Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 703: Lowest Point

"Who is calling?" Brittany questioned, her tone sharpening into something rigid.

"Just refer to me as... Mister Hero." The caller let out a long, wet, and drawn-out chuckle. "Think of me as a benefactor. An ally with significant connections and a deep admiration for stunning, awakened women."

Trisha had moved close enough to overhear. Her jaw muscles tensed visibly. She gave a sharp, singular shake of her head. End the call.

Brittany nearly complied, her thumb hovering uncertainly above the display. Yet, the memory of sixty-eight hours of anxiety, five hundred thousand in Chronos debt, and the total lack of legal firms willing to represent them weighed on her mind. The device remained pressed to her ear for three seconds longer than it should have.

"What kind of connections do you actually have?"

"The truly beneficial sort." The sound of his labored breathing returned. "I possess the power to make your current burdens vanish. Every bit of it, including the interest. All I require in exchange is... one minor favor."

Brittany experienced a wave of vertigo, similar to when she stood in Maeve’s tent.

"What favor?" she managed to ask, her voice brittle.

"Hehehe..." The laughter dragged on, accompanied by heavy, measured breathing as the man on the other end relished the moment. "What do you suppose, you little slut?"

Brittany squeezed the phone so tightly that the protective casing audibly groaned.

"I own a yacht. A magnificent vessel. We depart tomorrow at dawn. You will spend seven days at sea alongside some elite acquaintances of mine. Accompany us, provide the necessary entertainment, and both of you will walk away with five hundred thousand Chronos each."

"I am certainly no prostitute!" Brittany shouted, her voice trembling with raw indignation. "I am an A-tier awakened combatant, and if you ever dare—"

"Britt." Trisha’s hand firmly gripped her wrist.

Brittany turned to her partner, and the look on Trisha’s face stopped her mid-sentence. The initial shock had been replaced by a cold, calculating intensity; behind her eyes, there was a furious, teary-eyed internal math going on, a calculation she clearly loathed.

"What precisely," Trisha asked through gritted teeth, leaning into the phone, "would this entail?"

"Trisha, don't—"

"Britt... we are completely ruined."

The breathing pattern on the line shifted, becoming distinctly smug. It was the sound of a man who had received this exact query many times before from desperate women, and who understood exactly what it signified.

"Nothing too extreme," he replied, though his reassurance was far more unnerving than the request itself. "Merely... entertaining some old colleagues of mine. Fine, generous men. Individuals who value aesthetic beauty and raw power equally." He paused, an silence that felt like a serrated blade. "Oh, and my sons, perhaps. It is crucial for them, at their age, to understand the proper way to treat women. It is a matter of respect. Their mother is much too dull to teach them the things they need to grasp."

Trisha’s hand remained on Brittany’s wrist, her knuckles turning bone-white.

"What...?" Trisha whispered, barely audible. She uttered the most harrowing, repulsive words of her entire life: "What age...?"

"Hmm, let me recall." He spoke with the casual tone of someone reading a mundane grocery list. "I believe the oldest has just turned fourteen?"

The air left Brittany’s lungs.

Trisha stood motionless. The frantic calculation behind her eyes did not melt into expected rage. Instead, it simply ceased. Every part of her that had been weighing survival against degradation suddenly went dark, like a monitor losing power.

"No," Brittany whimpered. Then louder, her voice climbing into a jagged, desperate shriek. "No, no, you sick bastard! I will track your number down and hand you over to the authorities!"

"Now, now," the man sighed, his tone warm and patient, like a father lecturing a small child on a simple truth. "I am not asking you to mate with the boys. Nothing like that. Simply... demonstrate how such things are done, you understand? Perhaps allow them to witness what a real woman looks like. A bit of tactile education. Let them touch a few things, perhaps." His voice descended into a quiet, conspiratorial murmer. "Nothing but the innocent bits."

Trisha yanked the phone from Brittany’s grip.

"If I ever track you down, I will cut your genitals off!"

She disconnected and slammed the device onto the balcony tiles.

Silence hung between them.

Brittany panted as if she had been running. Trisha’s fingers were dug into the fabric of her sweats. The moon shone white and brilliant above, but neither of them was looking at it.

The phone began to ring again.

A different number. The same pattern. No name, no area code, only digits.

Trisha answered this time. The voice on the other end was thicker, older. He had heard of their availability for private engagements and wanted to negotiate terms.

Trisha hung up after five seconds.

It resumed ringing.

This time a younger voice, smooth, dripping with the polished diction of inherited wealth. He wanted to secure them for a weekend at his private estate. His wife was pregnant and allegedly boring. He suggested they discuss boundaries in person.

Trisha ended the call.

It rang yet again.

Heavy, rhythmic breathing. No greeting. Just a monotone description of his demands, sounding as though it had been rehearsed repeatedly.

Trisha cut him off.

It rang again.

By the fourth call, Brittany stopped reacting. By the sixth, she stopped listening entirely. She sat with her knees held to her chest, her face buried into them and her hands covering her ears, while Trisha incessantly answered and hung up. Each call grew shorter than the last, and every voice offered the same poisoned deal. Wealth. Access. Their bodies and their remaining shreds of dignity in exchange for a debt that someone had leaked mere hours after Maeve set the ultimatum.

Trisha had been prepared to listen to the first man. She despised herself for it, but she had been ready to listen—desperation turns people who used to have morals into cold-blooded accountants. But that was before the children. Before the yacht. Before every subsequent call painted the same nightmarish picture, a room she couldn't escape with men she couldn't overcome, all because they held the keys to the door.

Her previous work for Ashbound had been controlled. There were cameras she could monitor and written contracts to review. She dealt with people she knew by name, within facilities maintained by the guild, with security stationed just behind the walls. It was degrading, yes, and filled with humiliations she was still struggling to process. But it was structured. It was technically safe, and she had clung to that distinction because it was the only barrier separating her reality from the depravity now being thrust upon her.

That distinction seemed fragile now, especially since those very contracts were the ones pinning them down. That sense of safety was merely a facade Maeve had allowed them to maintain. Even the people she had known and trusted included Ash, who currently sat in a jail cell for the crime of attempted murder on public television.

These callers differed only in their lack of pretense.

They approached with the casual arrogance of men who had purchased souls before and anticipated doing so again. They were affluent, anonymous, and patient. Trisha heard the same frequency in every voice—that greasy, unshakable certainty that everything in the world had a price, and they were wealthy enough to pay it.

They all reminded her of the same person.

The man everyone in the world despised.

The former CEO of ChronosX, Maximilian Vice. He was on death row now, and the world was better for it, yet the system that birthed him continued to operate. These men were not Vice, not even close. Yet they were cut from the same cloth, bound together by the chilling assumption that their power entitled them to possess others, and that anyone needing money was inherently disposable.

Someone had spread the word that two A-tier women were desperate and available for hire. That rumor was all it took.

The device rang once more. Brittany looked up, her eyes puffy and her voice sounding as though it had been scoured with sandpaper.

"Do not pick it up," she pleaded. "I would rather perish than hear another 'offer'."

Trisha gazed at the screen. A new number, but the same anonymous format.

She lifted the phone.

The line was silent for a brief moment.

"My name is Nyx Cosmos."