Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 1055: A Baby

Golden script appeared over Kaiden’s vision.

[Defending Dungeon Master located.]

For a moment he could only stare at the creature curled inside its sac. He had been looking for something that could speak, or fight, or at least stand up to greet the people slaughtering their way through its home.

This thing had yet to stretch its legs.

As they approached the hollow, its head shifted against the membrane. A row of eyes opened beneath its brow, followed by another below them, and Kaiden stopped.

Six eyes looked out from under growing plates of stone.

He remembered that arrangement looming over his home, high enough that looking up at it had hurt his neck.

”Kaiden?”

”The Claimant. Look at its face.”

Yunohana came beside him. Recognition drained the amusement from her expression as her gaze traveled from the eyes to the folded limbs beneath the unfinished carapace.

”A creature of the same kind?”

”I’m not sure. But it is a Dungeon Master, like me and like Pebble used to be.”

The sac bulged toward them. Inside, a hooked forelimb scraped against the membrane, too short to reach either intruder from the bottom of the hollow.

Kaiden extended his blood blade and drove it through the sac, straight between the creature’s eyes.

Its body convulsed around the weapon. Pale fluid gushed over the lip of the hollow as he pushed the blade through its head and into the stone beneath, pinning it there.

The folded limbs jerked once more, then sagged.

[Defending Dungeon Master slain.]

[Dungeon Master Duel concluded.]

[Victor: Kaiden Grey.]

”It says I’ve won,” Kaiden said.

Yunohana stared at the body pinned by his blade.

”It’s over?”

”Seems so.”

”It didn’t even try to defend itself.”

Kaiden withdrew the weapon. Fluid dripped from its point into the torn sac, where the dead creature’s unfinished limbs lay tangled beneath its belly.

”I don’t think it could.”

He had driven the blade through it expecting resistance, some hidden defense that would explain why the system had given this thing the same status as the monster that became Pebble.

It had died before he needed to put his back into the thrust.

[The defeated Master’s domain is forfeit.]

[Recipient: Dungeon #A23-6679.]

[Initiating Dungeon Integration.]

Golden light opened beside the hollow, widening into a view of the Abyssal Cavern. Kaiden recognized the dark rock beyond it as pale streams began lifting from the dead master’s sac.

”Maybe we should give it some room,” Kaiden said, keeping hold of Yunohana’s hand. ”I’m not sure how much of this place it’s going to take.”

Unlike the Claimant, who itself was a walking dungeon, Kaiden was just the master of one. It seemed the dungeon claiming happened between the dungeons themselves.

They backed toward the chamber’s entrance while the streams thickened into a rushing current. Light drained from the veins overhead, pouring down the walls and into the opening to his dungeon.

All around them, the luminous channels went dark. The dead master’s plates crumbled into the flow, followed by its flesh, until the torn membrane sagged into an empty hollow.

”You’re taking the dungeon,” Yunohana noted.

”Yeah. The Claimant lost everything it had consumed after the battle, too.”

Watching it happen from beside him, she could feel the pull of the passing mana against her skin. The power that had sustained this master and its creatures was flowing toward the home of the man holding her hand.

”How much is this one worth?” she asked.

”Let’s see.”

Kaiden turned his attention to the settlement window opening across his vision.

[Defeated domain classification: Low-Tier.]

[Master Duel forfeiture is exempt from dungeon-tier conversion restrictions.]

[Duel forfeiture credited: +5,000 DMP.]

”Five thousand dungeon points.” He grinned, then read the classification above the reward. ”It’s Low-Tier. Mine reached Rank Four, Mid-Tier, before the Claimant battle even started.”

Yunohana studied the emptied hollow while the remaining currents of mana streamed past it into Kaiden’s dungeon.

”Perhaps that explains the preparation period.”

”The difference in strength?”

”Or how developed your dungeon was. You had defenses, servants, champions. This creature was still forming its own body. Perhaps an established domain has protections that this one never qualified for.”

Kaiden considered that. The system had warned him when another master claimed his territory, while their arrival here had been enough to start the fight immediately.

”The Claimant gave me that time as a courtesy, though. I’d rather find out what protections I actually have before something stronger walks into mine.”

Her thumb moved against his fingers. He squeezed her hand in answer before returning his attention to the emptied hollow.

The resemblance to the Claimant continued to bother him. That creature had grown by consuming dungeons, carrying their stolen mass in its body. This one had been developing underground while men fed monsters into its entrance and sold whatever they could butcher on the way out.

’Where did this dungeon come from?’ he wondered inwardly.

[Defeated domain origin: Earth.]

Kaiden read the answer again. The Demonic Pornstar System rarely spoke, much less indulged his thoughts. But when it did, rarely was it jesting.

”What is it?” Yunohana asked.

”It formed here. On Earth.”

She looked down the passage they had cleared, following it with her eyes as far as the remains of the dungeon’s defenders.

”It was growing here?”

”That’s what the notification says.”

For a while, neither of them spoke. Beyond the entrance lay the harvesting yard, with its stolen supplies and the men who had wanted to increase the feeding because the monsters’ plates were getting thicker.

Yunohana remembered the overseer shouting at his workers to put more meat on the conveyor. They had been measuring claws and weighing armor, pleased with whatever their buyers paid them.

”They were helping it grow,” she said. ”All that food...”

”Looks that way. The Claimant called for monsters from twenty dungeons, all of whom converged on its location until it could awaken. This one... I’m not sure what to make of this.”

Yunohana’s relief at their easy victory gave way to ominous dread. She had seen the Claimant tower over buildings on his streams. The creature in this hollow had died beneath a single thrust, but its eyes had already been the same.

How much longer would the men outside have kept feeding it?

”We should get back to your people,” Kaiden said. ”I’d like to know how long they’ve been operating here.”

”Yes. So would I.”

She went with him toward the cavern entrance, keeping his hand in hers as they passed the dead creatures choking the passage. Once they crossed the fallen ridge, the pale membrane became visible between the remaining outcrops ahead.

Through it, Yunohana could see the ordinary cave that led back to the island’s surface.

She slowed.

”Kaiden... We found a dungeon growing in the middle of nowhere by pure chance. How many more could be out there as we speak?”

He looked at her, then through the entrance toward the world outside.

”I don’t know.”

[Dungeon Integration complete.]

The light streaming through the cavern vanished, and a ring of golden symbols flared around the entrance ahead of Kaiden. Another opened inside it, revolving in the opposite direction as the membrane between them darkened.

”What the hell?”

Kaiden stopped with Yunohana beside him. Between the spinning rings, black crystal began branching through empty air, its growing tips trailing sparks across the cavern ceiling.