Harem System In A fantasy World

Elion laughed. "I take it that you like it?"

"Well, I did not say that."

"You destroyed a training doll with a single punch, and now you are trying to hide a smirk."

Her lips twitched despite her efforts. "They are acceptable."

"Fair enough."

Tessa dismissed the full gauntlets, causing them to fold back into the smaller bracers around her forearms.

She ran one bandaged finger over the crimson lines. "Thank you."

"You are very welcome."

Her voice had been quieter than usual, and Elion wisely chose not to tease her about it.

Tessa looked at him for another moment before suddenly stepping forward and wrapping her arms around his waist.

The gesture caught him slightly off guard.

Her sweat-soaked body pressed against him, but he did not complain as he returned the embrace and rested one hand against the back of her head.

"This still does not completely make up for leaving me waiting," she muttered against his chest.

"I assumed as much, so would you like to do it now or..."

She pulled back and looked down at her ragged, sweaty self. "Not right now, I’m kind of filthy after all that punching."

Elion chuckled. "Sure thing, whenever you’re ready."

"So, why are you really here?"

"I told you. I came to see you."

"And?"

Elion raised a brow.

Tessa gave him a knowing look. "You have that expression you get whenever you are about to do something reckless."

He genuinely didn’t think that he was reckless, but his women definitely thought otherwise.

Perhaps he liked to take a certain amount of risks, but the system was to be blamed for most of that.

[...]

"I did not realize I had such an expression, and when else have I ever done something reckless? Are you just throwing around accusations now?"

She gave him a flat look.

"Seriously? Are we doing this right now? I won’t bother trying to prove how reckless you are; we all know it. Now, come on, out with it."

Elion sighed and glanced toward the center of the training room. "I need to merge with the World Eyes."

Tessa’s brow furrowed.

"Is that another strange reward you received from that weird trial?"

"Yes."

"And you suddenly decided that now was the appropriate time to do so?"

"The Ark is handling the journey, everyone is nearby, and the training room is probably the safest place to do it. There is no time better than now."

Tessa folded her arms. "Is it dangerous?"

"Possibly."

"How dangerous?"

"I do not know."

"That is not reassuring."

"It was not exactly intended to be."

She stared at him for several seconds before pointing toward the floor. "Sit."

Elion blinked. "You are giving me orders now?"

"Yes, sit down before you change your mind and decide to merge them while standing in the middle of Silvergrove."

"That does sound like something I might do."

She laughed. "I know."

Elion moved toward the center of the room and sat cross-legged upon the floor.

Tessa remained nearby, still wearing the new bracers around her arms. "What should I do if something goes wrong?" She crossed her arms and rested them just beneath her generous mounds.

"Call Mira and the others."

"And if there is no time?"

Elion considered the question. "Try not to punch me with those."

Tessa gave him a flat look. "I am serious."

"So am I."

She sighed and moved closer, standing directly in front of him.

"I will watch you. If you start screaming, bleeding from the eyes, or doing anything else alarming, I am calling everyone."

"That seems reasonable."

"And you had better not fall unconscious for another week."

"I will do my best." He responded in a completely casual manner.

"Elion."

"Fine, fine. I will try not to fall unconscious for another week."

"Good."

Elion closed his eyes and summoned the crystal container containing the eyeballs into his hand.

Tessa only had a moment to gaze at the wondrous ocular treasures before they dispersed into motes of light within Elion’s grasp.

The moment darkness filled his vision, the system responded.

[World Eyes detected.]

[Would you like to begin the merging process?]

Elion drew in a slow breath.

What was the worst that could happen? He had already experienced excruciating pain while integrating with the dragon bloodline.

It couldn’t be any worse than that, so there was no reason to delay it any longer. He confirmed the command.

[Integration initiated.]

[Warning: The World Eyes contain laws and information exceeding the current limits of the host’s mind and body.]

[Beginning controlled assimilation.]

Before Elion could question what that meant, a violent pressure erupted behind his eyes, making his entire body stiffen.

Tessa’s relaxed expression disappeared immediately. "Elion?"

He could no longer hear her clearly. The pressure became pain, and the pain rapidly became something far worse.

It felt as though invisible hands had reached through his eye sockets and begun carving countless symbols directly into his mind.

Elion clenched his teeth as a thin stream of blood slipped from the corner of one closed eye.

"Aaargh!" He groaned and collapsed forward onto his hands and knees.

Tessa moved toward him at once.

"Elion!"

The moment she reached out, a translucent barrier erupted around his body and forced her hand away.

The impact was not violent, but it carried enough force to make her stumble backward. "What the hell?"

Thin streams of blood now flowed from both of Elion’s closed eyes, trailing down his cheeks as the pressure within his skull continued to rise.

[Assimilation progress: 3%.]

[Warning: Host cognition approaching safe processing limit.]

[Enhanced Cognition activated.]

The pain did not lessen; instead, Elion suddenly became far more aware of it.

He could feel every pulse of pressure behind his eyes, every tremor passing through the nerves inside his skull, and every foreign fragment of information forcing its way into his consciousness.

Images flashed through his mind faster than he could understand them.

He saw stars being born within endless darkness.

He saw worlds collapsing beneath seas of fire.

He saw enormous creatures drifting between galaxies, their bodies large enough to swallow entire continents.

The images changed.

Countless threads appeared across the darkness, connecting people, places, objects, and events to one another.

Some were thick and bright, while others were so faint that he could barely recognize their existence before they vanished.

Elion attempted to focus on one of them, but the moment he did, he regretted doing so as an overwhelming flood of information struck his mind.

Names, distances, possibilities, past choices, and potential futures.

He immediately withdrew his attention, but not before a violent headache tore through his skull.

[Assimilation progress: 11%.]

Outside the barrier, Tessa had already turned toward the door.

"Mira!"

Her shout echoed through the Ark, and hurried footsteps sounded from the corridor less than a few seconds later.

Mira was the first to enter, followed closely by Aria and Zenith.

Their expressions darkened the moment they saw Elion sitting in the center of the room with blood flowing from his eyes.

"What happened!?" Aria demanded.

"He began merging with some kind of eyes," Tessa replied. "Then that barrier appeared!"

"You let him do this alone?"

"I was with him, and he said to call you guys if something went wrong, but I did not know he was going to suddenly start bleeding from the eyes!"

She mentioned how that might happen almost a bit too casually, and that had somehow ended up happening.

The worst part was that he didn’t seem to be able to hear them. Had the pain dulled his senses?

None of them knew what it meant to merge with a literal new pair of apparently magical eyes, so there was no metric to compare it with.

The only comparable thing was integrating a foreign bloodline, and once again, only Elion knew how that felt.

Aria hurried toward Elion, but Mira caught her wrist.

"Wait."

"Can’t you see? He is hurt! His eyes are bleeding!"

"He knows what he is doing. And the barrier already repelled Tessa; touching it blindly will not help him."

Aria looked toward Elion again, her face twisting with worry.

Zenith approached the barrier without hesitation, placing one hand against its surface. The invisible field rippled violently beneath her palm.

Mira was too slow to stop her.

The entire training room trembled, and the barrier released a pulse of force powerful enough to drive even Zenith back half a step.

Her expression immediately darkened, a hint of shock showing on her perfect features. "It repelled me."

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