Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 723: Hideous Things

From his knees, Kaiden observed.

Tremors lingered in his frame after the Wrath receded, his flesh feverish and unnatural where the fissures hadn't sealed completely, yet his vision stayed sharp. Sharp enough to behold his mother positioned between himself and the trio that had just sought his life, and sharp enough to notice the shadows spilling from her form shifting with intent.

Vespera regarded her offspring.

Selena had retreated half a step. Cassian knelt on one knee next to Calix, his palm resting on his twin's shoulder, both brothers fixing the woman who bore them with the wide, unblinking stare of beasts realizing they no longer ruled the food chain.

Vespera's face remained unchanged.

"I look at you," she said, "and I see my failure as a mother."

Her tone stayed soft. It echoed across the ridge effortlessly.

"My failures have shaped you. What stands before me are beings I can no longer recognize."

Her eyes swept over the three.

"Hideous things," Vespera spat, "masquerading in the bodies of my children."

"You haven’t failed us, Mother!" Calix pleaded. "You haven’t!"

Vespera turned to him. The emptiness in her gaze stirred, and for a fleeting instant, Calix glimpsed his mother staring back.

"I am sorry, my children."

Then the shadows stirred.

They erupted from all sides. From the stone under the twins' knees, from fissures in the ridge, from the gloom gathering at Vespera's feet. They rushed inward like a tide turning back, and the initial surge struck the twins before they could rise.

Cassian thrust his hand out as his mana erupted, a chaotic surge of pure power that collided with the shadows and got devoured. The darkness consumed it without pause, like a blaze devouring a spark, and the following wave crashed into his torso, hurling him backward over the terrain.

Calix yelled. He lurched to his feet with hands igniting in formed mana, Flux power sparking between his digits, and he launched it at the shadows encircling his brother. The explosion ripped into the gloom and light pierced through briefly, a breach in the black revealing the stone below.

The breach sealed before the glow left his eyes.

The twins exchanged glances. Their bond lay severed. Their united strength had already crumbled against Kaiden, and Kaiden was their mother's child, not her equal. The calculation was straightforward and grim. Both reached the identical realization simultaneously.

They fled.

Cassian yanked Calix to his feet and they dashed away, clambering over shattered stone toward the ridge's distant brink where the cliff plunged into the valley.

"Mother, please!" Calix's cry broke as he fled. "We didn’t mean - please!"

Shadows gathered before them. The ridge's edge turned pitch-black, the surface lost under a layer of gloom so dense it seemed the peak had vanished into nothingness. The twins halted abruptly and pivoted right.

Shadows blocked that path too.

Left, rear, all routes barred, the darkness clenching like a fist, and Cassian's mana burst once more in a frantic, shapeless explosion that struck the dark and vanished silently.

"It was Father!" Cassian bellowed at Vespera. His voice rasped, rising higher. "He ordered us to do this! We were following his command!"

Vespera ignored him.

The shadows seized their ankles.

Darkness coiled around their legs and tugged, deliberate and unhurried, a force in no rush. The twins scratched at the stone. Calix gouged furrows in the rock as shadows hauled him across the ridge. Cassian clutched his brother's arm tightly. It proved futile. The shadows drew them both.

"Mother!" Calix shrieked now, hoarse and frantic, nails raking stone. "Mother, I’m sorry! Please!"

They got pulled to the ridge's heart, where shadows immobilized them. Pressed flat to the rock, limbs outstretched, mana flickering out within as darkness bore down on their cores with pressure rendering breath optional and spells impossible.

Vespera stayed rooted.

"We’re your children!" Cassian gasped against the stone. His cheek ground sideways into the rock as shadows constricted over his spine. "You can’t- Father sent us! This was his plan! We didn’t want to..."

The shadows squeezed tighter. His words choked off.

Selena stood isolated.

The oldest Ashborn heir watched her brothers splayed on the ground like bugs, her complexion pale, yet she hadn't bolted. Palms lifted, mana coalescing at her fingertips, its radiance fiercer and keener than her prior crescents. The glow aligned along unseen paths until her fingers traced mana edges so slender they vanished from the side.

She slashed.

The crescent she unleashed differed vastly from those aimed at Kaiden's group. A razor-thin beam of white light traversed to the encroaching shadows in a flash, and wherever it sliced the dark, the dark parted.

Shadows separated neatly along the slash, like cloth yielding to a blade, and briefly a rift appeared in the gloom wide enough to reveal the ridge's true hue for the first time since Vespera's arrival.

The rift mended before Selena inhaled again.

Selena slashed anew. Two crescents, then three, each ripping the darkness in patterns that would shred any flesh. Shadows reformed after every slice before the light dimmed.

"Damn it!"

Selena swore and slashed quicker. Her hands whipped in crisp arcs, each swing birthing a crescent that struck true and cleaved. She excelled. Beyond excellent. Her strikes' precision was stunning, each targeting peak vulnerability, and shadows fractured gorgeously under her blade.

Yet it changed nothing.

Shadows refilled every gash. Successive waves grew weightier. Each fresh darkness strand lunging at her thickened, compacted more, and Selena panted heavier while Vespera remained still.

Then Vespera advanced a step.

Shadows constricted. They multiplied. The ridge's oppressive aura intensified as if elevation shifted, and Selena's next crescent sliced the dark only for it to knit before the glow ebbed.

Another stride. Shadows encroached from flanks, compressing Selena's arena. Her crescents flew swifter. Erratic. Dual-handed now, each exact yet frantic, darkness gulping them like ocean devours drizzle.

Vespera strode on. Each step soundless on stone, but shadows swelled per footfall, shrinking Selena's world.

Selena's hands trembled. Her mana waned, each Severance assault drawing from finite stores, and shadows offered no form to fell. They formed the terrain itself. She fought to slice free from the heavens.