Demonic Dragon: Harem System-Chapter 806: The Monarch of the White Flames
Strax tilted his head slightly, as if examining a flawed piece in a shop window.
Then he smiled.
It wasn’t a wide smile.
It was thin. Calculated. Cruel in a polite way.
"Problem?" he repeated, almost amused. "No."
He took another step forward, his hands still in his pockets.
"I am the accountant you never had."
The Monarch of the White Flames narrowed his eyes.
The flames above the sky rippled, responding to their owner’s mood.
Strax raised his gaze to the white spectacle that illuminated Athenion like a false dawn.
"You are not a monarch," he continued calmly. "You are a tax thief with a god complex."
A murmur ran through the soldiers behind the Monarch.
Rogue, standing on the walls, crossed her arms with a satisfied smile.
The Monarch spoke, his voice laden with fiery authority:
"Beware of—"
Strax interrupted him, raising a finger.
"No, no. Let me finish. I’ve been busy this month."
He pointed vaguely to the sky.
"You diverted trade routes. You squeezed noble houses. You tried to financially suffocate the city because you lacked the competence to keep it loyal."
The reptilian eyes gleamed brighter.
"It’s impressive."
He tilted his head to the side.
"For someone so incompetent to manage an army is almost a statistical miracle."
White flames grew.
The sky seemed to ignite in response.
The Monarch finally raised his voice, his aura expanding violently.
"YOU DARE—"
Strax waved his hand.
Not forcefully. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚
Not dramatically.
Just a casual gesture, like brushing dust off clothes.
And the sky froze.
The white flames—those blazes that danced with celestial arrogance—stopped.
They didn’t diminish.
They didn’t explode.
They simply... stood still.
Frozen in the air.
Static.
Without heat.
Without movement.
Without sound.
The world seemed to fail for a second.
The soldiers looked up.
The Monarch stopped speaking mid-sentence.
Strax observed the result with genuine curiosity.
He slowly raised his hand, as if examining a piece of porcelain.
One of the flames trembled.
Then it crystallized.
Literally.
It transformed into a rigid white structure, solid as glass.
Strax tapped lightly with his index finger.
Clink.
A fragile sound.
The flame cracked. And it shattered in the air like fine crystal.
White fragments fell and evaporated before touching the ground.
Strax let out a small "hm."
"Is that the famous White Flame?" he asked, almost disappointedly.
He looked back at the Monarch.
"It’s quite weak."
The silence was absolute.
Not even the wind dared to cross that space.
The Monarch tried to rekindle the energy.
Nothing responded.
He tried to invoke again the authority that sustained the phenomenon.
The runes in the sky flickered... and went out.
Strax took another step forward.
Now his presence was different.
It wasn’t aggressive.
It was structural.
As if the space around him had decided to obey him by default.
"You made a basic mistake," he said, almost didactically. "You brought fire to someone who spent an entire month rewriting their own inner laws."
He touched his own chest with two fingers.
"You control flames."
A small crackle echoed in the air.
The remaining flames in the sky compressed, diminishing until they became small, static spheres, trapped like insects in amber.
"I control systems."
The Monarch finally found his own voice.
"What... are you?"
There was no arrogance in the question.
There was calculation.
And a hint of something he would never admit.
Uncertainty.
Strax tilted his head.
"Today?" he answered softly. "Your auditor."
With another minimal movement of his hand—
The spheres of flame contracted.
They imploded silently.
The sky returned to normal.
No spectacle.
No fire.
No dominion.
The white light enveloping the Monarch weakened.
It didn’t disappear.
But it lost that untouchable glow.
The soldiers began to involuntarily retreat.
Not by order.
By instinct.
Rogue let out a low laugh on the walls.
Cassandra watched intently, memorizing every reaction.
Daniela was already coordinating civilians from a distance, but even she felt the impact of it.
Strax stopped a few meters from the Monarch.
Close enough that the difference between them was clear.
The Monarch still radiated power.
But now it seemed... conventional.
"You came to put on a show," Strax said. "But you forgot to check the stage."
He opened his arms slightly.
The city behind him didn’t tremble.
It didn’t burn.
It didn’t beg.
It stood firm.
"This city is no longer your economic equation," he continued. "It’s not your control variable." He smiled again.
More coldly.
"And you are no longer the dominant element here."
The Monarch clenched his teeth.
His hands closed.
Artifacts began to orbit faster around him.
"This isn’t over," he said, his voice lower now.
Strax chuckled slightly.
"Of course not."
His reptilian eyes gleamed with something deeper.
Something vast.
"The test is only beginning."
The ground beneath the Monarch’s feet didn’t crack.
But he recognized the possibility of cracking.
And for the first time since descending from the sky in white flames—
The White Flame Monarch didn’t seem to be the center of attention.
He seemed like someone who had entered the wrong territory.
And finally realized it.
The first to move was the Monarch.
There was no warning.
There was no speech.
Just movement.
The air exploded white as he advanced, enveloped in condensed flames, his speed tearing the ground beneath his feet. The impact of the charge left a deep furrow in the stone of the city entrance.
He appeared before Strax in the blink of an eye.
Fist engulfed in white fire.
Straight to the face.
Strax didn’t flinch.
He raised his hands.
He gripped them.
The impact was brutal.
The shockwave spread like silent thunder, pushing dust and making the walls vibrate. But Strax’s hands were there—firm—holding the Monarch’s wrists as if he were stopping an angry child from hitting.
The white fire tried to expand.
It couldn’t.
Strax tilted his head slightly to the side, studying the man before him.
"Quick," he commented, almost assessingly.
Then—
He pulled the Monarch forward.
And violently rammed his knee into the Monarch’s stomach.
The sound wasn’t pretty.
It was dense.
A dull impact that sent the air out of the Monarch’s body all at once.
His eyes widened.
The second knee came immediately after.
Higher.
Stronger.
The natural shield of flames faltered for a second.
The Monarch gasped.
He almost vomited.
Strax released his hands only to—
TURN his hip.
And kick him in the face with enough force to bend his neck backward.
The impact echoed through the plaza.
The Monarch’s body was launched away like a projectile, crashing through a decorative column and ricocheting against the ground dozens of meters away.
Stone exploded.
Dust rose.
Soldiers retreated further.
Strax remained where he was.
He shook his leg slightly, as if brushing dust off his boot.
Then he laughed.
Not loudly.
But sincerely.
"It’s always the same," he said, walking slowly toward the crater. "You call yourselves monarchs."
He cracked his neck.
"King of Flames."
Another step.
"Monarch of Beasts."
One more.
"Emperor of this. Sovereign of that."
He stopped at the edge of the crater, looking down.
The Monarch of White Flames was on his knees, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, flames trying to reorganize around his body.
Strax smiled.
"But in the end..."
His eyes gleamed.
"They’re just little animals thinking they can bite their own master."
The ground trembled.
The Monarch roared.
Flames exploded around him in a violent eruption, forming a white pillar that rose to the heavens. The magical pressure forced cracks in nearby structures.
He raised his arm—
And unleashed a concentrated wave of compressed white fire, an incandescent mass that distorted the air and evaporated the surrounding moisture.
Strax raised his hand.
Open palm.
The energy around him condensed.
It darkened.
It wasn’t an absence of light.
It was density.
A Black Bolt formed above his hand—a compact line of pure energy compression, pulsing like an inverted heart.
He grinned wider.
And fired.
The shock was cataclysmic.
The Black Bolt collided with the white wave mid-flight.
Light and darkness engulfed each other.
The impact ripped open the ground beneath, opening a radial fissure that ran dozens of meters.
The Monarch reacted quickly.
He raised a shield of white flames before him, concentrating all the remaining fire into a solid barrier, shining like a compressed star.
The Black Bolt struck the shield.
It pushed back.
Cracks began to spread across the white surface.
The Monarch growled, forcing more energy.
The veins in his neck bulged. The impact dragged him back several meters, his boots digging into the ground.
Finally—
The Black Lightning dissipated into shadowy particles.
The white shield crackled... but remained.
Smoke rose.
Heavy silence.
Strax chuckled.
"Good."
He shrugged as if warming up.
"It’s good you showed up right after my training ended."
He started walking again, through the smoke.
Each step firm.
Confident.
"I was really curious."
His pupils narrowed.
Something vast stirred behind those eyes.
"I wanted to see how much I’d improved."
The Monarch was breathing heavily now.
Not defeated.
But pressured.
He stared at Strax with something different in his gaze.
Not arrogance.
Not yet.
But recognition.
Strax stopped a few feet from him.
The energy around them began to reorganize itself again.
Not explosive.
Not chaotic.
Methodical.
Like gears meshing.
"Let’s continue," he said, tilting his head slightly.
And this time—
He was the first to move forward.
