Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 681: Death Wish

"I hope Ash screams for help and nobody comes. I hope Chinedu waves at it and it bites his hand off. And I hope whoever’s controlling the camera keeps rolling so the whole world can watch."

Neither offered any reply to that.

"I’m serious," Emilia declared, and the most troubling aspect was how convinced she truly seemed. "Every single one of them chose this. They chose to ruin a good man’s life for a paycheck. So yes. I hope they get exactly what they deserve."

No one uttered a word for several long seconds, as they listened to the typically gentle and shy girl’s heavy breathing now that her outburst appeared finished.

Leia exhaled slowly. "Well. Someone chose violence today."

"She’s not wrong, though," Sarah murmured softly.

"No. She’s not."

They lingered on that thought. Three women in separate rooms, linked through a group call, bonded by the intense anger of those who cherished someone they couldn’t shield.

And they weren’t isolated in this.

Throughout the vast audience of Valhalla’s Sinners, the feeling echoed widely. Forums blazed with activity. Comment areas had become battlegrounds. Clips showing Ash flipping off Kaiden and calling him a fag circulated repeatedly next to footage of Kaiden’s Borer Queen defeat, placed together, the stark difference speaking volumes without any words.

The crowd craved vengeance.

They yearned to witness their Blood Knight cease fleeing, cease evading, cease acting nobly. They desired him to pivot, face every individual who had harmed him, and fulfill what his title implied. The devoted female fans hoped for it out of affection. The battle fans desired the thrill of the action. The everyday watchers wanted it simply because observing a tormentor receive retaliation thrills everyone.

Yet Kaiden’s stream remained offline. And the final sight before it ended was a man driven to his limit, departing from another robbed victory as his foes mocked from behind.

Such an image hardly sparked optimism.

Sarah reloaded the stream page once more. It stayed dark.

"He’s been offline for almost an hour now," she noted. They were all aware. They had witnessed Kai gaze into the lens and announce ’the stream is over,’ before the feed vanished. They had seen the audience numbers plummet to nothing and the chat halt in the middle of posts, leaving thousands interrupted mid-thought.

It was a wise decision. They grasped his reasoning. The broadcast had turned into a risk, providing real-time details of his location and plans that New Dawn members likely exploited with their other monitoring tools. Each statement from Kai during the stream handed over data to the adversaries.

Yet comprehending the cause didn’t ease the discomfort of facing an inactive screen.

"He has a plan," Leia stated.

Sarah glanced at her tablet. "You think so?"

"I know so." Leia’s tone had changed once more, moving from rage to the firm confidence she displayed when dissecting Kai’s choices as if they were puzzle pieces in a game. "Consider this. When has Kai ever shut off the stream? Almost never. Not in the Borer Queen battle when they were being torn to shreds. Not when Ash initially appeared and began claiming victories. Not when the chat exploded with concern at the direst points or when Maximilian’s fanatics attacked him. He maintained it active amid all chaos because the stream forms his tactic, it’s his material, it’s his image, it’s his advantage."

She shifted closer. The fervor resonated in her words.

"He didn’t switch it off out of defeat. He switched it off because the action he’s preparing, he preferred the foes not anticipate it. And he preferred we not witness it too, lest we respond, and a spy might lurk near enough to catch the stream sound."

"That’s... quite a few guesses," Sarah responded cautiously.

"Name one instance where Kai moved without a strategy."

Sarah lacked a response for that.

"Exactly."

Further quietness followed. Emilia had fallen silent once again, her anger exhausted, though the feelings lingered in how her breaths transmitted via the microphone.

"We could check," Sarah suggested. "Ash’s stream remains active. If anything’s unfolding in the area, we’d catch it from his viewpoint."

The reply came right away.

"Absolutely not." Leia’s voice dripped with revulsion, like a woman presented a dish of wriggling insects. "I’d sooner dig out my eyes with a dull utensil than grant that guy even one additional view in his stats."

"I second that," Emilia stated bluntly.

"I’m not saying we enjoy it, I’m saying we could gather details about..."

"Sarah. That stream offers the viewpoint of the fellow who labeled Kai a fag on broadcast TV. I refuse to view it. I refuse to boost his numbers. I refuse to provide him the pleasure of one extra watcher, even if he’d remain unaware."

"Even for intel?"

"Even for intel."

Sarah didn’t press further. She didn’t truly wish to observe it herself. The idea had been logical on a basic level, but underneath lay an unspoken dread none voiced.

Kai and the girls versus two S-tier awakened and twenty-two combatants supported by one of the nation’s top three guilds. All within a region swarming with beasts far surpassing their levels.

The numbers were terrifying.

And none desired to watch those numbers unfold via the lens of the victors.

"So we wait," Sarah declared.

"We wait."

They waited.

Emilia examined the Valhalla’s Sinners channel metrics for the fourth occasion in ten minutes and gazed at the stagnant viewer line. Leia launched a forum discussion on the event and scanned remarks without joining in, which for Leia amounted to deep contemplation. Sarah reloaded the stream page yet again since her finger seemed compelled to do so.

The moments crawled by.

One minute. Two. Five.

Sarah was mentally crafting a roster of remarks she’d deliver to Ash upon any personal encounter, which proved both soothing and inventively detailed, when the alert arrived.

All three screens buzzed simultaneously.

Valhalla’s Sinners — STREAM LIVE

Sarah let out a sharp cry.

Emilia let out a shriek.

Leia’s seat thrust ahead with such force that the noise rang like a shot across the mic.

Three women selected in flawless unison.

The video initiated.

And the sight that met them was beyond anything they had envisioned.