Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 557: You, But Better

The Ashen Knight didn’t bark insults. He didn’t snap at nobodies. He didn’t care what people thought of him, especially not enough to get visibly worked up over a man he had never met before failing to recognize him.

So why now?

Why did he care so much?

If Ash truly had no respect for him, then Kaiden’s ignorance shouldn’t have mattered at all. It should’ve been dismissed with indifference, not this thin-skinned flare-up that felt personal.

Kaiden’s gaze sharpened slightly as he studied the man again, no longer just looking at his aura or posture, but at the oddities in his behavior.

Something was wrong.

”Dude... bruh...” Luna spoke up at last, disbelief bleeding straight into her voice.

Heads turned toward the purple-haired Valkyrie. Unlike the others, she wasn’t squared up or bristling with mana. Her brows were knitted together, eyes flicking rapidly as she swiped through her interface with the frantic precision of someone who had just stumbled onto something cursed.

”He rebranded.”

For a second, no one understood what she meant.

”What do you mean?” Nyx asked, still half-turned toward Ash’s team, her hostility very much alive.

Luna’s tone shifted as she began to read.

”Breaking news! The S-tier awakened, Ash—also known as the Ashen Knight—has just uploaded a new video, revealing his face for the first time ever. Alongside the reveal, he announced the launch of a brand-new awakened channel...”

She paused, eyes flicking up briefly as if to confirm reality hadn’t finally snapped, then continued.

”Together with his three female team members, Trisha, Stacy, and Brittany, he will be debuting the channel Ashen Ones, featuring awakened combat, variety content, slice-of-life segments, and...” Luna hesitated, then finished flatly, ”... adult content with his three lovers.”

Silence.

Pure, stunned silence.

”What the fuck?” Nyx blurted out, the words tearing free before she could stop them.

Her head snapped toward Ash and his entourage, eyes wide, jaw slack with disbelief. Then the shock twisted.

”Wait. Hold on. They copied us?”

Her gaze flicked from Ash to the three women at his side, then back again. ”They saw that the stoic, silent badass thing wasn’t the meta anymore, so they rebranded and became Sinners 2.0?”

The reaction was immediate.

”We are not Sinners 2.0,” the blonde woman, Stacy, snapped, stepping forward with a hiss in her voice. Her glare was venomous, pride clearly wounded. ”We are the Ashen Ones.”

That... did not help.

Kaiden closed his eyes for half a second.

That explained it.

The irritation. The ego. The way Ash bristled at being ignored instead of dismissing it. This wasn’t about respect between combatants. It wasn’t even about hierarchy.

It was about relevance.

Ash wasn’t just an S-tier juggernaut anymore. He was a creator now. A public figure chasing views, engagement, and momentum. And standing in front of him was the one man whose channel had proven - beyond any doubt - that raw power alone wasn’t enough anymore if he wanted to do more than kill monsters.

Kaiden’s gaze swept the edges of the gathering ground, the elevated rock outcroppings, the scaffolded watch platforms built into the mountainside. And there they were. Once he knew to look for them, they were hard to miss.

Mana cameras.

Several of them.

Not the association’s static surveillance lenses, but mobile rigs. These were floating drones that had glowing cores as they adjusted angles to keep the confrontation perfectly framed.

Recording.

Broadcasting.

Kaiden exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled, and finally looked back at Ash.

”So that’s how it is. The almighty S-tier. The Ashen Knight is here to leech.

”Copy this, copy that,” Ash said, irritation sharpened into something defensive as he caught Kaiden’s stare. ”Is that all you can say?” His lip curled. ”We all take inspiration from someone. You weren’t the first adult star to mix variety content, either. People see what works and build on it, such as you bringing that concept to the stage of awakened, adding combat to the mix. That’s how life works.”

Kaiden tilted his head. ”What exactly did you build on my idea?”

Ash didn’t hesitate.

”We’re doing everything better. Higher production value. Stronger awakened, which lets us make our fights more interesting. A bigger marketing budget, releasing our videos on numerous websites, not just the Awakened Media Platform.” His eyes flicked briefly to the cameras. ”More handsome male lead. Prettier girls. We’re also more fun to watch. You should see the movie night stream we did last night.”

”...”

The air changed.

Kaiden’s aura, which had been loose, uncaring, and almost absent until now, went cold, feeling akin to a pressure drop before a storm. Like something vast pulling inward instead of pushing out. The ambient mana around him stiffened, reacting instinctively, and several nearby awakened swallowed without quite knowing why.

Calling him names? Meaningless.

Posturing? Irrelevant.

Clout-chasing? Whatever.

But that?

Ash had made a mistake.

The trio beside him, Trisha, Stacy, and Brittany, were attractive, sure. Strong bodies, trained auras, the kind of women that turned heads in any awakened gathering. Kaiden could guess easily enough who they were.

Originally, the Ashen Knight had led a team of seven. Four men with him included, and three women. All masked. All A-tier. A tight, disciplined unit that analysts had praised endlessly. It didn’t take a genius to connect the dots and realize these three were the women from that squad.

He could already imagine how that transition had gone. How the team dynamic must’ve shifted once the helmet came off and the four decided to become a harem and porn became part of the business plan.

He didn’t see them anywhere now. They were likely discarded and told to find a new team. This type of team didn’t work if there were three extra guys always in the picture.

Well, that is, if that was how it happened.

Kaiden didn’t know for sure whether the four of them had been together before the announcement, but looking at the women now, the way their gazes flicked to the cameras more often than they did to Ash, something told him love wasn’t the only motivator here, if it was at all.

To put it bluntly, these were clout-chasing hoes, reminding Kaiden of Vaelira. Speaking of, that blonde woman might’ve been her twin sister for all he knew.

Bastet clicked her tongue softly. ”Is it just me, or did they not add anything of value at all? Having more money or hitting harder doesn’t make something fresh.”

Luna hesitated, then nodded slowly. ”In content creation, sometimes doing the same thing but on a bigger scale is enough,” she admitted. ”People will flock to what’s most entertaining, even if it’s not the one that set the trend.”

Ash’s mouth curved, pleased, his gaze snapping to her. ”Exactly. At least someone here-”

”But,” Luna continued, her tone shifting as she scoffed, ”that doesn’t mean they’ll surpass us. Not even close.”

Ash blinked.

”I don’t even need to watch their stuff to know it,” she went on, eyes sharp now. ”Their content lacks what made us special in the first place. They’re just money-chasing nobodies who realized that being stoic monster killers was old news, so they pivoted to being ’approachable.’”

Her lips curled.

”That’s something Kaiden figured out before we even started. You guys are basically ChronosX but trying to take the Valhalla’s Sinners route instead.”

The crowd audibly reacted to that.

Ash’s jaw tightened.