Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 1054: Dungeon Master Duel

Kaiden stopped inside the cavern, staring at the golden notification as Yunohana caught his free hand.

[Dungeon Master Duel initiated.]

Beyond the entrance at their backs, the pale membrane still showed the narrow cave they had descended. Ahead lay a forest of dark stone ridges, with hooked limbs withdrawing into the gaps between them.

”I just got a notification,” Kaiden said. ”We’ve walked into a Dungeon Master Duel.”

”On our very first date?”

He looked at her.

”First? So there’ll be more?”

”...Now’s not the time for this,” Yunohana smiled, though a little tremble at the edges of her lips betrayed her.

His attempt at humor did little to ease the alarm gathering in her chest.

She had watched his battle against the Claimant, had seen what it took from him and the women fighting beside him. Now she stood inside another duel with his hand in hers, wearing the dress they had helped her choose that morning.

”You had time to prepare last time,” she said. ”There was a warning. Your people had time to gather.”

”Yeah.”

Kaiden searched the notification for a countdown. All it offered was the declaration already hanging before his eyes, and the scrape of approaching claws made him draw the blood around his gauntlet into a broad blade.

”Where the hell is the challenge? We just walked in.”

Yunohana looked past him toward the entrance.

”Into its dungeon.”

His attention returned to the first line of the notification.

[Foreign Dungeon Master detected within sovereign territory.]

”...Oh.”

Last time, the Claimant had come for his home. He had spent the preparation period building defenses and bringing everyone together to hold it.

This time he had brought a beautiful woman through someone else’s front door with enough blood on his arm to slaughter its inhabitants.

”We’re the attackers,” he said.

”It considers us an invasion?”

”Well, aren’t we one?”

”...Right. We waltzed in here planning to destroy the dungeon.”

A shriek burst from the nearest ridge. The creature clinging to its far side hauled itself over the crown, exposing a belly armored in overlapping gray plates. More hooks appeared behind it, scraping furrows down the stone as the beasts descended toward them.

Yunohana released his hand and opened her fan.

”I suppose we shall have to make good on our plan.”

”You still comfortable doing this?”

She watched the leading monster gather itself to jump. Its kind had already failed to keep them out of the cave, and having a grand title attached to the fight had done very little for its prospects.

”With you? Yes.”

The warmth in her answer brought his grin back just as the monster sprang.

Rather than meet it on the ground, Kaiden drove his blood blade upward through its open mouth. Its leap carried the body down the weapon, splitting the roof of its skull until the point burst between its armored shoulders.

”SKRREEK!”

Before the others could jump from the ridge, Kaiden swung the impaled body up into them. The collision shattered the narrow crown, showering his gauntlet with fresh blood that thickened his blade.

”[Silver Thread].”

One of the creatures scrambled clear of the falling debris, only for Yunohana’s thread to catch its hooked foreleg. Her sideways pull brought it straight across Kaiden’s blade as he freed the weapon from the first corpse.

”[Severing Thread].”

A hook flashed toward his exposed flank, but Yunohana’s thread passed beneath his extended arm and caught the attacker by its neck. Its head snapped back, and Kaiden drove a blood spike through the exposed throat.

The beast came off its feet when he wrenched the spike free. At the sight of its blood pouring toward his gauntlet, the monsters behind it checked their advance.

”Feeling better?” he asked.

”I never stopped feeling good,” Yunohana decreed as she stepped over the severed hook at her feet, smiling as she came alongside him.

The immediate shock had loosened its hold. Whatever waited deeper inside, the creatures before them were dying just as readily as their relatives outside.

Dungeon Master Duel or ordinary monster extermination, it mattered very little to the shrine maiden.

They advanced between the ridges, following the retreating monsters down a broad slope. Above them, pale veins of light ran through the ceiling toward an opening at the cavern’s far end. The same light showed between the plates of the creatures crowding that passage.

Farther down, the floor dipped into a trench crossed by a narrow spine of rock. Claws rasped along its underside.

Kaiden stopped before the crossing.

”They’re under it.”

”Waiting for us to cross, I imagine.”

Kaiden looked up at the leaning ridge above the trench. A long crack split its base, leaving a great weight of rock hanging over the creatures concealed below.

”See that crack? I think I can bring the whole thing down.”

Yunohana followed his gaze, then smiled as she opened her fan wider.

”Shall I hold them beneath it?”

”Please.”

Silver spread from the edge of her fan, stretching across the trench in a web anchored around the stone projections on either side. A monster lunged up to catch the first strand in its jaws, only to drag the neighboring threads against its neck as Yunohana drew her wrist back.

Its shriek brought the others scrambling out from under the crossing.

Exactly where she wanted them.

Kaiden sank a blood wedge into the crack beneath the leaning ridge. A twist of his gauntlet spread the wedge until rock split with a deafening report, and the whole upper section tipped toward the trench.

Her threads tightened over the creatures trying to climb out. The falling ridge clipped the narrow crossing and broke it under their thrashing bodies, dropping them to the trench floor an instant before the rest of the rock followed.

*KRRRAAASH!*

The ridge struck the trench floor and crushed everything beneath it. Blood burst through the gaps around its base, followed by dust that swept up the slope toward the couple.

Kaiden spread his construct before them to catch the debris. Yunohana laughed beside him, leaning close enough to look past his shoulder at the enormous slab filling the trench.

”That felt good.”

He grinned at the satisfaction in her voice. Even with dust floating around them and blood dripping off his shield, she looked thoroughly pleased to be there with him.

”Want a hand getting across?”

Yunohana was a superhuman who could jump over a small hill should she want to. Yet Kaiden still offered his hand, earning a soft smile from her.

”Mm.”

She took the hand he offered, threading her fingers between his. Together they climbed onto the fallen ridge and crossed above the crushed monsters, her skirt gathered clear of the blood seeping through its cracks.

The slab shuddered beneath Yunohana’s shoes. She stopped beside Kaiden as a surviving monster hammered at the underside, shaking dust from the edges, and he drove a blood spike through the crack by his foot.

A final, muffled shriek came from below.

She squeezed his fingers before stepping down from their improvised bridge.

Beyond the trench, the remaining beasts had crowded into the opening beneath the converging veins of light. Their hooks overlapped across the passage, leaving them barely enough room to thrust at the approaching couple.

For all the noise they made, Kaiden could see the problem immediately. They had packed themselves so tightly that the ones behind were holding the front rank in place.

”If you can pull them aside, I can reach the ones behind,” Yunohana said, studying the crowded passage.

”Let’s give it a go.”

The hooks came down together as Kaiden ran at them, but the blood packed over his gauntlet caught their points before they could reach his chest. He drove on through the impact, forcing the monsters’ weapons back against their own armor.

With the beasts behind them still pushing forward, the front rank had nowhere to go. Their armor buckled beneath his blood ram until his next step drove the whole mass backward, wedging them against the narrower throat of the passage.

Their tangled limbs gave Kaiden plenty to hold. Blood flowed between them and hardened into grips around their legs, letting him wrench the entire screaming barricade sideways into the wall. Plates burst from their backs as the impact cracked the rock behind them.

Through the space he had cleared, Yunohana came running with her fan drawn close to her breast. A hook swept out from the heap toward her waist, but Kaiden caught it in a blood grip and pulled its owner farther from the opening.

”[Severing Thread]!”

Silver swept through the exposed passage ahead of her. The waiting monsters reared into the threads, their own charge tightening the loops around their throats before she passed them and drew her fan across her body.

Blood sprayed over the walls. Behind her, heads struck the floor while Kaiden finished the trapped creatures with a row of spikes through their broken armor.

By the time he joined her, Yunohana had stopped beside the opening into the next chamber, breathing a little faster with a delighted smile on her face.

”I love watching you do that,” he admitted. ”It’s a beautiful ability.”

Her smile widened as she folded the fan.

”I’m having a wonderful time,” she said, reaching for his free hand. ”I hope you are, too.”

”Very much. This might be the greatest Dungeon Master Duel in existence.”

Feeling her fingers curl around his, Kaiden wanted to continue flirting with the woman, but a wet dragging sound from the chamber beyond made them both turn.

The pale veins ended in a hollow at the center of the floor.

Within it lay a translucent sac, swollen around a curled creature whose limbs pressed against the membrane from inside. Dark plates covered portions of its back, leaving stretches of pale flesh exposed between them. Beneath its lowered head, an unfinished mouth worked soundlessly.

Yunohana’s fan lowered.

”Is that... still developing?”