Demonic Dragon: Harem System-Chapter 778: Unstable Demonic Core

Strax slowly raised his hand, without taking his eyes off the core.

"Frieren…" he said, his voice low and steady. "Step back a little."

She looked at him immediately.

"Strax, if you're thinking of—"

"I know," she interrupted, without turning her face. "But this isn't reacting like a normal core. If there's any kind of consciousness here… it will respond better to someone who doesn't try to break it first."

Frieren hesitated.

The air around the core rippled now, as if space were breathing irregularly. Each pulse made the petrified roots creak, like ancient bones under tension.

"If something goes wrong," she said, taking a few steps back, "I'll pull you out by force."

He smiled slightly.

"I'm counting on it."

Frieren stepped back to the edge of the hall, discreetly erecting a containment barrier, not to trap him, but to prevent the instability from spreading. His eyes never left Strax.

He took a deep breath.

And he moved forward.

Each step toward the core increased the pressure, not on his body, but on his mind. It wasn't pain. It was… anticipation. As if something was finally realizing he was there on purpose.

"Alright…" Strax murmured, more to himself than to the thing in front of him. "Let's go slowly."

The core pulsed.

The dark energy reorganized itself for a moment, forming patterns that almost resembled veins. The hum transformed into something more defined—a distant, muffled chorus, impossible to distinguish individually.

Strax reached out his hand.

The air between his fingers and the core felt denser, as if passing through invisible water. The bracelets on his wrists vibrated violently now, reacting not as resistance, but as a warning.

"I didn't come to destroy you," he said clearly. "Nor to liberate something without understanding what it is."

His hand touched the core.

The world changed.

There was no explosion. There was no light.

There were… eyes.

Strax felt as if he had fallen into something infinitely larger than the cave. The physical sensation vanished for an instant, replaced by an overwhelming pressure—not on his body, but on his consciousness.

He was being watched.

Not by one gaze.

By many.

Too many.

Hundreds.

No—more than that.

He saw.

Not with physical eyes, but with something deeper.

Eyes open in the dark.

Human eyes. Elven eyes. Eyes of other races he recognized only by the outlines of their souls. Some terrified. Other voids. Others… still too conscious to be dead.

All trapped.

All staring directly at him.

Strax felt his chest tighten.

"…so that's it," he murmured, his voice echoing strangely in that inner space. "You're here."

The voices intensified.

Not words.

Memories.

Pain.

Screams that never became sounds.

He saw flashes: poorly made summoning circles, white fire burning flesh and essence at the same time, bodies falling as something was forcibly ripped from them. He saw hands raised in supplication. He saw eyes fading.

And everything converged on one point.

The core.

"Sacrifice," he said, his jaw clenched. "Not a few… many."

The eyes didn't move away.

They intensified.

He felt something different now.

Not hostility.

A question.

Strax took a deep breath, even though he had no lungs in that space.

"You were used to sustain this," he continued. "To keep this thing… alive. Anchored."

A shudder ran through the collective consciousness.

Confirmation.

"How many?" he asked, in a low voice.

The answer didn't come in numbers.

It came in weight.

In overwhelming quantity.

Strax felt the impact like a punch to the gut as he partially regained physical consciousness. His fingers were still resting on the core, but now trembled slightly.

"At least… two hundred pairs of eyes…" he murmured.

Frieren felt the change immediately.

"Strax!" she called, taking a step forward before stopping herself. "What are you seeing?"

He didn't answer immediately.

The core pulsed violently now, but not chaotically. It was as if it were trying to open. To show itself.

Strax closed his eyes.

"Are you still conscious?" he asked, refocusing. "Or is this just… echoing?"

The answer came in layers.

Some eyes went blank.

Others remained.

Few… reacted.

Pain. Confusion. Fragmented consciousness.

"Not all," he said, opening his physical eyes again. "Some are already lost. Others are… too trapped to leave."

Frieren felt a chill run through his body.

"This is worse than I thought," he murmured. "Someone built a receptacle of souls… and is forcing a demonic core to exist within it."

Strax nodded slowly.

"It's not an ordinary demon. It's a parasite made of remnants."

The core reacted to the words.

For a moment, the energy concentrated, forming something like an outline—not a body, but an intention. Something trying to define itself.

Strax felt the eyes again.

This time… closer.

"Who's using you?" he asked firmly. "Who's pulling the strings?"

The reaction was violent.

The core emitted a wave that made Frieren raise the barrier with full force. The floor trembled, cracks spreading like cobwebs across the hall.

Strax staggered a step back, but didn't fully release the core.

"Strax!" Frieren shouted. "Enough! You're going to—"

"No!" he replied through clenched teeth. "He's trying to hide it."

He refocused.

He felt something close.

Like a door being hastily locked.

"It's not him," he said, breathing heavily. "The core isn't the dominant mind. It's… a prison. An amplifier."

The eyes began to fade, one by one, like stars being swallowed by darkness.

Strax felt a deep tightness in his chest.

"They're being drained," he murmured. "Even now."

Frieren approached quickly.

"Then we have to act," she said, her voice firm despite the shock. "If this continues, they'll disappear for good."

Strax finally withdrew his hand from the core.

The contact broke like a wire being forcibly cut. He fell to his knees for a second, breathing deeply, as the buzzing subsided slightly.

Frieren was beside him the next instant.

"Look at me," she said, gently cupping his face. "You're here."

He blinked, focusing on her.

"I am."

She let out a restrained sigh.

"What did you discover?"

Strax stood slowly, supporting himself on his knee. His eyes returned to the core, now pulsing more irregularly, almost… too unstable.

"This isn't the end of anyone's plan," he said. "It's just a piece."

He clenched his fists.

"And whoever did this… sacrificed hundreds of lives to create something that hasn't even been born yet."

Frieren followed his gaze.

"So we can't just destroy it," she said.

"No," he agreed. "If we do that now… we take what's left of them with us."

The core pulsed once more.

Weaker.

As if it were… tired.

Strax took a deep breath.

"First, we stabilize. Then, we trace the origin." He looked at Frieren. "Step back a little."

Frieren frowned at the request.

"Strax…," she began, but stopped when she noticed the change in him.

The air around Strax began to distort.

It wasn't an explosion of power or a dramatic spectacle. It was something deeper, something older. The mana around him instinctively recoiled, as if recognizing a natural predator taking shape.

"Trust me," he said, stepping forward. "This thing speaks this language better."

He closed his eyes.

And then the world seemed to hold its breath.

The restraining bracelets vibrated violently for an instant… and dissolved into particles of light, forcibly deactivated, as if no longer compatible with what he was about to become.

Strax's body shrank.

His muscles compacted, his bone structure rearranging itself with dull cracks, not of pain, but of adaptation. Scales began to sprout from his skin, black as obsidian, streaked with crimson veins that glowed faintly, like embers under ashes.

His hands became claws, still proportionate, but clearly not human. His back arched, and from there emerged wings—not enormous, but wide enough to envelop, protect, isolate.

A short, heavy tail touched the ground with a low thud.

Before Frieren, where a man had once stood, now stood a dragon.

Not colossal.

Not devastating.

But ancient.

Compact, dense, made for control, not destruction.

His eyes opened again—vertical pupils, incandescent irises, but the gaze… the gaze was still Strax.

Frieren felt the mana of the place bend.

"…I understand," she murmured, taking a few more steps back. "An intermediate form."

The smaller version of the dragon tilted its head slightly, almost as a nod.

"Here, I can touch this without being swallowed," he said, his voice deeper, reverberating strangely in the hall. "And I can speak to what remains of them." The core reacted immediately.

The demonic energy stirred, but not in a hostile way. The surrounding miasma began to align, drawn like obedient smoke toward Strax. He raised his claws and, with a careful movement, began to envelop the core with layers of controlled energy.

It wasn't draining. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

It was redistributing.

"Calm down…", he murmured, now not just with words, but with intention. "You don't have to sustain this alone."

Frieren watched, tense but fascinated.

The irregular hum began to slow down. The fissures in the core diminished. The pulsations became more spaced out, less violent.

For a brief moment…

It seemed to work.

The weight in the air lessened. The ground stopped trembling. Some of the petrified roots lost their dark glow, cracking and crumbling into dust.

"It's stabilizing," Frieren said, surprised. "Strax, you—"

Then everything went wrong.

The core emitted a different sound.

Not a buzz.

A crack.

Dry. Definitive.

Strax felt it first.

Not as energy, but as external intent.

Something pulled.

Forcefully.

Not from within the core—from afar.

"No…," he growled, his wings instinctively spreading. "Not now."

The layers of energy he had orchestrated began to unravel, not from internal instability, but as if someone had ripped away the invisible support that held everything together.

Frieren felt the shift like a blade cutting through the air.

"Strax!" she cried. "Something interfered!"

The core began to collapse upon itself.

Not imploding.

Reacting.

The fissures opened all at once, releasing an absurd amount of compressed demonic energy. The miasma ceased to obey, becoming savage, sharp, deadly.

Strax didn't think.

He acted.

In a brutally swift movement, the dragon spun on its axis, propelling itself with its hind legs. Its wings spread fully as it swept across the space between them in a single leap.

"Frieren!"

She barely had time to react.

Strax enveloped her.

Its wings closed around her like a cocoon, overlapping scales creating a living barrier. Its body arched, protecting her completely, its tail and wings anchored to the ground like a shield.

The next instant—

The core exploded.

There was no fire.

There was rupture.

A wave of demonic energy swept through the cave, pulverizing rock, tearing up roots, making the air scream. The impact was so violent that Frieren's barrier shattered like glass before it even touched them.

But it didn't reach her.

Everything hit Strax first.

His wings vibrated under the impact, scales cracking, mana being forcibly ripped away. The ground beneath them gave way, forming a crater as the wave swept over it, tearing away everything that wasn't protected.

Frieren felt the shock, felt the world tremble, felt the heat and the cold at the same time.

But she felt no pain.

She was completely enveloped.

The sound lasted only a few seconds.

But it felt like an eternity.

When it finally ceased, the silence that followed was absolute.

Dust fell slowly from the destroyed ceiling of the cave. Fragments of crystal still rolled across the floor, echoing distantly.

Strax's wings remained closed for another instant.

Then, with a visible effort, they opened.

Frieren was kneeling beneath him, unharmed.

Her eyes widened immediately at the sight of his condition.

"Strax…", her voice faltered.

His scales were opaque in several places, some broken. The crimson glow had diminished. His breathing was heavy, deep, but controlled.

Even so, he lowered his head until it was at her eye level.

"Are you alright?", he asked.

Frieren placed her hands on his chest, feeling the warmth, the weight, the life.

"You're a complete idiot," she said, her voice trembling. "You could have—"

"But it didn't happen," he interrupted, with a slight growl that almost sounded like a smile. "It was close, but it didn't happen."

She swallowed hard.

"That… wasn't a natural failure," she said. "Someone pulled the anchor from a distance."