Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 724: Futile

A shadow tendril snared her wrist. She sliced it apart. Another gripped her ankle. She cut that one too. A third coiled around her forearm, severed by a crescent that scorched her fingers with mana burn and left them bleeding. When she raised her eyes, Vespera stood just five meters distant, advancing relentlessly.

"No!"

Selena shouted in desperation, unleashing all her remaining power. A storm of crescents erupted, each a streak of white light slashing through the space between them. For a fleeting moment, the ridge blazed with the rage of her Severance, shredding the darkness into fragments.

Vespera strode right through the onslaught.

Her crescents struck the shadows, tearing them asunder. Yet the shadows reformed around her, never halting her pace. She passed through her daughter's fiercest assault, the darkness trailing behind like a swirling wake.

Selena’s hands fell limp.

Her mana had vanished. Her arms dangled at her sides, shaking uncontrollably. Shadows gathered at her feet, creeping up her legs. They constricted around her chest.

Vespera loomed directly before her.

The poise that had endured the whole mountain climb, Luna’s severed arm, the stampede, Kaiden’s horrifying change, and her brothers dragged over jagged stone, finally shattered completely.

Selena’s features twisted in anguish. The smug, composed mask she’d worn all afternoon caved in, revealing a 24-year-old woman gazing at her mother with tears streaming down her face.

"I’m sorry." Her voice broke. "Mother, I’m sorry."

Vespera regarded her daughter.

Her face remained unchanged as she pronounced, "You do not get to call me that. Not anymore."

The shadows hurled Selena against the stone.

The force cratered the ridge under her. Then shadows hoisted her up and smashed her down repeatedly, deliberate and without haste. The relentless rhythm horrified most, the calm, deliberate brutality of a woman unbound by time.

The twins wailed from their pinned spots. Shadows pressed harder, turning screams to choked gasps. Darkness sealed their mouths, leaving only the thud of Selena crashing into rock.

Kaiden observed.

He saw his mother pummeling his siblings with the blank expression she brought to family dinners. He saw Selena’s form slamming into the ridge again and again, shadows raising and slamming with a patience far scarier than rage. He saw his sister’s blood staining the stone. His brothers’ mute, restrained forms. His mother’s impassive visage.

The assault ended.

Selena sprawled lifeless. Her body twisted unnaturally in spots, limbs angled wrongly where bones lay shattered inside. Blood gathered below her, stark against the blacker rock, her breaths coming in shallow, ragged wheezes signaling broken ribs.

The twins were freed. Shadows receded from their faces; they sucked in air to starved lungs flattened before. Neither attempted rising. They stayed pinned in place, just inhaling and avoiding their mother’s gaze.

Vespera towered over her oldest daughter and declared,

"You are beyond anything I can correct."

She spun away from them.

...

Silence gripped the hall.

Twelve figures stood in New Dawn’s mountain base common room, forming a ragged semicircle, eyes fixed on Kaiden Grey’s livestream. No one sat. No one had sat in ages.

The stream displayed a shattered mountain ridge with three bodies sprawled on fractured stone. Two heaved breaths. One lay utterly still.

Mariana Reyes positioned herself ahead of the group, arms crossed, face pale as aged parchment. Behind her, Chinedu froze for over a minute. His hand gripped a chair’s back.

No words passed.

They’d witnessed everything—the stampede, the ambush, the crescent severing the girl’s arm, Kaiden Grey’s metamorphosis into a horned monstrosity with tearing flesh and a dual-toned voice.

Then they saw Vespera Ashborn eclipse the sun.

A rookie at the rear uttered a noise. Half a word, perhaps a question’s start, stifled in his throat.

Mariana’s lips twitched. Ordered to remain with her squad, she now understood: the stampede. She’d complied since Mariana obeyed commands, and Magnus had always proven infallible.

"That’s the Co-Guild Leader," a whisper came from behind. Youthful, quivering. "She just... That’s Lady Ashborn."

"We know who it is!" Mariana snapped.

Chinedu let go of the chair. Finger marks scarred the wood.

"Millions of viewers. The Association flagged it before the first strike."

"Let them flag it." Mariana raised her chin. "Those three acted under Guild Leader Ashborn’s command. Whatever the Co-Guild Leader inflicted, it targeted New Dawn’s assets in an ongoing contest. That’s internal punishment on deployed staff who—"

"Mariana." Chinedu spoke cautiously. "She shattered her own daughter’s body."

Mariana met his eyes. Composure lingered, yet terror bubbled near, visible to Chinedu after years of knowing her.

"Guild Leader Ashborn will handle this," Mariana stated.

"Which one?"

The query hung heavy in the quiet. Mariana’s lips pressed thin.

Before responding, the gate alarm rang.

A basic chime. Two crisp notes signaling an approach to the entrance. It sounded for supply arrivals, shift changes in maintenance. New Dawn’s most ordinary noise.

Everyone in the room stiffened.

The hall’s temperature plunged.

It crept in gradually, warmth draining from the air’s fringes inward. Corner shadows deepened. Ceiling lights faded untouched.

Mariana whirled toward the entrance.

The gate parted.

Vespera Ashborn filled the threshold. Her face betrayed nothing as shadows swirled at her feet.

She entered.