Demonic Dragon: Harem System-Chapter 807: Edrik, Monarch of the White Flames
Before there was a "Monarch of the White Flames"...
There was a boy named Edrik Vale.
Edrik wasn’t born under omens.
He wasn’t born under shooting stars.
He wasn’t born with noble blood or hidden artifacts.
He was born in the wrong part of the wrong city, on a night of acid rain that corroded the rotten wooden roofs and flowed down the alleys like dirty tears. His mother died when he was five. Fever. Cold. Hunger. It was hard to tell which of the three had won.
His father?
A name. Nothing more.
Edrik learned early that the world wasn’t cruel out of malice.
It was cruel out of indifference.
He stole bread before he even understood what guilt was. He learned to run before he learned to write. He slept among boxes, under stairs, inside abandoned warehouses—anywhere the wind wouldn’t find him.
He was small for his age. Too thin. His eyes were too big for such a thin face. But there was something that didn’t match his frailty: he observed.
He observed how the merchants counted coins.
He observed how the guards changed shifts.
He observed how the nobles ignored children like him.
At ten, he could already distinguish expensive boots by the sound of their heels.
At twelve, he knew exactly how long it took a merchant to notice that a piece of fruit had disappeared.
At thirteen, he almost died.
It was the coldest winter he could remember. Food was scarce. Supply routes were diverted by some political dispute that meant nothing to someone who just wanted to survive until the next dawn.
He tried to steal meat.
Meat.
Not bread. Not fruit. Meat.
He was caught.
The butcher was not a kind man.
Edrik was beaten until he couldn’t feel his face anymore. He was thrown into the snow, blood streaming from his forehead, his hands too trembling to clench into fists. He thought he would die there.
And perhaps he would have died.
If it weren’t for the old man.
The man emerged like a shadow in the fog. Tall, hooded, his posture too erect for someone so thin. His eyes were gray, opaque, but attentive.
He didn’t ask Edrik’s name.
He only asked... "Do you want to keep getting beaten... or do you want to learn to burn?"
Edrik, half-conscious, laughed. He coughed up blood. "Burn what?"
The old man tilted his head slightly. "Everything."
His name was Maelor Thane.
No one knew where he came from. No one knew where he was going. But he knew fire.
Not ordinary fire.
Not the flame that warms or destroys wood.
He spoke of fire as if it were a language.
"Fire is not destruction," he said. "Fire is decision."
Maelor led Edrik out of the city, to ancient ruins where the wind whistled between broken columns. There, the teaching began.
First came the pain.
The old man made Edrik sit before a small, ordinary flame and stare at it for hours.
"What do you see?"
"Light."
"Wrong."
"Heat."
"Wrong."
Days later— "What do you see?"
"Movement."
Maelor smiled for the first time. "Better."
Weeks turned into months.
Edrik learned to feel the heat before touching it. He learned to perceive how the air vibrated as the flame grew. He learned that fire was not just something external.
It was will.
It was hunger transformed into action.
And then, on a moonless night, Maelor did something different.
He drew symbols on the ground with white powder.
"Today," he said, "you decide whether you will continue to be what the world made of you... or what you make of the world."
He lit a flame in the center of the circle.
But it wasn’t red.
It wasn’t orange.
It was pale.
Almost white.
"Common flames consume matter," Maelor explained. "Rare flames consume intention."
Edrik didn’t fully understand.
But he felt it.
The white fire didn’t burn like the others. It didn’t crackle. It didn’t sputter. It... was silent.
"Enter the circle," the old man ordered.
Edrik hesitated.
He remembered the snow. The blood. The indifferent gaze of the people passing by him.
He entered.
The flame rose.
There was no explosion.
There was absence.
For a moment, Edrik didn’t feel cold. He didn’t feel pain. He didn’t feel hunger.
He felt... clarity.
The white flame enveloped his body.
And it didn’t burn him.
It merged.
When he opened his eyes, the world seemed different. Slower. More fragile.
Maelor watched him with something between approval and caution.
"You have awakened," he said simply.
That night, Edrik Vale died.
And the first bearer of the White Flames in generations was born.
The power changed everything.
First, he returned to the city.
Not to take immediate revenge.
To observe.
He tested small manifestations. A touch in the air. A brief focus on someone’s intention.
The white flames didn’t destroy buildings.
They burned convictions.
An aggressive guard hesitated mid-blow.
A lying merchant forgot his own lie.
A violent man fell to his knees, seized by inexplicable panic.
Edrik realized something.
The white fire burned away what sustained people from within.
Fear. Pride. Greed.
He grew.
Fast.
Maelor taught limits. Discipline. Control.
"Power without structure is just chaos," he said.
But Edrik was hungry.
Not for food.
For security.
He never wanted to feel snow mixed with blood again.
So he began to act.
Small criminal groups disappeared.
Corrupt leaders were exposed.
Trade routes changed.
He didn’t attack directly.
He weakened.
He burned intentions before they became actions.
Years passed.
Edrik ceased to be just a rare fire user.
He became a symbol.
Allies emerged.
Followers too.
Maelor grew old.
On a quiet late afternoon, the old man sat before the now young adult and said, "You don’t need me anymore."
"Yes, I do," Edrik replied.
Maelor shook his head.
"No. Now you need to decide what you will do when no one can stop you."
He died that night.
Without drama.
Without fire.
Edrik buried the only man who had given him a choice.
And he made a promise before the white flame that burned alone:
Never again would he be weak.
Never again would he be ignored.
Never again would he be disposable.
He built a domain.
Alliances. An army. Ancient artifacts salvaged from forgotten ruins.
He didn’t just want to survive.
He wanted to rule.
And when he took the territory’s main city, bringing nobles and generals to their knees under the white light that consumed convictions, someone called him Monarch.
He liked it.
Monarch of the White Flames.
It sounded definitive.
It sounded secure.
He molded his power with extreme discipline. Every advance was calculated. Every expansion strategic.
He never let chance rule.
Never again...
And then—
Strax appeared.
Present.
The white sky burned above Athenion.
But Edrik—the Monarch—did not feel absolute control.
He floated above the city, artifacts orbiting his body like submissive constellations.
And, for the first time in years...
He felt something waver.
Not in power.
In certainty.
The city had not knelt.
There was no visible panic.
There were no pleas.
This was wrong.
He descended slowly.
And then he saw the man.
Strax.
Relaxed posture.
Calm gaze.
Smile... wrong.
Edrik frowned slightly.
Why?
Why did that man seem unresponsive to the pressure of the white flames?
He intensified the fire.
The white light expanded like an artificial dawn, descending upon the field before the gates.
Anyone else would have felt it.
Fear. Reverence. Hesitation.
Strax merely tilted his head.
As if examining an interesting curiosity.
Edrik felt something tighten in his chest.
He unleashed more power.
The white flames touched the air around Strax.
And then—
Nothing.
There was no consumption.
There was no burning.
It was like trying to set the ocean on fire.
"Impossible."
The word echoed in Edrik’s mind, even without being spoken.
He had trained for years.
He had surpassed limits.
He had devoured entire territories under white light.
Why did that man remain... untouched?
Strax took a step forward.
The air shifted.
It didn’t press.
It didn’t threaten.
But it reorganized itself.
Edrik felt it.
As if the surrounding laws had been... adjusted.
A shiver ran down his spine.
Memories surfaced against his will.
The snow.
The blood.
The impotence.
He suppressed them.
"You dare stand before me without bowing?" his voice echoed, laden with power.
Strax smiled. "I don’t even bow to my parents. Imagine to a worm like you." The words struck deeper than any physical attack.
Edrik narrowed his eyes. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖
He expanded his perception, trying to read Strax’s intention.
White flames consumed convictions.
But touching that man’s presence...
It was like touching a world.
Not an ordinary mind.
Not a simple flow of emotions.
It was vast.
Structured.
Chaotic and calm at the same time.
Edrik felt, for the first time since awakening his flames...
Real resilience.
"Why is he so strong?"
The question echoed, raw, unwanted.
He had done everything right.
Trained.
Conquered.
Sacrificed.
Burned an empire from scratch.
Burned his own weakness until only determination remained.
So why...
Why did that man seem beyond logic?
Strax opened his arms.
The ground beneath his feet didn’t crack.
But I learned. Edrik felt something even worse than resistance.
He felt... context.
As if he were being pulled into a larger structure.
As if his flames, for the first time, were not the dominant element.
The Monarch of the White Flames did not retreat.
He never retreated.
But deep within him, something ancient was inspired:
You are not the only one who decided never to be weak again.
And, for the first time since the night he entered a circle of white dust...
Edrik Vale felt fear.
Not the fear of snow.
Not the fear of hunger.
But the fear of all his years of effort... Perhaps it wouldn’t be enough against someone who had gone beyond the very laws of the world.
