Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

A burst of violent energy floods through the air.

The dense waves of divine threads alone are enough to push both of us backward, sliding over trillions of kilometers on the flat ground. Ulgar’s Royal Vibrations burst through the air as well, piercing deep into our psyches; however, they are just residue from the explosions and not targeted at us with malicious intent.

Even pockets of primordial aura collide with ours, but they mostly stay latched onto dense areas of Royal Vibrations. None of these are harmful to us.

It is the stray High Quality ether glyphs that create the majority of the true danger.

Some of them phase right through us, just like the strange attacks we witnessed from the lizards and insect swarms. However, some of the more fractured and broken glyphs collide with the outside of my soul and create a devastating impact.

It feels like a heavy hammer is ringing every part of my being like a massive bell.

There are so many of them that no matter what path I try to take through this storm of energy, I’m certain to be hit by one. It feels extremely hot and sharp. By the time a second, third, fifth, then even a tenth glyph hits me, this sharpness turns to intense pain, like my essence is being fractured.

The only thing that holds me together is the fact that I’m still cycling Celestial Energy with Maria. It is so fast and natural that despite fractures building up all over our souls, they begin healing at a similar rate.

Our perception skills were enhanced to their max upon impact, and we are quite a large distance away. We are quite small targets considering the size of these blasts, and after traveling tens of trillions of kilometers from Ulgar, they’ve spread out quite a bit.

Still, over a hundred of them hit each of us.

I feel hairline fractures created all over my soul, but I’m held together by a glistening rainbow essence that leaks in from Maria’s Celestial Energy. Unlike my fire that breaks apart each impact, this Source Resin is not affected at all by the constant hits.

When the shockwave passes, and my Celestial Fire burns bright again, healing me from the inside out, all of the fracture lines have their source resin flood out through the next Celestial Energy Cycle back into Maria’s Soul Energy Core.

While painful, it was extremely exhilarating.

The flatlands grow quiet while in my Vision I see Ulgar flying our way in an anxious state. Yet, when I look at Maria, and look back at myself through her eyes, I see our Glyph Imprints flickering with life.

They appear for almost a full tenth of a second, which is like an eternity compared to the stimulation we’ve had so far.

The visuals of the dozens of white demons fighting Ulgar moments ago flash in my mind again, and so many more of the glyphs all over their bodies start to make more sense…

I gasp with a deep breath of air as I feel my consciousness hit its highest point of saturation from this wave of information. My entire soul feels burning hot, but in a satisfying way, and my view of reality around me fades. The imagery of my soul sword flashing with golden glyphs pulses for no more than a millionth of a second before all sight of the flatlands disappear.

A familiar vision takes over my mind again, one I received only after defeating Samir Vanguard and destroying his Armor.

I’m looking down at the back of a golden dragon as it flaps its wings. Below us, there is a white forest filled with incredibly massive trees. It looks like the Primordial Garden… but something is very different.

I can’t tell what it is or why, but now when I look down at the body of the being I’m viewing these memories through, I start to see glyphs and High Quality Ether patterns that actually make sense. Before, it was just gibberish to my Dark Blue Cored mind.

Whatever this is, these are memories directly from a Demon.

I feel like I’m piecing something vital together again, and I start to look up to where this dragon is flying to, but the moment I do, the visions cease.

The burning hot glow filling my soul becomes less comforting and more painful, the majority of it moving straight to my head, accompanied by a flash of golden and silver light.

I grit my teeth and bear it. By now, I’m getting used to these memory blocks; they aren’t as painful and disorienting as they used to be. I’m still fully conscious and standing, watching Ulgar touch down in front of us with wide eyes.

“You’re… fine…?” he says in a soft and questioning tone.

Maria responds, “Yeah, more than fine. In fact, if you can hit us with another one of those shockwaves, I think it’d be beneficial. That stimulated our glyph imprints far more than the elven artifacts did.”

He nods, thinking to himself for a moment before turning back around. “Most of the ascended are Royals that weren’t strong enough to withstand the Dryad’s legacies they stole. It’s often a hybrid imprint, mixed with original glyphs from the Demonic Race as their base imprints. Maybe whatever small amount they absorbed from the Dryads, you two somehow managed to use it for yourselves… I doubt mana based beings could absorb Glyphs created for Demons.”

He pauses, then starts moving forward again. “Even so, just because you can withstand some residue from that range doesn’t mean you should be getting anywhere near the action… If there was one group, there will be more nearby. Stay back and be careful.”

As I let my Vibrations and Primordial Aura flow outward again, I can feel Ulgar’s emotions, and despite his calm demeanor and serious attitude, he’s shaking with excitement and surprise. While he flies away, both of us follow with smiles across our faces. Clearly, he has no idea something like that would happen.

After a few minutes pass as we fly through the desolate flatlands, and the warmth around my soul fades.

We bounce the memories of our epiphanies off each other to keep the stimulation longer, but it still fades without external help.

While a little disheartening, like we’re on the come-down from the ultimate high, Ulgar’s loud yell raises our hopes before losing the sensation entirely.

“Another group! Prepare yourselves!”

We get down, but don’t bother using stealth at all this time. We focus entirely on our perception skills and shielding techniques to withstand the initial impact.

The beautiful sight of the enormous billion-kilometer-tall Black Ogre fending off seventeen white Demons ranging from 100 to 500 million kilometers tall each is incredible. All of his movements are swift and precise. I can see the exact amount of High Quality ether he sacrifices for each blow. The long-range attacks cost far more than the ones where he keeps his energy close and breaks through the Demon’s entire beings with single slashes with a bare blade.

The bulk of the bright white High-Quality ether is in a pure mist form by the time it’s drained into Ulgar’s body, but with keener eyes and a steady mind not concerned with survival, I can easily watch a select few collections of glyphs that activate each time converting raw High-Quality ether into this Ogre’s own energy source.

Most of the shattered Glyphs that fall through Ulgar are not absorbed at all; they mostly break apart, either bouncing off into the atmosphere or shattering into small enough pieces until the arrays I watched before can digest them.

The Demons, on the other hand, their attacks start to look very simple and understandable. What was gibberish and random unpredictable arrays moments ago now looks almost as normal as the Black Ogre’s glyphs.

Even the shockwave that hits us a few seconds later is no longer life-threatening. We still brace ourselves, but repeat exactly what we did before with full confidence. Our souls fracture, and our glyph imprints all pulse for about a tenth of a second again.

My sword ignores everything this time, like there is no new information, uninterested in what it can’t devour. However, Maria’s sword is starting to shine out of her soul brighter and brighter.

The rest of her source resin fully emerges, now that it’s sure no Primordial Trees are nearby. We don’t even have to try to dodge the glyph impacts this time, allowing over a thousand to hit us, and the sparkling energy holds us together like glue.

By the time Ulgar flaps back, we’re already glowing with vitality and our souls are warm and stimulated.

No more words have to be spoken at all. The Black Ogre nods and continues to lead us through the Flatlands.

We run into five more groups of these white demons, and they grow in numbers each time.

The most recent group Ulgar defeated had thirty-one in total.

Maria and I are back in the groove of constant enlightenment. It’s like we’re back beneath the trees soaking in as much information as we can from all angles. When watching Ulgar fight these demons now, there aren’t many glyphs I can’t recognize. Every attack lands exactly where I predict it will before it’s even finished being charged up.

However, my own imprints still don’t light up for more than a tenth of a second, and it’s not by my own doing. It’s an automatic reaction. When I try to activate them myself, or even mimic patterns using Celestial Energy in front of me, the best I can do is create weak structures that hardly look like lines and dots. Artificially compressing Celestial Energy does not have the same effect as the arrays used in the barrier…

While pushing my mind to its limits trying to come up with new strategies, I’m interrupted by a loud eagle’s screech in the air. I can’t see where it’s come from, so it must be far higher up than I can see.

At the same time, Ulgar stops moving, and puts a hand up for us to stop.

“Axel spotted a party of Outer Guards… They usually don’t venture out this far. Their closest domain is still quite far away. It’s either a freak coincidence… or they knew we were coming.”