Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 893: New Awakened Evaluation

The Chairman of the Awakened Association replaced the President at the podium, and the hall shed its applause like a spent wave.

Where the President had performed, the Chairman arrived.

He settled his hands on the podium’s edges without adjusting the microphone, without scanning the hall, without offering a smile.

The press section quieted before he opened his mouth because every reporter in that hall understood the difference between the man who signed papers and the man who built the deals behind them.

”Ladies and gentlemen.” His voice carried flat and unhurried across the packed conference hall. ”The President has spoken to the spirit of today’s agreement. Allow me to speak to its substance.”

He finally looked at the cameras. What came next was for the billions watching behind them.

”This agreement establishes a mutual research partnership between the Awakened Association and Eclipse. Association investigators will be granted access to Kaiden Grey’s dungeon for the purpose of studying phenomena critical to our continued understanding of the Mana Apocalypse.”

He let the sentence settle, but instead of silence, hundreds of hushed voices welcomed his declaration. Camera clicks were spammed without pause.

”Eclipse has further committed to a first-responder obligation. In the event of a catastrophic-scale threat emerging on United States soil, Eclipse will deploy immediately.”

A murmur passed through the rows of military and government officials near the back, the sound of people recognizing that their emergency protocols had just been made partly obsolete by a guild that hadn’t existed six months ago.

”Third.” The Chairman’s gaze swept the hall. ”Effective upon the signing we’ve witnessed today, non-human sentient beings operating under Guild Leader Kaiden Grey’s authority will be granted full legal personhood within the United States.”

The hall flinched.

Camera shutters erupted across the first six rows as every lens swung toward the two women standing behind Kaiden whose skin announced what they were before any legal document could, and the burst of mechanical clicks was so violent and so sustained that it drowned the Chairman’s next breath in percussion.

”They may not be classified as hostile entities,” the Chairman continued, voice flat and unbothered by the noise his words had caused. ”They may not be targeted under dungeon-break protocols. And they will not be denied the protections afforded to any recognized citizen of this country.”

The international observers had stopped listening to their translators and started making phone calls.

A reporter in the second row was filing copy with both thumbs, phone braced against her thigh. The whispers across the hall had matured into full-voiced conversations, and the Chairman let them run because some sentences needed time to settle before the next ones could build.

When the noise receded, he continued.

”All members of Eclipse will undergo formal tier reassessment using Association-standard artifacts right after this conference concludes.” Measured, almost casual. ”Given the extraordinary circumstances of their initial registration, we believe a comprehensive re-evaluation is overdue.”

Front-row reporters exchanged looks. ”Extraordinary circumstances” was doing the heaviest lifting any two words had done all afternoon, and everyone in the hall knew it.

Then the Chairman paused.

It was longer than any pause he’d taken, and the hall recognized it for what it was. Pens stopped. Lenses steadied.

His hands rested motionless on the podium, and he looked out at the assembled press, officials, and international contingent with an expression that did not invite commentary.

”Finally.”

”The Awakened Association hereby recognizes the dungeon under Eclipse’s operational territory as sovereign ground, under the exclusive jurisdiction of Guild Leader Kaiden Grey.”

Several hundred professionals froze at the same time, pens mid-stroke, cameras mid-adjustment, mouths parted around questions that never formed.

What they’d just heard had never been spoken in the history of the post-apocalypse world.

”No federal agency,” the Chairman said into the silence, ”no military body, and no branch of the Awakened Association itself may enter, operate within, or exert authority over Eclipse’s dungeon without the explicit, prior consent of its owner.”

Three seconds passed.

Then the press section detonated.

Every reporter in the first twelve rows was on their feet with hands in the air, questions crashing into each other above the crowd and dying before they reached the stage.

Camera operators lost their frames and didn’t care. Staffers near the back stood without meaning to. The international observers had abandoned their translators entirely and were calling their governments.

No guild in the history of the Awakened Association had ever held sovereign rights over a dungeon.

No S-tier guild, no national alliance, no military branch. Every dungeon on American soil existed under federal jurisdiction, administered by the Association as an extension of the state that housed it.

That was the foundational architecture of awakened governance, the single rule that had survived every crisis, every reclassification, and every shift in the balance of power since the Mana Apocalypse began.

It had just been rewritten by a young man who’d walked into this same building as an F-tier nobody only a handful of months ago.

The Chairman waited for the noise to thin, then raised one hand. The press section returned to something resembling order.

”I’ll take three questions.”

...

Grace met them at the hall’s side exit after the press had been ushered out through the front, her tablet already in hand and her stride set at the pace that meant she expected people to follow rather than wait.

”Testing facility is on the third floor. Secure room, authorized personnel only.” She glanced at Kaiden. ”I assume you’d prefer privacy for this.”

”Streaming.”

Grace’s stride didn’t break, but her eyes closed for one second longer than a blink. ”You want to stream the tier reassessment.”

He grinned slyly in response. ”Why not? The people want to see.”

His chat was a wall of agreement. Hype emojis flooded past faster than anyone could read them.

Grace looked at him with the expression she reserved for requests that were technically permitted, strategically sound, and personally exhausting.

Then she tapped her tablet and kept walking. ”I’ll let the examiners know.”

They followed her through corridors that emptied as they passed.

The conference hall’s noise faded behind them, replaced by the clinical quiet of the Association’s operational floors.

The testing room was functional, clean, and bright.

A single artifact sat on a reinforced pedestal at its center: a mana-reactive orb identical in type to the one they’d touched during their first registration.

Same principle, same process. Palm on the surface, hold for the reading, lift when told.

The difference was everything around it.

Where the original facility had held two guards and one increasingly hysterical scientist in a back hallway, this one held three monitoring technicians at console stations, four Association officials in formal attire, two government representatives from the awakened affairs division, and Grace with her arms folded around her tablet near the door.

”This’ll be the same process as standard registration,” the lead technician said calmly. ”Palm on the artifact, hold until instructed. It will display your class designation and produce a light reading we’ll use for tier classification. Remember: this reading is not your current strength, but the innate potential your classes hold.”

If it didn’t work as such, a newly awakened S-tier would have a much worse reading than an experienced C-tier awakened.

”Let’s begin already,” Luna smirked, excited. As a gamer girl, this was right up her alley.

Kaiden leaned against the wall and smiled at all of them. ”Ladies first.”

”Hey!” Luna jabbed a finger at Nyx’s back as the pink-haired girl was already moving. ”Fatty is skipping the line! They’re not selling nutella here!”

Nyx shot her a dangerous smile over her shoulder. ”...I really need to teach you a lesson one of these days.”

She placed her palm on the orb.

The surface rippled. Mana swirled in the crystalline depths.

Text formed: SPACE VALKYRIE.

The orb pulsed with a faint glow for a fraction of a second, the same weak, barely-there flicker it had produced when four nobodies walked into a back hallway and learned they were nothing.

Then it doubled.

Tripled.

The faint flicker brightened to a warm pulse, and the console at the lead technician’s station chirped as the needle shot past the first threshold.

”That’s... D-tier.” She leaned forward. ”C-tier. It’s still climbing.”

The radiance swelled. The orb hummed, a low vibration that traveled through the pedestal into the floor, and her voice climbed with it.

”B-tier. A-tier, it’s passing the A-tier threshold!”

Her colleagues were on their feet.

The officials in the back had gone rigid.

The glow flooding the room was no longer warm; it was searing, a white-gold radiance that pushed shadows across the far wall and made the monitoring stations rattle.

”S-tier!” Her voice cracked. ”It’s reached S-tier!”