Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 1030: Trapped

Kaiden Grey heard David Bennett’s panic through the red prison as its tether dragged him toward the portal above the garden bench.

”Don’t let him out!” David shouted again, backing into the men protecting him.

David’s allies answered with bolts of mana from behind their shields. Aria swept moonlight across the shots headed for Kaiden, while Alexandra caught the rest against a golden barrier beside the pond.

Another impact flashed white across the prison, hiding Aria from him. Kaiden shoved against the shell until his cracked ribs ground together, furious that he couldn’t even reach the woman fighting an arm’s length from his face.

’Come on, you fucking thing!’

He braced both boots against the curved wall behind him and unleashed Envy through his gauntlet. The red magic dimmed beneath his palm, its grip on his chest loosening enough for him to drag air into his lungs.

”What the fuck is he doing?!” David shouted.

Kaiden shaped his gauntlet into hooks and drove them into the cracks in the prison. When he pulled, the shell stretched around the hooked tips, refusing to break even as his shoulders began to shake.

”Ghh...!”

He forced more mana into Envy, stripping power from the shell before it could close over his weapon. His gauntleted arm pulled back, then stopped, the muscles beneath his sleeve standing out with the effort.

Yunohana fed more mana into the silver cord around his wrist. Her blessing pushed the shell away from his ribs, giving him the room to wrench one hook lower.

”Keep going, Lord Grey!”

A woman in burgundy stepped from behind David’s shield line. Her skin was deathly pale, and the blood running from one fingertip gathered into a narrow lance as her gaze fixed on Yunohana.

”Watch out!” Alice shouted from across the pond, but the vampire’s lance was already flying at Yunohana.

Yunohana could have left Kaiden’s side before the lance reached her. Her hand remained over the blessing instead, holding the prison away from his chest while she turned enough to keep the attack from taking her through the heart.

The lance punched through her left shoulder.

Yunohana hissed as blood sprayed over the silver cord. The impact twisted her away, but her other hand stayed against Kaiden’s prison and kept feeding the blessing.

”I have you.” Pain shook her voice without weakening it. ”Break free, Lord Grey!”

Her blood reached his fingers through the crack. Kaiden felt its warmth and looked at the hole in her shoulder, sick with fury at what she had taken for him.

She could have dodged. She had seen the attack coming and stayed because he still needed her hand against that fucking cage.

’You should’ve moved...’

The silver cord dug into his wrist as he pulled. He could still see Yunohana fastening it, her thumb smoothing the knot before she told him she wanted him to remember Japan fondly.

He’d promised her he would keep it. She had looked so happy, and now she was bleeding all over her own gift while trying to keep him alive.

”Keep him inside!” David shrieked. ”She’s hurt! Keep shooting!”

Kaiden drove his bare fingers into the weakened crack beside his hooks. The edge split his skin, but he shoved deeper until he could curl his fingers around the other side.

’I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them all.’

The tether jerked the prison backward. Yunohana stumbled after it, still feeding the blessing, and Kaiden tore harder at the shell before it could carry him out of her reach.

”Grrrrhh...!”

Veins bulged along his neck as he hauled his arms apart. His back and shoulders bunched beneath the cloth, every muscle straining against the prison while Envy ate through the magic trying to crush him.

A crack tore past his face. Air struck his cheek, and he wrenched his head through the opening with his teeth bared.

”He’s getting out!”

The man shouting it tried to raise a shield between himself and Kaiden. His hand was shaking so badly that its rim struck his neighbor’s helmet.

”RRAAAAAAAAAAGHH!!”

Kaiden’s guttural roar tore through the garden as he ripped the prison open. His arms flew wide, wrenching the shell apart from above his head to beneath his boots, and red fragments blasted across the paving.

The portal swallowed what remained of the prison behind Kaiden, snapping the red tether that had been pulling it. The empty opening shuddered above the bench as he dropped free.

Kaiden landed beside the ruined bench. Yunohana stumbled toward him with blood soaking the left side of her kimono, and he caught her before she could fall.

”Alexandra, heal-”

”Later.” Yunohana steadied herself against his arm. Her eyes moved past him to the vampire in burgundy. ”My honored guests are still being attacked. I won’t be able to live with myself if they get hurt because of me.”

The vampire raised another lance.

Yunohana reached into her sleeve with her good hand and drew a folded metal fan.

”Could my guests enjoy one afternoon in my country,” she asked in an unnaturally low and cold tone, opening the fan with a sharp snap, ”without filth crawling out to hurt them?”

Silver threads stretched between its ribs. Yunohana caught the blood lance in them, turned her wrist, and sent it into the walkway beside the vampire’s head.

The woman flinched.

Yunohana smiled at her.

She crossed the space between them before the vampire formed another weapon. A silver thread caught the woman’s casting wrist, and Yunohana jerked her forward while sweeping the fan’s metal edge at her exposed throat.

The vampire thrust her free hand into its path. Metal sank through her palm, stopping against bone, and she hissed as blood spread over the fan to bind its ribs shut.

Yunohana drove her knee into the woman’s stomach. As the vampire folded around her leg, she twisted the fan, wrenching the wrist caught in her silver thread until bone tore through pale skin.

”Ghh! You bitch!”

”You came into my city.” Yunohana wound another thread around the vampire’s throat. ”You attacked people under my protection.”

”Letting you die today is a mercy you don’t deserve but shall attain.”

Yunohana pulled the thread taut through the woman’s neck. Her head struck the paving first, followed by her body, and the blood weapons across the garden collapsed with her.

The guards she had been controlling dropped their swords. One fell onto both knees, clutching his head while Sonoda dragged another away from the fighting.

Viktor watched the vampire’s head roll to a stop beside his boot, then lifted his gaze to Yunohana.

”High Shrine Maiden.” He held the wrist Luna had broken against his chest. ”I do wish we could have arranged this while you were elsewhere. You make everything considerably more difficult.”

Yunohana stepped over the spreading blood. Her left arm hung useless beside her, but the fan in her right hand opened again.

”I am going to make you regret every moment of this.”

”I believe you.” Viktor smiled as she came for him. ”You have been taking such wonderful care of everyone else. It was bound to be my turn.”

Yunohana swept her fan toward his throat. He stepped inside the cut, caught her forearm with his good hand, and drove his knee toward her stomach.

She turned her hip into the blow and wound a thread around his wrist. Viktor released her before it could tighten, tearing a strip of skin from his hand as he ducked beneath the returning fan.

The metal opened his side. He hissed through his teeth, then caught the fan’s ribs against his palm and shoved hard enough to send Yunohana sliding backward over the stones.

She stopped herself with a thread anchored around a walkway pillar. Her wounded shoulder dipped, but her fan was already open again when Viktor straightened.

”Come closer, Mr. Thorne. I have barely begun.”