Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

We continue floating deeper into the forest with no vantage points in sight.

The more trees we pass, the more they all begin to blend together and look the same. I have one way of telling direction, and that is following Ember’s soul bond. However, even it only gives me a vague feeling of its direction; not the distance we’ve traveled or how far we have to go.

The strange outline of a lizard creature fades away behind us as it leaves my mental vision, but once I scan more and more of this forest, I realize it was no random one-time event. More of these outlines start showing up in my Royal Vibrations scans of the trees around us. Enormous lizards are latched onto the bark of many trees.

I can’t see very high up into the branches, but some even begin showing up in their undersides as well.

In the direction I’m headed, it appears there is a higher concentration of these beings. They don’t produce any Primordial Aura signature, nor vibrations. We even get close enough to one that I can look at it with my own eyes, and it is just pure white; made of an ether consistency I do not have the senses to understand.

It’s a pure high-quality ether being, and the purple divine threads in the air seem to flood right through it. This is a very clear sign to me that somehow, these creatures have no divine cores either. If they did, the threads in the air would be absorbed at some rate, or at least waver or bend to react to a high-density core in the area.

None of them seem to notice us, or care that we’re flying by.

Most look like they’re asleep, but a few lazily open their eyes; and I even see some climbing up trees to get to higher branches.

Their shapes look kind of familiar, but without detailed auras or any texture or coloring of their scales, I can’t know for sure if I’ve seen this race before.

The sound of their clawed feet and hands grabbing onto the tough trees echoes through the air. It is kind of unsettling to hear the massive sharp claws moving, yet unable to sense their energy signatures at all.

After dozens of trees go by, and I’m certain we’ve traveled the length of the entire Blue Zone tens of times over, the gravity in the air becomes less and less extreme.

It’s because we’re absorbing so much celestial energy with every greater distance traveled. Our Primordial Aura strength doesn’t change at all, but the purity and volume alone of our celestial energy cores is skyrocketing.

It’s like thousands of Celestial Seas are pouring through our soul energy cores back and forth into each other.

My Celestial Fire flickers throughout my Royal Body, and grows extremely bright and hot, like a sun is exploding in every cell of my body. Maria’s blue Royal Form reaches extreme colds that make it seem like deep space has drained all of the possibility of warmth from her surroundings.

The two auras cancel each other out, forcing us to grow stronger to adapt to the other’s fire and ice to refine this celestial energy further.

I can feel it becoming more pure with every passing tree, but there still feels like there’s an overwhelming gap between this energy and high-quality ether. Something is missing, and it isn’t just refining it further.

As these thoughts come and pass, and I get used to the sounds of docile lizard creatures climbing through the trees, a new sound hits my ears. It’s a very faint humming noise, and the longer I listen, the louder it gets. It turns into buzzing and clicking, then eventually the source hits the outer edge of my Vibrations senses.

It’s a swarm of insect-like creatures. They’re a mixture between some kind of locust and mantis, it’s hard to tell, but some of them have wings, and others are more overdeveloped to have strong legs and sharp extremities.

These bugs are no larger than a few thousand to tens of thousands of kilometers tall each, but travel in large groups. The one I’m seeing here has over fifty of them.

My eyes widen while I watch a lizard drop down from high up in the tree, swinging off a branch that its tail was curled around and colliding with the swarm, holding its sharp-toothed mouth open wide.

As the loud crunch of dozens of insects instantly being eaten echoes through the trees, so does a shockwave of high-quality ether commands. On top of this, memories resurface of a similar scene I witnessed a long time ago back on the human world.

It makes my gaze momentarily shift down toward my hand, focusing on the purple ring, and recalling where I got it from.

Near the top of Celia’s construct, the pocket world made by this mysterious light elf; I remember seeing a sight just like this. There were swarms of insects, camouflage lizards that eat them, and massive forests floating high in the sky.

The slight difference is the trees in that world were dark black, and were some kind of unique divine artifact. These trees are bright white, and the creatures in this zone do not wield divine energy at all.

While witnessing this lizard swallow its prey, I can’t help but wonder if it’s connected at all. No memories of Celia in this place were ever transferred to me, but she was a purple core when she died.

I begin transmitting my own memories to Maria, to try and explain a few of my theories about this place to her just as the shockwaves of high-quality ether burst through us.

About ten of the fifty or so insects made it out through the lizard’s teeth or swerved away before the bite clamped down; but a few of them were broken in half by the impact.

Their innards have exploded outward, throughout the forest. I can only assume they are filled with complex glyphs and ancient commands, but it just looks like a thin wave of white mist to me in my current form.

In fact, when it collides with our bodies, it acts like a hologram, bursting right through us without affecting a thing.

The only reaction any of our senses give is Maria’s source resin, the small amount that remained in her bloodstream until now immediately sinks deep back into her soul energy core to hide while this wave ripples through.

Afterward, the bugs scatter, and the forest returns to its natural state.

We keep moving and travel deeper.

More of these flocks of insects come into my vision, and I start to see a pattern. They all flock close to the tree bark, and some even swoop down to land on the roots of the trees near the points where they plunge into the ground.

I can only really track the flow of Primordial Aura inside the trees, but I can see when the brightness of their ether commands increase. I can assume there is a natural flow of high-quality ether as well, and they’re moving in large groups from tree to tree to try and take advantage of these pulses.

Some even swarm down from the heavy leaves above. Humming, buzzing, and clicking fills the air; but so does the loud sounds of sharp teeth chomping down on these bugs over and over.

I watch hundreds of them get devoured, and now don’t even flinch when the shockwaves of high-quality ether come surging through us. It doesn’t affect our bodies or souls at all; it’s more like we’re floating through a fake show while headed in the direction of Ember’s Soul tie.

We’re getting stronger by the second, and nothing can harm us in this ethereal forest.

While my paranoia has subsided a bit, I’m still extremely aware of my surroundings. Both mine and Maria’s survival instincts kick into full power once a new foreign aura appears in the direction we’re headed.

It moves faster than I can detect, has a rich well of its own Primordial Aura, and even has a True Purple Core burning in its chest.

My eyes widen as I feel a strong flow of Royal Vibrations coursing through our auras.

It’s extremely strong and confident, but does not have the evil nature of a demon’s. In fact, I can feel it already probing me and trying to find out the same thing.

A black blur moves from tree to tree, closing the gap between us in fractions of a second.

My initial battle instincts want me to reactivate all of my energy forms and sacred body, but my true royal intuition tells me that will only do more harm than good. My Celestial Energy base is so much more potent than before, my senses would be picking up on far too much more ether commands and it might fry both of our minds and fracture our souls instantly.

Whatever this aura is, it doesn’t seem like it wants to fight either. It’s more so curious, and its aura feels intelligent; like it will reason with us and there is no need to mindlessly attack.

Maria’s whole Royal Body flares up with an extreme layer of ice as she weighs her options too, but comes to the same conclusion in the fractions of a second that go by.

Neither of us moves, we just stay floating in mid-air while the enormous black mass of energy halts about a hundred billion kilometers in front of us.

It alone reaches above a billion kilometers from head to toe itself.

A white lizard on the branch above us grows frightened by the sudden shift in the atmosphere and falls down into its path.

I watch a massive black curved machete effortlessly move in its direction and slice the lizard in two. It explodes into white mist once the creature that’s halted before us puts its blade back on its back, crossed against a second identical soul weapon.

My eyes focus, and I begin to make out an outline of this creature.

Its purple true core pulls in threads from the surroundings at a greater rate than ours, and I can see Primordial Aura tethering to its Royal Vibrations on the outside of its energy manifestation.

This black aura is the manifestation of some kind of Astral Form stacked with a second mana based greater form. 

However, its body shape is very familiar… kind of like one of the Warlords from the Green Zone. I can’t help but feel a similarity to Torvak, the Blue Ogre when I feel this creature’s presence.

The small tusks, bulky stature, and even the way he handled his weapon.

A very assertive, yet calming voice echoes through both mine and Maria’s minds before we can take any more of its physical appearance in.

“State your domain affiliation. You’re about to enter a private hidden domain owned by the Black Ogre Clan! We have not received any word of humans arriving, nor are we allied with any other clans that are friendly with your race.”