Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

The purple cores close the gap between us fast, and my vision of the settlement widens too.

The shapes of the approaching bodies all come into full view, carrying soul Weapons, and standing just as tall in their Demonic forms as the Griffin, Ogre, and Mammoth in front of me.

Imagery of wisps of the remaining ascended Demons in the territory slowly appear, and larger-scale glyphs and surveillance commands start to become clear, showing the strength of this city. All of the structures are made from Dryad’s Glyphs, but there are many add-ons that are shaped by newer Demonic arrays. This settlement is certainly used by their race currently, and we’re their uninvited guests.

“Outer Guards. 36 of them. Just a little more than expected. We’re all at full strength, this is what we came here to do. Let’s let ’em have it!” Ulgar yells.

He does not even try to evade their forward march or find a way around.

The Black Ogre charges forward into the forest, Axel caws from the sky, and Vardon follows behind, casting a wave of rust-colored flames on his surroundings.

Maria and I take the rear, summoning another strong barrier of shielding arrays. However, all of the attack patterns and offensive glyphs I witnessed in the Ascended Demon slaughter moments ago are still rushing through my mind. My fingers are tingling as we venture toward the Outer Guards, trying to calculate if we’re strong enough to join the fight as well.

Our steps through the air start to get more difficult to land as gravity around us begins bending in strange ways.

The Purple Divine Thread count rises exponentially as the True cores of so many Outer Guards come near.

All of them leave the settlement and split up through the forest to try and attack from different angles.

It’s only a matter of seconds before the first shockwave of Soul Weapons flashing ripples through the Domain.

I watch over a hundred Ascended Demons get shattered to mist in the shockwave, and many more collisions follow as a group of 10 Guards all team up on Ulgar at once.

Another 13 surround Vardon, and an extreme wave of flames pulses out from his back to protect his vitals, holding over half of them back. Only 5 manage to collide with his tusks where he allows them to land.

I watch 9 Guards disappear into the branches above toward Axel’s last position, and soon after, shockwaves of white light burst down and evaporate large areas of the lush leaves. The White Griffin dodges, twists, and sends brutal attacks back as Purple-Cored Demons attack him in the sky.

They are completely occupied.

I see Ulgar’s dual blades slash through the cores of two demons, killing them early on in this battle. Vardon skewers three with his tusks and incinerates two more with a concentrated wave of flames, and I see Axel injure over half of the demons following him in the sky, but only kills one.

Before they’re able to land any devastating blows, the Demons in the back of these group formations send charged-up attacks of Demonic Essence their way.

Axel and Ulgar have the agility to dodge, but it limits the number of attacks they can throw. Additionally, it forces them to move back and lose better positioning in battle.

Vardon, on the other hand, has to tear up the ground and expel large amounts of rust-colored Glyphs to create explosions large enough to alter the paths of the Demonic Essence attacks. This gives him enough space to dodge but tires him out more.

The dark purple attacks fly through the air in the shapes of crescents, arrows, orbs, and even oscillating unique attacks.

None of them hit, but they do begin destroying the trees all around and making it much harder for the three of them to dodge.

While I do focus on their fights, I’m far more vigilant watching the 4 Outer Guards that never attacked any of them.

Three stay far back, watching the battle unfold in a triangular formation. I can tell one is charging up a long-range attack, I just don’t know who it’s aimed at yet.

Another one of the Demons zips around the battlefield holding two curved sharp black daggers but does not get close enough to any of the three fighters to send attacks of his own or get within the blast radius of fatal attacks either.

Our glyph barrier is being struck by shockwaves on all sides, but it is more than strong enough to withstand the blasts. Only minor glyphs on its outer layers are being fractured and fall off every hit. Adding another layer on the inside is extremely easy.

It allows us to soak in the information and fighting styles with far more of our mental power.

The Demonic Glyphs used by these Outer Guards are much more potent, refined, and efficient than the ones the Ascended Demons used. I mentally shift the use cases for my own while experiencing my glyph maturity rise.

Another Outer Guard falls out of the sky in pieces after Axel lands a long-range attack, and Ulgar slices another in half.

His head turns around when he senses an energy wave coming from his back.

A dense ball of Demonic Essence comes shooting out from a strange cannon-like weapon the Outer Guard that stayed behind the two scouts.

He dodges it just in time, but the orb still strikes the base of a Primordial Tree behind him. It tears a large enough hole in its trunk that the tree starts to creak and sway.

The Guard turns his cannon upward and shoots another orb without having to charge again at Axel.

The Griffin already saw it coming and swoops down, twisting its body out of the way while the purple ball packed with white glyphs flies away into the sky.

It turns to Vardon, and the fiery Mammoth has already prepared a counter.

He forms a dense rust-colored fireball in between both of his tusks and charges it up for almost a full second. When the next orb of Demonic Essence comes his way, he lets the counterattack fly and collide with the purple orb.

Vardon spins, stabbing another Outer Guard through the core as he runs, and a wall of flames erupts higher than the trees’ branches above behind him.

The Demonic Essence melts through his fireball like acid, but in doing so, it also destabilizes the outer edges of his attack that were not touched by this compact purple orb.

An O-shaped ring of rust-colored fire destroys the ground, roots, and trunk of a nearby tree. It creates even more obstacles and slows down this cannonball enough to dodge. In the burst of fire, two more Outer Guards are incinerated to a pile of molten glyphs.

The Cannon-user doesn’t stop there.

He aims right for us and lets another ball rip.

Maria and I brace for impact, and many of the Outer Guards turn their heads to watch when they realize we’re not dodging.

A loud bang shakes the battlefield, but only the outer 20% of our defensive array is broken.

The Demonic Orb that melts through everything it touches explodes into useless Demonic Sludge. Most of the ether commands inside become scrambled, and all of their glyphs fracture or explode into dust.

This moment of distraction as the Guards turn their heads is followed by more than half of the remaining being one-shot killed.

Fractured Demon Cores, Horns, and Soul Weapons fall from the sky. A Black Ogre’s Aura dances through a number of trees, slicing through Demons’ weak points, and Vardon charges another rust-colored fireball between his tusks and lets it explode directly in front of his attackers, incinerating some and following through to trample and stab those that weren’t finished off from the blast.

All three of these monsters take heavy hits themselves. They dodge the Demonic Essence attacks, but the Glyphs made of pure high-quality ether from these demons are sent out in too high of a succession. Large white gashes open up on the Mammoth’s hide where his blind spots are too tough to fully protect.

Ulgar’s left shoulder is heavily injured, and white Griffin feathers fall from the sky. However, none of their Vibrations show any signs of pain or stopping. They fight like they were never even hit.

The Cannon-user lets out a Demonic roar of anger as it realizes we just pulled off the impossible.

Three more bursts of dense purple orbs come flying out from the barrel of its soul weapon, and we brace for impact again.

Even on impact, we start summoning more glyphs to replace the ones I’m sure will be shattered to pieces.

It breaks through half our defenses, but still, we’re left untouched.

I let out a laugh, and Maria grins, staring forward at the magnificent scene.

Ulgar kills the final Demons that were attacking him and immediately runs further into the forest toward the long-range Cannon-user’s three-demon formation that has been causing so much trouble.

A screech comes from the sky as Axel kills his final Outer Guard, and a Primordial Tree falls down off in the distance covered in Demonic Essence and rust-colored flames as Vardon violently crushes the remainder of his bunch.

The stern-eyed Mammoth’s gaze turns to the trio that Ulgar and Axel are aiming to kill, but as another three cannonballs relentlessly come shooting out of its barrel toward us, his eyes track them instead.

“To your left! There’s another Outer Guard!”

While summoning enough new glyphs to withstand this impact, my own senses track where Vardon is looking, and the shifty Dagger-Wielding Demon is moving quickly from tree to tree, using the Auras of these cannonballs to lessen his presence.

Once spotted, he moves out from hiding, and the Purple-Cored Demon’s eyes lock with mine.

Three massive explosions coat my vision in Demonic Essence, but I’m certain once this dome of purple fades and reveals the battlefield again, that Outer Guard will be close enough to attack… and no one is in a position to help us.