Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 730: No More Darkness

Vespera’s eyes narrowed into slits.

”So, yeah. This wonderful woman...” Kaiden continued, and his arms tightened around her shoulders, ”is the one who brought me into this world.”

The words left his mouth, and the room instantly brightened.

The shadows evaporated as if they never existed.

Emilia saw it happen.

One frame they were there, pooling across the floor of the broadcast space, climbing the walls, pressing against the edges of the frame, and the next they were gone.

Not retreating or bleeding back into the corners. Gone, as if someone had flipped a switch inside the Shadow Monarch and the darkness had simply stopped existing.

The cold went with it. The visual chill that had been sitting in the feed since Vespera materialized broke apart in an instant. The lighting swelled from dim to warm to bright. The space behind the two of them went from a shadow-eaten void to an ordinary room with ordinary walls and ordinary light, and the shift was so sudden it looked like a cut between two different broadcasts.

Vespera’s eyes had been narrowed into slits. They weren’t anymore.

The edge left her face. The tension in her brow smoothed out and didn’t come back. Her shoulders settled. She leaned back, her weight shifting against her son’s chest, her head tilting beneath his chin, and for the first time since her awakening, viewers observed that Vespera Ashborn was not standing like a weapon.

Then she smiled.

It was small. A curve at the corners of her mouth that wouldn’t have registered on most faces. On Vespera Ashborn’s, it rewrote everything the audience thought they knew about her.

Emilia’s chat overlay detonated.

— 44xStorm: SHES SMILING??? THE SHADOW MONARCH IS?!

— VesperaFearless: I have been a Vespera stan for eight years. I have Never seen this woman smile. Ever.

— SinnerDevotee: The shadows evaporated the second he said it. The SECOND

— NyxWife4Life: The cold murder machine is smiling because Kai called her wonderful I cannot do this anymore.

— BastetThrone: She is leaning on him. The Shadow Monarch is leaning on Kai like a normal mother. On camera. I need to sit down...

— GigaAsh: Forget the loser cuck this is the best content I’ve ever seen. Every stream is a fucking movie

Leia made a noise from the floor. It was the sound of a brain that had been asked to process too many impossible things in too short a window and had decided to express its failure as a single, strangled wheeze.

Sarah laughed.

It started small, a huff of air through her nose, and then it built. It climbed past amusement, past disbelief, past the point where laughter meant anything was funny, and kept going until Sarah was laughing hysterically.

”The woman who turned off the sun is leaning on Kai because he called her wonderful! Our Kai!” she managed between two loud wheezes.

Emilia said nothing.

She was still on the kitchen floor with her back against the cabinet, her phone pressed to her ear. The feed in her interface showed Vespera Ashborn’s face, close and sharp. The expression was still there. Small and real and so human that it was confusing to look at.

Emilia’s eyes burned. She blinked and felt the warmth slide down both cheeks, and she didn’t wipe it away because her hands were shaking too hard to be useful.

She just sat there and cried, watching a mother smile.

Kaiden turned to the camera. The grin hadn’t left. Vespera was still leaning against his chest with her eyes closed, the room bright and warm and shadowless.

”Now.” He straightened. ”I know you’ve all been wondering about something.”

He glanced upward. Above him, the dark halo pulsed once.

”There are a lot of theories floating around about this.”

The halo pulsed again. Brighter this time, especially as he tapped it.

”This,” Kaiden said, ”is my beloved little sister.”

”Huh?” Emilia gasped.

The halo shattered.

The shape above him dissolved into motes of white and black, and a figure materialized at his back in a flash of golden radiance so bright that the feed whited out for half a second.

When the light cleared, a girl became visible.

She was already crying.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks before her body had fully solidified, and the sound that came out of her mouth was a squeal so high and sharp that Emilia winced.

”Big brother!” Alice Ashborn threw herself onto Kaiden’s back and clung. Her arms locked around his neck from behind, her legs closing around his sides, and the force of the impact rocked him forward half a step into Vespera, who did not open her eyes. The size gap between them meant Alice’s feet weren’t anywhere near the ground.

Alice’s smile was so wide it looked like it hurt, tears still running.

”I don’t have to hide anymore!” she announced to the camera, her voice cracking. ”Everyone, listen up! I’m his sister! His only sister! Screw you, Selena!!! You don’t deserve the privilege!”

She buried her face in the back of Kaiden’s hair and began shaking her head, rubbing her nose violently in him, her legs tightening around his sides, vibrating with so much energy that Kaiden had to brace against Vespera to stay upright.

”I’ve always been his sister!” she continued, muffled and furious and ecstatic all at once. ”He’s my big brother, my only big brother! Screw you too, Cassian and Calix! I’ve been sitting on Kai’s head for weeks and I couldn’t say anything and it was the worst thing ever and now I don’t have to pretend anymore!”

She squeezed tighter. Kaiden’s breath came out in a wheeze.

”Alice-”

”He’s mine! He’s my big brother and everyone knows now! The whole world knows!”

She pulled back and turned to the camera. Her hair was half-black, half-white, split down the center, her eyes mismatched. The reconstruction had changed her, and Alice showed it off with the pride of a girl presenting a wedding ring.

”My DNA is different now. Maybe.” Her grin widened. ”Actually, I’m still waiting on the test results. Because if it turns out that the reconstruction changed enough, then technically I might not be his sister anymore, so then-”

Vespera growled.

It was a low sound, felt more than heard, a vibration that rolled through Kaiden’s chest from where his mother rested against him. Her eyes were still closed. The small smile had not left her mouth. She was resting peacefully against her son while producing the sound of a predator warning something to back off, and the contradiction was so absurd that Kaiden laughed.

”Alice-” He was cut off.

”No.”

”Mom’s growling.”

”I don’t care! Hmph!”

”I stood up for you the last time. I might not do it again.”

Alice’s grip loosened instantly. Her whole body went slack against his back, and when she leaned sideways to look at his face, her expression was the portrait of a girl who had just been told her favorite person stabbed her in the back.

”You wouldn’t,” she whispered.

”...” Kaiden refused to answer.

”Cruel big brother...”

Alice’s grip loosened by approximately one percent.

Emilia’s chat overlay was no longer scrolling. It was hemorrhaging.

The text had become a solid wall of color moving so fast that individual messages were illegible. She caught single words as they flew past. ”Ashborn.” ”Halo.” ”Alice.” ”WHAT.”