Demonic Dragon: Harem System-Chapter 804: Construction of the Mental World.

In the beginning, there was nothing.

No light... No darkness... No sound, time, or direction.

Just an absolute, infinite void, so vast that even the idea of ​​vastness lost its meaning. It was neither cold nor hot. It neither oppressed nor comforted. It simply... existed.

Or rather: it was.

Strax was there.

Standing still.

He didn’t float, he didn’t fall. There was no ground beneath his feet, but he remained upright, as if the very notion of gravity obeyed his presence. His body was motionless, but his mind... his mind moved like an ocean forcibly contained.

That void was not an external place.

It was him.

His consciousness stripped of stimuli, reduced to the essential. A space where there were no voices, expectations, or interferences. Where there was no system. Where there were no imposed rules.

Strax breathed slowly.

Not because he needed air—true demonic dragons no longer depended on it—but because the act of breathing still organized thoughts. It was an ancient habit. A reminder that, despite everything, there was still something he could call "me."

"...Let’s see," he murmured, his voice echoing without a sound, existing only because he decided it would.

He raised one hand.

There was no flash. No explosion of energy.

Only understanding.

From the moment he devoured the system, his limitations had ceased to be external. There were no more floating numbers, progress bars, or artificial restrictions saying ’this far you can go.’

He had broken through the ceiling.

No... he had ripped the ceiling off and used the remains as fuel.

Strax closed his eyes, not out of necessity, but out of focus, and began to relocate his attention inward.

Not to organs... Not to meridians in the traditional sense... But to concepts.

He felt the Fire first.

Not the raw fire of flames consuming wood, but primordial fire: transformation. Directed entropy. The power to reduce everything to its simplest state... or to elevate something to its peak through destruction.

The fire responded to him like an old ally. It wasn’t wild. It wasn’t unstable. It was obedient—not out of submission, but out of recognition.

Then, the Earth.

Weight. Stability. Persistence.

Mountains that withstand ages. Continents that move slowly, crushing everything in their path without ever seeming rushed. The Earth in Strax was absolute. It didn’t break. It didn’t yield. It only advanced.

He felt the Air expand next.

Freedom. Movement. Invisible pressure. The blade that cuts unseen. The breath that brings down walls not by force, but by constancy.

The Air danced around his consciousness, light and deadly.

The Water came soon after.

Adaptation. Flow. Silent persistence. The ability to circumvent obstacles, infiltrate fissures, wear down to the impossible.

Water didn’t need to win. It simply... continued.

Strax opened his eyes.

"Four basic elements," he said calmly. "Mastered."

But that was only the beginning.

He looked deeper.

Lightning.

Absolute speed. Instant judgment. Pure energy in an untamed state. There was no middle ground with lightning. It doesn’t warn. It happens.

Strax felt the lightning as direct extensions of his will. To think was to act. To act was to destroy.

Blood.

Life. Bond. Control.

Not in the vulgar sense of flesh puppets, but in the mastery of vital essence. Pulse. Rhythm. The profound understanding of what keeps something alive... and what happens when that rhythm is interrupted.

Blood obeyed because it recognized a superior predator. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Shadows.

Malleable absence. Primordial fear. The space between the light.

Shadows were not darkness—they were possibility. Portals. Camouflage. Dissolution of the self. The power to exist where nothing is expected.

Ice.

Not just cold, but stagnation. Suppression. The silence that comes when everything stops.

Strax’s ice didn’t just freeze bodies—it froze processes, reactions, even intentions.

He remained silent for a long moment.

And then... he sighed.

Not from exhaustion.

From perception.

"I fought so hard," he murmured. "I advanced so far... and never stopped to look at the whole picture."

The images came.

Bloody battles.

Broken enemies.

He defeated them all.

But he won by advancing in a straight line, piling power upon power, without ever organizing.

Now, in that void that was his mind, he saw clearly: it was a waste.

Strax opened his arms.

And channeled everything.

The void trembled.

There was no explosion.

There was a response.

Elements emerged as solid concepts. Streams of fire that did not burn, rivers of water suspended in nothingness, floating plates of earth, winds circulating in perfect spirals.

Lightning crisscrossed space like nerves. Shadows accumulated like dark continents. Ice manifested as crystalline structures.

And yet... that was not enough.

Strax frowned slightly.

"Power without direction is just noise."

Then he remembered.

The ancient stories.

The Chinese novels he had read in another life, another world.

Cultivation.

Not levels.

Not systems.

But growing understanding.

Evolving not by climbing numbers... but by expanding the inner sky.

The concept struck him like a perfect blow.

"...A Mental World" he whispered.

If this void was his consciousness...

Then he could create within it.

Not an illusion.

Not a symbol.

A real world, sustained by his will, where every element, every law, every cycle would exist to shape him.

Strax closed his eyes.

And decreed.

The void responded.

A ground emerged first — not ordinary earth, but a surface made of condensed intention. Above, a sunless sky, but full of latent energy.

Mountains rose, shaped by the Earth. Oceans formed, deep and silent. Winds began to circulate. Volcanoes arose, feeding the eternal fire.

Shadows settled in specific regions. Frozen fields stretched to the edges.

Lightning bolts crisscrossed the skies without warning.

And in the center... Strax.

"Here," he said, his voice firm, "let’s see what I can do..."

The Mental World pulsed.

This would not be a place of rest.

It would be an internal battlefield.

A place where he could destroy and rebuild himself infinitely, without limits, without a system, without a roof.

A world created not to comfort him...

But to make him something that even the heavens could not ignore.

Strax opened his eyes.

And smiled.

The training had begun.

Time passed.

How much time... not even Strax himself could say.

Within his Mental World, the concept of time did not follow straight lines. Days could last seconds. Years could condense into a single profound thought. The world did not revolve around a sun—it revolved around him.

And yet, something had changed.

Where before there had been only a forcibly organized void, now there was existence.

Strax’s Mental World was complete.

Or, at least, complete enough to reflect who he was at that moment.

The sky was the first shock.

Not blue.

Not black.

A deep purple, almost alive, as if the firmament itself were slowly breathing. Currents of energy crisscrossed the sky like silent auroras, pulsing in crimson and violet hues. There were no fixed stars—only points of light that appeared and disappeared as his consciousness moved.

Below, the earth.

Or rather... the lands.

Vast fields stretched as far as the eye could see, covered in blood-red flowers. Dark red, almost black, petals swayed gently in the wind. They didn’t exude a metallic or repulsive smell. On the contrary—there was a soft, almost sweet aroma, reminiscent of rest after a battle that was too long. The wind blew calmly.

It didn’t howl.

It didn’t threaten.

It simply passed by, gently, making the flowers move like a tranquil sea.

It was strange.

Any other being who looked at that world would call it infernal. Demonic. A materialized nightmare. But there... there was no gratuitous suffering. There were no screams. There was no despair.

There was balance.

In the distance, volcanoes rose.

Large. Ancient. Powerful.

But they weren’t erupting violently. Their peaks released only wisps of dark, lazy smoke, like sleeping beasts breathing deeply. Lava flowed slowly down some slopes, incandescent rivers that illuminated the landscape with a constant orange glow.

They destroyed nothing.

They simply existed.

Rivers of blood cut through the world in winding paths. The dark red liquid flowed calmly, unhurriedly, reflecting the purple sky like a distorted mirror. There were no corpses. There was no pain associated with those rivers.

They represented life, power, sacrifice... and control.

At the edges of the world, steep mountains rose like natural walls. Black rocks, cut by shimmering veins of elemental energy. Their highest peaks were covered in eternal ice, white and blue, shimmering under the purple light of the sky.

The cold there was absolute.

Silent.

Nothing moved at those heights, except the occasional crack of the ice readjusting, as if the world itself were breathing slowly.

And at the center of it all...

A small temple.

It wasn’t grandiose.

It wasn’t adorned with gold or jewels.

It was simple.

Built of dark, smooth stone, without exaggerated symbols. Wide steps led to its entrance. Firm columns supported an angled roof. The temple seemed ancient, but not worn—as if it had been created with the intention of lasting forever.

Inside, chaos organized itself.

This was the core.

Strax sat before the temple, on a block of natural stone, observing the world he had created.

His body did not emanate an oppressive aura at that moment. There was no crushing pressure. There was no fury. Only... presence.

He breathed slowly.

Each breath made the world react slightly. The wind changed direction. The flowers bent. The lava bubbled a little stronger. The rivers adjusted their flow.

Each exhale brought calm.

"Interesting..." he murmured.

He stood up and began to walk.

Where his feet touched the ground, the earth responded. It didn’t break, it didn’t tremble—it simply accepted. He passed through a field of blood flowers and bent down, touching one of them.

The flower didn’t wither.

On the contrary, it bloomed even more.

"Chaos doesn’t have to be destruction," he said to himself. "It only needs... intention."

He walked to one of the rivers of blood and plunged his hand in. The liquid enveloped his fingers like something alive, recognizing him. He closed his eyes for a moment and felt each beat, each pulse, each fragment of vital power that river represented.

Everything was connected to him.

But it didn’t dominate him.

Strax opened his eyes and looked at the icy mountains in the distance.

"This world..." he began thoughtfully. "It’s not a reflection of what I was."

He turned his face toward the volcanoes.

"Not even what I destroyed."

Then he looked at the temple.

"It’s what I’m becoming."

The Mental World was neither a chaotic, purposeless hell nor an empty, fragile paradise. It was a space where destruction and creation coexisted. Where the demon and the guardian walked side by side.

A demonic world...

Calm.

Chaotic...

Controlled.

Strax climbed the temple steps and entered.

Inside, the space seemed larger than outside. Symbols floated slowly in the air—not written runes, but pure concepts: Fire, Blood, Lightning, Earth, Wind, Shadow, Ice, Water.

All orbited an invisible core.

He sat in the center.

"There’s still much to polish," he said with a slight smile. "Much to refine."

The world responded with a gentle pulse.

Not in defiance.

But in agreement.

And, in that profound silence, Strax continued his cultivation—not to reach the heavens...

But to create something beyond them.

"Darling." Strax heard and opened his eyes, and saw Rogue, Cassandra, and Daniela...

"?" He looked confused; they seemed a little more... worried?

"Are you alright?" Daniela asked.

Strax looked around and nodded, "What happened?"

"W-well... you’ve been meditating for a month, we thought you—"

"A MONTH?!"