Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 648: The Competition Resumes

Blood hit the stone before Kaiden did.

He landed in a skid while the Blood Monarch gauntlet was already busy reforming the greatsword he’d lost two seconds ago when a Stoneclad Matriarch had backhanded him into a cliff face. The blade solidified mid-swing, and he buried it into the nearest body without looking.

[You’ve slain Hollowed Ridgecrawler (Level 66).]

[You’ve gained 58,100 XP.]

[You’ve gained 7 DMP.]

Didn’t even feel it go in.

The mountain pass was a slaughterhouse.

Ridgecrawlers poured from fissures in the rock face, skeletal quadrupeds with translucent skin stretched over blackite bone, fast and numerous and stupid enough to charge directly into the kill zone.

Behind them, three Stoneclad Matriarchs anchored the center, each one a twelve-foot slab of mineral-plated fury with arms thick enough to use as siege rams. And weaving between it all, darting through the chaos like needles through fabric, a pack of Ashvein Stalkers hunted for openings with surgical patience.

It was a mess.

A beautiful, violent, deeply entertaining mess.

”Nyx.”

He didn’t need to say more.

Space folded.

The air between the two Stalkers compressed into a wall of spatial distortion that redirected their momentum sideways, slamming them into each other hard enough to crack chitin. They tumbled, tangled, and Aria’s moonlight found them before they could separate. Two crescents carved through the pile.

[Companion Kill: Ashvein Stalker (Level 68). +5 DMP.]

[Companion Kill: Ashvein Stalker (Level 67). +5 DMP.]

Nyx was already elsewhere, hands open, eyes tracking three separate engagement zones at once. Her spatial awareness had become the group’s nervous system.

She fought geometry. Collapsing angles, redirecting charges, creating pockets of compressed space that turned the battlefield into a funnel pointing toward whoever had the firepower to capitalize.

A Ridgecrawler lunged at Kaiden’s back.

Calypso caught it by the skull.

Her fingers sank into the eye sockets as she whipped the creature sideways, using its body as a bat to cave in the ribcage of a second Ridgecrawler mid-leap. Both crumpled. She dropped the remains and grinned at him, dark blood streaming from a gash along her collarbone, mixing with the sheen of sweat across her red skin.

”Darling, you need to pay more attention... ”

She was drenched. Cuts along her arms, a deep laceration across her hip where a Matriarch had clipped her twenty minutes ago, and what looked like a cracked horn from a headbutt she’d chosen to answer instead of dodge.

The Manifestation of Carnage had her running hot, every wound feeding into the engine, her strikes landing heavier and faster with each injury she collected.

”I knew you had my back,” Kaiden grinned at her, then shook his head. ”You look terrible.”

”Maybe so, but I feel incredible!” she shrieked joyously, cutting apart a new monster.

He could see it in the way she moved, fluid and savage and grinning like the battlefield was a playground. The damage wasn’t slowing her. It was the fuel.

A Stoneclad Matriarch bellowed and charged.

The ground shook. Twelve feet of mineral plate barreled toward Kaiden with the subtlety of an avalanche, head low, arms wide, designed to crush anything between its body and the nearest hard surface.

Kaiden switched to Wrath.

Heat surged through his limbs as he broke into a sprint directly at the Matriarch. The gap closed in a heartbeat, and at the last possible second, he dropped low and drove the greatsword upward into the softer plating beneath its jaw. Thermal kineticism detonated on contact.

The Matriarch’s head snapped back. A concussive boom split the air, followed by a wet crack as the blade tore through mineral and meat and exited behind the skull in a geyser of superheated blood.

[You’ve slain Stoneclad Matriarch (Level 71).]

[You’ve gained 89,600 XP.]

[You’ve gained 12 DMP.]

He wrenched the blade free and kept moving.

Kaiden asked, already pivoting.

Alice paused.

Helpful.

He saw them a second later. These monsters moved in a coordinated sprint. Pack hunters. Twelve of them, fanning wide to envelop.

”Luna.”

”Already on it.”

Lightning tore down from a sky that had been clear three seconds ago.

The first bolt hit the lead Ridgecrawler and chained through six of its packmates, arcing between their wet, translucent bodies with vindictive efficiency. Limbs seized. Spines arched. The formation shattered as half the pack dropped, twitching and smoking.

The other six split.

Three went left, toward Bastet.

Mistake.

The Pharaoh didn’t even turn to face them. Her bare foot pressed into the stone, and the ground beneath the Ridgecrawlers bucked upward in a localized upheaval that launched all three into the air. They hung for a fraction of a second, limbs scrambling at nothing, before gravity reasserted itself with interest. They came down hard and didn’t get up.

The remaining three reached Kaiden.

Good.

He needed the fuel.

Gluttony engaged as the first one hit him, claws raking across his forearm and drawing blood that the siphon drank back before it could drip. He grabbed the creature by its throat, pulled it into the path of the second, and split both with a single horizontal sweep that painted the rocks behind them. The third tried to latch onto his shoulder.

Calypso’s axe removed its torso from its legs in passing.

[You’ve slain Hollowed Ridgecrawler (Level 65).]

[You’ve gained 53,400 XP.]

[You’ve gained 6 DMP.]

[You’ve slain Hollowed Ridgecrawler (Level 66).]

[You’ve gained 58,100 XP.]

[You’ve gained 7 DMP.]

[Companion Kill: Hollowed Ridgecrawler (Level 65). +5 DMP.]

Calypso blew him a kiss without breaking stride, axe already rising for the next target.

’This woman... Why must I find a red-skinned, manic demoness sweating and bleeding on the field of battle so freaking hot?’ Kaiden thought, watching her crash into a Matriarch with the enthusiasm of someone greeting an old friend, ’Well, thinking about it, I might just have immaculate taste. What a sexy warrioress.’

He loved every second of it.

— ReaperFanatic: CALYPSO IS ACTUALLY INSANE??? She’s using the enemies as BATS?!?!

— BloodQueenSimp: the way she blew him a kiss mid murder, I can’t breathe

— TankGoddess: That horn is CRACKED and she’s SMILING

— CaliSimp42: if she doesnt marry him i will riot

The second Matriarch came at him from the blind side.

Alice’s warning hit the same instant the fist did.

The Matriarch’s arm connected with Kaiden’s ribs, and the world tilted. He felt bones flex, felt the air leave his lungs in a rush, felt his body leave the ground and travel an impressive distance before reintroducing itself to a boulder at speed.

Stone cracked. His back lit up with pain.

Gluttony pulsed.

Blood from the impact site reversed, soaking back through torn skin as the siphon converted damage into fuel. His ribs protested, then stopped protesting as regeneration smoothed the worst of the fracture.

Not healed. Stabilized. Enough.

”My bad there.”

He peeled himself off the rock and rolled his neck.

The Matriarch was already closing.

Kaiden planted his feet and switched to Pride.

Glyphs erupted around the Matriarch’s legs, assaulting it mid-charge. The creature’s momentum died as gravitational pressure crushed downward, forcing its knees into the stone. It bellowed, arms swinging, trying to drag itself forward through the field.