Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 661: Pushing Deeper

Day eighteen.

The morning was quiet. Cold air, pale sky, the mountain range stretching north in jagged layers. Kaiden’s group moved through their routine with the wordless efficiency of people who’d done this enough times that communication was redundant.

Aria braided her hair. Luna cracked her knuckles and pulled her gauntlets on with the focused aggression of a woman preparing to commit violence. Nyx adjusted her armor in silence, using nothing but telekinesis. Bastet did nothing visibly, which meant she was already ready and had been for some time. Calypso stretched, popped her neck, and grinned at the sky like it owed her a fight.

Alice floated above his head in her Conduit form.

Kaiden buckled the last strap on his armor and stood.

”Let’s go.”

They walked.

The stream went live. Comments flooded in immediately, the overnight crowd from different time zones filling the chat with greetings, predictions, and the usual cascade of heart emojis.

They’d been walking for less than ten minutes when Alice’s voice cut in.

Kaiden didn’t respond.

Ashbound appeared from the southeast, matching their pace. Ash walked at the front, weapon slung across his back, camera drones orbiting him in a tight formation. Brittany, Stacy, and Trisha followed in a spread formation behind him.

Kaiden’s girls didn’t look at them. They kept walking.

”Morning, Grey!” Ash called out, his voice pitched for both streams simultaneously. The grin was already in place. ”Where are we headed today?”

Kaiden kept walking.

Ash fell into step alongside them, close enough for both sets of camera drones to capture the same frame. He didn’t seem bothered by the silence. If anything, it gave him more room to perform.

”Chat, for those of you just tuning in, welcome back! Yesterday was a huge day for Ashbound. We ground from dawn to dusk, cleared multiple new species, and finished with a net positive on the standings.” He winked at his camera. ”Then we had a variety stream. Cooked some of the monster meat from the kills. Brittany made this incredible stew, and you guys loved it. After that, well...” He grinned wider. ”We filmed your favorite kind of content. All three of them. Links in the description. But remember, kids. Those links are not for you.”

Brittany smiled on cue. Stacy waved. Trisha giggled.

”And for the record,” Ash continued, his voice carrying the casual confidence of a man reading a script he’d rehearsed, ”the Sinners pushed hard yesterday, but Ashbound matched them step for step and came away with more points.” He spread his arms wide, addressing his camera like a stage. ”This rivalry is turning quite one-sided, wouldn’t you agree?!”

His chat exploded with emojis and hype messages.

Kaiden’s chat had a different reaction.

— 44xStorm: This man is talking about his porn links

— SinnerDevotee: the secondhand embarrassment is killing me

— BastetThrone: notice how Kaiden’s team is in full combat gear, and Ash’s girls are in... that

— NyxWife4Life: Brittany’s armor has a window for her cleavage. In the MOUNTAINS. At THIS altitude!

The last comment wasn’t wrong.

Ashbound’s women wore armor designed for cameras. Fitted plates that accentuated curves. Strategic cutouts that served no tactical purpose. Heeled boots that looked good on a thumbnail but would cost precious milliseconds on uneven terrain. Every piece was polished to a shine that said ’content first, survival second.’

Kaiden’s girls were the opposite.

Luna, Nyx, and Calypso wore proper armor, covering them from head to toe. Even Aria and Bastet, the mages who relied on mobility and range rather than plating, wore practical combat attire designed for movement, not aesthetics.

They looked like soldiers.

Ashbound looked like a content house on a field trip.

The contrast was visible on both streams and the audience saw it clearly.

Ash was still talking. Something about engagement metrics and a collaboration he was planning. Kaiden let the noise wash past him like wind.

Then he stopped walking.

Ash stopped too, surprised by the sudden halt. His grin flickered for just a moment before resettling. ”What’s up, Grey? Have something to say?”

Kaiden looked at him.

It was the first time he’d made direct eye contact with Ash all morning.

The day was young, the mountain range was vast, and the competition clock was ticking. Eighteen days down, twelve remaining. But twelve was a generous number. The competition ran for thirty days or until someone uncovered the reason behind the monster convergence, whichever came first. The veterans had been pushing deeper every day, and the deeper they went, the closer they got to an answer that would end everything.

The competition could have twelve days left. It could have two. Nobody knew.

Which meant every hour counted.

And Kaiden was done wasting them.

”Deep.”

Ash blinked. ”Huh?”

”You asked where we’re going.” Kaiden held his gaze for a beat. ”We’re going deep. Into the northern range. Past the extreme caution markers.”

Silence.

Ash’s grin stiffened. The northern range. Where the association had posted density warnings that most guilds treated as a polite way of saying ’you will die here.’ Where only the best of the veteran track operated, and rookies didn’t venture. Where the monsters came from different breaches and walked together like an army with a destination.

”If you still wish to follow us, that is.”

He didn’t wait for an answer.

He turned and walked north, and his girls fell into step beside him. No words were uttered, no smug backward glances were sent their way. Only six armored figures were moving with the quiet certainty of people who had already made their decision and saw no reason to discuss it further.

The cameras caught all of it.

Ash stood where Kaiden had left him, his three girls arrayed behind him in their polished, camera-ready armor. His stream was live. His chat was watching. The grin held, technically.

But the footage told a story he couldn’t narrate his way out of.

Kaiden’s group was already a shrinking silhouette heading north.

Ash’s chat was losing its mind.

— GigaAsh: Bro, go follow! Why are you standing still?!

— BigAshEnergy: If he backs down here, it’s over! I’m not watching again.

— AlphaViewer: The man you called a beta and a simp for days just walked into the death zone without flinching. your move

Ash read the chat.

His gaze darkened.

He was higher level than Kaiden. Level seventy-three to Kaiden’s low fifties. His class was higher-tiered. His girls were stronger than every single one of Kaiden’s. If that clown and his group of misfits could walk into the northern range with that kind of confidence, then Ashbound had no excuse to turn around.

None.

”Let’s go,” he said.

Brittany’s smile dropped. She stepped closer and spoke in a whisper that the camera drones couldn’t quite pick up. ”Ash, this is insane. We haven’t prepared for-”

”I said, let’s go.”

Stacy tried next, her voice even lower. ”The caution markers are there for a reason. If we-”

”You either follow, or you’re done.” Ash didn’t look at them. His eyes were fixed on the shrinking figures heading north. ”Not just today. Done. The contract. The stream. The brand. Everything. You walk away now, and you walk away from all of it.”

The silence between the three women lasted exactly two seconds.

They followed.

...

Kaiden’s group broke into a sprint the moment they cleared the safe zone.

Luna surged ahead, her Storm affinity translating raw mana into speed that left the rest of them trailing by dozens of meters. She moved through the terrain like a bolt of violet lightning, scanning the path, reading the ground, checking for ambushes and obstacles before the main group arrived.

The terrain shifted as they pushed north. The rocky slopes grew steeper. The vegetation thinned until there was nothing left but black stone and patches of frost that clung to the shadows between ridges. The air thickened with mana density that pressed against their skin like humidity before a storm.

Behind them, Ashbound followed. Ash’s camera drones struggled with the altitude, their broadcast runes flickering in the dense mana.

Kaiden’s system fed him information as they moved. Names, species, levels. Monsters in the distance, some resting on ridgelines, others locked in territorial disputes with groups from other guilds.

[Boulderjaw Patriarch — Lv. 71]

They’d fought the regular Boulderjaws yesterday. The patriarch variant was bigger and meaner.

They pushed deeper.

[Cragweaver Broodmother — Lv. 73]

Kaiden noted it. A squad from Iron Halo was fighting three of them in a ravine below, their healer working overtime to keep a frontliner standing after a minerite thread caught him across the torso. Ugly fight. The Iron Halo squad was winning, but they were paying for it.

Deeper.