Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 1069: New Purchases

From his throne in the palace, Kaiden selected the passage from Japan on their shared map.

It emerged straight into the Verdant Expanse. The Dungeon-Born sentries he had left there stood between that opening and the palace, with the diverted monsters waiting nearby.

Yunohana followed his attention.

"This is what you noticed earlier."

"Anyone who gets through that cavern can walk straight toward our front door."

The laughter eased around the throne.

From the American gate, invaders first had to cross the Abyssal Cavern. Beyond it, one route ran through the Abyssal Corridor and Twilight Sink; the other took them through the Magma Vein Expanse and Virulent Mire before reaching the forest around his palace.

Yunohana leaned closer to the old magma route on the map, following its molten channels into the poisoned basin beyond them.

"May I ask how we intend to get through that ourselves?"

Kaiden looked up at her.

"We don’t."

"...Oh." The Japanese beauty’s eyes shone with understanding. "You’ve limited the number of traversable routes with that environment."

"That was the plan." He traced the other branch through the Corridor and Twilight Sink. "We take this one. Same way we went to see Mom."

The Japanese entrance bypassed both routes.

He wanted whoever tried that route to regret their choice long before they saw his home.

He opened the crystal passage’s entry, looking for what he could change.

[Annex connection: Provisional.]

[Initial configuration available. Connection endpoints fixed.]

"Hang on... That tunnel is temporary?"

Kaiden opened the description beneath the entry. He had been looking for somewhere to put more guards, but as he read what the system was offering, a grin spread across his face.

"That passage connected the conquered dungeon to ours. Looks like I can replace it with whatever terrain I buy."

Aria leaned over the armrest to read it herself.

"You can put an entire region where that tunnel is?"

"Apparently, yes."

"Oh, that’s just filthy." Luna was beginning to grin too. "They go into a cave in Japan and find a whole new dungeon waiting on the way to our house."

Alexandra followed the highlighted passage to its forest mouth.

"Would it still bring us out here?"

"Yes. The conquered cavern stays at one end, and this opening into our forest stays at the other. Everything I buy goes between them."

He traced that connection on the map, already eager to fill it. Anyone coming from Japan would have to cross the land he chose before reaching the Verdant Expanse.

"I only get to replace it once, though. After I confirm this, I’ll have to reach High-Tier before I can reshape it again."

"Then may I see what we have to choose from?" Nyx rested a hand on his shoulder. "I’d hate for you to find something nastier after we’ve paid~"

"Let’s go shopping," Kaiden smiled.

He checked that the passage was empty. With no hostiles inside the domain to prevent construction, he asked the sentries at the forest mouth to withdraw toward the palace, watching their markers cross the grass with the waiting monsters behind them.

"Twelve square kilometres," he murmured, spreading the purchase outline through the provisional connection.

"What are you putting there?" Luna asked.

Magma Vein Expanse was available. He could turn that lovely walk home into another river of molten stone, though he would then have to get his own people across it every time they visited Japan.

His attention caught on Chasm of Echoes.

Eight square kilometres opened in the preview, a gulf of darkness crossed by winding ledges and stone bridges. Kaiden turned it to follow the route from one end to the other. Anyone on foot would spend much of that journey exposed above a drop they could barely see into.

Four square kilometres of Hollow Peaks rose along its sides, their jagged crowns pierced by caverns. He angled the cave mouths toward the crossings, already imagining his flying creatures waiting inside.

Bastet studied the heights.

"Our hunters would love those caves, Master." Her smile grew as she followed the crossings. "Imagine getting halfway across before all those wings come out above you."

"Could you turn it, Kai?" Nyx asked, leaning in beside her. "I’d like to see what comes out behind our unfortunate visitors."

Kaiden rotated the preview for her. Beyond the caves, a bridge curved out from the cliff before meeting a landing on the opposite wall. Intruders crossing it would have to turn their backs on the holes above them.

Calypso’s tail lifted behind her.

"Darling, could you make that landing wider? I’d love to have a Monolith waiting there when someone finally gets across~"

"How does this look?"

He broadened the landing until the great creature had room to swing its maul across the bridge’s end. Calypso leaned over him to inspect it, her pleased smile making him glad she’d asked.

"They can try flying past," Kaiden said, tracing the open space beside it. "Then they get to meet everything living up there."

The broader shelves between the crossings bothered Kaiden. An enemy could pitch camp there, eat and heal while studying the next crossing, all while his beautiful new acreage gave them somewhere comfortable to do it.

He opened the defenses menu.

Twenty Lava Turrets went into the plan, recessed into the cliffs above the crossings. Their firing lanes swept the open shelves and bridge landings, making every stretch of level ground he could see a dangerous place to stop.

Below the Nightshrouds’ perches, recessed positions would let the Gunners fire down on anyone climbing toward them. The larger flights needed hollows farther back, and Kaiden widened their cavern mouths until the Skyfiends could land without folding their wings around one another.

He was enjoying himself far too much. Every creature he had bought could do something unpleasant to an intruder, and he could shape an entire mountain to help it.

Luna pointed toward a descending shelf.

"Kai, what about under there? The fuckers could sit right below your turret."

Rotating the view gave him an excellent look at the shelter he had accidentally provided. A turret across the ravine could fire straight into it, though, and Luna began grinning as he moved one there.

"That’s more like it."

[Terrain purchases: 5,800 DMP.]

[Lava Turrets ×20: 10,000 DMP.]

[Commit expansion?]

Kaiden confirmed it.

[Annex configuration confirmed.]

[Semi-Creation Mode: Purchased terrain only.]

His awareness spread through the new region as the system began applying his plan. The throne remained solid beneath him, with Aria’s fingers still moving through his hair while the purchase boundary marked how far his editing rights reached.

A deep rumble travelled through the palace floor.

In the shared projection, the crystal passage’s floor split and fell away. The gap widened until Kaiden was looking down into the gulf he had designed, pale fragments tumbling past ledges that jutted from its walls. Their impacts came back as a deep, rolling thunder.

Stone grew across the darkness from either side. He watched the first bridge join above the drop, its broad landing thrusting out beneath the caves where his hunters would roost.

Around the chasm, mountains pushed upward in folds of black rock. Dust poured from their opening caverns and swept down the walls, making him feel how far those bridges stood above the bottom.

Alexandra came down from the dais to look through the palace doors.

"We can see the mountains from here..."

Kaiden turned his head. "Fun, right?"

"...Yeah," the blonde maid smiled softly. "This is... Breathtaking, Kai. I could never get used to it."

"I must concur," Yunohana nodded to Alexandra. "I’ve seen a great deal in the past decade, but this..."

"I’m glad you ladies enjoy the view," Kaiden grinned.

Through the opening beyond the familiar trees, jagged crowns now rose inside what had been the crystal passage. Their peaks caught the dungeon’s light above the forest, immense enough to change the view from his own home.

Kaiden could imagine the sounds inside those caverns, the wind rising around the bridges, the first intruder stopping to stare at what waited between them and him.

His creatures felt the new territory through their bond.

At his direction, the packed formations began to separate. Skyfiends rose in flights toward their new homes, the beat of their wings passing over the palace in rolling gusts while the heavy ground troops marched toward the mountain approaches.

The Gunner that had spent several miserable minutes looking into someone’s backside emerged into open space and raised its head.

Luna watched the creatures spread out, still smiling.

"Kai, can you pull back a bit? I want to see the army now that it isn’t halfway up its own behind."

Kaiden began pulling the view back, but a notification appeared before he could finish.

[Domain evaluation complete.]

[Rank 4 ? Rank 5.]

[New structural and utility purchases available.]

[Available DMP: 320,320.]

The new catalog opened with a weapon, and Kaiden leaned forward.

[Arcane Lance Battery.]

[Cost: 15,000 DMP.]

In the preview above the dais, a tower of black metal unfolded around a long, suspended barrel. Three rings revolved independently around it, their inner surfaces crowded with moving symbols. Beneath the weapon, thick roots of crystal anchored the whole structure into the ground.

The demonstration placed an approaching creature between two mountain walls.

Light gathered inside the rings.

When they aligned, a narrow beam punched through the creature’s chest and continued into the cliff behind it, leaving a glowing channel through both.

Luna’s mouth fell open.

"Kai. Please tell me we’re buying that thing."

"I was thinking four," he said, unable to keep the smirk off his face. "Let me see how they work first."

In the enlarged preview, he could follow the mana rising through the buried foundations into the rings. They separated to recharge between shots while the barrel turned toward its next target, selected through the dungeon’s defensive network.

...

Author: Apologies, had to play tech support to both my mother and grandparents for hours on end and also plan out these and the following Chapters. Barely managed to get this one Chapter out.