Demonic Dragon: Harem System-Chapter 502: Kal’theruun (Part.I)

Baal bowed so low that his forehead touched the gleaming obsidian floor. Then he snapped his fingers elegantly, and two chains of living iron shot up from the floor, binding Khal’Zir and the mutilated Vorin by their wrists and ankles. The chains coiled like hungry serpents, whispering ancient words of punishment.

Khal’Zir still tried to maintain his haughtiness, but his trembling eyes betrayed his fear. Vorin, without a chin, could only emit muffled grunts that mixed anger and terror. Baal did not need to pull them—the chains dragged them like prey to a stone mouth that opened in the floor, expelling a hot stench of sulfur and despair. The wing of eternal torture was not called that out of mere exaggeration. It lived up to its name. And it multiplied the concept of time.

When the floor closed, Lilith was alone in the hall. The blue candlelight flickered slightly, as if even the fire was unsure about staying.

She floated to the throne, but did not sit down. She hovered before it, the veils of energy surrounding the seat snaking toward her, trying to touch her, perhaps to comfort her. She ignored them.

She ran her hands over her face, sighing heavily. The scarlet silk cloak seemed to cling more tightly to her skin, as if it were alive and restless, sharing her frustration.

"Idiots..." she muttered. "Malformed, useless worms..."

She turned abruptly to one of the side columns. She slammed her palm against the black stone and a rune lit up, projecting a magical map of the continent before her. Eldoria glowed red, still pulsing with the mark of recent destruction.

"An unauthorized attack... and right there..." She narrowed her eyes. "In the mouth of the old dragon. You couldn’t have chosen a more stupid place."

Lilith knew she couldn’t undo what had been done. But now she had to prevent the catastrophe from turning into open war. She knew Albert Vorah—the man who had become a legend before he even grew old, who had the heart of a dragon and the gaze of a weary god. There was no one more dangerous on the continent when it came to revenge.

She moved her fingers in the air, rotating the magic map until a mountainous region appeared. The name Vorah was marked in ancient runes. A place that never received visitors. A place that even demons were afraid to invoke aloud.

Lilith clenched her fist.

"If Albert comes... it won’t be with diplomacy."

A thought crossed her mind—cold, uncomfortable, persistent. What if he was already on his way? What if Strax was just the harbinger? A foreboding of her own father, a step before the real end?

She began to pace back and forth, her feet floating millimeters above the ground. Each thought was a barely contained spark.

They felt the spark. They said something had awakened.

But what?

The answer was a void. Not even the demonic oracles had predicted that reaction in the heavens. The mana flows had fluctuated like never before. And the dragons... the dragons reacted with instinctive fury. As if something had provoked them to the breaking point.

Lilith looked at the throne. She finally sat down. The serpents of energy receded, as if the seat also felt her restrained anger.

She snapped her fingers, and a floating obsidian sphere appeared before her. Inside it, an image danced: the face of the demon Agares, now dressed as a diplomat, walking across a devastated field toward the ruins of Eldoria.

...

"Let’s see if there’s still room for diplomacy in this broken world," she said quietly.

But she didn’t believe it. The truth was that something had been broken irreversibly. A delicate balance. A pact that the gods themselves had helped to forge after the Last Rupture.

And now, thanks to the stupidity of three demons obsessed with "ancestral orders," Lilith’s name would be tied to the trigger of a new era of magical wars.

"If Albert invades this throne... it won’t be to talk. It will be to burn."

She drummed her fingers on the arm of the throne, thoughtfully. The headache began to build like a dense fog behind her eyes. It wasn’t just fear of Albert. It was fear of what she had awakened.

Because Lilith, although she didn’t show it, had also felt it.

On the night of the attack on the tower, when the sky bled and time faltered, a single word came to her mind. An ancient word that no demon dared to utter aloud, for it did not belong to this world.

Kal’theruun.

Just an echo. A whisper.

But it was enough to chill even the soul of a queen of hell.

"If that’s what it was..." she whispered. "Then nothing we do will matter."

The blue flame of the nearest candle flickered violently, as if it had heard and understood.

Lilith leaned back. The hall remained silent, except for the occasional wail coming from the depths of the prison where Khal’Zir and Vorin now screamed.

She closed her eyes.

"Prepare the files. I want the names of everyone who could contain a magical rupture. Humans. Mages. Arcanists. Even angels. If there is still a balance possible... we will need everyone."

Pause.

"...and prepare the armies. Because if Albert comes, we will not kneel."

...

Strax walked silently through the devastated corridor of Eldoria Tower, the memory crystal still in his hand. His footsteps echoed among the rubble and broken pillars, where once mages had discussed arcane theories and where now only the smell of ash and blood lingered. Yennifer followed close behind, her gaze tense and lost in thought, while Cristine walked behind, hands on her fists, as if expecting something else to emerge from the shadows.

None of them spoke until they were outside the Tower.

The sky, now dark as ink at rest, hung over them like an omen. There was no wind. Only the distant sound of a lone raven on some burnt eave.

Strax stopped on a stretch of what had once been the raised garden—now nothing more than scorched earth and blackened roots. He raised the memory crystal.

"Let’s see what Kalem saw."

Cristine and Yennifer approached. The crystal glowed in his hand, pulsing with a bluish light, before projecting a holographic image before them.

Kalem’s voice, tremulous, sounded even before his face appeared: "This is the twelfth recording since the anomaly appeared. The magical instability continues to grow... but now, it seems to be responding to something. Something external. As if something were approaching the veil between worlds."

Kalem’s face appeared—tired, his eyes sunken but still sharp.

"During the night, I felt a call. Not a spell. Not a ritual. An instinct. A presence that touched my spirit like a finger touching the surface of a lake. I can’t describe it any other way. But I know the name that came to me: Kal’theruun."

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