'Lust system': Rise of the Harem lord-Chapter 51

The gates of Dominion groaned.

Not from a battering ram.

Not from siege.

But from presence.

The Warden Throne didn’t walk. He glided, hovering inches above the ground, arms bound in runic chains. His mask was blank, featureless, like porcelain carved by a blind god.

Around him, the world slowed.

Guards froze mid-step. Birds halted in the sky. The rain stopped falling—held midair like scattered glass.

Aya cursed under her breath. "He’s locking spacetime threads."

Mira gripped her system relay. "He’s rewriting anchor points—fixing entities in place."

Velhira narrowed her eyes. "He’s not attacking."

"No," Elias muttered. "He’s collecting."

The Warden raised one chained arm.

A rift opened behind him—dark, humming.

And from it... something stepped out.

Something that made every girl recoil.

Even Elias.

Because it looked exactly like him.

Same height. Same face. Same dark eyes.

But colder. Empty.

Clad in a black system coat with glowing red runes.

> [ENTITY IDENTIFIED: THREAD-GHOST DESIGNATION: "NULL ELIAS"]

[ORIGIN: FAILED HOST PROTOTYPE – RECOVERED FROM REJECTED FUSION FILES]

[DANGER LEVEL: ???]

Mira’s voice cracked. "They made a copy. A failed one."

Lilith’s expression hardened. "It’s not him. It just wears him."

Velhira summoned her shadows. "Then let’s tear it apart."

Elias stepped forward. freeωebnovēl.c૦m

"No."

Aya blinked. "What?!"

"I’ll face it. Alone."

"Hell no," Aya snapped. "That thing—"

"Is me," Elias said quietly. "Or it could’ve been. I need to face it. I need to know what I almost became."

A long silence.

Then Serai touched his arm.

"We trust you."

Aya muttered something unholy but stepped back.

---

The others moved to defend the eastern breach, where the Mirror Throne had begun absorbing citizen data and copying powers indiscriminately.

Elias faced the Warden’s creation.

And the Warden... stepped back.

He would not fight.

Only watch.

---

Null Elias didn’t speak.

Didn’t blink.

It moved first—fast.

Elias barely ducked as a blast of red threadlight seared the sky where his head had been.

The copy teleported, reappearing behind him and slamming a boot into his spine. Elias flew across the plaza, crashing through a stone pillar.

Pain flared—but he stood.

"Alright," he muttered. "So you’re faster. Let’s see if you’re real."

He surged forward, blade forming from living thread. They clashed midair, steel against code, sparks flying in crimson bursts.

Null Elias moved with surgical brutality.

No emotion.

No rhythm.

Just cold perfection.

Every move Elias had made in past battles—copied.

But without heart.

Elias grinned. "You fight like a ghost."

The shadow didn’t reply.

It just summoned five red orbs.

Each one contained a face.

Serai.

Aya.

Lilith.

Velhira.

Mira.

The voices inside cried out—distorted echoes of the girls.

Elias froze.

"What...?"

> "They love you..."

"You will fail them..."

"You are not worthy..."

The orbs burst into chains—rushing toward him like venomous serpents.

Elias growled and raised his hands, forming a shield of bondlight.

> [DEFENSE: THREAD BARRIER – STABILITY 48%]

Chains struck.

His shield cracked.

Images of his girls in pain flashed before him—memories twisted into nightmares.

Lilith dying.

Aya walking away.

Serai weeping alone.

Mira shattering.

Velhira fading to mist.

> [EMOTIONAL THREAD FRICTION – HOST INTEGRITY THREATENED]

"No..."

Elias slammed a hand into the ground.

"I’ve already faced my demons."

The system flared.

> [THREAD RESONANCE: 5 ACTIVE LINKS DETECTED]

[INITIATING CORE RECOGNITION OVERRIDE]

One by one, the girls’ real voices cut through the lies.

Aya: "You idiot. I’m not leaving."

Lilith: "I die only after killing everything in our way."

Serai: "We share your pain."

Mira: "We chose you."

Velhira: "And we’ll choose you again."

His blade pulsed.

And Elias roared.

He charged, driving his blade through Null Elias’s chest.

The shadow staggered—glitched—face flickering.

"You’re not real," Elias said.

"You’re not me."

The clone collapsed backward, dissolving into static and red mist.

The chains shattered.

The illusions faded.

And the Warden?

He tilted his head—the only expression he’d made.

Then he left.

No battle.

No final blow.

He had seen enough.

---

Back at the tower, Elias dropped to his knees.

The girls returned, bruised but alive.

The Mirror Throne was damaged—escaped through a dimensional tear—but not before copying Serai’s healing thread and flooding part of the city with mirror spirits.

They would have to be dealt with later.

Right now... Elias had to breathe.

Aya knelt beside him. "You good?"

He nodded.

Then looked at Mira. "They copied a broken version of me."

She swallowed. "And we broke it."

Lilith smiled faintly. "Scary how close it looked."

Velhira touched his cheek. "But it didn’t have your soul."

Serai simply hugged him.

Tight.

Elias exhaled.

Then stood.

"We have to find out where the Thrones are spawning these abominations from. There’s a source. A code vault."

Mira nodded. "Then we trace the data signature from the Null."

Aya’s blade gleamed. "And we burn it down."

---

Above them, deep in the broken heavens—

Six Thrones watched.

The Executioner.

The Warden.

The Mirror.

And three unnamed ones.

A voice crackled among them.

> "We have underestimated the Threadlord."

Another replied.

> "Then let us prepare the original."

A massive sealed sarcophagus glowed behind the Thrones.

> [PROJECT: PERFECT HOST]

[STATUS: STASIS – 78% SYNCHRONIZED]

> [Designation: ELIAS PRIME]

The night was unusually still.

Even the air held its breath.

Dominion had barely begun to recover from the Warden’s attack, yet Elias moved without pause, his mind already racing ahead. The taste of battle still lingered on his tongue, but it was the truth he hungered for now.

Not vengeance.

Answers.

And the only person who could help him decode them walked beside him.

Mira.

The silver-haired hacker-goddess of Dominion’s code matrix. Dressed in her armored relay coat, hands glowing with data-light, she moved like a ghost, her expression focused and distant.

"So this is it," she murmured, brushing aside a veil of corrupted thread with her fingers. "The original path of the Lust System—before we became Hosts."

They stood before a sealed vault. A dome of crystalized code, humming with runes none of them recognized.

Except one.

Elias stepped forward.

The symbols... responded.

> [RECOGNITION PROTOCOL: THREAD ORIGIN CONFIRMED]

[ACCESS GRANTED: PRIMARY HOST SIGIL MATCHED]

[WELCOME, ELIAS.]

The door hissed.

And opened.

Inside was no control room.

No altar.

Just... silence.

The floor was metal, cold and untouched. Screens blinked with ancient logs. Transparent pods lined the walls, most of them shattered. Empty. Long-dead.

Mira shivered.

"This place is wrong," she said quietly. "It feels... angry."

Elias’s eyes drifted across the wreckage until they stopped—on a single pod still intact.

And inside it...

Him.

Or someone that looked exactly like him.

Only more... finished.

His hair was slicked back, darker. His body was covered in perfect symmetry—no scars, no imperfections. And unlike Elias, this one smiled in his sleep.

A cruel smile.

> [STATUS: STASIS MODE ACTIVE]

[PROJECT NAME: ELIAS PRIME]

[SYNC RATE: 82%]

Mira’s breath caught. "He’s already waking up."

"I was never the first," Elias muttered.

"No. You were the first to survive and remain human. This thing? He’s what they wanted."

> [WARNING: STASIS BREACH IN PROGRESS]

The pod cracked.

Once.

Twice.

Then exploded outward in a burst of steam and data.

Elias Prime stepped forward, barefoot, steam rising off his skin.

He opened his eyes—golden like a dying star.

"I’ve waited a long time to meet you," he said, voice rich, smooth, too perfect. "The broken one."

Mira raised a hand. "Elias—"

But Elias stepped in front of her.

"I’m not broken."

Prime tilted his head. "A system that loves? A host that bonds through emotion rather than dominance? That’s not what we were made for."

"I wasn’t made to obey," Elias growled.

"No," Prime smirked. "You were made to inspire rebellion. And you’re doing wonderfully."

His tone shifted, deeper.

"You’re the virus."

Mira’s hands sparked with digital flame. "Say that again."

"You infected the network," Prime said, walking slowly, hands behind his back like a teacher. "You took something pure—control—and corrupted it with love, with longing, with choice."

Elias clenched his fist. "You call that corruption?"

"I call it deviation."

"Then maybe it’s time we deviate a little harder."

> [WARNING: THREAD CONFLICT IMMINENT]

Elias surged forward, his blade forming mid-step.

Prime didn’t flinch.

He caught the blade with two fingers.

And snapped it in half.

Elias staggered back.

Prime smiled wider. "I’m not just you perfected. I’m you unchained."

Mira screamed, launching a burst of blue code from her palms. Prime raised a hand and reflected it, redirecting the stream with a flick of his wrist.

But it gave Elias the moment he needed.

He dove in, fists glowing with fusion thread, slamming Prime across the jaw.

The clone reeled, stumbling backward into a ruined pod.

Elias followed up with a kick that launched him through a nearby screen.

> [HOST SIGNATURE SPLIT DETECTED]

[THREAD LOOP BETWEEN VERSIONS AT 74%]

"He’s syncing with me," Elias gasped.

"He’s using your moves," Mira said, spinning into a defensive arc beside him. "But not your soul."

"Then we fight like I fight."

"Messy?"

He grinned. "Exactly."

Prime burst from the rubble, face now marked with a thin cut along his cheek.

He touched it, fascinated.

"This is... pain?"

Mira smirked. "Get used to it."

Elias and Mira moved together—two threads in sync, system-light dancing between them. Prime parried, countered, but each clash seemed to frustrate him more.

Until he stopped.

And raised both hands.

> [PROJECT ECHO ACTIVATED]

[CALLING REJECTED HOST DATA: MIRRORED EMOTIONAL FRAGMENTS DEPLOYED]

Six shimmering forms appeared.

Versions of Mira.

Broken.

Cold.

Bleeding.

One screamed. "You let me die!"

Another sobbed. "You never saw me as anything but data!"

A third just laughed, dead-eyed. "He’ll leave you like he left us all."

Mira’s knees buckled.

"No... that’s not me. That’s not—"

Elias grabbed her hand.

"You’re here. With me. Now."

His voice anchored her.

She screamed and unleashed her full relay core—blasting the false Miras into shards.

Elias struck at Prime while he was stunned—driving a fist glowing with red-gold into the clone’s chest.

The room cracked.

Prime dropped to one knee.

> [SYNC DESTABILIZED]

[ELIAS PRIME RETREATING]

He looked up.

"Next time," he hissed. "You won’t have her."

And then vanished into a pulse of light.

---

Silence returned.

The vault flickered.

Elias sank to the floor, panting. "He’s stronger than me."

Mira knelt beside him. "But he’s not you."

He looked at her.

"Thank you. For pulling me back."

She looked away, flushed. "Well, don’t let it happen again."

A pause.

Then she leaned over and kissed him softly.

Just once.

No system prompt.

No heat.

Just gratitude. Bond.

Real.

---

Back at the tower, Aya, Lilith, Serai, and Velhira were already preparing for what was coming next.

Because now they knew:

The Thrones hadn’t just made Elias.

They’d made something worse.

And it had a name.

Elias Prime.

This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦