Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 726: Incompetence

Disappointing. But survivable. The Association would review the footage and find exactly what they were supposed to find: New Dawn’s veterans engaging monsters in the vicinity of a rookie team during an active competition event. Aggressive, perhaps. Reckless, certainly. But the attacks were aimed at creatures, and if Kaiden’s team happened to be nearby, that was the nature of a shared competition zone.

Plausible deniability. The entire plan was built on it.

Then Vespera had arrived.

A week of silence. Seven days without a word, without a presence, without the faintest indication of where she’d gone or what she was doing.

The Shadow Monarch had appeared on a mountain ridge in front of millions of viewers and beaten her own children until Selena’s bones gave and the twins couldn’t breathe. The image of that was circulating now.

The image of the co-founder of New Dawn breaking three of the guild’s high-ranking members on live television. The PR damage alone would take months to contain. Sponsors would be calling. The Association would be calling. Every media outlet on the continent was already running the footage.

Magnus’s fingers dug into the desk.

But that was damage. Damage could be managed.

Vespera’s actions were her own, and the guild’s legal team could frame the beating as an internal disciplinary matter between a co-guild leader and subordinates who had endangered the organization’s reputation through reckless engagement. It was ugly. It was workable.

Then he remembered what Cassian had said.

’It was Father! He ordered us to do this! We were following his command!’

His son had screamed it across the ridge while being dragged through stone by his mother’s shadows. Screamed it on a live broadcast. Screamed it to an audience of millions who were already watching his guild’s fighters hunt a rookie team and were now hearing, from the mouth of his own child, that it had been ordered.

Magnus’s stomach dropped.

Calix too. ’Father sent us! This was his plan!’ Begging, crying, blaming him to save themselves, because when their mother’s shadows closed around them they’d stopped being soldiers and become frightened children looking for someone else to take the punishment.

The plausible deniability was gone. The careful architecture of a plan built on ambiguity and distance, the separation between the guild leader’s office and the actions of veteran-track fighters operating in a shared zone, all of it incinerated by his own son’s panic.

Magnus Ashborn stood in his office with his hands shaking and the broadcast feed burned into his retinas.

Then the door opened.

...

The common room was silent as Vespera’s entourage passed through.

Grace walked beside the Shadow Monarch, her heels clicking against the floor. The Vice Chairman of the Awakened Association was a striking woman in her late thirties, sharp-featured, impeccable in the Association’s formal dress uniform. Three bodyguards flanked her in formation, all in full Association tactical gear.

Behind them came the judge and the lawyer. The judge was gray-bearded, carrying a leather case. The lawyer was younger - mid-forties, glasses, slicked-back hair, a suit that cost more than most people’s cars, and a cologne that preceded him by several feet. He was the family’s legal counsel, and he walked behind Vespera without hesitation.

Elizabeth, Vespera’s trusted servant, trailed them all. The elderly woman was small and plain beside the rest of the entourage, dressed in dark, simple clothes, a half-step from Vespera.

Twelve New Dawn members lined the walls where they’d been rooted since the stream. Their eyes followed the procession. Nobody moved.

Until Mariana stepped forward.

”Lady Ashborn.” Her voice came out steady, which cost her more than anyone would know. ”Guild Leader Ashborn has requested privacy. If you’d allow me to announce-”

Vespera’s eyes moved.

The glance lasted less than a second. Mariana’s legs buckled. Her vision narrowed to a point and every organ in her body clenched as something older than thought screamed at her that she was about to die.

Her mouth stopped working. Her lungs forgot how to pull air. The Shadow Monarch’s eyes passed over her the way a predator’s gaze passes over something too small to eat.

Vespera walked past her.

The entourage followed. Grace didn’t glance at Mariana. The bodyguards didn’t acknowledge her. The judge, the lawyer, and Elizabeth moved through the common area as if Mariana had not spoken, because to the woman leading them, she hadn’t.

Mariana remained where she’d stepped forward, her hand half-raised.

...

The door to Magnus’s office opened without a knock.

Vespera entered. The temperature bled downward. The shadows in the corners deepened.

Magnus saw what had entered his office.

His wife. Three Association bodyguards in tactical gear. Grace in full dress uniform. A judge. Their family lawyer. And Elizabeth, positioned behind Vespera’s shoulder with her hands folded and her eyes on him, full of a mother-in-law’s judgment.

She was, after all, the servant who’d been with Vespera since she was a little girl.

He didn’t understand.

Vespera had filed for divorce only a few days ago. The papers had arrived at his desk through the usual channels, dry and procedural, and he’d set them aside because divorce proceedings between two co-guild leaders of a top-three guild were not simple.

There would be months of negotiation. Court appearances. Forensic accountants pulling apart an empire that two aristocratic families had spent decades entangling. Asset valuations, subsidiary audits, contractual obligations that spanned hundreds of entities. His legal team would fight for every Chronos, and Vespera’s would do the same, and the whole process would grind through the courts for the better part of a decade if not longer.

That was time. Time for the broadcast footage to fade from public memory. Time for the Association’s interest to cool. Time to rebuild narrative around what had happened on the mountain.

So why was the Vice Chairman of the Awakened Association standing in his office with three bodyguards and a judge?

”Vespera.” His voice was careful. ”What is this?”

She said nothing. She looked at him, and for the first time in their marriage, Magnus saw what was behind the cold. Vespera had never been warm to him. Their partnership had always been steel and calculation, two aristocratic bloodlines merging for power rather than affection. He had accepted that. He had built an empire on it.

But this was different. What looked at him now was not cold. It was hatred. Pure, distilled, absolute. A woman who detested him with every fiber of her being, who found his presence in her breathing space physically revolting, and who had come here today for the sole purpose of severing the last thread that connected her name to his.

The lawyer stepped forward. ”Mr. Ashborn. Lady Ashborn has prepared a complete settlement proposal and wishes to finalize the dissolution of marriage today. All terms have been drafted, reviewed, and are ready for signature. The judge is present to officiate.”

Magnus stared at him. ”Today?”

”Today,” the lawyer confirmed.

Magnus looked at Vespera. She offered no explanation.

He looked at Grace.

”Guild Leader Ashborn.” Her voice was formal and measured. ”The Association has been notified of a potential structural change within one of the nation’s three highest-tier guilds. I am here in my capacity as Vice Chairman to oversee these proceedings and ensure proper execution of all resulting documentation.”

”... I see.” He turned toward Vespera and said, ”Before we discuss any terms, I need you to understand-”

”No.”