Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 751: Delusion

Mariana woke at 5:47 AM. Thirteen minutes before her alarm.

Her eyes opened to the ceiling of her quarters in the New Dawn guild hall, and for three seconds, everything was normal. White ceiling, gray walls, the hum of the building’s mana-regulated climate system. Then the previous night reassembled itself, piece by piece, and the ceiling became very interesting to stare at for a very long time.

She got up.

Shower. Teeth. Hair dried straight, pinned back, regulation-neat. Foundation applied with steady hands because her hands were steady, because there was no reason for them not to be. Concealer beneath her eyes where the skin had gone purple from a night spent not sleeping and not crying, because she had done neither.

She looked at herself in the mirror.

The face that looked back was composed. Professional. A respected operative of New Dawn, dressed in her uniform, hair pinned, expression neutral. This was a woman who had served under Magnus Ashborn. Who had been handpicked by the guild leader himself from a poverty-stricken country, bestowed with many privileges and even more hope for her future.

She never once questioned whether the man she followed deserved the devotion she gave him, and she was not going to start now.

”It’s a smear campaign,” she told her reflection, quiet and certain. ”The man in the footage was a dupe, carefully made to look exactly like him. And Vespera...” Her jaw tightened. ”Vespera orchestrated the whole thing.”

Her fingers found the edge of the sink.

”A wife who abandons her husband when he needs her most. Who steals everything he built while he’s under attack. Who turns his own children against him and then files for divorce like it’s a business transaction.”

The words felt good. Solid. They were the truth, and the truth was supposed to feel solid.

The woman in the mirror had red-rimmed eyes. Mariana ignored them.

She left her quarters and walked toward the guild leader’s wing.

The first investigator appeared at the junction of the residential and operational hallways. A woman in an Association uniform, scanning a tablet, who looked up as Mariana passed and then looked away without interest.

Mariana kept walking.

By the third corridor, there were four of them. Two in suits reviewing documents outside the strategy room. Two more inside, visible through the opening, going through filing cabinets with unhurried motions. They had legal authority and no reason to rush.

Mariana didn’t look at them.

She turned into the administrative wing and the density increased. Association personnel in every entrance. The operations hub was propped open, consoles occupied by strangers pulling data and cataloging records. Someone had brought coffee. The smell of it drifted down the hall, casual and domestic, as though this were an office and not an invasion.

Cassian’s voice reached her before she turned the corner.

”That cabinet contains my personal files. You can’t just open it and start reading through it!”

Mariana slowed. The Ashborn- no, Morvane twins were standing in the corridor outside the records room, both in yesterday’s clothes, both looking like they hadn’t slept. Cassian had his arms folded and was blocking the doorframe with his shoulder. Calix stood beside him, mirroring the posture.

The Association officer across from them was a woman in her forties with reading glasses and a tablet. She didn’t look up.

”Section 14-C of the Awakened Regulatory Code grants the Association full access to guild records during an active investigation.” She tapped something on her screen. ”Including personal files of guild leadership and members.”

”We know what the code says,” Calix cut in. ”But there are documents in there that contain classified operational data-”

”Then those will be flagged and handled by our secure review team.” The woman still hadn’t looked up. ”Which is also covered under 14-C.”

Cassian’s mouth pressed into a line. He glanced at his brother. Calix met his eyes. Two fighters trained to solve problems with mana and muscle, standing in a corridor where neither applied, losing an argument to a woman with a tablet and a subsection number.

”This is bullshit,” Cassian muttered.

The woman tapped her tablet. ”Noted.”

Mariana walked past them without stopping. She didn’t have the energy for this. The twins could argue with bureaucrats until their tongues went numb and it wouldn’t change a single thing, because the people in this building didn’t care about names or combat records or how many monsters Cassian and Calix could kill.

They cared about subsection numbers. And they had a lot of them.

A young investigator, barely out of training by the look of him, stepped into the hall carrying a stack of folders. He saw Mariana approaching and moved aside.

”Morning,” he said.

She passed him without a word.

The guild leader’s private corridor was the worst. Two armed Association agents flanked the entrance. They knew her face and let her through, but their eyes followed her with polite detachment.

Mariana stopped outside the door to Magnus’s office.

She stood there for a moment, straightened her uniform, and lifted her chin.

She knocked.

The sound was swallowed by the heavy wood. Silence stretched for three seconds, four, five.

”What?!” Magnus’s voice came through the wood like a blade. He’d been awake all night. She could hear it.

Mariana’s throat went dry. She swallowed once.

”Guild Leader, it’s Mariana.” Her voice came out smaller than she intended. She cleared her throat. ”I just wanted you to know... I’m here. Whatever you need. You can count on me, I’ll always be by your-”

”I don’t have time for this.” The words came fast, bitten off. ”Go hunt monsters or do whatever the fuck you want. Stop bothering me.”

Silence.

Mariana’s hand was still raised from the knock. It stayed there, suspended, for a long moment before it lowered to her side.

The composure she had built in the mirror, the foundation and the pinned hair and the words that felt solid, all of it drained out of her in a single breath. Her vision blurred, and a tear slid down her left cheek before she could stop it.

”I’m sorry for bothering you,” she whispered to the door.

She turned and walked.

Three steps. Four. The armed agents watched her pass between them without comment.

Then, from behind her, a sound ripped through the corridor.

”THEY DARE?!”

Something shattered. Glass, heavy, hitting a wall. Magnus’s voice erupted again, muffled but enormous, the kind of scream that lived in a man’s chest for hours before it found its way out.

”THEY FUCKING DARE?!”

Mariana froze. Her head turned back toward the office, eyes wide, the tears still wet on her face.

More crashing. A second impact. The agents at the entrance exchanged a glance but didn’t move.

”Is everything-” Mariana started.

”You should check the news.” The younger of the two agents said it without looking at her. His tone was conversational. Bored, almost. He’d already been notified, apparently.

Mariana stared at him. Then her hand went to her pocket. She pulled out her phone. Her fingers were shaking as she opened the news feed.

The headline was everywhere. Every outlet, every platform, every notification. The same words, repeated across her entire feed, while she’d been standing outside a door begging to be useful.

NEW GUILD REGISTERED: ECLIPSE

Beneath it, a subheading.

ECLIPSE: KAIDEN GREY REGISTERS NEW GUILD WITH VESPERA ASHBORN AS REGENT

Mariana’s phone hit the ground and the screen shattered.

Behind her, Magnus was still screaming.