Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

Pure streams of golden aura flow through our invisible soul tie, allowing a crisp telepathy message with no interference to ping into my mind.

“So you have made it here unscathed. My efforts were not in vain, and in turn, neither were yours.”

These words flow through me with such a calm confidence that it completely washes away the fear, doubt, and confusion that was filling my mind with questions. Yet, as Maria sorts through the enormous backlog of memories I just received from my blade, she does not remain as calm.

“Who are you? Where did you really come from…?”

A strong and sharp wave of icy aura flows through me when she speaks these words.

It does not travel far through the void, hardly even making it off her body before it’s completely devoured by the darkness, and the primordial aura released is resummoned back into her origin body.

My own train of thought recenters, and I use the same mental focusing tactics I used to fight off the silver and golden threads in my memories right now. I need to use it in order to look at Ember without being affected by his aura.

Through our soul tie, I can feel that he is not necessarily trying to manipulate my thoughts directly, it is a natural aftereffect of his Primordial Aura. To a degree… I can feel that this is half true, at least.

The manifestation of a will has to do with a desire for one’s own progress, or a far larger and greater end goal.

Whatever Ember’s purpose is, it naturally makes finding the truth very hard.

The longer I stare into the crimson eyes of this enormous golden primordial dragon, I see this aura interacting with the silver and purple aura behind him too. Ember is emitting far more aura than he would naturally have to. It is to shield his own mind filled with secrets from this oppressive demonic force, but also to act as a wall of will to shield us from it too.

My sword was capable of slicing through a small sliver of the Realm Wave, but now I’m floating in the protective shadow of a being much greater. It’s clear I’m not a match at all for the creature that this dragon is shielding us from, but I’m equally certain he wants us here.

“Why did we come here…? And who are you really? What is my importance in this great cycle you keep speaking of…?” I yell back through our soul tie.

The same thing happens to my fiery aura. The information itself travels through our link, but none of the traceable energy can survive in this darkness outside my origin body.

Another stream of golden energy pours down toward us, and for a moment, all of the words in Ember’s response feel like they’re hitting me all at once in a random order I can’t understand. When I concentrate even more, some of the meaning is disintegrated by sharp golden threads, but enough comes through for me to grasp.

“Who am I? It is not so simple to answer this. Unfortunately, the question itself does not make as much sense as you believe. Soon though, you will understand why. You are the great anomaly of this system, like all those in the past that have aided in the continuation of the cycle.”

Every word that hits my consciousness is saturated in a pure black and white serenity that feels extremely comfortable to accept. However, when I feel the emotions of the pair of eyes that has bonded to my soul too, Maria interlocked beside me, it gives me enough constitution to respond.

“Then what about Maria? She has bonded with me to use the glyphs of the creator’s legacy?”

I grit my teeth, and try to feel my other soul ties, but there is a very strange resistance making it hard to feel anything else. The connection to the Upper and Lower Realms appears to be behind the Realm Wave that I crossed, but I can still voice my thoughts.

“And what about Abby? The Immortal Healer you spoke of returning? She holds the entire galaxy together as we speak. And Ava, Ren, Raven, Arie; they all hold Legacies that tie together the system’s past. They must have a purpose too, don’t they? What was all that for?”

I still feel the hot advanced crimson primordial aura tethered to my origin body, and the churning sensation in my hand where my soul sword still digests parts of the Realm Wave it devoured.

“And this sword… What was so special about the world we came from? How does it have memories from other galaxies… other systems… are those from the other cycles you speak of? Are we just tools in some master plan too? To help you achieve some goal our minds are not developed enough to understand…”

We still slowly float closer and closer.

The visual representation of the golden dragon in front of us does not get any larger. It still fills up the same amount of our vision, but the aura coming off him becomes increasingly stronger, making his presence seem to grow.

It is not that we are getting closer to him, but that we’re nearing the source of this silver and purple aura too.

I watch Ember holding back more of the tendrils of Primordial Aura clashing with the side of him that we cannot see.

That is, until small strands break through.

They are far more silver than anything else. For some reason, the silver threads that touch Ember’s Primordial Body are repelled off, similar to the display I saw when he rid his immortal core of the same threads.

They fall down toward us, and I raise my blade to block. I don’t feel any physical danger, it only looks intimidating to see waves of foreign silver threads coming my way.

The eye on the base of my sword blinks, and its hunger stirs once I raise it to block these attacks.

The silver threads fall into the core of the blade with no resistance, but an invisible wave of aura phases right through and connects with our psyches.

It’s a telepathy message directly from the Overseer; it is far stronger than the waves of stray aura we managed to overhear. His voice is far more deep, crisp, confident, and even slightly amused.

“So the traitor finally brought the mortals that his legacy requires to use as fuel for his Great Cycle? More nonsense! Your wills are far too weak…”