HDXD: Omni Harem System

Priscilla Heartbreak wasn't just a vampire; she was a force of nature, quite literally and metaphorically. In the popular game that aired in the early 2000s, Crimson Throne, a visual novel infamous for its morally gray choices and corpse-pile endings, she reigned as the apex predator in that game.

She is what one would call a Shinso, a vampire so ancient and powerful that her very existence warped ecosystems.

Mortals revered her as a living goddess, a divine figure of beauty and destruction, while lesser vampires quaked before her as though they were mere insects facing an unstoppable force of nature in every sense of the word.

Currently speaking, Priscilla was actually a sexy, mature woman; this childlike form of hers was basically her way of expressing her immense power. 

But here, now, she had willingly compressed herself into this petite, doll-like frame of a human girl... a self-imaged prison to keep her power from vaporizing continents by accident.

Dane's infant mind raced, memories of Crimson Throne flooding back. 

'Of all the goddamn characters to run into first, why her... this woman is crazy, but what's dangerous is her intuition and her obsession with things she finds interesting.'

Because of this personality trait of hers, she often got the main character into trouble.

But the problem was she was a troublemaker.

In the game, Priscilla was pride incarnate, you could say, despite her personality. She was the type that would rather drown the world in blood than admit she needed help. But she was also his favorite character from Crimson Throne.

Her route required navigating a minefield of backhanded compliments and apocalyptic tantrums, but the payoff? A loyalty so fierce that she would raze entire kingdoms from the ground up for a single kiss. Now, seeing her here in this twisted fusion universe, Dane felt equal parts dread and... nostalgia.

Looking at her from where he was being held, Dane could not help but wonder.

'Damn... she would be a perfect addition to the harem... +1 for real, for real... but alas, nothing much I could do in a body like this, given in the original Crimson Throne; you have to really impress her, so much so... All her curiosity has to be solely on you, and you alone to even enter her route.'

Dane said to himself, but at the same time, Priscilla seemed to have locked eyes with him, her glowing crimson eyes meeting his glowing blue eyes.

When compared to himself, Dane noticed he had clear white skin, but Priscilla herself looked like her body lacked the concept of blood.

And her stare was very intimidating, to say the least.

As time goes on, Priscilla's crimson eyes lock closer onto the squirming bundle in Rakasha's arms. For a moment, the room seemed to freeze, the air itself recoiling from her glare.

"Rakasha."

She said, her voice lethally calm.

"Why is there a human infant in our sanctum?"

Rakasha bounced Dane gently, utterly unfazed. 

"Oh, this little guy? I found him in the trash can out back... He seemed cold and hungry, so I used Astrum to use my healing magic to produce some milk for him."

"The… trash can!?"

Priscilla said out loud, clearly questioning Rakasha's sanity at the moment.

But the dragon seemed unfazed, as she said.

"Yep! You know, the big one by the stables?"

Priscilla's eye twitched at these words as she responded.

"You plucked a mortal child from the rubbish heap and thought, 'Ah, splendid idea; let's bring it into our lair?' Have you completely lost what pitiful scraps of sanity you had left?"

"Hey, he was crying! And look at him...

Rakasha lifted Dane toward Priscilla, who leaned back as if offered a live grenade.

"And besides, he got sparkly eyes! Pretty sure that isn't a human thing... They shine like little sapphires. Plus, he is weirdly... I dunno, glowy... like an art project."

Dane's mind raced.

'Project?! Lady, I'm not a damn science fair volcano!'

Priscilla pinched the bridge of her nose, clearly frustrated at the randomness of the situation.

"Pray tell, what precisely do you intend to do with this child, Rakasha? More importantly, how in the blazes did a human child end up discarded in a dumpster within the monster realm? We are, quite literally, in an entirely different realm from the humans."

She had been working the whole day; after all, she was a magic teacher.

At these words, Rakasha tried to reply back, as she argued.

"I mean, we are not even sure if the little guy is even human; his eyes are definitely not human like you look at them; see, SEE!!"

Priscilla, on the other hand, rubbed her forehead annoyed but decided to bite as she took a look at the baby boy; meanwhile, Rakasha began to speak again.

"Ohhh, relax, stop looking so tense... he is fine! Looooook, he won't bite...

She poked Dane's cheeks, although her playful attitude became somewhat serious as she said.

"Although I won't lie... the cutie got weird vibes to him. Like… static electricity, but creepier. Bet he is cursed. Or maybe he is half-demon... would explain the eyes, you know... Ooh, or maybe he is a failed clone experiment from some secret organization."

But all those drama-inducing theories got shoved down the drain when Priscilla came back to critical hit with common sense.

"Or perhaps...

Priscilla hissed.

"He is precisely what he appears to be: a human... a squalling, fragile, mortal human baby... I mean, come on, Prisci... your a vampire, and yet you can't feel it... find..find... let me point it out to you once more... his eyes are glowing... but before you brush that fact off... look more closley, it's faint, but it's definitely there."

She hoisted Dane toward Priscilla again, his glowing sapphire eyes locking onto the vampire's smoldering glare.

"See... His pupils are doing that... swirly thing. Like a galaxy! Definitely not human."

For a moment, Priscilla stopped being gnorant. As she looked at Dane more closely, Rakasha did have a point; that wasn't normal.

And then that when she saw it.

Causing her to freeze in place, suprise filling her being.

For a heartbeat, her composure cracked. Her nostrils flared, and her clawed fingers twitched, not in rage but in recognition.

"Anthem!"

She breathed, the word dripping with fascination.

Rakasha blinked.

"A what now... I was referring to the fact that I can sense Astrum in them. The hell is Anthem?"

This, of course, just made Priscilla more annoyed as she commented.

"For a dragon over 400 years old, you are rather stupid."

"Meh... studying is boring; that aside, what exactly is Anthem?"

Said, and Rakasha.

Priscilla leaned closer to explain as she said.

"Anthems, my dear overpowered lizard... are humanity's special ability... a preposterously rare quirk of their species existence. Much like how a slime-kind can natrually dissolve matter with vulgar ease as a result of their body being corrosive or how a dragon-kin can bend the laws of nature to their tedious whims, Anthems are the one scrap of mysticism humans have. Most are pathetic, really... Without them, they would be as remarkable as a wet Tuesday in Wigan."

"To put it plainly, though I doubt your meager intellect requires further strain on this topic, my great self will stupid it down for you. With that said, the best way to describe a human Anthem would be to see them as a pass on information or ghost base abilities."

"Ghost?!"

Rakasha asked, a little surprised by the information.

After all, as far as she knows, humans are the weakest race of Yggdrasil.

Naturally, Priscilla replied back.

"Yes. Anthems by default are the result of the Clear Tower not filtering out a soul properly like it should. As you should already know, the Clear Tower is a construct in the spirit realm where all souls return to upon their death if their soul is not directly bonded to a religion; as such, there soul doesn't go to an afterlife."

Priscilla explained and continued.

"Rather, it goes to the tower, which recycles the soul by absorbing the stories of all those who have passed, basically wiping the soul of the entity clean, returning whatever they were as a story back 0, or rather a blank canvas."

"And sending them back on the path of reincarnation; however, there are times when the tower runs into rather powerful souls; as such, they can't fully absorb the lore within the soul, and as a result, left-over information of that person's past life remains in the person's Lore Core, but humanity is born with a rather amazing ability; they can someone project that broken information into a skill call the Anthem, be combining the non-sensical."

"Normally, these types of souls are not fit for reincarnation; as such, they are put aside, but these souls can enter back into the cycle if they get reincarnated as humans, as a human vessel is the only thing that can make sense of them."

"These humans, of course, are called Anthem Users; typically though, the ratio of it happening is one in every six-million human's, but often times, the supernatrual power they derive from this is often uncanny and weird due to it being a collective of random stockpile information fused into a singular unique skill, giving them a unique power at their disposal as a result of the mixed-up information in the Lore Core."

This was Priscilla's explanation, and honestly speaking, even Dane was surprised by it, as he said to himself.

'Damn, this is new... Anthem in the original HDXD were just unique abilities, F-EX+, but now it has become something different... and the Clear Tower wasn't that in the Spirit world; in the visual novel called Rena Singularity, that visual novel was kind of brain not going to lie.'

'That aside, wasn't I supposed to choose my race? Why did I end up as a human? Well, it doesn't matter. I was going to pick human anyway, since it's a requirement for unlocking the Overlord of Humanity ending. Still, I wonder what my Anthem is... Although I can already guess, it's most likely the system.'

Dane said to himself, and the moment he did, that when he began to hear a female robotic voice.

『Notice! The Omni Harem System is now activating』

『1%...4%...15%...37%...66%...85%...100%.... Booting process complete』

『The Omni Harem System is now Online!! Nice to meet you Host』