Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 1056: A New Tunnel

Kaiden drew Yunohana back from the changing entrance as black crystal spread across the conquered cavern’s ceiling. The golden rings were still turning where the way out to the island had been, and each revolution sent another branch racing through the stone above them.

”Is it closing?” she asked.

”I don’t know. Let’s stay back a little longer.”

She came with him, watching a crystal vein descend the wall beside the entrance. It reached the floor and divided, outlining an enormous arch where solid rock had stood a moment before.

*Crrrack!*

Kaiden felt the floor pull beneath his shoes. Across the cavern, the ridges they had fought between were spreading apart, their broken crowns sliding away from one another as fresh ground appeared in the gaps.

”Holy shit... watch out.”

He caught Yunohana around the waist when the movement reached them. She held his shoulder while the stone beneath their feet stretched toward the growing arch, carrying them with it.

There was room opening inside room. Kaiden could watch the far wall recede without anything between them breaking, could feel the distance increasing while he stood still.

His dungeon was making space for what it had swallowed.

The golden rings slowed. Through the original entrance, the island’s narrow cave returned to view, its ordinary rock looking absurdly reassuring beside the crystal spreading over everything around it.

”There’s our way back,” Yunohana breathed.

Before Kaiden could answer, the new arch filled with green light.

Wind touched his face, carrying the scent of grass into the bloodstained cavern.

Beyond the arch, the wall had opened into a passage so broad that its ceiling vanished above the glow. Black crystal grew along its sides, brightening from within as the opening extended farther than the island’s cliff could possibly contain.

At the distant end, leaves moved against a luminous sky.

Yunohana’s fingers tightened on his shoulder.

”Kaiden...”

”I see it.”

He was staring so hard that his eyes hurt. The dark trunks beyond that passage, the sloping green ground beneath them, even the color of the light falling through their branches...

He knew those trees.

”That’s my dungeon.”

Yunohana looked toward the island entrance, then back at the impossible stretch of forest ahead.

The final golden ring sank into the crystal above them. Silence followed, leaving the breeze free to carry the sound of rustling leaves into the cavern where they had just slaughtered another master’s monsters.

Kaiden wanted to run toward it. The urge was so strong that he laughed, looking down at Yunohana to find her staring through the arch with her lips parted.

”Want to see?”

”Very much.”

Her answer came without a trace of her usual teasing.

Yunohana slipped both hands around his offered arm, settling beside him with her chin raised and her skirt brushing his leg. Apparently, even an impossible passage through the world ought to be entered with a lady properly escorted.

He liked that arrangement very much.

Together, they entered the passage. Kaiden trailed his free hand along the cool crystal wall, feeling its faint vibration through his fingertips while Yunohana leaned against his other arm. Ahead of them, the trees grew clearer with every step.

Behind them, the conquered cavern remained visible. Farther back still, the island cave waited beyond its pale membrane.

Japan was there.

He turned forward again, and the first blade of grass bent beneath his shoe.

The Verdant Expanse opened around them.

Kaiden stopped so abruptly that Yunohana pressed against his side. Across the lush green clearing stood the Abyssal Palace, with its familiar approach rising toward the doors of his home.

”...No fucking way.”

He knew how those doors felt under his hand. Beyond them were the rooms his family slept in, the places where his girls sat with him and argued over who was stealing too much of his attention.

This morning he had woken in Yunohana’s estate in Tokyo.

Now he could walk across the grass and open his own front door.

The thought filled him with such wild delight that he pulled Yunohana closer, laughing again as she clung to his arm and looked between him and the palace.

”You live there?”

”Yeah. That’s home.”

”But we...”

She turned back through the passage. The dim cavern on the island was still at its other end.

”We walked here.”

”Yeah.”

”From Japan.”

”We’re better swimmers than I expected. To cross the waters this quick...”

”That’s not funny.”

Kaiden could only grin at her.

Yunohana had spent the day taking him out on the water, pleased with her private yacht and the beautiful little beach she had found. Now her date had opened a path across the world and brought her to his palace.

She began laughing too, breathlessly, with her hand pressed over her mouth.

”This is extraordinary. Kaiden, this is... May we go back through it afterward?”

”I think so. It’s still there.”

”Then I would like to do that. I would like to walk all the way back and come here again.”

”Just to make sure?”

”I’m not confident you’re grasping the severity of what we’re witnessing... A dimensional tunnel between Japan and America...”

Her delighted disbelief made him want to take her through it as many times as she liked.

From the grass, Kaiden could see the new tunnel’s mouth set into the boundary of the Expanse. Farther along stood the approaches from his two older routes: one through the Twilight Sink toward the Abyssal Corridor, the other through the Virulent Mire toward the magma region.

Both had stretches of horrible things waiting for anyone foolish enough to try reaching his home.

Then there was this lovely new path.

Kaiden followed its open approach across the grass to the palace doors.

”Oh. That’s a problem.”

Yunohana glanced up at him, then traced the same route with her eyes.

”Invaders from Japan could come straight to assault my palace, right past everything I’ve built to stop them.”

The nearest defenders were Dungeon-Born, bronze armor catching the light among the trees beside the palace approach. There were no monsters waiting between the new tunnel and his home, no miserable corridor or poisonous basin for intruders to survive first.

He had found a very compelling reason to spend his accumulated dungeon points.

One of the Dungeon-Born had noticed them and was already coming across the grass. Kaiden raised a hand to the approaching warrior, then looked past him toward the older route out.

If that gate still led where it always had, his mother was on the other side.

Kaiden’s smile returned before he could help it.

”Let’s go on a walk. There’s someone I’d really like to see.”

”Oh dear...” An ominous shudder rushed through Yunohana. But with a ginger expression, she soldiered on. ”Heavens have mercy.”

...

After asking the Dungeon-Born sentries to watch the new passage until his return and diverting considerable monster forces here, Kaiden led Yunohana away from the palace.

They took the older route through the Twilight Sink and the Abyssal Corridor, passing outward through the defenses the new entrance had bypassed.

All the way, she kept his hand.

Whenever he looked back at her, he found her examining another part of his dungeon with open fascination. He wanted to show her everything, and she had questions enough to keep them walking for hours, but the thought of the main gate kept drawing him onward.

”You’re certain it still opens in America?” she asked as they crossed the Abyssal Cavern toward its entrance.

”I was certain of a lot of things before today. Now, I’d rather just take things as they come.”

”That is a fair answer.”

The safe zone lay empty ahead. Beyond it, through the gate, Kaiden could see reinforced walls beneath electric lights.

He slowed on the final approach, suddenly afraid that stepping through would somehow undo the wonderful thing they had just found.

Yunohana came beside him.

”Together?”

”Yeah.”

They stepped through.

His wet shoes squeaked on the floor beneath Eclipse headquarters.

Kaiden looked down at them. He had soaked those shoes carrying Yunohana onto a Japanese beach. Now the same soles were leaving marks on the floor of his own guild.

For a moment, he couldn’t speak.

The gate room’s concrete walls enclosed them, reinforced with rune-laced steel. At the guarded corridor, a man straightened so quickly that his chair scraped across the floor.

”Guild Leader?”

”Hi.”

Kaiden’s voice came out full of laughter. He turned toward Yunohana, who was staring at the room with the same helpless smile he could feel spreading over his own face.

”We’re home.”

”My first time in America... Will you take me to eat a hamburger?”

She was still holding his hand tightly enough for him to feel every finger.

”Sure,” Kaiden grinned.

”I’ll have a cheat meal and even drink coke.”

”If it’s diet, it doesn’t even count. That’s the American way.”

”I see... Then maybe I’ll eat two hamburgers.”