Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 678: Back to Kai’s Arms

She let out a burst of laughter.

Right after, she took off running.

Storm surged powerfully through her legs, hurling her back along the path she had followed, the canyon walls streaking by in blurred lines of shadow and stone. In her wake, the horde of Razorfangs flooded from the canyon's entrance like a torrent from a shattered barrier, forty pairs of slicing appendages tearing at the space with the blind, unending pace of beasts forged to hunt down prey without mercy until its end.

Luna moved more slowly, yet her initial lead kept her just out of reach. As she fled, she fired bolts of electricity rearward, aiming more to provoke their fury with the dazzling display than to inflict real damage, earning fierce, angry growls in return.

A grin spread across Luna's face. She wanted them enraged. She wanted them fully locked in pursuit.

Five hundred meters seemed to vanish in an instant.

The basin appeared ahead. Noises reached her ears first. The Colossus bellowed. Steel clashed against rock. Chinedu's commands pierced the turmoil. And underneath everything, the growing fear among those who had suddenly discovered their battle carried a deadline.

Luna vaulted over the ridge at top velocity.

Down below, the sight unfolded just as she had anticipated. The Colossus barred the southern escape route, still furious, still invincible. Chinedu's team had formed a compact defensive formation, barriers raised, seeking a path around the monster's enormous form. Ash yelled at a companion. Brittany leaked blood from wounds.

Luna leaped across the basin's lip, hanging in the air for a complete second before the pull of gravity dragged her downward.

Chinedu glanced upward.

As she soared by, Luna thrust her middle finger toward him.

Ash's gaze whipped in her direction.

She directed one at him as well.

Next, she struck the ground on the basin's opposite side, tumbled, and continued her dash, weaving through the narrow space between the Colossus's tail and the enclosing wall.

Following her, the initial Razorfang Slashers spilled over the ridge.

Then came the next group.

Followed by another.

Forty group predators scaled the basin's rim and discovered fourteen warriors already locked in combat with a level eighty Colossus, drained of energy, worn out, and trapped without options.

The Slashers let out piercing cries.

They lunged forward.

Luna erupted from the basin's other end and clambered up the incline, her boots sliding on scattered rocks, Storm propelling her mere moments ahead of the quickest Slashers. A pair of them fixed on her trail, their edged limbs slashing deep scars into the stone where her steps had landed instants before.

Her gaze lifted.

There he stood.

Kaiden positioned himself on the elevated ridge overlooking the basin, outlined against the heavens with arms crossed. The shadowy aura crowning his head throbbed with menacing glow.

His companions encircled him. Aria positioned at the brink, her silver locks gleaming in the illumination. Nyx observed Luna's approach with evident curiosity in her stare. Bastet stayed rooted in place, her golden eyes narrowed in cat-like contentment.

And Calypso beamed widely, nearly jumping with excitement as she viewed the destruction below.

Luna's focus fixed on Nyx.

"Fatty! I need a lift!"

Nyx peered down at her.

"I don’t know..."

"NYX! You’re not funny!"

"But I’m having lots of fun."

Before Luna could unleash a torrent of curses on Nyx's entire being, reality warped. Luna's gut twisted as Nyx's spatial hold clamped onto her form and yanked her skyward, the Slashers' talons slicing through vacant space under her footwear. The basin fell distant, the ridge approaching swiftly.

During the upward pull, the video game enthusiast held her stare in a fierce showdown with the pink-chewing antagonist boasting enormous bovine features, who waited with arms folded under her bosom, a cocky smile set, gazing down at Luna with utter dominance.

"You know, you might be onto something, gremlin bestie. It’s lucky that you’re so thin." Her glance slid to Luna’s slender bust with the effortless accuracy of someone who struck precisely on purpose. "If it was another ’fat’ woman with my size I had to lift, it’d certainly be harder."

Luna’s eye flickered. "I will literally kill you."

"Lucky you’re so aerodynamic."

Luna raised both hands in a rude gesture toward her, yet both wore smiles.

At last, she reached the overlook where the group waited, and without her soles touching firm earth, she leaped straight into Kaiden’s embrace.

He secured her effortlessly, unmoving. One arm encircled her midsection, steady and comforting, as though intercepting a female hurled across bent dimensions occurred as routine as a snack break.

Luna buried her face against his neck, then shifted slightly to poke her tongue out at Nyx.

Nyx smiled.

"I tried, Kai, but the pack was too strong." Luna withdrew, adopting the most sorrowful look she could summon. "I’m sorry..."

"You did your best." His eyes met hers from above, and his smile echoed her own. "That’s all that matters."

"We live and learn," Calypso affirmed wisely.

"Indeed, indeed," Bastet agreed with a nod.

The group shared the consensus.

Down in the basin, the two Slashers pursuing Luna halted abruptly at the ridge's foot, their heads angling up, multifaceted eyes fixated on the female now positioned securely overhead. They screeched and started their ascent. Climbing did not come naturally to them, but as advanced beings crafted for pursuit and slaughter, they possessed the ability to reach the top.

Then the alpha let out its cry.

The noise tore through the basin from the pack's heart, a shrill, shell-like wail that sliced past the Colossus's thunder and the ring of weapons.

An order issued. Every Slasher within hearing obeyed at once, the pair still after Luna included. Their attention jerked away from the lightning-wielder, legs propelling them back to the basin's level where the horde had spotted something far more enticing than a lone escapee.

Precisely fourteen such targets.

Kaiden peered downward, his exceptional video game companion cradled in his hold. She had just performed a remarkable deed as a swift operator, but celebration waited. The basin had transformed into a slaughter zone.

The Razorfang Slashers assaulted Chinedu's lines like a wave of blades. The compact barrier that had staved off the Colossus crumbled the instant forty group hunters flooded the field.

Warriors monitoring the Colossus's side now battled dual threats, protections facing incorrectly, powers directed at improper foes.

Threat level from monsters extended beyond mere ranks. A level eighty Deepvein Colossus represented a supreme hunter from an elite dungeon outbreak, lone, colossal, designed to eliminate all intruders in its domain and tough enough to endure nearly any counterattack.

The Razorfang Slashers functioned as a collective, each one feebler than a comparable supreme on its own, but therein lay the deception many overlooked. One Slasher proved handleable. Ten posed a grave threat. Forty, guided by an alpha that orchestrated their assaults, equated to several supreme hunters operating in unison. The group did not simply sum its power. It amplified it.

Chinedu battled effectively. His S-tier role and superior attributes granted him superiority against the lesser Slashers, felling them through brief sequences of three, four, or five blows that would demand far more from his team. The bigger variants challenged him more intensely, their shells deflecting his hits while their jagged front limbs clashed with his weapon, scattering sparks over the basin ground.

"Call for backup!" Chinedu shouted to the ally who had first warned them. "Now! Get Mariana’s squad here, get the Association, get anyone!"