevent the entity’s manifestation from spreading.

"We can turn the chamber into a trap," Monica said after studying the design. "Vex will be removed before any contact. Mercedes will create a second ice structure in another part of the territory and keep her presence hidden. Strax enters the Heart Chamber, responds to the mark, and allows the channel to connect to the empty chain. When the entity tries to cross, Frieren closes the exit behind it."

Mercedes still did not appear satisfied.

"And afterward?"

"Then we destroy whatever managed to come through," Strax answered.

"That will not kill the entity."

"It does not need to. We need to cut its connection to Vex, destroy the mark, and close the layer we opened in the desert. If we do that, it remains imprisoned and loses the only path it found to reach the North."

Frieren examined the map again. The proposal was dangerous, but it offered one important advantage: for the first time, they would choose the place, moment, and conditions of the confrontation. The entity remained buried at the center of the desert. To reach Strax, it would have to project only part of its authority through a narrow connection. Anything that crossed the channel would be separated from the main body and therefore far more vulnerable.

"We will need the others," the elf said. "Not to fight inside the chamber, but to keep the rest of the seal stable. When the entity realizes it has entered a trap, it will probably pressure the other six crowns."

Monica agreed and began assigning roles. Tiamat would remain in Asgard as a reserve force. Beatrice and the knights would control the northern border. Samira, Cassandra, Daniela, and Kali would occupy four points around the castle to prevent surviving creatures from the network from interfering. Rogue would use the guild to remove civilians from the closest routes without revealing the true reason. Ouroboros would be called to observe the lines of fate connected to the other crowns and warn them if any began to give way.

Mercedes observed the organization for several minutes before accepting it. She disliked leaving Vex outside her direct protection, but understood that keeping her inside the Heart Chamber would be far more dangerous.

"I will hide her myself. She will remain inside the White Labyrinth, where no passage stays in the same place for more than one minute. Only I will know the central position."

Strax nodded.

"Tell her I will find her as soon as this is finished."

"She will ask why you cannot go now."

He looked at the mark on his arm.

"Tell her the truth. There is something attached to me that I do not want to bring near her."

Mercedes watched him for several seconds and then agreed. There was no time for elaborate comfort or impossible promises. They needed to end the threat before the entity found another way to reach the child.

The preparations began immediately. Monica left the chamber to take command of the operation center, while Mercedes opened an ice portal toward the North. Frieren remained with Strax to isolate the mark until the proper moment. The elf drew additional circles over his skin, not to remove the dark lines, but to prevent them from spreading to his chest or completely reaching his name.

"When we open the channel, it will try to discover everything you protect," Frieren warned while finishing the final rune. "Do not think about Vex. Do not think about Mercedes, Monica, or Asgard. Any strong memory can become a direction."

Strax gave a faint smile.

"You are asking me to stop thinking."

"I am asking you to think only about what we want to show."

"And what are we going to show?"

Frieren raised her eyes toward him.

"A tired, wounded key desperate enough to accept an offer."

Strax observed the black lines beneath his skin and understood. The entity needed to believe the contact in the desert had affected him more than he had shown. They would not try to hide the trap behind perfect barriers. They would give it exactly the weakness it expected to find.

Hours later, the group reached the northern castle. The fortress had already been partially evacuated, and the soldiers moved without any sign of panic. The cold became far more intense near the lower levels, where the walls had been constructed from almost transparent blue ice. Strax descended beside Frieren and Monica, crossing empty corridors until they reached a circular door covered with symbols similar to those seen inside the desert prison.

Mercedes waited in front of it.

"Vex is inside the Labyrinth. Her connection to the crown has been reduced, but it has not completely disappeared."

"That will be enough," Frieren replied.

The Heart Chamber door slowly opened. Beyond it stood a vast hall crossed by a single blue chain descending from the ceiling and disappearing into a frozen lake. Small patches of sand already marked the surrounding ice, despite there being no passage connecting that place to the outside.

Strax entered the center of the chamber alone. Monica and Frieren remained outside, protected behind several layers of barriers. Mercedes placed one hand against the door, ready to seal the entire hall when she received the signal.

The mark on his arm began moving as soon as it recognized the chain.

The dark lines crossed his shoulder, reached his chest, and arranged themselves like a hand closing around his heart. Strax did not resist. He deliberately lowered his defenses, allowed the channel to open, and sent a single impression through it: exhaustion, pain, and the calculated fear of someone who believed he was losing his own daughter.

The sand scattered across the lake responded.

First, it formed a circle.

Then the outline of a broken crown appeared.

Finally, a voice crossed the chamber, still low and imperfect, but far clearer than it had been in the desert.

"Open."

Strax looked at the blue chain and closed his fingers around it. Ancient cold crossed his hand, climbed the marked arm, and met the entity’s connection.

He breathed slowly before answering.

"Come and take it."

The mark opened across his chest.

The sand exploded upward, forming a golden eye inside the Heart Chamber, while a colossal hand began crossing the channel between the desert and the North. Mercedes closed the door, Frieren activated the barriers, and Monica sent the signal to every force around the castle.

The final phase of the battle had begun exactly where they wanted it.