Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 907: A Guild Master’s Dilemmas.

The convoy rolled through the compound gates and Kaiden noticed the difference before the van had fully stopped.

The skeletal walls he’d left that morning had grown.

The steel framework that had been bare ribbing at dawn now carried concrete panels along two-thirds of the ground floor, still rough at the seams, bolts exposed, but solid. Finishing the whole thing in a day was beyond even their overpowered construction workers, but they were visibly trying.

Scaffolding bristled from every surface. Three cranes were running simultaneously where one had stood idle yesterday, and the hum of welding torches and the crack of nail guns layered over each other in a rhythm that said every crew on this site was moving at once.

There were even more workers present than yesterday. Dozens he didn’t recognize, hauling prefab wall sections that glowed faintly with reinforcement wards, the telltale shimmer of awakened craftsmanship baked into the material itself. Non-awakened crews handled the conventional construction alongside them, operating heavy equipment, pouring foundations, running electrical conduit through exposed corridors.

It was already clear yesterday, but today, there could be zero doubt about it:

Vespera hired an army.

”I’ll be damned...” Calypso whistled, impressed, pressing her face to the tinted glass. ”We left this morning. How is it this different already?”

”Mother?” Aria asked, blinking at Vespera.

”Brought more contractors.”

”Good thinking, Shadow Mommy~” Nyx purred, also gawking through her windows. ”But why? I thought we had more than enough already.”

”There was room for more,” Vespera replied from the passenger seat. ”They’ll be working in shifts from today on. The construction will not stop until it’s finished.”

”Hell yeah,” Luna grinned. ”Do we have an estimated time until completion?”

”Two days, then some interior work.”

”That’s fuc- I mean that’s very cool,” Luna nodded excitedly.

The van reached the interior soon after.

Kaiden stepped out, and Pebble found him within four seconds.

The Guardian had been napping right in front of the dungeon’s gate, dutifully guarding his master’s home, six burning eyes half-lidded, tail curled around a stack of steel beams he’d apparently claimed as a pillow.

The moment Kaiden’s boots hit gravel, those eyes snapped wide and the massive armored body lurched upright. Far too many tons of overgrown puppy came thundering across the compound at a speed that sent workers diving behind equipment.

”Pebble. Sit.”

Pebble sat. The impact cracked the freshly poured walkway beneath him, and his tail immediately began wagging hard enough to scatter loose gravel in a ten-meter arc behind his hindquarters.

”Did he eat a forklift while we were gone?” Calypso asked, hopping out of the van with her tail swaying. She eyed the Guardian’s belly. ”He looks rounder.”

”The workers have been feeding him,” Luna said, pulling out her phone to check the monitoring feed she’d set up. ”I can see it on the cam. Someone gave him an entire crate of jerky.”

Behind them, the rest of the Sinners piled out of the vehicles with brimming energy.

They’d spent the car ride reading messages and they didn’t even manage to get through a fraction of them. A long day was ahead of the gang, one where they would finally try their hand at real guild management.

They were all eagerly awaiting the chance to sit down properly and get to work.

”Kai.” Aria tugged his sleeve, silver hair catching the light as she looked up at him with bright, eager eyes. ”Let’s start.”

...

The dungeon gate waited at the center of the compound, its mana signature pulsing in the slow rhythm Kaiden had long stopped noticing.

Vespera had already begun the building of a reinforced sublevel around it, reinforced concrete and rune-laced steel encasing the gate on all sides, accessible only through a single guarded corridor from the main building.

The headquarters was going up on top of it, burying the gate beneath the compound’s foundation where no stray attack or curious outsider could reach it without going through Eclipse first.

Inside the dungeon was home. Comfortable, safe, fully stocked.

But it was also a separate dimension with zero cellular connectivity.

”There’s no signal inside, so...” Nyx pondered.

”We can just use a tent for the time being,” Kaiden shrugged.

”That’s what the association does as well,” Alexandra nodded along, finding no shame in the proposal.

They did just what Kaiden had said, choosing a patch of shade beside the main building’s ground floor, where freshly bolted concrete panels met the open scaffolding of the east wing.

Two folding tables appeared from the construction crew’s supply tent. Chairs followed, borrowed from break rooms and storage containers. Luna found an extension cord long enough to reach the nearest generator, and within ten minutes, Eclipse’s first official command center consisted of two plastic tables, eight chairs, a power strip, and a tent.

The guild phone occupied the center. Three guild laptops joined it. Personal phones and tablets filled the gaps as everyone pulled out their own devices.

And just like that, the work began.

Kaiden sat down at the head of the table and looked at his guild’s leadership apparatus.

Aria was beside him, pulling her chair close enough that their arms touched, her own phone open to the Awakened Association’s public registry.

Luna had claimed the far end and was cross-referencing sender names against social media profiles at a speed that said she’d done this kind of digging before.

Across from Kaiden, Nyx had her laptop open, building what appeared to be a spreadsheet.

Bastet sat with her tail draped over the armrest, scrolling through messages on her tablet while Calypso pressed in beside her, chin propped on Bastet’s shoulder because no one trusted the demoness with a device of her own.

”Darling, what does...” Calypso squinted at Bastet’s screen and read aloud, carefully, ”’cross-vertical exclusivity framework with tiered engagement deliverables’ mean?”

”Absolutely nothing,” Kaiden replied.

”...Nothing?”

”As far as I’m concerned, they stacked buzzwords to sound important.” Kaiden didn’t look up from his own screen. ”They should know that it’s either my mother or I who’ll read their message, and neither of us are the lawyer types, so...” He went back to scrolling.

Hearing those words, the demoness leaned back from Bastet’s tablet and folded her arms. ”Choco Kitty, I’m really conflicted how to feel about humans.”

Bastet didn’t look up. ”You’re not alone. I’ve only been reading these for a few minutes and I’ve aged centuries.”

Alice had returned to Conduit mode, hovering above Kaiden’s head. Alexandra stood behind the group with a tray of water bottles she’d materialized from somewhere, distributing them diligently before pulling up her own chair next to Nyx, ready to get to work.

Vespera was the only one who did not sit, standing idly by.

”Three hundred and forty-seven now,” Kaiden murmured, refreshing the inbox. The messages hadn’t stopped.

”Sponsors, government inquiries, media requests, guild alliance proposals, and...” Nyx adjusted her screen. ”Fourteen messages that are just fans who somehow got this number.”

”How does that happen?” Alexandra asked with a curious smile.

”Perhaps they know the person who got the phone number the right way and decided they were entitled to it as well,” Aria offered.

”Hmm... Makes sense,” the blonde girl hummed.

Kaiden split the inbox across the table. Nyx took sponsors and financial inquiries. Aria took guild alliance proposals while Luna took media requests, getting Kira and Rika involved. Bastet and Calypso shared the government and institutional contacts, with Bastet translating bureaucratic language for Calypso in real time. Alexandra took everything that fit nowhere, sorting the strays into a tidy overflow list before anyone else could flag them.

Seeing that the monster girl duo weren’t quite on top of understanding contract jargon, Vespera took just one step closer to where the two eager ladies sat, prompting Kaiden to chuckle inwardly.

For twenty minutes, the only sounds were tapping screens, the distant grind of construction equipment, and occasional commentary. Alexandra made one quiet circuit behind the chairs in that time, swapping empty water bottles for fresh ones nobody had noticed her fetch. Maid instincts, and she wasn’t trying to shake them at all. She was happy to do this much for her friends and... Kai.

”This one says they want to ’leverage our brand synergy across verticals.’ What verticals? We’re a guild...” Luna’s lip curled. ”I think they still want to treat us as the impressionable Sinners who were trying to gain fame.”

”Warner Solutions. Defense contractor.” Nyx had pulled the company’s profile. ”They supply equipment to three mid-tier guilds and want to expand into top-tier sponsorship.”

”Top-tier? We’re barely a guild,” Alice chimed from her halo, the dark ring pulsing once with each word. And the teenager was indeed right, Eclipse was officially a low-tier guild, they barely just formed. They were severely lacking in numerous things, evidenced by the loud construction going on around them and the tent hiding the skies.

”Yes, but no one believes we’ll stay like this for long,” Alexandra replied. ”They’re betting on the future.”

”Is it even a bet on the future?” Luna spoke with a sly smirk. ”The Shadow Monarch, seven Z-tier awakened, and the Anomaly-tier dude is counted among our ranks.”

”...Right,” the blonde girl agreed with a happy smile.

That gap was going to define everything about the coming days. This was one of the strongest collections of individual fighters in the country registered as a guild that ranked below B-tier outfits who’d been clearing mid-level dungeons for years.

They had people. Vespera’s loyalists who she snatched from New Dawn could handle the basic operations, staffing, and logistics that kept a guild running day to day. At least, for the time being.

There were also Tessa and Talia who had merged their guilds into Eclipse, providing professionals who filled real gaps.

But... there was an issue.

Vespera only brought so many people, and neither Nova Circuit nor Runewoven had been thriving before the merger.

Tessa’s guild had been financially circling the drain. Talia’s wasn’t much better either, master smiths who’d nearly collapsed trying to run a guild nobody among them was born to manage. They were good people, proven people, but Kaiden wasn’t about to hand them the keys to departments they’d already struggled with in less ambitious organizations.

What Eclipse needed was scale. More hands, more specialists, more of everything that turned a hyped upstart group into an actual institution. And scale cost money.

An hour in, Kaiden stopped sorting messages and opened the guild’s financial dashboard.

The interface was clean, organized, and deeply upsetting.

”Oh dear...”