Demonic Dragon: Harem System

The three-dimensional map of Tartarus remained suspended above the table, filling the dark room with green and reddish reflections. Strax watched the overlapping layers of that underground world for some time, the ancient prisons, the rivers of souls, and the three points representing the Titans who had escaped before Hades completed the new seal. His most immediate concern should have been the one heading toward the human continent, but there was something greater in front of him. Hades no longer existed to sustain that place. Tartarus had lost not only its ruler, but the figure who for ages had functioned as part of the very structure of that world. Strax rested both forearms on the table and stared at Persephone with a much more serious expression.

"What do you intend to do with Tartarus now?"

Persephone remained silent for a few seconds. Her eyes moved across the map as though she had already repeated that answer many times inside her own head, organizing priorities because there was no one else left to do it for her. When she spoke, there was no hesitation.

"First, I want to eliminate every Titan."

A movement of her fingers caused dozens of symbols to appear inside the great black sphere. Some were familiar, while others had been erased or distorted by time.

"I do not want to keep them imprisoned for another few ages just so someone else can have exactly the same problem. Hades believed in containment because Tartarus depended on balance. I do not. If there is a way to kill them permanently, I will find it. The three who escaped will be first. The others will be eliminated as we manage to cross the barrier without destroying it."

She closed her hand and the map changed. The outer regions of Tartarus appeared covered by thousands of small points, some so weak they nearly vanished among the larger structures, others dense enough to be recognized as ancient monsters.

"After that, I will clean up the rest. Infernal beasts, aberrations born from accumulated souls, creatures Hades tolerated because they served as natural predators, and every kind of thing living in the abandoned regions. Some can be tamed or used, but any creature incapable of understanding an order will be eliminated. I do not intend to rule a kingdom where half the territory is inaccessible because no one knows what monster lives inside a cave."

Strax watched the changes without interrupting her. It was a brutal policy, but consistent with what Persephone apparently intended to turn Tartarus into. That place would no longer remain merely a prison distant from the rest of the world.

She wanted to turn it into functional territory.

A true kingdom.

"After that," Persephone continued, "I will organize the lesser demons and the Primordials. Clans, cities, fortresses, independent territories, all of them. Hades allowed autonomy because he did not need them. I do. When the war begins, Tartarus will have to march as a single force."

Strax narrowed his eyes.

"Against Olympus."

"Against Olympus."

Persephone made almost the entire map disappear and left only a small glowing sphere at the center of the projection. It pulsed slowly, surrounded by layers of energy that seemed greater than any realm represented before. Even though it was only a magical reproduction, Strax felt something strange while looking at it, a depth that made that small light seem more important than everything around it.

"The Planetary Core is still dormant," Persephone explained. "That is what is keeping the war in preparation instead of turning it into an open conflict. As long as it sleeps, Zeus can continue building armies, infiltrating kingdoms, and accumulating authority. But when the Core awakens, every god capable of sensing it will move."

Strax knew fragments of that story, but he had never heard Persephone describe it with such certainty.

"Can it be absorbed?"

"It can. Not easily, and perhaps no god can absorb it completely, but even a portion would be enough to completely alter the divine hierarchy. The Core is part of what keeps the world functioning. Earth, mana, natural cycles, some fundamental laws. If Zeus gets his hands on it, he will not merely become stronger."

Persephone placed both hands on the table, and for the first time her voice carried something close to contempt.

"He intends to recreate the world according to what he considers correct. New kingdoms, new dominant races, new rules. And naturally, Olympus at the center of everything."

Strax slowly exhaled through his nose. The war he had been preparing for had just gained an even greater scale. Asgard had been built to survive a conflict against gods, but facing Zeus was one thing.

Preventing the King of Olympus from taking the core of the planet itself was something completely different.

"Where is Zeus?"

Persephone sighed before even answering.

"You really did get too busy."

"I noticed."

"He stole the throne of that emperor on the other continent."

Strax slowly raised his eyes.

"Stole the throne?"

"Literally and politically. The real emperor disappeared from public life some time ago. Zeus assumed his identity, controls the court, and is using the empire to gather a gigantic army. To the population, the emperor simply became more aggressive, began investing much more in military forces, and made strange agreements with several religious organizations. To anyone capable of seeing divine authority, it is obvious."

Strax leaned back in his chair, and a tired expression crossed his face. That meant Zeus was no longer simply waiting on Olympus. He possessed human territory, an economy, soldiers, resources, and a political identity capable of moving armies without immediately revealing that a divine war was beginning.

"I should go see my father," he murmured.

Persephone raised an eyebrow slightly.

"The Vorah family?"

"Unfortunately."

"There is not much news about them."

That caught Strax’s attention.

Persephone continued.

"Ever since you moved to another continent, the Vorah family has practically disappeared from the kingdom’s rumors. Your brothers are not seen at public events. Neither is your father. The estates continue functioning, the contracts are still being fulfilled, and no one has declared any crisis, but the main members of the family have entered seclusion."

Strax frowned.

"All of them?"

"Everyone who actually matters."

He looked away toward the darkness of the room. He knew the old man far too well to believe that was a coincidence. His father could be many things, but he had never been inattentive. If Zeus had truly taken the place of an emperor and begun building an army on a continental scale, it was entirely possible that the Vorah family had noticed long before most people.

"What is that old man planning..." Strax murmured.

Persephone noticed the subtle change in his expression. It was not exactly fear or ordinary concern. There was an uncomfortable mixture of distrust, obligation, and an old relationship that had never been completely resolved. She waited several seconds before speaking.

"Sorry. I should not have mentioned your family like that. I know you do not exactly get along."

Strax ran a hand over his face and dismissed the matter with a short movement.

"It does not matter. If they entered seclusion, then they are doing something. When the time comes, I will find out."

He looked back toward the map of Tartarus. There were too many problems, and all of them seemed to demand attention at once. The Titans, Zeus, the Planetary Core, the Vorah family, Persephone’s new position, and three fugitives who could be crossing different regions at that very moment.

Strax remained silent for a few seconds, then raised one hand.

He snapped his fingers.

The air beside him opened.

It was not an ordinary portal. A dark strip cut vertically through space like a crack opened inside reality, and hundreds of murmurs emerged from the other side for only a fraction of a second. Voices of the dead, fragments of souls, and echoes of people who had crossed that path in other times filled the room before two figures were pulled from the opening.

Lithara appeared first.

Albedo emerged immediately after her.

Both landed on their feet, although Albedo already had one hand ready to attack. Lithara quickly turned to recognize the environment, while Persephone rose from her chair with a genuinely surprised expression.

"How did these demons enter here?"

Strax remained seated.

"Soul Corridor."

Persephone looked toward the rupture as it began to disappear.

"That passage should not allow the transport of living beings without authorization from the ruler of Tartarus."

"These two are connected to me." Strax casually pointed toward Lithara and Albedo. "You gave me the spell that allows me to cross the corridor. I simply applied the same structure to them and pulled both through the connection."

Persephone spent several seconds staring at him.

"I should have placed more restrictions on that magic."

"You should have."

Lithara, on the other hand, seemed far more interested in the surroundings. She took a deep breath, feeling the heavy energy saturating the place, and a nostalgic smile appeared on her face.

"It has been a long time since I came to the Underworld."

Albedo looked around with a completely different expression.

"I hate this place."

Lithara turned her head.

"You hate almost every place."

"This one smells like death."

"It is Tartarus."

"That is exactly the problem."

Strax stood from the chair and walked around the table. The relaxed posture he had maintained throughout the conversation gradually disappeared. There was something else in his eyes now, something Lithara recognized immediately.

It was not the look of a man willing to investigate or negotiate.

It was the look Strax had when he had already decided the next step would involve corpses.

"You two are going to help me."

Albedo crossed her arms.

"With what?"

Strax pointed toward the map Persephone still kept suspended.

"Mass extermination."

The two remained silent.

Then they smiled.

Lithara’s smile was wider, carrying that dangerous excitement that always appeared whenever a task allowed her to completely abandon every expectation of civilized behavior. Albedo was more restrained, but her black eyes narrowed with genuine satisfaction. After an afternoon hunting thieves out of boredom, the prospect of eliminating monsters, Titans, and anything else infesting Tartarus seemed considerably more interesting.

"How much?" Lithara asked.

"A lot."

"Can you be more specific?"

"Until Persephone says Tartarus is clean."

Her smile widened.

Albedo looked toward the map.

"Who can we kill?"

"Titans, monsters, and any hostile creature that does not have a very convincing reason to keep breathing."

"That is a good mission."

Persephone placed one hand on her waist.

"I would like to remind you that I am still the regent of this place."

Strax looked at her.

"Then you will choose who dies."

"That is better."

Lithara was already walking toward the projection, studying the different regions and trying to recognize old demonic routes. Albedo stood beside her, asking which areas had the highest concentration of creatures. For the first time since Strax arrived, the room began to feel like a war room taking shape.

But he was not ready to begin yet.

Strax remained still in front of the table for several seconds. The guilt he had felt upon learning of Hades’s death had not completely disappeared, merely been pushed somewhere it would not interfere with immediate decisions.

Hades may have been a difficult man, a god who made questionable decisions, and a husband Persephone felt no grief for, but he had also been someone Strax knew.

Someone he had spoken with, negotiated with, and made promises to.

Before turning Tartarus into a field of extermination, he needed to bring that matter to an end.

"Before that..."

Lithara and Albedo looked at him.

Strax turned toward Persephone.

"I want to see Hades’s body."

Persephone’s smile disappeared.

For several seconds, she simply stared at him, and the irreverent lightness with which she had spoken about her husband’s death did not return. When she answered, her voice was lower and more serious.

"There is no ordinary corpse. Most of his essence was consumed by the barrier, but the body remained."

Strax nodded.

"That is what I want to see."

Persephone studied his face, understood there was no curiosity behind the request, and did not ask why. She dismissed the map with a movement of her hand and walked toward one of the room’s walls. The blue flames illuminating the chamber went out one after another while a door that had not existed before began to appear between the stones.

"The body is in the Hall of the Last Throne," she said. "No one has entered since he died."

Strax walked until he stood beside her.

Persephone placed a hand against the door and, before opening it, gave him one final look.

"If you expected to say goodbye to Hades as you knew him, prepare yourself. The man you knew died before his heart stopped."

The doors slowly opened.

Beyond them there was only darkness, cold, and the distant sound of gigantic chains vibrating in the depths of Tartarus.

Strax entered first.

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