Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 855: Path A vs B

[Phase 2 Rewards: Calculation complete.]

[Reward: Victor’s Prerogative.]

[Phase 3: Victor’s Prerogative.]

[As victor of Phase 2, the Defender chooses the terms of the final engagement. Both paths carry the victor’s advantage.]

The notification cut through the quiet of the Abyssal home before anyone had finished catching their breath.

[A: ENDURE. The Claimant retains all remaining forces and the siege resumes. Siege duration: 30 days. Defender receives fortification bonuses and territorial reinforcements as reward for winning Phase 2. Victory condition: every Claimant force eliminated or time limit reached. Lose condition: Dungeon captured.]

[B: STRIKE. The Claimant is stripped of all forces. Defender and his forces engage the Claimant directly. Victory condition: Defeat the opposing Dungeon Master.]

’Option A is the better choice,’ he instantly knew. The monsters the Kaiju was sending in were the most tantalizing sacks of XP and DMP they’d ever fought; giving up on them would be a grave mistake.

[Note: on victory in option B, all Claimant forces are considered slain and credited to the Defender and his chosen.]

’...Never mind.’

He read both options again, analyzing. The girls and stream viewers were doing the same, his window visible for all.

’So this is what it was calculating. The reward for winning the Gambit is the choice itself...’ An endgame dictated on his terms, with both doors slanted his way.

Option A was a siege.

Thirty days of defensive warfare against the Kaiju’s full army, with fortification bonuses to sweeten the grind, and a win condition that required eliminating every last one of its forces or surviving the full month while keeping the dungeon from falling.

It was the conservative play.

Option B was the greatest boss monster fight in recorded human history.

But it’d mean they’d get to face the Kaiju stripped bare of every champion and soldier torn from its command, leaving nothing but the beast itself against Kaiden and his entire team.

And if they won, the system would credit them for all of its monsters without actually having to grind through them.

The catches were staring him in the face for both options.

In option A, time. Thirty days was a great deal of time, especially during the uncertainty introduced by the mana apocalypse. They could very likely miss out on important events while stuck inside playing monster exterminator.

In option B, the catch was the terrain.

Since the Claimant couldn’t enter the dungeon, and the notes didn’t state otherwise, the fight would likely take place outside in the white, empty domain, where he’d lose the advantage of his cozy dungeon full of its meticulously organized defenses.

Despite that, the more he looked at it, the more B resembled the safer option, whatever the framing implied.

The Kaiju’s champions had been frightening, the creatures that nearly killed all his girls, that forced sacrificial plays, last-second saves, and cost them blood in every arena.

If the Claimant actually committed them to a push, he didn’t feel confident about protecting both paths, especially considering that they needed rest as well.

They were superhumans who could easily go for days without sleep, but doing it for thirty days straight under nonstop fighting was impossible.

’Strip those boss monsters away from the Claimant and what remains is a single creature, however massive and powerful.’

Time made it worse.

They’d been sealed inside the dimensional pocket since the Dungeon Master Duel began, cut off from Earth while the mana apocalypse reshaped the world beyond the barrier.

Everything they’d built over the past months, the alliances, the reputation that made them one of the most visible teams in the country, existed out there unattended in a world that was actively ending.

And that was without mentioning Eclipse, the guild Kaiden and Vespera had just formed, which was now in the most critical stage of its existence.

Thankfully, the duel itself had only taken hours so far. Thirty more days meant none of them could predict or control things properly from inside a sealed dungeon.

The reward structure settled it.

Option A required grinding through the Kaiju’s army one engagement at a time across a month-long siege, and the credit went only to forces they personally killed. Furthermore, it didn’t say that the Kaiju would be forced to commit all its forces.

Option B delivered the XP for every monster the moment the Kaiju fell.

Spending a month to earn what they could earn in a single fight sounded terrible to Kaiden.

And then there was the creature itself.

It had entered the battle as a brute-force animal and left it banking cards, creating strategies, and targeting threats with an intelligence it hadn’t possessed hours earlier.

Every additional day inside this pocket was another day for that adaptation to continue, another day for a newborn apex predator to figure out what it was becoming.

Striking now, while it was reeling from the loss of phase 2, was the right call by every metric he could find.

He looked around the room.

Nyx had reached the same answer before he had; her eyes said that much.

Luna’s Stormblade was already crackling against her palm, and the rest of the room wore the same quiet readiness without needing to voice it.

Everyone was thinking it.

”Why is this even a question? Option A is the clear winner.”

Every head turned toward Alexandra.

She stood with her hands clasped at her waist, healing light still pulsing faintly at her fingertips, nodding along with her own verdict as if the matter had been settled.

”It’s the safest one! We just have to survive thirty days behind reinforced walls, and nobody has to go anywhere near that monster. We can just defend!”

The silence that followed lasted just long enough for her to notice that every fighter in the room was staring at her, and that not one of the looks carried agreement.

”...What?” She glanced between them, genuinely lost. ”Why are you all looking at me like that? Did... did I read it wrong?”

”Healer girl.” Scarlet uncrossed her arms, flames curling back up her forearms. ”I finally get to whip that oversized dog out there, and you’re telling me to sit on my butt for a month instead?”

”Thirty days of repetitive tower defense, or one raid boss battle?” Luna shrugged. ”Easiest pick of my life.”

”This is not a video game! You can’t respawn if you die!” Alexandra gasped, shocked to hear such words.

”The math favors B too, Blondie.” Nyx’s tone was kind. It did not help.

Alexandra looked from face to face in search of a single ally and found nothing but variations of the same hungry agreement, and color flooded her cheeks.

Were they really all on the same page save for her?

She regretted speaking up so quickly, she should’ve waited to hear from the others!

Now she looked like the dumb and incompetent rookie among a group of hardened veterans!

”I-I see, I-”

Kaiden walked over to her and settled his hand on top of her head.