Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 773: Challenge

The entire area transformed into a battlefield in mere moments.

Association officers, initially stunned by the Claimant's appearance, snapped back into action. Seasoned veterans who had been scouring these mountains for weeks drew their weapons and quickly formed ranks. The evacuation signals blared anew, but escape was no longer an option. Creatures descended from the skies and surged from the valleys, swarming over everything and severing all escape routes.

As a Glasswing Darter swooped towards a group of surprised rookies, an Association officer shot forward, her blade slicing through the creature's translucent wing mid-flight. The beast shrieked and plummeted, yet two more immediately took its place before she could regain her footing.

Far below the ridge, a Mirecrawler's acidic spray struck an A-tier fighter squarely in the chest. His cry was abruptly silenced.

"Kaiden!"

Brittany and Trisha arrived from behind the ridge, drawing weapons and looking visibly shaken. "We have to get out of here," Brittany urged, her gaze sweeping over the descending horde. "We can help organize the retreat and get you and the girls to..."

An Embermaw, trailing fire from impossibly large wings, plummeted towards them.

An arrow, forged from concentrated arcane power, pierced its skull just as it came within thirty meters.

Tessa Verain landed forcefully on the ridge, her bow already drawing another shaft, her Eclipse insignia gleaming in the dimming light. Behind her, more of the guild's veteran tracker fighters emerged, establishing a defensive perimeter, their movements sharp and precise amidst the growing pandemonium.

"Retreat to where?" Tessa called out, loosing another arrow that brought down another creature. "This entire region is overrun. With their high-speed flight, any attempt to use vehicles would be suicide."

She wasn't wrong. The swarm stretched in all directions, a living canopy of wings and claws descending upon every human scattered across the mountains. The battle strategies honed over weeks of arduous training were now useless. Creatures that had previously attacked in predictable patterns were diving in organized waves. Beasts that had never exhibited pack behavior were now flanking, herding, and cornering their prey.

A veteran on a ridge two sectors away perished because he instinctively dodged left, a maneuver that was previously considered safe. The new threat however, meant left was precisely where a second Darter lay in wait.

Another fighter was killed because she anticipated the Cragweaver's web would fully deploy before striking; instead, it lashed out while she was mid-leap.

Her girls had already moved. They had seamlessly fallen into the formation that had seen them through weeks of perilous expeditions in this mountain range, weapons raised, powers crackling, facing the advancing onslaught with the steely resolve of individuals unwilling to meet their end.

Luna's Stormblade flared with energy. "What are these things, like Pokémon? How can they just evolve like that?"

Without waiting for an answer, she angled her blade towards the oncoming tide of monsters.

Vespera moved past her.

Blood still trickled from her nose, staining her uniform, yet her eyes were sharp and devoid of fear. From the eastern flank, a contingent of the mutated monsters had broken from the main swarm and were directly assaulting their position. Three Shellback Gorgers, their wingspans eclipsing the sky, spearheaded the assault, flanked by a pack of Mirecrawlers scurrying below, and a hulking, spine-covered behemoth bringing up the rear.

The shadows responded to her silent command.

They coalesced from the very stones around her, rising like a dark tide, pooling at her feet, ascending her form, and enshrouding her arms in tendrils that throbbed with a darkness more profound than mere absence of light. The ambient temperature plummeted. The sky itself seemed to darken where her gaze fell.

"Shadow Mandate."

The shadows surged from the ground at her feet, erupting outward in a wave that covered the distance to the approaching monstrosities in the blink of an eye, and where they struck, they held fast.

The Shellback Gorgers froze mid-air, their wings pinned by tendrils of darkness that coiled around them like unbreakable chains. The Mirecrawlers writhed against restraints they could not evade. The hulking, spine-studded giant managed only a single step before shadow tendrils seized its legs, anchoring it immovably to the stone.

Vespera clenched her fist.

The shadows contracted, imploding inwards with a ferocious force that dismantled the monsters into their constituent parts. Wings tore free from torsos. Limbs detached at the joints. The spine-studded giant split cleanly down its middle, as if unzipped from head to tail, its innards cascading onto the rock in a viscous deluge.

The Mirecrawlers were torn asunder, their acidic blood spraying from severed limbs as the shadows dragged their fragmented remains in opposing directions, their mandibles still clicking defiantly.

Then, the remains shimmered.

The Shellback Gorger closest to him, the one Vespera had bisected, flickered at its edges like an image seen through heat haze. Its physical form lost its coherence. Its dark ichor ceased its flow.

And then, it vanished.

The corpse dematerialized within the span of two seconds. It despawned, leaving behind only a faint wisp of ethereal light where the creature had fallen.

This wisp then began to drift, slowly at first, then accelerating, pulled towards the horizon by an unseen current. It moved in the direction the colossal mountain-sized creature had departed.

The remaining carcasses followed suit. The Mirecrawlers. The monstrous creature adorned with spines. Every shred of every beast Vespera had vanquished shimmered, then vanished, leaving behind identical pale wisps that all drifted in the same direction.

"That's impossible," Nyx uttered softly.

She was correct. It defied logic.

Creatures within their dungeons disappear upon death, reclaimed by the dungeon's core. In time, they would respawn, reconstituted by the very force that brought them into being. This is the fundamental principle behind sustainable dungeon grinding, the reason identical monsters could be hunted repeatedly.

However, monsters venturing outside their designated domains do not despawn. Their physical forms remain on Earth, tangible and available for harvesting. This is the phenomenon that enables Kaiden's culinary broadcasts and the reason Runewoven procures materials for their crafts. It underpins the entire awakened economy: vanquish a creature beyond a dungeon, and its body is yours to exploit for its full value.

These particular monsters had been outside. They had been on the training grounds. They had been exposed to the open air under the Earth's sky.

Yet, they had vanished nonetheless.

Nevertheless, no one had the luxury of contemplating the ramifications. The horde was still descending. Additional monsters were advancing towards their location. Tessa was already loosing arrows. The seasoned combatants engaged the enemy.

But Vespera's gaze had turned distant. She fixated on the fading wisps as they disappeared over the horizon. When she finally spoke, her focus sharpened, her red eyes locked solely on her son as her voice sliced through the pandemonium. "Kaiden. What is happening?"

The battle raged around them. Arrows zipped through the air. Monsters screeched. Somewhere nearby, a human cry was abruptly silenced. The sky loomed over the training grounds like a festering bruise.

Kaiden regarded his mother for a prolonged moment, an interval stretching longer than the dire circumstances should have permitted.

"That entity," he stated at last, "intends to usurp me."