Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 677: Sorry, I Tried!

Luna dashed forward.

Electric currents of Storm flowed fiercely through her calves and thighs, propelling each step to span ten meters across the rugged mountain landscape, while the wind howled by her ears and the earth streaked under her boots as a hazy blend of gray and dark rock.

Her grin stretched so wide that her cheeks ached.

’He’s mad. Utterly mad. I’ve fallen for a total lunatic, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it!’

The canyon entrance loomed just ahead, five hundred meters away and shrinking rapidly, yet Luna’s thoughts raced even quicker than her sprinting legs.

She relived the scene in her mind.

Each moment unfolded vividly, starting from when Kaiden closed the overlay after failing to claim his second target, up to the controlled rage in his tone as he declared, "So we must do something else." The girls noticed the change in his stance. The relaxation. How his jaw eased, since the fury was no longer mounting. It had gained focus.

"We need something bigger. Something New Dawn won’t dare fight with a squad like this."

Shock registered on the girls’ faces. Luna’s gut twisted briefly before she steadied herself. The subtle tension around his eyes. How his breaths evened out rather than sped up. Kaiden wasn’t descending into chaos. He was strategizing.

She maintained her worried expression to match the others, and also because a scout with sharp hearing lurked nearby, eavesdropping.

That element left her dizzy with awe.

Kaiden had withheld the strategy from them. No murmurs, no private huddle for instructions. He stayed silent and relied on his team to trail him into an apparent suicidal assault on a level eighty beast, aware that the spy relaying info to New Dawn likely caught every syllable.

All of Kaiden’s spoken words formed an elaborate act.

"Girls, this will be a brutal battle. We might sustain injuries. But we must push through."

Directed at the scout.

"Found it. Let’s move."

Aimed at the scout.

"What? They dare fight a monster at level 80?!"

The muttered astonishment as Ash and Chinedu’s team showed up. The tension in his jaw, the taut veins in his arms, the intense glare he shot at Ash—fierce enough to convince the fool he ruled supreme. Even Luna fell for it momentarily, despite being his partner.

Everything for the scout’s benefit.

Each phrase reinforced the narrative: Kaiden Grey teetered on desperation and rage, resorting to bolder follies since New Dawn had cornered him. His choice of such a perilous beast implied he was fracturing, striking wildly, erring badly.

But picking that beast wasn’t an error. It was the core of the scheme.

A level eighty Deepvein Colossus. Towering fivefold over the Borer Queen that almost eradicated them. A hide armored in minerals that mended itself from harm. An aggressive territorial instinct that pursued attackers for more than a kilometer.

Kaiden would never tangle with such a foe. Yet that was its genius. He’d already displayed his recklessness in battling far superior odds, so why would New Dawn suspect deception when they’d forced him into this dire spot?

Kaiden and his allies had shown they could handle twenty-eight levels beyond their capacity against the Borer Queen, making a level eighty plausible for someone with their history, though the Colossus’s traits turned it into a disastrous foe.

Its regenerative armor countered their prolonged assault tactics. The pursuit instinct barred any easy retreat if things soured. It mismatched their group setup perfectly, and Kaiden understood their setup more than anyone.

He selected it knowing New Dawn would engage.

An S-tier leader with a ten-person unit plus Ashbound’s four-man support? That matchup could be won. Tough, drawn-out, draining resources heavily, yet victorious.

Chinedu possessed the power to breach the armored shell. His team had the coordination for a half-hour attrition battle. The Colossus suited a seasoned commander’s group to tackle decisively.

Once engaged, escape became impossible. The pursuit fury trapped them. Thus, all fourteen were pinned in a basin with a single outlet, battling a beast that refused to release them.

Just five hundred meters from a procession of forty Razorfang Slashers.

Luna’s smile broadened to the point of nearly tearing her face apart.

’He chose a beast he’d avoid himself, beside a swarm he anticipated would pursue me, and framed it all as a frantic novice unraveling. He pulled it off without uttering one hint of the real scheme aloud, thanks to the scout overhearing everything.’

She yearned to kiss him once more.

She longed to kiss him until breath failed them both.

That could wait. Priorities now.

The canyon widened in front, sheer black rock sides channeling into a corridor where the atmosphere carried scents of metal and aged gore.

Luna’s senses, boosted by Storm, detected the tremors prior to spotting the motion. Scores of armored forms crammed together, razor-sharp front legs scraping rock in a chorus resembling countless blades honed at once.

The Razorfang Slashers.

They swarmed the canyon base like a torrent of jointed torsos and jagged appendages. Level seventy-three on the outskirts, reaching eighty-five in the core of the line. Massive variants, diminutive ones, agile types jerking at noises, and ponderous beasts marked by battle scars from endless slaughters.

Forty in total. Possibly exceeding that.

All heading northward. All drawn by the force compelling every deep-range monster for days on end.

Luna halted at the canyon rim and gazed at the pack below.

She inhaled deeply.

’Hunt some monsters there for me. If you can’t win, come back.’

His precise phrasing. Delivered poker-faced before the scout, as offhand as dispatching his swiftest warrior for individual farming. Utterly blameless. Wholly logical.

Should she accidentally enrage a line of forty group predators and guide them in a joyful pursuit to a valley where fourteen warriors battled an indestructible rock bastion, oh well. Mere misfortune.

Luna lifted her palm. Storm sparked amid her digits, purple glow flickering over her fist.

She targeted the biggest Slasher in the group. A level eighty-five beast in the middle, its shell dense and shadowy, front legs rivaling broadswords in span.

The thunder strike landed directly on its rear.

The energy spread over the monster’s shell and faded away, inflicting zero injury, no fracture, absolutely no mark.

The Slasher twisted its head her way. Six orbs, every one fixing on the petite figure at the precipice, glowing with purple electricity like a flashing beacon.

A single cry.

Followed by forty.

Chaos exploded from the line. Each Slasher ditched its travel route and charged at her, edged legs clawing the rock, forms scrambling atop one another in frenzy to assault the attacker of their leader. The canyon barriers herded them into a surge of exoskeleton and fury.

Luna brought her hands to her lips.

"Sorry, Kai! I tried, but this is just impossible for me!"

Laughter burst from her.