Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 577: The Sin of Gluttony

"...That’s dangerous too," he murmured, letting the sensation slip away before it could root itself too deeply.

Two stances. Two reactions. Each raw, each unfiltered, each far less refined than what he was used to. No abilities branching out, no spells snapping neatly into place... Just the core of the thing, exposed and volatile.

Information.

That’s what this was.

He was allowed to take a peek at the bones beneath the system’s polish. Otherwise, why let him switch out of the stance, which in turn stopped whatever the eerie creature was doing?

Finally, Kaiden reached for Gluttony.

The shift was subtler than Wrath, quieter than Pride.

It began in his center.

Space opened inside him. His body felt like a vessel whose limits had been loosened, reinforced, expanded. Mana flowed in naturally, eagerly... and stayed. It didn’t burn. It didn’t spike. It simply accumulated, dense and heavy, like water filling a deep reservoir.

There was a great deal of comfort in it.

The titan responded once more with an orange pulse spreading outward in a slow, rolling wave. The realm thickened. Gravity seemed to increase, not crushing but weighty, as if everything now mattered more simply by existing. The ground became resilient, layered, and able to endure far more stress without breaking.

Kaiden exhaled.

"...This one," he said quietly. "It’s as good as it’ll get..."

He let the other sensations fall away and remained in Gluttony, studying it carefully. Unlike Wrath, it didn’t scream at him to act. Unlike Pride, it didn’t try to define the world for him. It simply... waited. Offered him the ability to take more, hold more, endure more, without demanding how he used it.

Wrath worried him. Too sharp. Too volatile. He could already feel how easily it could spiral if mishandled.

Pride unsettled him in a different way. It was clean, elegant... and terrifying in how naturally it wanted to decide things for him.

But Gluttony?

Gluttony was familiar ground.

He’d used it countless times without issue. It had saved his life, kept him standing, let him push past limits that should’ve broken him. It never caused problems on its own. Never demanded excess. Never forced him to indulge.

If there was a place to start, a sin to dissect without immediately risking self-destruction...

"This is it," Kaiden decided, planting his feet as the orange-tinged weight of the realm settled around him.

He lifted his gaze back to the titan with his resolve hardening.

"Alright," he said, steady and focused. "Let’s talk Gluttony."

As soon as he said the words, the Gluttony stance settled fully into place. He tried to shift stances once again, mostly just for science, but realized he could not change again. "I’m locked in now, huh...?"

This was it. He had to steel his heart to see things through.

No more running.

The world changed.

At first, it was subtle. A graininess to the air, like dust caught in invisible currents. Then his eyes adjusted, and he realized they weren’t motes of dirt in the usual sense. They were particles. Countless fragments of potential drifting everywhere, embedded in the ground, suspended in the sky, clinging to the folds of reality itself. Power, loose and unclaimed, moving without direction.

His breath caught.

Without consciously deciding to, Kaiden reached out.

The particles responded immediately.

They tore free from their surroundings and rushed toward him, streams converging from every direction as if he had become a living vacuum. They poured into his skin, his lungs, his bones, sinking straight past flesh and into something deeper. Fullness. Expansion. His chest lifted as his body adjusted, muscles tightening, frame thickening to accommodate what he was pulling in.

"Wow!" Kaiden laughed as a sharp sound of disbelief slipped out before he could stop it.

His boots scraped against the ground as his stance widened, not by choice but necessity. His height crept upward, subtle at first, then undeniable. Shoulders broadened. Arms grew heavier, packed tight with strength that felt dense rather than wild. Every movement carried more weight behind it, yet somehow less effort.

"Damn!" he breathed, flexing his fingers as the air around them distorted from the force. "This is amazing! I wonder if my own stance can ever reach this level. I really hope so."

He threw a punch.

The air cracked.

Then another. And another.

His fists blurred as he unleashed a flurry into empty space, each strike faster than the last. Not just stronger but faster as well. His legs coiled and released with explosive ease, his balance perfect despite his growing size. Durability, strength, speed... Gluttony fed all of it at once, reinforcing everything instead of forcing trade-offs.

Kaiden stopped, chest rising slowly, eyes bright with excitement.

If this was Gluttony without limits... if this was just the baseline...

He glanced at his hands, then at the endless field of drifting particles still waiting to be claimed.

"Can this stance even hit a ceiling? Will I keep growing until I become as tall as the titan? How powerful would that make me?" he muttered. The boy inside the man was excited for this power and its possibilities.

That was when the sound came.

A shrill vibration tore through the realm, sharp enough to rattle his teeth. It was a pressure that scraped directly against his nerves. Kaiden winced and looked up instinctively.

The titan hadn’t moved.

Its massive form remained as distant and unmoving as ever, yet the sound had clearly come from it. No mouth opened. No throat flexed. And still, the cry echoed outward, rippling across the space like a signal sent through reality itself.

The particles around Kaiden froze.

Then they fled.

They tore away from him in violent streams, rushing toward a single point ahead. Space folded inward as something arrived, not stepping into existence so much as forcing everything else to make room.

It stood before Kaiden. And for a moment, above the entity’s head, a line appeared.

The Bottomless One.

Its shape was wrong in ways that made Kaiden’s instincts recoil. Its body was swollen and uneven, as if it had grown without ever stopping to stabilize. Limbs layered over one another, thick with mass that sagged and pulled under its own weight. Its surface looked stretched thin, like something constantly struggling to contain what was inside.

There was no clear face.

Just a vast hollow where one should have been, an opening that bent inward endlessly, swallowing light, sound, and distance alike.

Hunger radiated from it.

It inhaled.

And Kaiden felt the pull answer back.