Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 870: Divine Light

"Tell you what, bucko." Lazarus clapped Kaiden’s shoulder with the hand that had been dislocated a minute ago. "When this circus dies down, swing by Crimson Dominion. Just the two of us, a friendly meeting between Crimson Dominion and Eclipse. I’ll crack open some beers and-"

The offer lasted exactly as long as it took Vespera to decide it shouldn’t.

The Shadow Monarch hadn’t moved since they’d stepped through the gate, a presence so still and so carefully contained that even the press drones had failed to pick her out of the formation.

She didn’t speak now either. She simply stopped containing herself.

The pressure that rolled off her hit the plain like a change in atmospheric conditions, a cold, heavy weight that settled over every awakened within two hundred meters and made the hairs on their arms stand up.

S-tiers in the nearest formation felt it first, their hands drifting toward weapons before instinct caught up with recognition, and the realization of who was standing behind Kaiden Grey rippled backward through the ranks in a visible wave of stiffening spines.

"Damned women... Don’t even know the meaning of fun..." Lazarus’s expression turned wry as he cursed two mothers in a single breath.

"Vespera." He inclined his head toward the Shadow Monarch. "Just a friendly visit. Nothing more."

Vespera smiled. "Then I must be invited as well. I’m the Guild Regent of Eclipse, after all. When should I arrive?"

"..." Lazarus sighed after a second of looking at the woman, then turned to Kaiden and sighed again, "Guess we can meet on neutral ground."

Kaiden just barely managed to contain a chuckle as he watched his mother’s antics. He found it funny at first, but by the end it became pretty clear to him that his mother knew a thing or two about Lazarus and that for his own safety it was best if he didn’t go there by himself.

"Hmm..." While the exchange was going on, Luna’s head had been tilting further and further sideways.

"The Mauler days," she repeated under her breath, and her eyes slid to Aria on Kaiden’s arm.

The Silverback Mauler was the first dungeon creature they’d ever fought on stream, back when the chat was small enough to read every line ten times over.

Calling it "the Mauler days" like a shared memory was not the language of a casual viewer who’d binged their old content. That was someone who’d been there.

"Luna." Aria’s silver eyes had narrowed. "You’re thinking what I’m thinking."

"Oh, I’m thinking it." Luna looked at Lazarus. "Gramps. You said ’the Mauler days.’ That was our very first dungeon run with only a couple dozen viewers."

Lazarus’s grin held, but a flicker of something passed behind his red eyes. "I did some research."

"Research...?" Aria blinked up at him from Kaiden’s arm, all warmth and innocence. "Do you also research Madame Spice’s cookbooks? The covers are quite beautiful, aren’t they?"

"Oh, the covers-" His eyes lit up, then died as soon as he realized he was walking into a trap.

"-are nothing special."

He stopped.

But it was too late.

Aria smiled at him, satisfied and devastating, and Lazarus Crane realized several things at once, none of them good.

Nyx opened her interface. She’d been watching the exchange with steadily increasing amusement, and now the amusement had graduated into action. "Let me check something."

"Why don’t we get a move on, youngsters? We’re making Miss Association and Mister Association wait... It’s rude..." Lazarus muttered.

"Our stream archives the chat logs..." Nyx scrolled with unhurried precision. "Let’s see... Divine Light. Ah, here. ’Your wisdom belies your youthful age, junior.’" She looked up at Lazarus. "You’ve called Kai ’lad’ and ’bucko,’ and just now ’youngsters.’ Divine Light’s pet names were ’junior,’ ’bucko,’ ’young stud,’ ’youngster,’ and ’lad.’" She smiled. "That’s three matches."

"Those are perfectly common terms-"

"’Love is in the air,’" Aria read over Nyx’s shoulder, still holding Kaiden’s arm, her free hand pointing at the log. "’It reminds me of my honeymoon with my wife. Those were my last peaceful days.’"

She tilted her head at Lazarus. "You’ve complained about your wife multiple times in thirty seconds, Mister Crane."

Viera’s head turned toward her father with the slow, mechanical precision of a turret acquiring a target.

"I- that’s- a married man is entitled to-"

"’When dealing with women, you gotta nod and apologize, no matter what nonsense they are spouting,’" Luna cut in, quoting from her own interface with the glee of a prosecutor reading a signed confession. "’That is, if you want to have at least a modicum of chance of getting head in the next decade.’"

Several soldiers nearby choked.

Viera closed her eyes. When she opened them, the expression behind them could have etched glass.

"Lower your voice!" Lazarus hissed at Luna. "And stop this attack on my noble person! I don’t know any Divine Light!"

"’Nothing makes this experienced senior harder than a hot, mature woman,’" Aria added helpfully, still blinking up at him from Kaiden’s arm with that devastating innocence. "That was what a certain ’Divine Light’ said about the Madame Spice covers."

"You told me," Viera said, each word landing like a nail driven into a coffin, "that you bought those cookbooks for the recipes."

"I did! The recipes are-"

"You have never cooked a meal in your life."

"’I once shat-..." Nyx continued scrolling to the next entry as calmly as if she were reading a grocery list, then trailed off, pausing at the foul language.

After sending Lazarus a look of extreme judgment, she continued, "’...’soiled’ myself in a dungeon and went to take a dip in the nearby river, and that’s when this eel attacked my jewel sack.’"

The silence that followed was so complete that Pebble’s idle breathing sounded like weather.

Viera stared at her father.

The stare contained her full biography: she had managed this man since childhood, dragged him out of sweatpants and beer bottles every morning for years, threatened him with dating apps and his own mother to make him do his job, and was now learning that the man she had been managing had spent his free evenings telling strangers on the internet about eels attacking his genitals.

"Lazarus Crane," she said. "I will kill you."

"Dear... Why don’t you believe Papa? I said it isn’t me!"

The daughter went from looking ready to kill with a pistol bullet to ready to strangle her father with her bare hands.

Calypso turned to Bastet. "Choco kitty... do you know what’s going on?"

Bastet’s ears had been swiveling between speakers, tracking a conversation she had no context for, and the admission that followed was delivered with regal displeasure, as though someone had held a party without consulting her. "It appears to be from before our time."

"Oooh." Calypso nodded, unbothered. "So like a fan club thing?"

"I don’t know and that bothers me..." the tanned kitty grumbled.

Luna looked at Lazarus. Aria looked at Lazarus. Nyx looked at Lazarus. Viera looked at Lazarus.

Lazarus looked at the sky, the ground, his daughter, and the nearest exit in rapid succession.

"I’ll lawyer up if you keep it up..."

The girls merely smiled at him, full of deadly innocence.

Who knew that one of their oldest fans was this important of a person and this much of a blabbermouth?

It was a dangerous combination all three of them perfectly knew they could exploit further.

But then, finally, Lazarus was rescued as the Chairman and Grace stopped observing from a few meters’ distance with dry expressions and stepped up to Kaiden and co.