Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 298: Space

On the other side of the chamber, Vaelira’s puppets rushed forward in unison, slamming their blades and claws against the Heart’s surface, making it bleed from a thousand wounds.

Jack’s hammer crashed down on it like a falling wall while Sasha’s arrows detonated with controlled magic bursts, and Diaz’s relentless strikes carved deeper into the swollen flesh.

Its healing slowed. The torn tissue didn’t immediately stitch itself back together anymore. The wounds lingered, smoking and raw.

”We’re doing it!” Jack bellowed, driving his weapon in again with renewed vigor.

Finally, they were starting to make a dent in it. The fact that it all happened because of the actual boss monster taking from it didn’t seem to impact his mood.

The Countess raised her arms. The mana tether went white-hot, and her shadow seemed to splinter into dozens of jagged shapes.

From the edges of the chamber came the first answering skitter. Then another.

The massive door to the boss room buckled with a hollow boom before splintering in half, the stone frame cracking outward.

They rushed in.

The same spiders Kaiden’s party had slaughtered by the hundreds on their march here came flooding through in a tide of clicking legs and snapping jaws. Somehow, five of them had survived, tucked away in unseen tunnels perhaps, and now they came to answer their mother’s call.

But as they crossed into the Countess’s presence, she reached for them. Not in a physical sense, but with that pulsing tether of power she now controlled.

The effect was immediate. Their movements sharpened into coordinated precision, their bodies swelling, claws lengthening, eyes glowing with a mirrored hunger. They shed their shells during their charge, revealing fresher, harder carapaces beneath.

Kaiden’s gut clenched. This wasn’t just bad, it was battle-losing bad.

Nyx was still out cold, and the Countess had a near-limitless fuel source in the Heart, pulling out stronger and stronger counters to their moves. And now her personal swarm had been supercharged into elite killing machines. A battle of attrition was no longer an option.

”Can you hold her back?” Kaiden’s voice cut sharply through the chaos as he adjusted his stance. ”I’ll deal with the spiders.”

Luna’s Stormblade reformed in her grip with a crackle of white-blue lightning. Her grin was feral. ”Hold her back? I’ll kill this cunt.”

”You already said that, and she’s stronger than ever...” Bastet’s fingers flared gold with solar fire.

”Shut it, horny kitty. Stop ruining my vibe.”

Aria’s lunar sigils lit in perfect sync. ”We have to obliterate her body so she has no chance of healing,” she said coolly. ”Luna, watch for her quick movements. She’s getting better at utilizing her high Agility by the second.”

”Duly noted...” the Storm Valkyrie replied while twirling her electric blade between her fingers and stepping forward. She understood very well that she was about to dance with death itself. One wrong move and it’d be all over for her.

”Let’s burn the bitch,” Bastet agreed with a flick of her tail.

”That’s what I like to hear.” Kaiden’s heart sang with adrenaline. Truly, there was nothing better than fighting alongside his lovers. Now, they just had to come out of this mess alive...

He turned with a bloodied blade in hand and sprinted toward the incoming swarm. Behind him, the girls began attacking the Countess. The clash of magic and steel set the air alight.

▸ Trial One – Prove Your Wrath: 97/100

▸ Trial Two – Feed the Glutton: 1000/1000

▸ Trial Three – Conquer the Sinner: 0/1

Kaiden’s boots slammed into the stone as he triggered [Warpath]. His vision tunneled, the chaos of the Countess and the girls fading into a distant roar. All he saw were five hulking elite spiders ahead.

Fire. He knew they hated it. And now... he had the Magic stat to make it hurt.

With a twist of his wrist, the blood-forged blade in his right hand pulsed with heat. [Fiery Burst], his Wrath Stance’s only magical spell, erupted from it.

This time it was not the sputtering flare of earlier battles, but a roaring blast of concentrated flame that swept through the front rank. Such was the difference in investment into the Magic stat made.

The wave of fire blackened chitin, split open joints, and drew shrieks. It wasn’t a massive detonation shaking the entire arena, just a focused, vicious gout of burning death. Enough to make them falter.

The gauntlet on his arm morphed fluidly, from a spiked buckler to catch lunging fangs, into a crushing claw to sever a leg, and finally into a barbed whip that tore open a spinneret. Kaiden fought like a man possessed, each movement calculated, switching between offense and defense in split-second adjustments.

But it wasn’t enough.

For every spider he blocked, another skittered past him. Two peeled away entirely, mandibles clacking as they barreled toward the girls, toward the Countess. Kaiden’s lungs burned, his armor was scored with acidic spit, and every joint screamed from the strain. The weight of the fight was dragging him under.

Then, salvation came in a blur of silver.

A spider’s shriek cut through the air as multiple daggers buried themselves into the glossy black orbs of its eyes.

They were not thrown, but pulled, jerked mid-flight with invisible force. Another blade followed, his dropped Twilight Ripper longsword. It twisted unnaturally in the air to burrow into the next spider’s mouthparts.

Kaiden’s head whipped toward the source.

”Nyx!”

She was still prone with one knee bent awkwardly and her arm extended toward him like a lifeline. Her fingers flexed, guiding the floating blades like extensions of her will.

”I knocked myself out... What a blunder,” she grunted.

Then, with a pained growl, she pushed herself upright, wiping at the dried blood crusted around her lips and nose. Her legs trembled, but her determined expression shone clearly through.

”You’re heavier than I thought...” she admitted with a smirk. Her gaze moved over Kaiden’s form, ”You should lose some weight, Kai.”

Despite the chaos, Kaiden almost laughed.

Nyx didn’t wait for a reply. She lifted her hands, examining both palms for a heartbeat, checking the trembling in her fingers, then leveled them at the oncoming swarm. Her expression sharpened into something cruel. The air around her seemed to bend.

”Hehe! I’m the first, aren’t I?”

Her chirpy laughter turned sadistic as the power around her became concentrated, rippling ominously. ”The first to break through the bottleneck, that is.”

Nyx’s eyes suddenly changed. The dull pink glow in her irises flared into a blinding blaze. Mana rippled outward in a pulse that bent the air around her. Her telekinetic aura, once a subtle hum, now felt like a storm waiting to break.

Her fingers curled. [Kinetic Shard] bloomed into a sharper, meaner spell. ”[Kinetic Sharpnel]!” She ripped a rusted chandelier from the ceiling without looking, crushing it in the air into hundreds of glittering splinters. They didn’t simply float but spun like miniature sawblades, locked in perfect formation by her will.

The first charging spider never even got to flinch before they ripped into its body, causing immense bleeding damage.

She stepped forward, hands slicing through the air as [Phantom Grasp]’s upgraded version, [Giant’s Grasp], erupted from the floor. Spectral arms the size of siege ballistae wrapped around its legs and abdomen. The spider shrieked, thrashing, but the grips only tightened, twisting its joints to the edge of breaking.

Nyx’s grin was pure predator.