Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 615: Moon and Dominion

Aria stepped forward.

Where Luna had torn the world open with violence and thunder, Aria simply arrived.

Moonlight gathered around her in a slow, reverent hush, as if the battlefield itself had decided to hold its breath. Silver radiance spilled downward, bathing her form in soft brilliance.

Her hair, already pale, caught the light and became outright unreal, every strand glowing as though spun from starlight.

Her eyes lifted.

And the moon looked back.

They brightened from within, luminous and serene, reflecting endless night skies and distant constellations. There was no strain in her posture, no aggression in her stance, only poise, grace, and an overwhelming sense of rightness, as though this was exactly where she was meant to stand.

The chat lost its mind.

— AriaBestGirl: She’s actually an angel!!!

— MoonlitHeart: So beautiful it hurts! I think I’m crying?!

— SilverPetal: That ain’t a woman, that’s a piece of art!

— PrincessHalo: Put her in the museum of beauty!

— SoftStar: That’s it. I accept my fate. Take me, moon queen.

Even seasoned viewers went quiet for a heartbeat, stunned by the contrast. Storm and space raging above, while below stood something tranquil, radiant, and impossibly feminine.

Aria inhaled slowly.

Then she turned her head.

Her gaze slid toward the flanking Skirmeshade Stalkers advancing along the right, shadows darting between debris, blades flexing as they prepared to strike from the side. Her serenity didn’t vanish, but it receded, folding inward like a curtain being drawn.

The moonlight sharpened.

Aria reached back and pulled her staff off her back.

She glanced at it.

Paused.

Then, with a tiny, almost apologetic smile, she shrugged and let it fall.

It hit the ground and rolled away, forgotten.

No need.

Her hand lifted instead, delicate fingers extending, wrist relaxed, the gesture almost dainty. If not for the narrowing of her eyes into dangerous slits promising nothing but pain, it might have looked like she was pointing out stars to a lover.

Moonlight condensed at her fingertips.

Not rushed. Not explosive.

Focused.

The crescent sigils snapped inward.

The attack sang more so than roar.

A blinding crescent of compressed moonlight carved through the air, silent and impossibly fast. The first Skirmeshade didn’t even realize it had been targeted, its body split cleanly from shoulder to hip as the arc passed through. The second and third fell a heartbeat later, torsos sheared apart as the wave continued, cutting through shadows, stone, and flesh alike.

However, the rest of the Skirmeshade Stalkers reacted instantly.

They blurred.

Where lesser creatures would have panicked, these things moved with predatory intelligence, torsos twisting mid-lunge, limbs snapping into new angles as crescent light skimmed past where they had been. One vaulted off a shattered slab, claws scraping sparks as it rebounded into cover. Another skidded sideways in a low, spider-like scuttle, shadows clinging to its frame as it advanced instead of retreating.

They weren’t even fleeing; while dodging, they also moved to close in, using speed and reflexes that befit mighty monsters.

Aria fired again.

Another crescent sang out, clean, precise, but this time it only clipped. One stalker lost an arm, black ichor spraying as it rolled and kept coming. Another took the blast across its chest, the moonlight biting deep but failing to bisect. They snarled now, guttural and wet, voices scraping against the air as their eyes locked onto her.

"Moon-thing," one hissed, shadowed maw splitting into a grin too wide for its skull. "We will peel you alive!"

Another echoed it, blades flexing. "Your light will go out screaming!"

Speaking monsters... This displayed that they truly were intelligent beings, telling Aria she needed to step up her game, or it would be over.

The Moon Valkyrie’s gaze slid toward Kaiden’s position. Toward the space behind him. Toward the blind angle, he couldn’t watch while fighting. For a single heartbeat, her eyes softened, possessive and fierce emotions flickering beneath the serenity.

He trusted her.

She inclined her head in a small but resolute nod.

It was decided.

The moon answered her resolve.

Light gathered, not softly now, not reverently. It condensed, pressure building as silver radiance sharpened until it became brutal and merciless.

Sigils layered over her skin, crescents interlocking along her arms, her collarbone, her thighs, each one humming with restrained violence. Her entire body ignited into luminous silver, beauty pushed past elegance into an otherworldly, unreal figure who was too radiant, too perfect, to belong to the battlefield... Or the world.

The ground beneath her feet cracked.

Aria lifted.

She simply rose, moonlight carrying her upward until she hovered high above the shattered terrain, hair and cloak drifting as if submerged in liquid starlight. From above, she looked down on the Skirmeshades with cold, absolute authority.

"No one," she decreed, voice calm and razor-edged, echoing unnaturally through the ruins, "shall hurt my Kaiden."

Both hands lifted.

Wrists crossed.

Then she spread her fingers wide and pulled.

Pinpoints of condensed lunar force ignited above her, dozens of them, small, dense, lethal. She snapped her hands downward.

Stars fell.

These were not meteors of world-ending, calamity level. But they were fast and precise.

Silver lances screamed down in staggered patterns, detonating against stone and shadow, collapsing cover, forcing the stalkers out of hiding. One leapt, only to be caught midair, impaled, and driven into the ground. Another tried to dash between debris as three impacts caged it in, the fourth punching straight through its spine. Explosions of moonlight chained together, denying angles, denying escape, her bombardment herding them like prey.

Aria hovered above it all, expression untouched, hands moving in elegant, devastating patterns as she rained judgment from the sky.

Beautiful.

Untouchable.

And utterly merciless.

At the same time, on the other end of the battlefield, another encounter was underway.

Heat rolled in, not the violent crack of lightning, not the cold elegance of moonfall, but something heavier. Denser. The air itself seemed to bow.

Bastet stepped forward.

She did not arrive gently.

The stone beneath her bare, sand-kissed feet groaned, spiderweb fractures racing outward as if the world had flinched too late.

Each step sent a low tremor through the ruins, dust lifting in lazy spirals, debris rattling as though acknowledging her presence.

Her body was all sculpted power and sensual authority, tall, statuesque, every curve of her tanned felinid form mesmerizing. Sun-kissed skin gleamed beneath ornate golden jewelry, anklets chiming softly, armlets hugging arms, her midriff bare beneath layered silks that clung and flowed with regality.

She wore the garb of a desert queen, arabesque fabrics, translucent veils of gold-threaded linen, a queenly attire meant not for modesty but command. It framed her hips, her waist, her chest, unapologetically appreciative of her female form.

A Pharaoh who ruled not by concealment, but by presence.

The Skirmeshade Stalkers slowed.

Not because they chose to.

Because they were being pressed.

An invisible weight bore down on them, heavy and absolute, forcing claws deeper into the ground, shadows flattening beneath their bodies as if gravity itself had grown cruel. Their snarls faltered, replaced by strained, furious hisses as their limbs trembled under the pressure.

Bastet exhaled.

And the world answered.

Another step.

The ground buckled. A localized quake rippled outward, a violent *thoom!* as stone erupted beneath one stalker, launching it screaming into the air before it smashed back down, bones folding like wet clay. She hadn’t attacked it.

She had simply walked.

Bastet tilted her head slightly, golden eyes narrowing, a slow, thoughtful expression crossing her face.

"For the longest time," she murmured, voice rich and commanding, carrying effortlessly across the battlefield, "I believed my power was the sun."

Her tail flicked once behind her.

"Heat. Flame. Light."

She took another step.

This time, multiple fissures tore open amid the monsters, pillars of molten stone and blinding radiance bursting upward as if the earth itself were kneeling. The Skirmeshades cried out, bodies crushed, pinned, forced low.

"I was right. The sun is my power. But I was wrong about what the sun truly represented."

Her lips curved, turning sadistic and dangerous.

"The sun is not merely heat."

She advanced again. Each footfall landed like a judge’s gavel, final, the pressure intensifying until even the air seemed thicker, harder to breathe. The stalkers’ shadows shrank, crawling back beneath them, their forms forced lower and lower.

"It is dominion."

Golden light began to bleed from her skin, not flaring wildly, but asserting itself, saturating the space around her. Everything near Bastet felt caught in her gravity, compelled to acknowledge her.

"It is the force that shapes worlds," she continued, eyes blazing now, "that demands orbit... or collapse."

She stopped.

Then, without lifting a hand, the ground beneath the remaining Skirmeshades detonated in controlled, surgical eruptions that slammed them high into the skies.

Bastet looked at them.

A queen surveying subjects.

The chat exploded.

— SunMommy: Oh my god, I’m feeling things I really shouldn’t!

— DesertThrone: I didn’t know I was like this???

— KneelForBastet: I am awakening?! 😳😳😳

— GoldenEmpress: Me too! But not like the awakened combatants...

— SubbySand: I-I’m kneeling??? Why???

Bastet’s felinid ears twitched.

She lifted her chin.

"Know your place," she commanded.