Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 297: Buffed Kai

Kaiden planted one boot on the Countess’s chest, yanking the crimson lance free. Disgusting, bile ichor hissed as it dripped from the weapon’s tip, but the blood wasn’t permitted to hit the ground as the Blood Monarch’s Gauntlet greedily drank up every drop.

For a heartbeat, the battlefield went still.

”Kai!!” Aria’s voice was the first to break the silence. The sharp edge she’d kept during the fight was suddenly gone as she rushed toward him.

”I knew it!” Luna sighed, rolling her eyes. But the girl was unable to hide the smirk tugging at her lips. ”I could see it from a mile away... that thing’s some OP shit.”

Her smirk faded into a scoff. ”Still, you used it way too recklessly.” The emotion in her gaze was clear: worry. After all, Luna might’ve been a girl with a thorny exterior, but on the inside, she was a tender girl. She hadn’t liked knowing her lover hurled himself from the sky with nothing but blood-forged steel between him and death.

Unlike the other two, however, Bastet didn’t join in on the family celebration.

While the others were caught up in their relief, the Solar Empress’s sunlit aura flared bright. A spear of golden fire formed in her hands, the heat so intense it warped the air around it. She hurled it at the Countess’s broken form.

There was no celebration in her. No banter. Only hatred.

Her target was the undead, and she would not leave the work until she was a hundred percent sure it was done.

The lance of solar wrath was a heartbeat from striking when the Countess’s body lit up.

A blinding crimson radiance poured from every tear in her skin, her limbs jerking violently as if her corpse were a marionette yanked by unseen strings. The broken neck did not heal, yet her head snapped upright in a grotesque, unnatural motion, mandibles chattering in fevered spasms.

Her face was unmoving and lifeless, but her mouth split open far wider than it should, jaw unhinging until tendons tore. She began screaming.

”GIVE ME MORE! MORE! MORE! MOREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!”

A visible tether burst into being between her and the Heart. This tether was a writhing cord of black and crimson energy, veins bulging along its length as if something alive crawled inside it.

But this was no longer a gift from the Heart.

It wasn’t giving.

It was being taken from.

The boss monster, Countess Veylin, was extracting power from her ’child’ forcibly.

The titanic organ pulsed violently with its surface bubbling like boiling tar. The way it convulsed was horrifyingly familiar. Kaiden had seen it in every victim of his [Ravenous Bite], when he stripped their life essence until only a husk remained.

Black, bile-like rot spread across the Heart’s surface, pustules swelling and bursting, dripping ichor that smoked where it landed. The very air soured with the stench of corruption.

They moved as one.

The Countess’s towering, spider-limbed body hung slumped against the ground, her eyes dimmed, her neck caved inward from Kaiden’s blow. She looked dead—she should have been dead—but alas... It was evidently not the case.

”When will it finally end?!” Luna shouted in fury.

Kaiden was the first to react, creating a large hammer of blood, intending to create a literal pool out of the monster. Wrath Stance’s [Doom Strike] was the first spell he cast.

Bastet had sunlight blooming between her fingers. Luna darted ahead in crackling bursts, Stormblade drawn back for a killing slash, while Aria sent a moonlit spell with devastating power at the monster.

Four predators lunging for the same kill.

That was when the corpse breathed.

The Countess’s chest swelled unnaturally, ribs creaking like iron hinges. A split-second later, her body convulsed and vomited light. No, not light, but a compressed detonation of raw mana. The explosion ripped through the chamber with a sound that was akin to the world shattering in half.

Kaiden didn’t even see it coming. The blast caught him square in the chest, hurling him backward across the floor like a rag doll, and the air wrenched from his lungs.

Luna’s Stormblade shattered into sparks as she was flung sideways, flying across the floor in a tangle of limbs. Bastet’s golden projectile dissolved into harmless motes before it could land, the force sending her staggering back with her hair and tail whipping wildly in the gale.

Aria’s silvery spell veered off course mid-flight, snapping against the wall before she was thrown into a crouch.

The Countess’s frame pushed itself upright in jerking, insect-like motions. Her neck hung at an impossible angle, the flesh torn and bones jutting beneath the skin. Then, with a sickening crack, she twisted her head back into place. The unnatural movement was accompanied by the wet grind of cartilage knitting itself together.

The wounds along her throat and chest pulsed with vile light as her body stitched itself whole again, mana-infused tissue knitting over shattered bone until she stood pristine at least in form, if not in dignity.

Her eyes narrowed on Kaiden, trembling with rage. The temperature in the room seemed to drop under the weight of her stare.

”How...” Her voice was a low, venomous hiss. ”... dare you?”

Kaiden rose from his knees, brushing a trail of blood from his mouth, meeting her glare without flinching. The gauntlet used extracted blood to slowly heal him, but it was a significantly slower and weaker process than when he used [Ravenous Bite] on the heart with the Blood Monarch’s Gauntlet as a proxy.

”Dare this, dare that... when will you shut up about this?” His tone was flat, almost bored, even as Wrath’s heat burned in his eyes. ”You’re my enemy. I’ll always dare to do whatever it takes to secure victory.”

His voice then sharpened into an accusatory one.

”Instead of acting all high and mighty, why don’t you explain yourself? You’re supposed to be that disgusting monster’s mother, right? What sort of mother extracts life from her own child just to keep herself alive?”

For a moment, the chamber fell still, save for the hiss of mana bleeding from the giant monster into its mother. The Countess’s expression darkened even further, becoming more primal, more hateful.

”You will not question me!” she spat, each word dripping with contempt. But still, she felt compelled to explain herself. ”It was nurtured by me. From a useless existence that was as big as a coin, to its current glorious form, all of it is thanks to me! It exists to serve my desires. That is its purpose.”

”I see,” Kaiden nodded, already expecting the answer. ”Let’s kill each other then.”

Talking was useless. The hypocrisy of a hopeless glutton such as this one knew no bounds. The hammer in his hands become liquid blood once again, right before transforming into a longsword.

The Countess didn’t react strongly to Kaiden’s words. Instead, she seemed to even agree with him based on her crooked posture straightening just enough for the tension in the chamber to thicken. The visible tether of magic linking her to the Heart flared like a molten vein, pulsing faster, harder, greedier.

The Heart’s own grotesque surface responded in kind as patches of flesh bubbled and blackened, its once-pulsating glow now marred with streaks of oily corruption.