Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 862: Impossible Leap

The army had begun filing home through the gate in long obsidian ranks, and half the formation was still buried in their own status windows, when Luna stopped scrolling hers mid-flick.

”Hold the fuck on.”

Her finger came up and aimed across the formation at Alexandra like a loaded weapon.

”Blondie. You’re level seventy-seven.”

”Y-yes?” Alexandra hugged her own elbows, already sensing danger. ”Is that... bad?”

”I’m not Kaiden, blondie. You will not get headpats from me while I calmly explain things to you with a deep, manly voice.” Luna’s arms crossed, and every drop of volume drained out of her voice, leaving only flat judgment behind.

”The cute innocent girl act doesn’t work on me. You know damn well that going from level one to seventy-seven in a single afternoon is absurd, and you know even better that doing it without facing a single bottleneck is unheard of.”

The innocent tilt of Alexandra’s head held for two more seconds under that stare, wobbled, and collapsed entirely.

Her gaze darted left and right in search of rescue, found none anywhere in the formation, and dropped to her own twisting fingers while a blush burned its way up to her ears.

”O-okay, I knew it was strange!” Alexandra cried. ”But I really don’t know why it happened! Nothing stopped me! It just kept dinging! P-please don’t let it take my levels back, I’m finally useful!”

”Nobody’s taking anything, you adorable idiot!”

”Calm down, gremlin.” Bastet’s palm came to rest on Luna’s shoulder, and the static crackling around the smaller girl quieted under its unhurried weight.

”Before you put the world on trial, consider what we witnessed today. No one in the recorded history of this planet has ever received as much experience in a single breath as our newly minted Valkyrie just has. There is no precedent for what a flood of that size does to thresholds, because nobody has ever been handed one. We have nothing to compare her to, and that is the entire mystery.”

It was a sensible explanation, sensibly delivered, and it happened to be missing its second half.

A hundred million people were watching live, and some subjects were not for them.

In truth, the tanned kitten had theories of her own, and every one of them circled the same pair of culprits: the strange system her Master carried, and the Valkyrie class it had conjured from nothing for a level-one commoner.

Whatever was bending rules that had bound humanity for a decade, she was certain those two were tangled up in it together. She filed the thought away for a private hour and said none of it out loud.

The floor trembled in a marching rhythm before anyone could dig further, and a shadow the size of a city block slid over the group.

Pebble had arrived to investigate his new family.

The crown of six eyes descended over the gathering, and the Guardian chose the nearest and most colorful target for his curiosity.

He sniffed Bastet, one long inhale from nostrils like cellar doors that dragged her veils, her hair, and a fair portion of her dignity toward his snout.

Then the fissure-mouth cracked open at one corner, and a tongue that could have carpeted a ballroom slid out toward her.

”Don’t you dare!” The hiss that tore out of the most majestic woman on the team was loud, sincere, and entirely feline, her tail snapping rigid behind her with every hair on it standing at attention. ”Bad mutt! Stay away from me!”

The tongue froze midair and slowly reeled itself back in, and the crown above it drooped until six enormous eyes were staring down at her with an expression no creature that size had any right to manage.

He whined, the sound rumbling across the white plain like a landslide with hurt feelings, and the doom of twenty dungeons managed, against all known physics, to look orphaned.

”Aww, don’t be sad, big boy! The prissy kitty treats everyone like that at first.” Calypso strode over giggling and reached up to pet his lowered crown.

From any distance, the gesture read less like petting and more like a demoness methodically bashing a monster’s skull in, every affectionate pat landing with a deep boom, and Pebble leaned into each blow with his eyes drifting shut in bliss.

Within seconds he was on his back again, all four legs paddling, while Calypso laughed and wrestled a foreleg the size of a watchtower with both arms.

”For the record, I still don’t like this thing,” Luna announced, which would have carried more weight if her feet hadn’t already been taking her closer with her hands clasped behind her back.

She stopped beside the upturned head, squinted at the nearest of the six eyes, and knocked twice on the plating beside it, testing for weak spots out of pure gamer habit.

The eye rotated to track her, glowing with hope, and her scowl fought a losing battle against the corner of her mouth. ”...A very sturdy pebble.”

The armor under her knuckles answered with a low, delighted rumble, and Luna snatched her hand back as if the wall had spoken. ”It vibrated! Fatty, it vibrated at me!”

Nyx was already beside her, one palm laid flat against the creature’s flank and her head tilted in open wonder. ”I can still sense the twenty dungeons in him. What a fascinating creature.”

Scarlet’s interest was professional. She walked the creature’s length to the shoulder seam she’d cooked cherry-red during the battle, rapped her knuckles against it, and found the plating patched smooth without so much as a scar. ”I cooked this seam, and he’s already buffed it out.”

A slow grin spread across her face as she looked up at him. ”Hey, mutt. Once things’ve settled, I’ll visit you for a rematch.”

Pebble’s whole body gave one happy quake that nearly bounced Calypso off his foreleg, and everyone present chose to interpret it as a yes.

Aria stepped up next, hands folded in front of her, wearing a smile so sweet that the women around her quietly made room.

”Pebble.” The Moon Valkyrie’s tone was gentle, pleasant, and dead serious, a royal audit conducted with a smile. ”Answer me honestly. Are you prepared to die for Kai?”