Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 1053: Shameless Seductress

A third vaulted over their bodies toward his unprotected side.

Yunohana stepped into view beyond it, her fan held open in her right hand. Silver loops snapped around the creature’s forelegs, pulling them wide enough for Kaiden to see the pale seam beneath its breast armor.

Kaiden drove a blood spike through the exposed seam. The creature’s scream broke into a wet rattle as he lifted it from its feet, then slammed it into the ground hard enough to crack the packed earth beneath the gravel.

Its blood answered his gauntlet, pouring from the wound and thickening the weapon around his fist.

Yunohana meanwhile ducked beneath a hook sweeping for her head, passing close in front of him as the monster’s arm buried itself in the corpse at his feet. Her hair brushed his wrist, and the dip of her body gave him a generous view down the neckline of her dress.

Kaiden caught the attacking limb in a blood grip. When he tore it sideways, the creature stumbled after its own arm, bringing its throat directly across the metal edge of Yunohana’s waiting fan.

She cut deep and turned beneath the spray, coming upright beside him while the monster staggered away with blood pumping down its chest.

"Yunohana."

"Mm?"

"Are you trying to seduce me?"

Her lips parted in offended surprise.

"I am fighting for my life. What sort of woman do you think I am?"

A creature rushed her from behind.

"[Silver Thread]," she murmured, without taking her eyes off him.

Her thread caught its leading foreleg and pulled it across the other, sending the beast crashing onto its face beside them.

"Some loose woman who would expose herself merely to attract a man?"

He glanced from her to the monster clawing furrows in the gravel as it tried to untangle its legs.

"I’d hate to make an unfair accusation."

"Then kindly attend to the battle. I am feeling terribly vulnerable."

Kaiden shook his head, exhaling as his blood spear plunged through the fallen creature’s skull.

"I’ll do my best."

Her delighted smile followed him as he pulled the weapon free and turned toward the cave.

Yunohana was enjoying herself far too much to pretend otherwise, even if she intended to dispute every accusation. The sight of him driving into those monsters with such absolute confidence made her want to follow him closer.

He trusted her there. He attacked through the openings she made, caught what she sent him, and still found time to look at her with enough hunger to warm her cheeks.

She had dressed beautifully for this man, and she was very pleased that he continued to appreciate it.

A bellow rolled out of the cave, deep enough to rattle the loose sheets of roofing against the shed.

The creatures still crowding the entrance scrambled aside as a much larger beast forced its way into the evening light. Its back scraped the stone lintel, stripping chunks from the rock, and a hooked foreleg drove through the conveyor’s wreckage as it hauled itself outside.

"That one’s new!" a worker cried in English. "We’ve never seen that one!"

Kaiden looked up at the overlapping plates shielding its head. Beneath them, yellow eyes followed Yunohana as she stepped over a severed limb to join him.

The beast lunged at her.

He sent his blood low across the ground, forming a hooked brace around the foreleg it planted to support its charge. As the joint locked, its upper body continued forward, wrenching its head down within his reach.

Kaiden stepped beneath the armored brow, thickening the blood over his fist into a wedge that fitted under its jaw. He drove it upward with his whole body behind the punch.

Bone shattered against the wedge. As its head snapped back, he extended the blood into a brace beneath its chin, holding its throat exposed.

"[Severing Thread]."

Yunohana’s silver threads swept through the opening.

Looping the threads around its neck, she crossed them at her fan and drew them tight with a smooth turn of her right wrist.

The monster’s bellow became a bubbling shriek. Silver sank through the soft tissue beneath the plates, and Kaiden caught its falling weight on a broad blood support before it could drag her threads down with it.

Yunohana finished her turn.

The head slid from its neck, struck the broken conveyor, and crushed what remained of the drive assembly. Blood poured over the machinery while Kaiden shoved the headless body away from her and let it crash across the mouth of the slaughter pen.

For a moment, the workers could only stare at the carcass sprawling through their operation.

Then someone began laughing in short, frightened bursts. Beside him, the overseer pressed his forehead harder against the ground while his captor secured his wrists.

Kaiden released the blood brace and looked at Yunohana.

She stood beside the fallen giant with her fan open below her chin, inspecting a dark spot near the hem of her dress.

"Oh, no."

"Devastating damage?"

Her eyes lifted to his, and she recognized the words he had used after their boat ride.

"Will you be inspecting the damage personally?"

"I’m afraid so."

"Then I suppose we must find somewhere comfortable when we are finished."

He offered his hand, and she took it with a pleased little laugh. Kaiden drew her past the spreading blood, keeping her close while they crossed toward the Circle’s protectors.

Behind them, a final small creature dragged itself from beneath the fence. A protector caught it on his spear before it could reach the workers.

Yunohana checked with the leader in Japanese, listening while he indicated the captives, then the path toward the boats. The surviving gunmen were being disarmed among the shed’s remains; the workers sat together with their hands visible.

She turned back to Kaiden.

"They have the yard. The captain is watching the inlet, and another team is coming to help take everyone off the island."

From within the cave came the scrape of claws against rock.

Kaiden looked toward its dark mouth. The large creature’s passage had torn away the last of the fence, leaving them a clear view of the tunnel descending beyond it.

"We should see what else they’ve been feeding."

"Yes. I would like to finish before anything larger finds its way out."

Yunohana asked the protectors to hold the entrance, then accompanied him around the wrecked conveyor. He kept the gathered blood close to his gauntlet as they stepped beneath the stone overhang together.

The evening light faded behind them as they followed the sloping tunnel around a bend. Ahead, a shimmering membrane stretched across the passage from wall to wall, its pale light falling over the scattered bones at their feet.

Kaiden stopped beside Yunohana. Through the wavering surface, he could see a much wider cavern, with ridges of dark rock rising beneath a ceiling threaded with light. A hooked limb withdrew behind one of the ridges.

"A dungeon entrance," she said. "So this is where they have been coming from."

He glanced back along the ordinary cave they had just descended, then toward the cavern beyond the membrane.

"Ready? Based on the monsters, the two of us can clear it."

"Yes. Shall we?"

Yunohana stepped close beside him, her fan open in her right hand. Together, they passed through the shimmering entrance into the cavern.

Cold prickled over Kaiden’s skin as he crossed. The instant his foot touched the ground on the other side, a notification opened across his vision.

[Foreign Dungeon Master detected within sovereign territory.]

[Dungeon Master Duel initiated.]