Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 239: Tragedy

The moment Kaiden turned, his heart twisted into a knot.

The battlefield before him looked like a massacre mid-breath.

Blood slicked the stone floor in wild, uneven strokes. The air pulsed with residual magic and copper tang. His Valkyries—his girls—were barely standing. If at all.

Nyx was collapsed on the ground.

Still.

Unmoving.

A javelin—barbed, cruel, and vampiric—was buried straight through her chest. Her armor had cracked, pierced as if it were butter. She didn’t twitch. Didn’t even tremble.

Luna stood above her with thunder crackling on the edge of her Stormblade.

Her lightning-infused eyes brimmed with tears she didn’t let fall.

Fury was etched across her features… but so did a deep, gut-wrenching worry. She slashed wildly at the vampire wife before her, keeping her away from Nyx like a lioness protecting a cub. Her body bled from several wounds, and her thigh barely supported her, but she refused to back away.

Across the room, Bastet, the Solar Empress, a blessed descendant of Ra, let out a scream of pure divine wrath.

Her glowing fangs bared as golden radiance flared around her violently. Her claws sliced through the third vampire wife with solar might so hot, her target barely even screamed.

A smoking corpse crumbled behind her, incinerated.

Lastly…

Aria.

Kaiden’s eyes finally found her. The Moon Valkyrie stood near the back line, clutching her staff with one arm only because the other was gone, severed just below the shoulder. Several of her fingers on the remaining hand were missing too, making it nearly impossible to grip anything at all. Blood poured freely down her side, soaking into the tattered remains of her robes. Even so, her glowing eye remained fixed on the enemy, still trying to cast with what little she had left.

Her lips moved in prayer-like whispers. A spell’s final lines, spoken with trembling defiance.

And then…

The last vampire wife faltered.

She had Luna in a bind where the duel could’ve gone either way.

But then, her eyes widened. She looked over Luna’s shoulder. She felt it.

The death of her husband.

The bond between them severed.

And that hesitation was all Luna needed.

With a wordless scream, she lunged forward. Her Stormblade roared with a final crackling burst of storm energy as she cleaved through the vampire wife’s midsection, letting lightning devour her form before she even hit the ground.

Ash and dust joined the blood-soaked floor.

Just like that… the battle was over.

Kaiden dropped everything.

The victory. The system messages. The many [Ding!]s. The world.

None of it mattered.

He ran.

Luna had collapsed to her knees beside Nyx, pressing a hand against the javelin embedded in her. “Why…? Why did you shield me, you idiot…?!” she choked with her fingers trembling as she gripped Nyx’s motionless arm. “Say something…!”

No answer came.

Just blood.

So much of it.

Bastet reached Aria just in time to catch her falling. Her staff clattered to the ground as she collapsed into her arms.

“You won… Kai…” she whispered.

Then her eyes closed shut.

Bastet didn’t hesitate. She ripped a potion free and uncorked it with her teeth. Next, the felinid forced the contents down Aria’s throat, then poured another onto the mangled stump of her arm.

Luna did the same with Nyx. But the javelin… it was too much. Some sort of residual spell lingered in it, one with vampiric anti-healing qualities. The potions proved to be worthless.

“We must hurry!” Kaiden roared, cradling Nyx into his arms. Her blood spilled onto him freely, staining him deeper than any enemy’s ever had. “Bastet! Grab Aria! We’re leaving!”

There was no disagreement.

No hesitation.

They ran, limping, dragging, carrying one another.

And when they crossed the dungeon’s veil, stumbling into the torch-lit halls of the manor ballroom once more, the chaos of their return was instantaneous.

The awaiting party had no clue what to expect. After Kaiden had turned the stream off, censoring the encounter with the vampires, the outside world had gone dark.

Now?

What they saw was the end result of a truly bloody encounter.

Kaiden, soaked in blood, carrying a girl, limp and speared through.

Bastet, her golden aura flickering, carrying another Valkyrie.

Luna, stumbling forward behind them with Aria’s arm and fingers in her hold. She was sobbing silently as she willed her body to move.

A wave of gasps filled the outside of the dungeon gate.

“Medic team! Now!” Talia’s voice cracked like a whip. “Give space, everyone! No one touches them unless you’re trained!”

“Tessa, please help my associates. I want no press, no crowding, only healers.”

Tessa’s fists clenched. “On it.”

Three healer-class mages moved forward under Talia’s command, dropping to their knees beside Kaiden, Bastet, and Luna as they gently took Nyx and Aria.

“Vitals are unstable! Critical mana hemorrhage!”

“Pulse detected, but shallow. Extremely shallow…”

“On three. Lift her. One, two, now!”

Kaiden was still standing there, stunned. He didn’t let go of Nyx’s hand until someone gently, carefully pried it free from his trembling fingers.

He had slain the vampire who could’ve easily been a boss monster in a lesser dungeon..

But this victory…

… came at a terrifying cost.

…

The room was too quiet.

Not silent, but filled with the kind of dull, persistent sounds that made one’s heart ache worse the longer they listened: the beep of vitals, the hum of mana monitors, the occasional shuffle of a nurse passing outside the half-closed door.

They were out of the dungeon now.

But the fight wasn’t over.

Aria and Nyx lay in hospital beds lined with runic stabilizers. White mana coils pulsed beneath their skin, attempting to guide their bodies back from the edge.

Aria’s eyes were open already, but her body barely moved. Magical bandages wrapped around her shoulder where her reattached arm had been surgically and magically restored. Her fingers were slowly recovering nerve function, though she hadn’t been allowed to move them yet. A floating tablet beside her listed her scheduled physical therapy modules.

She was conscious. Awake. Alert.

And she still looked like hell.

But she was lucky.

Nyx, by contrast, remained deathly still. The barbed javelin had been removed, but the real damage went deeper thanks to the layers of blackened veins corrupted by necrotic vampiric magic still laced through her torso and chest.

Even the best healers hadn’t been able to flush it all out.

Her pale skin glistened with cold sweat, and every now and then, a small tremor would shake her body.

She was fighting.

But it was a silent battle now, the kind no sword could win.

Kaiden sat at her bedside, unmoving. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep. One hand remained clasped gently around Nyx’s fingers, never once letting go since they’d been allowed in. He barely noticed when nurses came to check readings. He didn’t react when Tessa brought new reports or when an outsider—any outsider, be they nurses, other staff, or awakened allowed into the room—tried to speak with him.

Luna sat nearby with her body cleaned and bandaged. Her body was fine, but her mind…

The guilt in her eyes was unmistakable.

“She took a spear to the chest for me,” she whispered for the fortieth time that day. Her voice was bitter, spiteful toward herself. “If I just paid better attention to my flank, if I wasn’t so focused on chasing down the kill, I would’ve seen the vampire circling behind me.”