Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 666: Fuck Off

Alice tried. The little girl who had manifested powers that dwarfed adults would climb into his bed at night and press her forehead against his arm and whisper that she didn’t care about tiers or classes or any of it, that he was still her big brother and that was enough.

Vespera tried, in her way. His mother’s shadow powers had made her cold, emotionally distant, a woman who expressed love through logistics rather than warmth. She ensured Kaiden’s tuition was paid. She ensured his room was maintained. She ensured that the household staff treated him with the same respect as his siblings.

But she couldn’t make Magnus look at him.

And being consoled by superhumans, by a teenage sister with the power to level buildings and a mother whose shadow could swallow light, felt less like comfort and more like charity.

So he left.

A boring college dorm. A boring economics degree. A boring life that matched what the world expected of a boring, powerless nobody who’d had the misfortune of being born into the wrong family.

He gave up.

Then the Demonic Pornstar System found him. The Heavenly Demon chose him as his successor. He met three Valkyries who loved him. He subjugated a demoness who’d die for him and a Pharaoh who’d chosen him as her master. He became world famous, rich, and was now on the path of an awakened combatant rising faster than logic said he should.

Kaiden Grey. The Paragon of Sin.

The man standing in front of Magnus Ashborn right now was not the boy who’d left that house with his head down and his bags packed.

And the man standing across from him was not a father.

He was an obstacle.

Kaiden straightened. His shoulders squared beneath the ichor-stained armor, and when he met Magnus’s gaze, there was nothing in his eyes that flinched.

”Noted.”

Magnus waited.

”However.” Kaiden’s voice carried the same calm, official register that Magnus had used. Formal. Proper. The tone of a man addressing a jurisdictional concern, nothing more. ”The competition guidelines issued by the Awakened Association’s oversight committee place no restriction on rookie-track teams operating in zones designated for veteran activity. Engagement is permitted at the combatants’ own risk, provided they do not interfere with ongoing veteran operations.”

He paused.

”We haven’t interfered with anything.”

Magnus’s jaw tightened. A fraction. The kind of micro-expression that most people would miss entirely, but Kaiden had spent years learning to read the man’s face for any sign of acknowledgment, any flicker of warmth, any indication that his father remembered he existed.

He’d gotten very good at reading Magnus Ashborn.

And what he read now was fury. Tightly controlled, professionally masked, but fury all the same.

”Furthermore,” Kaiden continued, not caring one bit for his emotional state, ”my team operates under the authority of Talia Runewoven, Guildmaster of Runewoven, whose directives I follow, and the oversight committee, whose rules I respect.”

He held Magnus’s stare for one more beat. ”I don’t answer to anyone else, be they S-tier combatants, masters of the most powerful guilds, or the president himself.”

— [MOD] Lady Leia: Uhh... Girls... Did Kai just tell MAGNUS ASHBORN to go FUCK HIMSELF in legalese?!?!?!?!

— [MOD] Kaiden’s Wife: I’m shaking. I am genuinely shaking right now

— [MOD] PrincelessPrincess: That was the most respectful ”fuck you” I’ve ever witnessed.

— MoonlitHeart: Did he just say even the president can screw off???

— 44xStorm: Kai is covered in monster blood and just told the commander of the New Dawn veteran team to mind his business. I need to sit down

— GigaAsh: ...okay, that was cold af

The words landed.

Magnus heard them. The stream heard them. Millions of viewers watching a confrontation they didn’t fully understand heard them. To the audience, it was a rookie refusing to be bullied by a veteran-track commander. A young man standing his ground against one of the most powerful guild leaders in the world.

To Magnus, it was his son telling him, in front of the entire world, that he no longer existed as an authority in his life.

Magnus’s expression didn’t change. His posture didn’t shift. His hands stayed at his sides, his jaw stayed set, his breathing stayed measured.

But his eyes burned.

And Kaiden, who had spent years learning to read this man’s face for any sign of warmth, saw the fury behind the mask as clearly as if Magnus had screamed it.

Magnus held his gaze for a long moment.

Then he turned.

”Don’t say I didn’t warn you. What you’re doing is suicide.”

He walked away. Measured steps. Controlled pace. The posture of a guild leader who had delivered a professional warning to reckless rookies and washed his hands of the outcome.

The stream saw a veteran commander walking away from a confrontation he hadn’t started.

Kaiden saw his father retreating because the cameras wouldn’t let him do what he really wanted.

If the stream wasn’t rolling. If the Association wasn’t observing. If millions of viewers weren’t watching this basin in real time.

Magnus would have strangled him where he stood. His girls would have been beaten into the dirt. Alice would have been ripped from above his head and dragged home.

Kaiden knew this with the certainty of a man who had grown up in that house and learned what Magnus Ashborn looked like when he wanted to hurt someone.

He’d never looked like this.

And he was walking away.

A crooked grin tugged at Kaiden’s lips.

He’d deal with this later. He’d deal with all of it later, with the man whose retreating back carried more fury than Kaiden had ever seen compressed into a single human being.

For now, the competition was his shield. The cameras, the Association, the rules that bound even S-tier guild leaders to civilized behavior. Magnus couldn’t touch him here. Couldn’t touch his girls. Couldn’t touch Alice.

The grin faded.

The competition had twelve days left. Maybe less.

And when it ended, the Association would pack up, and Magnus Ashborn would still be one of the most powerful awakened in the country with a very, very personal grudge.

Kaiden looked at his girls. Battered. Bloody. Exhausted. Ready.

Twelve days to become strong enough that his father couldn’t ruin it all for him.

The clock was ticking.

At the same time, as Kaiden was musing on this matter in his head, the clip of Magnus Ashborn confronting the anomaly and how said anomaly responded went beyond viral.