Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 1013: An Ordinary Dungeon

Kaiden Grey left the Moon-Thread estate for Hozumi at first light, the morning after Sonoda brought its file to dinner.

He rode out of Tokyo with a full well of mana and a stance he could point, more or less.

The hip worked too. Alexandra had spent the evening after dinner with both palms over the seared hole, pouring her gold into it until the last of Kawanami closed under her hands.

Hozumi was a hill town two hours north, with a single street of shops along the river at the bottom of its mountain.

Six broad rice terraces climbed behind the town, each one a flooded paddy held up by a stone retaining wall. A wide service stair divided them down the middle and ran from the road below the first terrace to the violet gate burning above the sixth.

The Circle’s cordon stood at the foot of that stair. The first two paddies remained clear. At the retaining wall below the third, irrigation water turned violet, rice stalks blackened, and the cedar trees above bent uphill toward the gate.

The terraces were still Hozumi. The stain was the dungeon’s overflow laid across them, and it had crawled down from the gate for weeks until only two clean steps remained between the corruption and the town.

Sonoda read the file to them in the lead car, and for once the file knew exactly what lived behind its gate.

”One gate. The monsters are Templebreakers, six-limbed siege predators in the eighties and nineties. They draw rock out of the stain to armor themselves, then discharge it through the vents along their backs.”

Sonoda turned the page. ”The boss has shown itself at the gate mouth twice and stayed there both times. Ordinary refers to its behavior, my lord. The threat rating remains high.”

Kaiden smiled. ”Perfect. The girls deserve a proper morning out.”

The lead car stopped below the service stair, and Kaiden stepped out with his family.

The Circle squad assigned to them waited at the cordon, twelve fighters in slate and white under a captain with a topknot and a scar through one eyebrow. He bowed to Kaiden at the regulation depth.

”Lord Grey. The Ninth Garrison will walk with you,” he said in careful English. ”We will try to keep up.”

”Walk beside us, Captain. This is not a race.”

Above the cordon, the joint feed woke.

Kira and Rika had the cordon’s control room again, side by side at the production console with their tablets, and the mod trio’s back row behind them came online a second later.

The viewer counter passed Kawanami’s peak inside a minute and kept climbing, because the whole country had watched the last one and wanted to see what the man did next.

Alice’s dark halo hung above Kaiden’s head, already watching the slope with him.

- Mika_RN: Three days is plenty when Alexandra is his dedicated healer. Look at that stride.

- GoldenWard: She closed a cauterized wound and put him back at full strength. The Hearth Valkyrie rocks!

- ChibaWatcher: The woman held the square under a boss monster’s relentless artillery barrage!

- Thirsty247: Gang, it’s time we put some respect on Blondie’s name.

Alexandra pretended not to notice the chat sing her praises, though her pink cheeks and bubbly attitude gave her away to those who were observant.

...

The Ninth Garrison changed as Eclipse climbed onto the first terrace.

They turned the service stair at its uphill edge into a kill box. The empty second terrace rose beyond their shields, one clean flooded shelf between the formation and the violet water on the third.

Six fighters drove their shields into the mud and locked them across the terrace. Spearheads settled into the gaps while the two ranged fighters climbed the irrigation wall behind them. The captain took the center with his scar turned toward the mountain, and every trace of ceremony left his voice.

”When the vents open, get down. When they hit the wall, take the front limbs first. The mouth comes after.”

His people checked their footing and tightened their grips. Nobody spoke.

The stained hillside exploded.

Two dozen Templebreakers tore out of the third terrace in a flood of black armor and white flesh. Each siege predator carried a fortress of wet rock across its back on six jointed legs.

Its front limbs ended in hooked blades, and the head hanging between them had no eyes at all. A vertical mouth split from its skull to the middle of its chest, opening wide enough to swallow a man without biting.

They felt the Ninth through the ground. Every mouth opened toward the shield wall at once.

The vents along their backs spread with the grinding shriek of millstones.

”DOWN!” the captain roared.

A black sheet of shrapnel crossed the stained third terrace, screamed over the empty second, and hit the Ninth on the first. The volley drove the front rank ankle-deep into the mud, shield metal folding around shards longer than Kaiden’s hand. One shield split down the middle.

Alexandra’s gold poured over the formation before the second half of the volley arrived. Shrapnel burst against her barrier in hundreds of white flashes, and the Hearth Valkyrie held all twelve soldiers beneath it while the mountain hammered her light.

The Templebreakers charged through their own barrage. They came down from the third, crossed the clean water of the second in seconds, and crashed into the kill box waiting on the first.

”GGRRRAAAAKH!!” Two dozen chest-mouths screamed together, and the water shook under the Ninth’s boots.

The Ninth met them properly.

Mana-lit spears punched into the first creature’s forward joints, six fighters hitting the same limb until it folded.

The monster crashed into their wall anyway. Its hooked arm curled around a shield and ripped the soldier holding it off his feet, but the two people beside him caught his harness before the chest-mouth reached him.

The captain planted his spear through the roof of that mouth. It kept crawling.

The first collision told Kaiden exactly what Hozumi was.

These creatures could have broken a normal raid group on the first terrace, and twenty more were already tearing themselves out of the slope above.

He reached into Lust Stance and pulled.

”Let’s get started, ladies.”

Warmth roared down six bonds. Kaiden shaped speed into Luna, density into Aria’s moonlight, pressure into Nyx’s grip on space, escalation into Calypso, weight into Bastet, and fortification into the gold shaking around Alexandra’s hands.

Above the kill box, the second wave opened its vents.

The second barrage hit Alexandra’s barrier and shattered into dust.

”Oh,” Alexandra breathed. ”These monsters are very powerful! Watch out, everyone!” Then her arms steadied, and the gold became a wall. ”I have you, so focus on offense!”

”Say no more!” Luna vanished with a joyous battle cry.

Nyx folded the central stairway into itself as the creatures charged. The front rank ran the same three meters again and again, all six legs pounding without gaining an inch, until the rest of the horde crashed into their backs.

Bastet placed one bare foot on the terrace and claimed it. Golden fractures raced uphill beneath the entire pile, and Dominion dropped the armored mass hard enough to burst water from every paddy around them.

Bastet watched the trapped monsters strain against her weight. ”Master, they are ready.”

Kaiden dropped Lust. The warmth vanished from every bond as Envy rolled up the mountain in a breath of killing cold, and he aimed it at the vents on their backs.

The Templebreakers resisted Envy with everything they had. Hozumi’s siege predators had no answer for the Dispossessor.

Their vents slammed shut, the mineral feed into their armor went dead, and entire slabs peeled off their backs under Bastet’s pressure. Raw white muscle and pulsing black veins opened to the morning.

”SKRRAAAAGH!!” The trapped pack howled together as the stone came off, drowning the crash of its own armor.

He released Envy before the drain could bite deep and returned to Lust.

The family struck inside the same heartbeat.

Aria’s moonlight fell with the density of solid steel. A silver lance entered each open back and drove through the chest-mouth beneath it, pinning a perfect row of Templebreakers to the terrace.

Luna came through the next row as living violet lightning. Her Stormblade drew a bright line through exposed throats before the monsters could feel their armor hit the ground.

”You’re always way too slow!” Luna grinned, slashing them apart.