Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 1083: The Dungeon Born

Taigi moved with them. Her saber cut into another ape closing from the side, drawing a howl as she forced it away from her archers.

”Hold together!”

The men answered her, their shields closing around the gap. Taigi stayed beside them while blood ran down the monster’s leg, her voice carrying over its screams.

Milo’s hands had tightened around his knees.

He wanted to watch that part again.

The woman who had begged forgiveness on the floor was standing between monsters and her people. They listened when she spoke. When she moved, they moved with her, trusting her to know where they should go.

He had seen Kaiden do that so many times.

But seeing her do it made his chest ache with a longing he couldn’t have explained to Mrs. Weller.

”She worked for that,” Kaiden said when the broadcast returned to the steps. He was smiling at Taigi now, openly proud. ”So did every person beside her. I’m very happy to give them the opportunity, but the training and the courage are theirs.”

”You gave us rather enthusiastic teachers, my lord.”

Nyx laughed behind the view.

”Calypso does enjoy helping people discover their potential.”

”Yes,” Taigi agreed.

Questions were filling the chat beside Milo’s view of the garden.

- GateTheory: Wait. She was unawakened when she went in? Where did the combat path come from?

- Guildless Dave: can i just move in and get one too???

Kaiden glanced aside to read the comments in his own interface.

”Living there wouldn’t be enough. As Dungeon Master, I can invite eligible people to become inhabitants of my domain. When Taigi and her people accepted, the dungeon formed a bond between them and its core.”

”And the core is where their power comes from?” Nyx asked, picking up another question from the chat.

”Yes. That bond gives them a way to grow stronger even though they never awakened on Earth.”

Taigi touched the luminous markings on her forearm.

”After I accepted, the dungeon asked how I wanted to live. I chose to become a fighter. It calls that my Lifestyle Path.”

Another comment caught Milo’s attention.

- SawdustDad: Would I have to fight for you? I’m a carpenter. I’ve got kids.

”You don’t have to do anything for me. I’m merely presenting an opportunity,” Kaiden replied.

Then he looked back toward Nyx and the people watching through her. ”But to answer your question, no, you don’t have to fight. Taigi wanted to protect her people. Others wanted to grow food, build homes, or make the things their neighbors needed. Their work helps them develop powers too.”

”Our supporters chose those lives willingly,” Taigi added. ”Their work made our settlement a home.”

”Would you like to show them?”

At Taigi’s nod, Kaiden played a recording of people cutting timber beside unfinished houses. A woman carried a beam toward the builders while children followed at a safer distance, chattering to one another.

Milo watched until they passed out of sight.

Children lived there too.

”A path works a little like a class,” Kaiden explained over the footage. ”Training or practicing their trade deepens their connection to the core. Their bodies grow stronger, and their abilities develop around the work they choose.”

”So someone who never awakened can become like her?” Mrs. Weller asked from the doorway.

Milo startled. He had forgotten she was coming.

She stood with a folded blanket over one arm, her attention fixed on the interface she had summoned to watch the same broadcast. Instead of asking him whether he was ready for bed, she set the blanket down and pulled a chair beside him.

”That’s what he said,” Milo answered.

Mrs. Weller sat as the live view returned. Kaiden leaned slightly forward on the steps to read another comment.

- MoonlitSinner: Are the glowing marks the only physical change? What else happened when they accepted?

”MoonlitSinner is asking what else changed when they accepted the dungeon,” Nyx relayed from out of sight.

”The next recording is unpleasant. Look away if you can’t stand gore.”

Instead of responding to the question, Kaiden began rolling the next tape.

...

In a private dining room overlooking Manhattan, Edmund Hensley recognized Taigi’s saber as an ape charged straight at her.

She tried to meet its swinging arm with the blade. The impact tore her weapon aside and hurled her onto her back, leaving her scrambling to rise as the monster loomed over her.

”Taigi!” someone shouted beyond Kaiden’s recorded view.

The ape’s fist crashed into her chest.

Bronze caved inward with a wet crunch, and blood burst from her mouth. Her scream broke as the monster struck again, pounding her into the ground until her body lay twisted beneath its arm.

Edmund lowered his spoon.

The remains began dissolving into motes of mana. Her blood vanished with them, leaving the churned ground empty.

”You can look again now.”

The live broadcast returned. Taigi stood beside Kaiden with her hand resting on the saber at her hip, her breastplate whole beneath the morning sun.

Edmund’s spoon struck the edge of his bowl.

”One of my first fights,” she said. ”I was still learning how to use that sword.”

He stared at the woman speaking. Her chest rose as she drew breath, and her face was the same one he had just watched twist in agony beneath the ape.

”I died there,” Taigi continued. ”But the dungeon core restored me. Afterward, I returned to my people.”

Edmund’s assistant looked up from her tablet.

”Mr. Hensley?”

He raised a hand toward her, asking for silence while the chat beside his feed flooded with disbelief.

- Guildless Dave: she’s standing right there. we just watched her die and she’s standing right there

- Mika_RN: If that recording is real... Fuck.

”When Taigi and her people accepted my dungeon as their home, it changed how their bodies were sustained,” Kaiden explained. ”Becoming Dungeon-Born bound their lives to the core. That’s how it could restore her after her body was destroyed.”

”It takes time, and the core needs the resources to do it,” Taigi added. ”We still feel pain. I remember that fight very clearly.”

- Weasel: Edited footage. He’s showing you what he wants you to see. Shitty ass recruitment video

- GateTheory: We’d need the original footage to rule out tampering.

Kaiden read the accusations and shrugged.

”You’re free to believe what you want. Some people need another way forward, and I’d like them to know this one exists. Nothing more, nothing less.”

He let the comments continue while Edmund enlarged the live feed by thought, studying Taigi’s face. She stood proudly beside Kaiden, alive and powerful enough to make his hands tremble.

”Is that...” Edmund’s voice came out too thin. He swallowed and tried again. ”Is that really the same woman?”

His assistant was watching the same broadcast through her own interface, her tablet forgotten in her hands.

”It appears to be. Just like a dungeon’s monsters, she revived...”

”Have someone examine the recordings. The faces, the dates, anything they can check.”

Her fingers began moving across the tablet. Edmund reduced the enlarged feed enough to see the comments again, searching for the question forming in his own mind.

- NightShiftNana: What about getting old? Does the core let you die of that?

Edmund stopped scrolling.

”That one,” he said. ”Could you ask him that as well?”

Before his assistant could respond, another viewer repeated the question, followed by someone asking about an elderly parent. Kaiden was reading them too. His attention returned to Nyx as he answered.

”It hasn’t been long enough to say for certain. But from what I understand of how the core sustains them, I believe they don’t age.”

For an instant, Edmund couldn’t breathe.