Demonic Dragon: Harem System-Chapter 419: Sneak attack

The forest felt alive.

Not in the usual way—whispering trees or rustling leaves. It was as if the very space between the trunks was alert, watching, breathing. Every step taken by Strax, Ouroboros, and Tiamat sank deeper into the membrane of a world that no longer fully belonged to the realm of the living.

Strax walked ahead, eyes sharp and his sword still dormant on his back. The mana around him remained restless, as if the blade sensed they were nearing something familiar. Something ancient.

Tiamat followed closely behind, her slender form and regal posture contrasting with the calculated serenity of Ouroboros, who walked with her hands clasped behind her back, observing every leaf, every root, every sound.

"Do you feel that?" Ouroboros asked after a long silence. Her voice was low, almost a reverent whisper. "This place doesn't want us here."

Strax didn't answer right away. His red eyes scanned the path, and he murmured, "It's not that it doesn't want us. It just... doesn't remember how to receive visitors anymore."

Tiamat grimaced, eyeing the vines that twisted like serpents along the trees. "This was the heart of the Spirit Dwelling? A forest... that feels like a trap?"

"It used to be a sanctuary," Ouroboros explained. "Spirits didn't need walls. The trees were temples. The wind, their voices. But now..."

She paused, frowning. "Now everything is... distorted."

Strax looked up. The sky was opaque, with a grayish glow that didn't come from the sun. It was as if the world, here, had stopped turning.

After another hour of walking—crossing shallow streams, climbing slopes covered in moss with a golden hue—they finally arrived.

The ruins were not broken monuments. They were shadows of architecture, traces of structures that had never been fully made of stone or wood. What remained were lines carved into the air itself—corridors of crystallized mana, spectral pillars, circles etched into ground that no longer bore a name.

It was a city invisible to common eyes. But not to theirs.

The center of the sanctuary opened like a spiraling valley, with a massive stone floating above the ground, slowly turning, covered in inscriptions on every face. It emitted a low sound, like a muffled chant from a distant world.

Tiamat was the first to approach. She reached out, and the sound from the stone grew louder, as if responding to her touch.

"These markings... they're older than Ancestral Draconic," she said, surprised.

Ouroboros stepped closer too, her eyes wide. She touched another part of the stone, and her expression hardened.

"Not just older. This is a pre-existential script. Pure language. There are no phonemes. It's a writing meant to be understood by essence, not by sound."

Strax frowned. "So, you can't read it?"

The two dragas looked at each other. Ouroboros replied, visibly uneasy:

"I've studied lost civilizations for millennia. I learned the tongues of the Ancients of Durella, the Silent Ones of the North, even the chants of the Primordials who existed before the War of the First Light..."

She touched the stone again and shook her head. "But this... this is older than all of that. This predates the concept of language itself."

Tiamat approached the base of the stone, where a symbol spun slowly in place, like an eye drawn by hands of pure energy.

"I can't even understand it emotionally. Usually, even extinct languages still carry some feeling, some intent. But this... it's like staring into pure abyss. A language made for... entities, not beings."

Strax knelt before the stone, eyes fixed on its surface. The sword strapped to his back began to vibrate faintly. A low but steady hum.

"It's responding," he murmured.

Tiamat looked at him, surprised. "The sword?"

"Yes. When we got close to the stone... it felt lighter. As if it were home." He spoke while touching the sword.

Strax had barely made contact with the blade when the subtle hum was sliced by a hissing, sharp, and threatening sound.

Tsschk!

An arrow.

Green as poison and fast as lightning, it tore through the stillness of the clearing like a serpent of light, aiming straight between Strax's eyes. He had no time to react — but Tiamat did.

In the blink of an eye, her hand cut through the air and caught the arrow mid-flight, snapping it between her fingers with a sharp crack. The emeralds adorning her gauntlet lit up, absorbing the venom like hungry mouths. She didn't speak right away. She only growled.

Ouroboros, already moving to stand beside Strax, slowly spread her wings, as if the air around her had suddenly become too dense to breathe.

The two dragas turned their gaze to the forest.

"Come out, worm," Tiamat growled, her voice laden with ancestry and threat. Her posture was no longer elegant. It was predatory.

For a moment, silence ruled.

Then, the trees opened—not with violence, but as if making way for an entity that did not need permission.

And she appeared.

First, the eyes: green as the very soul of the forest, incandescent, and as ancient as time itself. Then the hair — long, nearly to her heels, floating like silver mist, but with vivid green hues, as if each strand were a living extension of nature. Her ears were long, adorned with chains of ancient gold that didn't reflect light — they consumed it. She wore a mantle of leaves and living silk that moved subtly, breathing with her. And on her forehead, a crown of crystalline thorns, like branches from a world that had never seen sunlight.

Her beauty was overwhelming. Ethereal. A kind of perfection not meant for mortal eyes. There was something in her presence that made even Tiamat and Ouroboros, draconic and sovereign beings, tense their muscles in instinctive alertness.

"You come out, Hades," said the elf, her voice rippling through the air like an echo crossing dimensions. It was as if she wasn't speaking with her mouth, but with the very world around them. Her words carried layers, echoes within echoes — as though time and space reverberated with her voice.

The name rang out like silent thunder.

Strax furrowed his brow, discomfort etched across his expression. He turned slightly toward Tiamat and Ouroboros, as if expecting an explanation. None came. Only frozen gazes and clenched muscles.

"I'm not Hades," he said, his voice weighted, firm, but still restrained.

The elf stepped forward. A smile traced her lips — beautiful, cold, and almost... pitying.

"You are Hades. Without a doubt." Her eyes shimmered with something more than conviction — it looked like trauma. "You think I wouldn't recognize your essence? The rot behind that mask?" Her voice dropped into a cutting whisper. "I told you worms already... don't follow me."

Before anyone could react, she vanished — not with speed, but with pure dissipation. A green blur materialized in front of Strax.

Then, the attack came.

With an open palm, she aimed for his skull as if intending to tear it from his body. The force and speed were beyond human — worthy of a being that transcended even the gods.

But she stopped.

Or rather — she was stopped.

Strax's arm snapped upward, and her palm was halted as if it had struck an invisible wall. The forest trembled. A bolt of energy rippled through the ground beneath their feet.

Strax raised his eyes. There was no anger in them. Only exhaustion. A weary abyss.

"Hey, you crazed, pointy-eared elf," he said, voice low and rough like stone cracking. "I already told you... I'm not this fucking Hades." ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

With a roar, Strax twisted his body, channeling the weight of his arm and hurling the elf with brutal force. Her body sliced through the air like a missile before crashing into one of the runic walls of the Spirit's Dwelling. The impact was so powerful that cracks spread across the ancient stone like glasswork, and her body sank into the structure, disappearing for a moment amid the rubble.

The entire forest held its breath.

Tiamat and Ouroboros remained motionless, watching the point of impact, their eyes glowing.

Strax exhaled slowly, shaking out his arm. "If I had a denarius for every maniac who called me something I'm not, I could've founded an empire by now," he muttered with dry sarcasm.

Silence.

Then, from the shattered ruins, a green aura emerged. Intense. Alive. Pulsing. Like an ancient heart beginning to beat once more.

The elf's voice echoed from within the dust, still laced with rage — but now, curiosity.

"If you're not him... then who the hell are you?" Her voice came from within the wreckage, filled with anger, confusion, and... fear. "You carry all of Hades' aura... his scent, his weight..."

Strax stared at the debris, his eyes burning red, the wind swirling around him as if the forest itself were alive and on the verge of choosing sides. The dark cloak rippled over his shoulders, and the mana surrounding his body pulsed like a war drum.

He took a step forward, and his voice came out deep and harsh, like metal dragging over stone:

"I don't know what the hell you think I am..." He spat the words with restrained fury. "Do I know Hades? Yeah. I've looked him in the eyes. I'm his apostle — out of convenience. Power. Strategy. Nothing more."

His expression hardened. "But I'm not Hades. Never was. Never wanted to be. So if you came here expecting to meet a dead god or some ancient ghost... you're in for disappointment."

He raised his arm and pointed at her, still half-buried in the rubble. "And as for you... I don't even know who the fuck you are. So cut the cosmic entity drama and tell me what you want — before I bury you for good."

The air grew thick, and even the birds in the forest fell silent.

Tiamat, who had until then been watching in silence, narrowed her golden eyes. She stepped forward twice, her gaze locked on the fallen elf.

"I feel it..." she murmured, as if speaking to herself. "I feel divine power. Faint... but unmistakable."

She looked over her shoulder, locking eyes with Strax and Ouroboros.

"She's a goddess... fallen."