Novel Full Chapter 649: Not the Horn!
Chapter 649: Not the Horn!
Kaiden walked toward it with calm, measured steps while the Matriarch thrashed against invisible chains. He raised the greatsword, aligned the edge with the gap between its neck plating, and brought the blade down with Wrath’s thermal charge packed into a single, precise point.
The detonation took the head clean off.
[You’ve slain Stoneclad Matriarch (Level 70).]
[You’ve gained 86,300 XP.]
[You’ve gained 11 DMP.]
Blood sprayed upward in a pressurized arc. Kaiden let Gluttony drink what landed on him, strength ticking up another notch as temporary boosts stacked.
<Big brother, if you do that again, you’ll never hear the end of it!!!> Alice chided strongly in his mind.
The little sister was fuming right now.
How dare he ignore his Conduit’s words to stare at a manic, demonic woman?!?!?!?!
Kaiden grinned.
The last Matriarch fell seconds later, Bastet pressing it into the earth with gravitational force so immense that its own armor crushed inward, the creature folding into itself until Aria’s moonlight pierced through the weakened plating and ended it.
The Ridgecrawlers scattered.
Without the Matriarchs anchoring the assault and the Stalkers providing flanking pressure, the remaining creatures lost cohesion. They bolted into fissures, over ridgelines, anywhere that wasn’t here.
Luna raised a hand.
Lightning chased the stragglers.
— StormWitch99: luna said "no you don’t" LMAO
— 67676767676767: imagine running from the storm valkyrie. just accept it bro
Silence settled over the pass.
Kaiden exhaled and let the greatsword dissolve, blood retracting into the gauntlet. His ribs ached. His forearm still stung where the Ridgecrawler had tagged him. He could feel Gluttony working beneath the surface, slow and steady, converting the siphoned reserves into repair.
He looked at his girls.
Aria descended from above, moonlight dimming to a soft glow as her feet touched stone. Luna cracked her knuckles, hair still sparking at the tips. Nyx rolled her shoulders, quiet and watchful. Bastet stood exactly where she’d been the entire fight, because Bastet didn’t move these days unless the enemy earned it. Calypso sat on the chest of a dead Matriarch, legs crossed, examining her cracked horn with mild curiosity.
"That’s going to grow back, right?" Luna asked.
"It grew back last time," Nyx offered.
Calypso puffed her chest out, full of pride. "Of course it will. The Infernal Matriarch doesn’t take permanent injury from these weaklings."
"Last time it was a chip. This is structural," Bastet chimed in happily.
"Well, it gives you lots of character!" Aria chirped, trying to be positive.
Calypso’s lips trembled. She did not like what she was hearing.
The bravado of the Manifestation of Carnage, the feral grin, the bloodlust, the woman who had just used a monster as a bat against another monster?
Gone.
Calypso turned toward Kaiden, and the look on her face could have made grown men weep. Her lower lip pushed forward. Her eyes, bright and wild mere seconds ago, went wide and glossy, trembling at the edges with the kind of distress usually reserved for kicked puppies and abandoned kittens.
The Infernal Matriarch did not want to lose her horns.
"Kaiden..." she whimpered.
His ribs were still aching from getting launched into a boulder. His forearm stung.
He winced as he walked over anyway.
Calypso looked up at him from her seat on the dead Matriarch, chin tilted, eyes brimming with hope so fragile it was almost criminal, given that this woman had been splitting torsos in half forty seconds ago.
Kaiden cupped the cracked horn gently and pressed his lips to it.
Calypso went very still.
"It’ll be fine," he murmured against the horn. "Horns grow back."
"...Promise?" Her voice came out small. Tiny. A full octave above her battlefield register.
"Promise. And if they don’t, we’ll visit a specialist."
His lips moved from the horn to her forehead, lingering there. Calypso’s eyes fluttered shut. A soft, trembling exhale left her as she leaned into him, all that ferocity melting into something achingly tender.
His hands found her waist, then slid lower, settling firmly on the curve of her butt and gripping with the casual possessiveness of a man who had mapped this territory extensively.
Even in battle armor, he loved that spot.
Calypso made a sound. A small, needy little noise that had absolutely no business coming from a muscular demoness covered in monster blood.
She pressed closer, her forehead against his chest, and her tail curling around his hand, gripping her behind. "...Don’t let go yet."
He didn’t.
— CaliSimp42: IM ON THE FLOOR. IM LITERALLY ON THE FLOOR.
— HornCare101: he kissed the horn. HE KISSED THE HORN.
— DemonWife: she went from psycho murder machine to baby kitten in 0.2 seconds and i felt that
— GrabReceipts: Lucky fucker I want to kill you!
— BetaGamma: the little noise she made??? hello??? i am deceased???
— BloodQueenSimp: this man just healed a cracked horn with his lips and i believe it worked
Luna looked at Aria.
Aria looked at Nyx.
Nyx looked at Bastet.
Bastet looked at her demonic friend, smiling wryly.
That woman knew how to play the harem game, even if she wasn’t doing it intentionally.
’Who knows... She’s not as brutish as she likes to appear...’ the tanned kitten muttered inwardly with narrowed eyes.
Kaiden gave Calypso one last squeeze before stepping back. The demoness let him go reluctantly, her tail unwinding from his hand at a much slower speed, fingers trailing along his arm before finally releasing.
She touched her horn.
Then she smiled. Small and warm and nothing like the grin she wore in combat.
Kaiden pulled up the competition display.
The numbers had moved. Runewoven’s pace was climbing. The gap to ninth place had shrunk, and the trajectory line pointed upward for the first time since the competition began.
"Progress," he said.
He looked north, toward the peaks that sharpened against the sky like broken teeth.
"Let’s keep pushing."
...
The days passed like this.
Wake. Gear up. Push north. Fight. Bleed. Heal. Fight again. Pull up the display. Watch the numbers climb. Sleep in a pile of warmth and tangled limbs.
Repeat.
Runewoven rose through the standings one bloody battle at a time, clawing past Dawnfall, then Riftward, the gap narrowing with each day as Kaiden pushed his team deeper into territory that made other guilds turn around.
And just like this, the competition was heating up for its finale!