Demonic Dragon: Harem System-Chapter 535: Discussion

Elyssar stepped forward, adjusting the golden band that held her white hair behind her head. Her eyes, now more focused, scanned the four before her as if measuring them for the last time. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

"Before we leave," she said seriously, "you need to control your auras."

The group looked at each other, confused.

"Even from here," Elyssar continued, "a psychic could sense your presence from miles away. Every step you take vibrates like arcane thunder through the mystical currents of the air. If you want to reach Draythir without an entire army waiting for you, you’ll have to learn to hide who you are."

Scarlet frowned, crossing her arms. "And how do you suggest we do that? Cut our wrists and bury our essence in a jar?"

"Channel it inward," Elyssar replied, humorlessly. "Do as snakes do before they strike. You are predators—but in this sky, there are even greater predators. Until the Conclave accepts you, you are merely intruders."

Ouroboros nodded slightly, closing his eyes for a moment. A deep breath, and the aura that had previously vibrated like constant thunder around him diminished until it was almost gone. Scarlet snorted and mimicked the gesture, with less elegance but similar results. Tiamat needed more effort—her body radiated raw power like a living furnace. But after a few minutes of concentration and a low growl, even she managed to reduce the latent glow of her mystical presence.

Strax, for his part, just shrugged. "I don’t have an aura. Just attitude."

"You have an aura that screams chaos and impulsiveness," Elyssar muttered. "Control it... or we’ll all fall before we even cross the veil of Draythir."

Strax raised his hands, closed his eyes for a moment, and—with a flash of restrained cynicism—adjusted himself. It wasn’t perfect, but it would suffice.

Elyssar watched, satisfied enough to drop the argument. "Very well. Follow me."

She spun on her heels and, with a precise leap, took to the skies. Her translucent wings unfolded like blades of liquid crystal, shimmering with golden reflections under the light of Caelum.

The others followed her, one by one, taking flight under the clearing until they disappeared into the clouds. The sky greeted them with a biting wind and powerful updrafts. Above, the skies of Caelum looked like a living tapestry: rivers of clouds, floating air platforms, and gigantic islands suspended by columns of arcane energy.

Strax was the last to reach the group, rising with an explosive thrust. He stabilized his flight with two daggers wrapped in flaming energy, which spun in his hands like improvised rudders. When he reached the others, he looked around and his eyes widened.

From above, he could see everything.

Seven draconic cities spread out like a necklace of jewels set in the sky. Each rested on a floating rock formation, surrounded by smaller platforms, suspension bridges, and flying defense rings. Draythir, to the north, was the largest—a vertical city, built like a spiral of white stone, with towers that seemed to touch the stars. Golden domes glistened in the sun like the scales of an ancient dragon.

And at the center... there it was.

The volcano.

Pyraeth.

Even from a distance, its presence was unmistakable: a colossal, solitary mountain that seemed to spit fire directly into the sky. Streams of arcane smoke rose in dark spirals, while tongues of lava flowed down the edges, evaporating in midair. There was no city around it—only silence and petrified destruction. It looked like a sleeping god, waiting to awaken.

Strax let out a low whistle. "Well... if that’s not the harbinger of the apocalypse, I don’t know what is."

"We’re on course for Draythir," Elyssar informed them, without looking back. "We’ll land on the terraces of the Outer Chamber. Don’t try to talk to anyone. Let me do the talking. The political atmosphere here is as thick as the air."

The group kept formation, following behind the general like well-disciplined shadows. Silence reigned among them, broken only by the sound of wings and the faint hum of magical currents.

As they approached Draythir, shapes began to emerge between the towers—winged sentinels, each clad in gleaming armor and wielding energy spears. They did not attack, but followed the group with watchful eyes. As soon as Elyssar crossed a floating arch adorned with ancient symbols, the sentinels moved away, as if recognizing the warrior’s signature.

Touching the white terraces of the suspended city, Elyssar landed gracefully, while the others landed behind her with less ceremony. The ground of Draythir vibrated slightly beneath their feet—not like an ordinary tremor, but as if the city itself had a beating heart beneath the stones.

"Remember," Elyssar murmured as she turned. "Here, one wrong word can cost more than a poorly fought battle."

Scarlet smiled crookedly. "We’re used to high prices."

"I hope so," replied the general, her eyes fixed on the golden gates ahead. "Because now there’s no turning back. The Conclave of the Heavens has already sensed our approach."

The golden gates opened with a low, almost ceremonial creak, revealing a wide corridor of white marble inlaid with veins of liquid silver that pulsed slowly, as if they were the veins of a living being. The light inside did not come from the sun, but from the walls, which emanated a soft, uniform glow—pure, controlled, ancient magic.

Elyssar walked ahead with steady steps. The others followed in silence, absorbing the details of the place: stained glass windows suspended in the air depicted scenes of ancient battles between dragons and creatures from distant planes; spiral columns supported ethereal platforms where scholars and magicians seemed to hover in meditation or reading; arcane symbols slowly revolved around the ceiling, like living constellations.

Scarlet whispered, impressed: "This is more than architecture... it’s solid memory."

"Draythir is the jewel of the sky for a reason," Ouroboros replied in a low voice. "Everything here breathes history. And power."

Tiamat, less impressed, watched everything with sharp eyes, as if mapping possible escape routes—or combat. "I don’t see any ordinary soldiers. Only sentries and scholars. The Conclave is relying on its own authority to maintain order."

"Or it’s waiting for us to test that authority," Strax muttered.

Elyssar stopped in front of a circular door made of pure obsidian, studded with floating crystals that formed archaic runes. She raised her hand without touching it. A golden symbol glowed in her palm, and in response, the crystals rearranged themselves with a sound like distant bells.

The door opened upward, silently.

Behind it lay a circular hall flanked by twelve floating thrones, each occupied by a hooded figure. Their faces were hidden by veils of energy, but their presences were unmistakable: there were the elders of the Conclave of the Heavens.

In the center of the hall, a platform of light lit up, delimiting the space where visitors were to stand. Elyssar entered without hesitation. The others followed, though a slight discomfort ran down each of their spines. It was not fear—it was the weight of judgment.

A voice echoed, deep and at the same time genderless.

"Elyssar, general of the Celestial Spear. You bring outsiders to the Dome of Decision. Why?"

"Shut the hell up." Elyssar said, narrowing her eyes. "There is a traitor among us, and you are concerned with protocol?" She asked nervously, and turned her gaze upward. "My decisions are not for fools who cannot see the obvious: That worm Ignisar has betrayed us."

The hall, until then shrouded in solemn and heavy calm, reacted as if someone had thrown a torch into a dry barn. Elyssar’s words cut through the air with violence.

The figures on the thrones trembled. Runes lit up on the arches of the hall, and the magical veil covering the elders glowed as if about to fall apart. An aura of brutal tension spread like a contained storm.

One of the elders bowed his head slightly, and his voice boomed coldly:

"Watch your tongue, Elyssar. We have not seen such audacious disrespect within this dome for centuries."

But she did not back down.

She took a step forward, her eyes burning, and pointed at the thrones as if she could pierce each veil with the tip of her voice.

"What you call disrespect, I call urgency. What you call protocol, I see as institutional blindness. There is a traitor among us, and he is much closer than any of you realize. The fucking Ignisar attacked a human city, and now I’ve discovered why."

Strax looked at her and waited for her to speak.

"Coincidentally, the city she attacked is where the Son of Scathach lives." As she said this, from the shadows of the thrones... a figure appeared, looking at Elyssar.

From the shadows that bordered the raised thrones, a presence emerged—soft as a whisper, but laden with the weight of ages. The figure did not descend or walk: it simply stood there, from one moment to the next, as if space itself had molded it into existence.

It was a woman—or something that had once been one. Tall, slender, wrapped in a cloak of black mist that frayed at the edges like smoke touched by light. Her hair fell like rivers of darkened silver, almost metallic, rippling with subtle movements, even in the absence of wind. Her eyes, when they finally revealed themselves under the hood, were like frozen fragments of an eclipse: black irises outlined by a flickering red halo.

The voice, when it spoke, did not resonate only within the walls of Draythir—it echoed in the skin of those present, like a thin blade of ice scratching the soul.

"The son of Scathach?" The tone broke the tension in the hall like a thread cutting silk—slow, cruel, and utterly skeptical. "You throw names around like swords, Elyssar. But do you know the weight you carry when you speak of her... and of an heir?"

Strax, who until then had maintained a nonchalant posture — shoulders slumped, expression somewhere between boredom and contempt — hardened.

The aura around him, previously contained with effort, began to expand like a storm rising on the horizon. First a sudden heat, then a low hum in the air. The space around him rippled with mystical pressure, and the veins in his arms glowed with the scarlet hue of ancient power being awakened.

Scarlet took half a step to the side, not out of fear, but as if instinctively seeking space. Ouroboros narrowed his eyes. Even Tiamat, always stoic, raised an eyebrow.

"I don’t like her tone," Strax muttered, his voice deeper than usual, as if something beyond him had begun to speak along with him. "And I like the way she talks about My Mother even less."

The woman smiled. But it was not a kind smile—it was the kind of smile that precedes a judgment.

"So it’s you." Her eyes fixed on Strax with a curious, almost scientific gleam.