Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 801: Hunger

Calypso was the first to voice the collective thought aloud.

"I am utterly tired of watching Shadow Mommy and Flame Aunty handle all our chores."

"You took the words right out of my mouth," Luna's voice, laced with a gremlin's sharp edge and devoid of any playful tone, cut in from his other side.

She cracked her neck, stating, "I'm breaking free from mediocrity today. Witnessing the battle junkie consume my kills makes me physically ill."

Nyx's voice was softer than the others.

"I deeply respect and love them both. However..."

Bastet completed her sentence.

"...We are grown women, not little kittens." Bastet's chin lifted in a slow, regal pose, her tail sweeping deliberately behind her. "We have dwelled in the shadows of others for far too long, Master. It is high time we emerged from them."

Aria had already begun her ascent.

Her boots lifted from the abyssal stone with a silent pull of moonlight, carrying her in a graceful, unhurried glide to her firing position above the front line, a movement that signaled the end of discussion. Her silver hair framed her shoulders as she turned her head down towards Kaiden, her silver eyes reflecting the dome's dim light. Her voice, soft yet authoritative, descended as it always did when she was about to deliver a killing blow.

"My mother-in-law is a woman I hold in the highest regard as a fellow woman, combatant, and elementalist." A chilling yandere register lay just beneath her serene expression, polished to a smooth finish. "But it falls to me to protect you, Kai. My love cannot remain a mommy's boy indefinitely."

The dome overhead reverberated with a crack.

Calypso's laugh erupted first and loudest. Luna's cackle followed closely, her arms crawling with little arcs of delighted lightning. Nyx's breath hitched against his back in a soft, amused exhale, and even Bastet's regal composure softened into a small, approving curve at the corner of her mouth.

Within his halo, Alice's light flared noticeably brighter, and her telepathic communication arrived as a series of giggles.

Kaiden sighed, a short, dry sound, and shook his head once.

"I am nothing of the sort. But you girls have grasped my sentiment perfectly."

He raised both blades, twirling them once at his sides in opposing arcs, the harvested blood along their edges singing as the steel spun.

The first two enemies had already passed Vespera's lattice and were bounding across the open ground towards their line. The heavier soldier behind them advanced with a slower, more deliberate stride that hinted at their destructive purpose.

Kaiden's gaze tracked all three without turning his head.

He took a single step forward, crossing the dome's forward edge, and the shadows parted around him as if by an unseen hand.

"My beautiful angels..." He sensed the six of them moving with him before he heard them, the line falling into formation around him as it always did when he ceased speaking and began to advance. "It is time for us to ascend."

"By the time we return through our gate to Earth..." His grin widened. "I want us to be beyond question."

Six smirks met his words in unison.

Then they surged forward.

The first Wraithstride cleared the lip of the Safe Zone at a sprint, devouring the distance.

Bipedal and clad in dark dorsal scales, it possessed four eyes situated above a maw that opened into a low, predatory hum. It advanced low along Kaiden's left flank, its claws screeching dark sparks off the floor. Midway through its second stride, its body flickered. A dark afterimage detached itself and surged forward towards the kill line while the actual creature veered right, accelerating into the open.

The afterimage collided with Aria's lattice.

She had anchored three crescents at the altitude a flanker would typically engage, their edges blazing with silver-violet light where Lunar Sovereignty infused the fusion's color through the moonlight along their curves. The fusion held them suspended in the air, unlike lesser moonlight which would have dissipated, locked in position by her will as a banner is staked rather than thrown. The afterimage plunged into the lower edge, and the moonlight passed through it without resistance, as there was nothing tangible to cut. The decoy dissolved.

Aria did not shift her hands.

The lattice slid sideways solely through her intent, three crescents accompanied by a fourth blooming silently above the Wraithstride's actual trajectory. The entire wall descended at once. The Wraithstride met it shoulder-first at full speed, and the moonlight bit into its dorsal plating in four parallel lines.

The plating held firm, yet the crescents refused to release their grip.

Where a lesser blow would have shattered against the tough, alloy-dense scales, Aria’s crescent blades remained lodged within the wounds they had inflicted. Four silver weapons were anchored into the Wraithstride’s shoulder, empowered by Lunar Sovereignty, and they refused to yield. The creature stumbled through the crumbling structure, four burning lines deepening with each step. Its ichor sizzled at the moonlit edges, the wounds widening impossibly, the embedded blades pushing them further apart from within. It spun violently for another attack, the lattice still tearing into its form.

It flickered.

Two afterimages appeared, splitting off in opposite directions while its true body darted towards her aerial position.

Aria’s silver eyes became sharp and focused, Lunar Sovereignty’s violet hue now dominating her irises.

She had foreseen the maneuver before the decoys even materialized. The silver-violet lance she’d been preparing in her right hand plunged through the leaping creature in a single, fluid motion. The moonlight guided it through the vulnerable throat, just past the dorsal plating, striking the soft tissue. Lunar Sovereignty propelled the lance entirely through the beast’s body and into the rock five meters below, impaling the falling corpse mid-air. It twitched once, pinned to the ground, and then lay still.

Aria maintained her stance above the impaled creature, her silver hair fanned out around her shoulders by ethereal moonlight currents. Her hand remained partially clenched in the pose that had launched the lance.

The silver-violet glow traced a path down her wrist, across her collarbone, and vanished into the elegant curve of her dress.

She watched the life drain from it.

The smirk that graced her lips was a far cry from the gentle one her stream subscribers were accustomed to. Her mouth curved upwards with a precise, cruel edge, and the silver eyes above it grew colder by another degree in the same instant. An expression of beautiful, absolute satisfaction settled upon her face.

[Companion Kill: Invading Wraithstride (Level 96). +840 DMP.]

Luna was already engaging the second Wraithstride before its afterimage had finished forming.

She had replicated Aria’s successful tactic in a single blink. As the decoy split from the second Wraithstride’s body and lunged forward, Luna paid it no mind. Her Stormblade descended upon the true body mid-stride, striking its hindquarters. The Calamity fusion erupted upon impact.

Most of the blast was absorbed by the heavy dorsal plating.

The Stormblade carved a half-meter gash through the outer alloy scales, and the resulting detonation expanded outwards with a thunderous crack, sending the Wraithstride tumbling sideways across the ground. Yet, its body remained intact. It rolled, regained its footing, and opened its maw towards her.

It shrieked.

The wail was deafeningly sonic. The shockwave struck Luna in the chest from five meters away, and the ground vibrated outwards beneath her boots in a low pulse. She was forced to take a full step back, her ears ringing, her vision blurring internally.

“Aww, is the little baby crying for its mommy? Too bad your mommy isn’t a badass shadowmancer with overly protective tendencies!”

She dissolved into shadow.