Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 790: Skyward

A guttural howl, deeper and more primal than the horizon's call, erupted from the creature, directed at the ground and the woman who held its legs captive. The beast sensed the damage inflicted by humanity, understanding that its immobility was due to the sheer will of a single woman.

Its six pupils contracted, then dilated.

The gaping maw stretched wider than before.

And the Kaiju leaped.

A piercing shriek tore from its maw as it ascended, a sound aimed at the very earth, resonating with the planet itself. The ground responded, colossal chunks of bedrock, each as large as a small island, ripped free from beneath its four feet and were hurled skyward with the creature. Soil and stone trailed behind in a vast cloud, obscuring the sky for miles. The surrounding trees flattened for the second time that day.

Vespera's shadows had ensnared the Kaiju's knees, anchored firmly to the ground to provide leverage.

The ground, however, was no longer grounded.

Her shadow tendrils whipped upward, momentarily trailing the rising debris before snapping back. Her crimson gaze flared.

"This is cheating..." Luna whispered, her eyes wide with disbelief.

And the Kaiju continued its ascent.

It surpassed the altitude of the helicopters within a single second, clearing the highest point on the horizon in the next. By the third second, the creature was merely a silhouette against the darkening sky.

By the fourth, it was plummeting.

Its four legs were tucked beneath its body. Its head pointed downwards. Its six pupils were fixed directly on Kaiden's position.

It was a dive bomb. The Kaiju had surged vertically only to convert its immense mass into a devastating projectile, raw crushing power aimed at the staging area and everyone on it.

Every Awakened individual on the plain, their eyes fixed on the sky, unleashed their attacks upwards.

Vespera's shadows shifted mid-sweep, transforming into vertical lances aimed at the descending crown. Aria's fingers danced, manifesting a grid of luminous crescent moons above the open ground to intercept the Kaiju's trajectory and impede its speed. Alice's halo intensified, projecting a concentrated column of golden light from above Kaiden's head into the sky. Scarlet was already a blur of motion, unleashing torrents of crimson-gold fire from her palms, forming a column wide enough to incinerate a city.

The defense had anticipated this maneuver.

No one on the ground was surprised by the Kaiju's decision to drop upon them.

[Time Until Defense: 00:00:05]

The Kaiju descended.

Its howl accompanied its fall. Mid-descent, its maw opened, releasing the same cosmic declaration it had uttered on the mountain range when it first broke free from its terrestrial challenge and soared towards the heavens. The sound cascaded down the path of its descent, striking the ground moments before its colossal body. Instantly, every artifact suspended in the upper air buckled under the force.

[Time Until Defense: 00:00:01]

Then, the sky itself seemed to unravel.

[Time Until Defense: 00:00:00]

The Kaiju plunged into an overwhelming whiteness.

And everything else followed.

Every face beyond Kaiden's immediate sight vanished in less than half a blink. The Chairman, the Association's cordon, Eclipse's seasoned veterans, the independent cultivators, the helicopters hovering above, the reporters stationed at the treeline, the multilingual broadcast chatter, the collective effort of Earth directed at this single point – all of it was ripped from the world and plunged into an void devoid of sky, horizon, or direction.

The dungeon gate remained behind them. The staging plain upon which the dungeon rested was still beneath them.

Beyond the treeline... there was no treeline.

There was only Kaiden, his eight champions, his dungeon, and a kilometer-tall mountain descending from a colorless void.

"...What the-"

"-fuck-"

"-just-"

<Big brother, run inside!!>

The overlapping exclamations took the fraction of a heartbeat his companions needed to grasp the shift in circumstances. Kaiden's awareness processed the same altered reality in that same sliver of time.

The Association's S-tiers, the Chairman's blade, Eclipse's veterans, Vespera's outlying forces, every artifact positioned beyond his own gate – all of it had vanished along with the world that housed them.

The overwhelming firepower they had relied upon to slow the descent was no longer present.

And the Kaiju was still falling.

Vespera's shadows erupted from her feet in a single, violent sweep, reaching every one of Kaiden's women simultaneously. They coiled tightly around their waists and propelled them through the dungeon gate. Aria, Luna, Bastet, Calypso, and Nyx crossed the threshold one after another as the shadow path violently thrust them through, the air cracking with displaced energy. A tendril from Vespera enveloped Kaiden's chest, pulling him through the gate with Alice's halo still hovering protectively above his head.

Only two remained outside.Vespera was already in action. A shadowy path extended beyond the gate, while a secondary defense layer was rapidly constructing against the inner wall for her own fallback. Her crimson gaze remained fixed on the descending mountain above. Scarlet, meanwhile, was beaming up at the heavens. The Flame Monarch's initial blast had already impacted the Kaiju’s apex during its fall, managing to decelerate its descent by a minuscule degree. Her second attack was amassing in her palms, and her third was queued up right behind it. Intense heat was converging in concentric rings of pressure, causing the very air above her to warp and shimmer. She let out a laugh. "Hey, big fella!" Her second fiery projectile launched from her hands, transforming into a city block-long lance. It struck the Kaiju's chest plate mere moments before the initial impact's residual energy faded. "Haven't you learned that unchecked avarice is frowned upon?!" Her third fiery column plunged in below the first two, blasting open a chasm in the creature's ribs directly overhead. "Twenty dungeons conquered, and you still crave more?!" Each strike shaved off a sliver of the Kaiju's terminal velocity. These were infinitesimal fractions when measured against a falling mountain, imperceptible from the outside. However, when compounded, they provided the critical buffer Vespera's shadow path required. Vespera's shadowy tendrils coiled around Scarlet's waist. "That's enough." "Just one more!" Vespera didn't wait for permission as her shadows yanked Scarlet rapidly toward the gate, even as the redhead continued her barrage. A fourth column erupted against the Kaiju’s crown just as the shadow path began dragging her backward across the staging ground. A fifth blast fired as the gate threshold passed beneath her shoulders, gouging a smoking trench along the creature’s flank that obscured its entire outer surface. A sixth shot left her palms as Vespera herself stepped back across the threshold, her spectral shadows still focused on the ongoing extraction. The Kaiju’s immense mass descended upon the exact spot Scarlet had occupied moments before, just as her boots cleared the gate's final inch. The dungeon portal slammed shut behind them. Beyond the threshold, in the nascent white expanse that the world had become, the impact finally landed. The dimensional seal absorbed the concussive force. Yet, the resulting pressure wave permeated through. The dark rock ceiling above the Safe Zone trembled, dislodging dust from stone that had never known such a disturbance, and the lights lining the distant cathedral columns flickered once before stabilizing. Silence descended upon the dungeon once more. Kaiden's women stood arrayed around him at the staging threshold, their powers still active, their eyes wide with shock. No one uttered a word. Alice’s halo, hovering above Kaiden’s head, had grown unnervingly still. Luna was the first to break the silence. "...What in the actual hell was that?"