Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 908: Balance in Red

Kaiden stared at Eclipse’s operating account long enough that the screen dimmed.

Two years ago, this number would have impressed him. As a dejected college student, a full fridge counted as wealth. As a guild’s operating budget, this was a death sentence.

”Mother.” He turned the screen toward Vespera. ”We’re almost in the red.”

Vespera glanced at the numbers without changing her expression one bit. ”Yes.”

She then looked back at Kaiden, and with perfect deadpan, declared, ”Your mother is almost broke.”

Luna’s head snapped up from the media inquiry she’d been mocking. The table went very quiet.

”When were you going to mention this?”

”When you asked.”

”...” Kaiden knew the shape of it, even if he’d never seen the exact numbers.

When Vespera left New Dawn, she didn’t fight for a cent of the Ashborn fortune. The divorce was fast-tracked by her own choice, because one, she just detested his guts and wanted to be free of having to do anything with him. But that was just the personal, emotional reason. Vespera wasn’t one to make a terrible deal just because she hated the one she was negotiating with.

The real reason for leaving everything behind was that with everything Magnus pulled in the mountain competition, she saw a sinking ship. If she demanded New Dawn assets in the divorce, she could’ve implicated herself in whatever the investigations into Magnus turned up.

That decision had gotten them Eclipse, but it had also left her with nothing save what she’d built in her own accounts.

Vespera being Vespera, that wasn’t nothing. She’d kept her own wealth separate from the family coffers, earned and saved independently. A wealthy woman by any personal measure. But guild money burned at a different rate, and the clock was already running.

”How long do we have?” Kaiden asked.

”Weeks.”

”How?” Bastet leaned forward. ”The streaming revenue alone should be covering this.”

”The Sinners’ revenue belongs to the Sinners. The guild has its own books.”

”So what’s been funding the guild this whole time?” Aria asked, her face already answering the question for her. ”Mother, did you...?”

”I alone funded it, yes.” Vespera’s tone didn’t change. ”And I haven’t accepted any sponsor deals.”

”Why not?” Calypso asked.

”I don’t accept terms I haven’t read, and I don’t read terms without knowing what our position is first.” She looked across the table at Kaiden. ”I accepted being the Guild Regent, but choosing who we ally ourselves with will decide the course of the guild. You are the Guild Leader. These decisions were always yours to make.”

She’d been holding the line, bleeding her own money, refusing to sign anything that might lock them in, waiting for Kaiden to step up and make the calls himself.

And while doing so, not once had she mentioned it.

”Mother...” Kaiden sighed, far too amazed by what she’d just done.

After all, they, the Sinners, had been earning incredibly well, streaming revenue filling their personal accounts while Vespera’s emptied into payroll, licensing, and construction.

She hadn’t asked for a cent. She’d considered what they built as a group theirs, not Eclipse’s, and that was that.

Luna stared at Vespera with an expression Kaiden rarely saw on her: quiet respect. ”What a badass mom...” she whispered under her breath.

”Mom’s amazing,” Alice chimed from the dark halo above Kaiden’s head. ”At least when she isn’t trying to pry me off Kai.”

That earned a round of wry grins from the table.

Alexandra observed the Shadow Monarch with curiosity as she timidly asked, ”What would you have done if... Kai didn’t step up in time?”

Vespera considered the question.

”I had contingencies.”

She did not elaborate. Nobody at the table wanted her to.

Kaiden watched the dashboard for a long moment.

”Okay.” He closed the financial dashboard and turned his attention to his mother. ”To begin with, can you briefly walk us through how guilds actually make money?”

Vespera wasted no time.

”There are three broad paths.”

Everyone in the room perked their ears, even if they believed they knew well enough. Vespera carried immense respect in this tent. Furthermore, they knew it was a rare chance to hear the woman actually speak at length for once.

Even she couldn’t summarize all this into a single sentence and expect them to run the guild just like that.

”Organic revenue first. Dungeon contracts, sale of monster material and other awakened assets, media platform income, and revenue from other investments. New Dawn, for example, was a conglomerate giant, created from the assimilation of the Ashborn and Morvane pre-apocalypse assets. They had dozens of large companies adding to the cash flow.”

”Hmm...” Aria pondered over the words. ”We have the media platform income covered better than most guilds, but the rest...”

”Exactly,” Nyx nodded. ”Sadly even our record-breaking stream numbers won’t cover everything. We need to set up other revenue streams, but those won’t happen on such short notice.”

”Correct,” Vespera said. ”That’s why the second path exists, sponsorship. Corporate backing in exchange for branding, access, or influence.”

”If I remember correctly, even New Dawn had sponsors on top of their own organic revenue...” Alexandra murmured.

”Yes. Once at that size, sustaining everything organically is near impossible.”

”I think sponsors aren’t inherently bad,” Kaiden spoke up, seeing how some of the girls scrunched their faces at that. ”We just have to find ones where the deal is good for both sides.”

”Okay,” Aria accepted his words, expression instantly softening.

”And the third?” Calypso asked, happy she fully understood everything thus far despite them pertaining to human stuff.

”Equity. Most guilds sell ownership stakes to investors. Full member-only ownership is rare.”

Nyx tilted her head. ”With our current fame, we could easily solve the money problem by selling off twenty or so percent, but...”

While the sponsors made faces scrunch, this one made some of the girls look toward Kaiden in outright panic.

Now, he did not speak in defense of the path. He did not want to share the future he was building with his girls with some outsiders just because they had wealth.

”That’ll be our last option,” Kaiden decreed. ”I suggest we try getting sponsors to sustain us while we focus on building our internal revenues.”

”Agreed!”

”Yep.”

”Let’s do that.”

The table agreed instantly.

Then their awakened interfaces pinged at once.

Kaiden glanced at the notification. So did Aria, Luna, Nyx, and everyone else who got one. The same message, hitting every member of the winning rookie team simultaneously: an incoming Chronos transfer from the Association’s competition fund.

One million Chronos per surviving member, wired directly to personal accounts, bypassing guild coffers entirely. A hundred million dollars per person.

”Ooh, the competition money just came in. What impeccable timing,” Luna grinned, refreshing her balance with visible satisfaction.

”Grace sure works fast~” Nyx murmured, but she was already reading something else.

”We were so happy the money was for individual awakened and not the guild itself, but now...” Bastet muttered. ”I wouldn’t have complained if all twenty million arrived in Eclipse’s coffers instead.”

”Greed is a cardinal sin, kitty,” Calypso laughed.

”Says the demon whose lover wields the cardinal sins...” the tanned beauty scoffed, getting a headpat in response from the red-skinned woman.

”What’s this?” A separate message had arrived in Nyx’s inbox, and her eyes moved across it quickly. ”I got a message.”

”What does it say?” Aria asked.

”Grace sent me the logistics for the rest of our competition rewards. The custom armor needs time. Their awakened smiths are preparing, and we’ll be called in for individual measurements and design consultations when they’re ready. The twenty dungeon selections can be submitted whenever we’ve decided. The New Dawn favor is the same, redeemable at our discretion.” She scrolled down. ”And Association researchers will be arriving at the compound either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. She says to please prepare accordingly.”

”Why’d she message you and not Kai?” Luna squinted.

Nyx looked at Kaiden with a smile full of warmth and absolutely zero humility. ”Perhaps she identified the real brains of the operation?”

Kaiden chuckled. He didn’t argue.

Instead he proposed, ”We could loan our prize money to Eclipse, structured as a repayable loan so it stays clean on the books.”

The table didn’t argue. Aria nodded. Nyx was already typing.

”Actually,” Luna said, leaning forward, ”why stop at the prize money? Our streams have been raking in insane cash. With the Association handling our armor, we don’t need to spend too much on gear. I say we throw in a chunk of our prior funds too.”

A few of the girls looked at her.

”What?” Luna folded her arms under her chest. ”Building our own guild is cool as fuck. We have like 50 million Chronos. Even if we loan out 20, we’ll have more than enough left over. The pink bimbo’s Nutella jars will never run out, and the yandere chick can keep buying her overpriced makeup. Everyone will remain satisfied.”

Nyx’s eye twitched. ”You always make it sound like I have an eating disorder when I just like to indulge a little after a day of hard work once in a while. I’ve been very diligent with my figure.”

”It’s not overpriced,” Aria said, and left it there. ”It’s a necessary expense.”

Kaiden looked between them and decided not to touch any of it.

”I’ll draft the agreements,” Nyx said, returning to her laptop. ”Shadow Mommy, do you think this is enough?”

”Enough to sustain us for a short while? Yes. Enough to make the money problem go away? No.”

”...Just how expensive is running a guild?!” Alexandra gasped. ”We’re talking about billions of dollars here!”

”Welcome to the world of the awakened, Blondie Bestie~” Nyx purred just as Kaiden’s phone rang.

He glanced at the caller ID and picked up. ”Diaz.”

Diaz’s voice was unhurried on the other end. ”Got a million Chronos sitting around doing nothing. It’s yours if you need it.”

”You sure?”

”It’s just money, boss. I’ll make more as long as we keep winning, won’t I?” The grin was audible.

”...Alright. Thanks. We’ll pay it back.”

The call ended.

”What did he want?” Luna asked.

”He’s loaning us his million,” Kaiden said with a small smile.

Nyx added a line to her spreadsheet without being asked.

”Speaking of loans...” Aria’s eyes shone with a cruel glint. ”Should we ’ask’ Vaelira?”

”You vindictive bitch...” Luna laughed. Vaelira, the A-tier Puppeteer, was more or less Kaiden’s slave, and she, too, should’ve received a million. Same for Sasha and Jack.

”...Let’s leave it as is for the time being,” Kaiden replied, petting the vengeful girl’s lush silver hair while doing so.

Then he looked at the phone. ”We should have enough to keep the lights on for now, but not enough to expand aggressively.”

The inbox’s message count had climbed past four hundred while they’d been talking. Sponsors, governments, guilds, media, unknowns. Every single one of them wanted something.

”Let’s figure out how to proceed.”