Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

“You’re right. The longer we wait, the higher chances of more Outer Guards swarming us there will be,” Vardon remarks.

Ulgar begins floating deeper into the forest.

“Let’s go, this way. It’s not much further to one of their ritual domains. If anything will awaken the rest of your glyphs, that’ll be it.”

Maria and I follow, a the Fiery Mammoth slowly floats behind us.

My senses stretch out much further now, I can feel dozens of Primordial Trees in every direction. Each one of them has some kind of automatic sensory feature that ripples through everything that passes it. The Glyphs activating deep within the trees feel very similar to the invisible domain barriers themselves, but this is just because they’re originating from the same race’s language.

I can’t help but feel like the flickers of consciousness in these trees are just like the warm and inviting hand I felt built into the barriers. Whatever it is, it resides in the Primordial Aura itself, not the Glyphs.

As we pass hundreds of trees, the sadness that pours out of them starts to become overwhelming. I want to pull my Primordial Aura back in to save my mind from the stress, but the glints of hope deep inside each tree make me keep probing for more answers.

Even though these trees aren’t fully conscious, I feel like the small flicker of hope in their souls grows slightly larger by our presence. It’s like I’m an old friend walking through, and they’re trying to say hello.

When I start bouncing my memories of perception off Maria’s, I get hers too.

The internal reaction to her presence is actually slightly different. I can sense the Primordial Aura curl around all of the glyphs and energy pathways in her body that carry source resin in large amounts. Others are actually attracted to the denser areas of refracting sparkling light, causing far more pressure on Maria’s soul to withstand when passing certain trees. There is a mixed reaction from every one. It is extremely strange.

They all start off with the same sadness, but their reactions are varied to either full-on resentment, not wanting anything to do with her, even giving me the sense of scheming against her for some reason. Or, an unconditional love like they’re trying to hug her soul and seek comfort.

The same sense of hope dwindles when she leaves each tree, even the ones that are angry with her.

It starts to weigh on both our minds, as this creates another piece of this puzzle in the Purple Zone that makes no sense at all.

Nothing becomes any clearer as another hundred or so trees go by. We’ve changed directions half a dozen times, loud caws from the air alert Ulgar of where new enemies are traveling. He believes there is no point in fighting if it’s not necessary.

However, we stop moving when the Griffin’s caws become frantic.

“Two squads of Outer Guards, moving in from our left and right. We can turn back and find a safer route or fight,” Ulgar says in a serious tone, his killing intent–infused aura quickly returning.

I feel heat on my back when Vardon replies, “We’re too close now to turn back. I’ll take the right, you take the left. They have enough array proficiency to protect themselves, and Axel will intervene if anything actually goes wrong—”

He’s cut off by the edges of the woods in front of us flooding with a purple and white light.

I don’t waste any time and begin syncing my hand movements with Maria, and channel Celestial energy into our Glyphs to start making a perfect barrier around us, mimicking the one Vardon created but with our own Legacy’s glyphs.

The Black Ogre and Fiery Mammoth move forward in a flash of rust and darkness, and instantly the first layer of our defensive arrays is shattered by the shockwaves.

I see 14 Purple Cored Demons fly out, weaving through the trees with their eyes locked directly on us. The fastest Demon collides with Ulgar’s dual blades first, and Vardon swings his tusks around to block two approaching Demons at once.

A loud bird’s screech echoes through the air, but the Griffin does not descend.

It watches just like us, as Demons attempt to bust through their line of defense. Watching Ulgar take on six Demons alone was impressive, but the speed and raw power I’m witnessing right now is on another level.

Black and Rust-Colored Auras fill my vision, and I watch half of the attacking Demons die in an instant…

Two of them have their heads chopped off by Ulgar’s blades, while a third is sliced clean in half, detonating and exposing the Demon cores of its headless partners. While they attempt to heal, Ulgar spins through the residue and shatters their cores while simultaneously throwing long-range attacks at the approaching Demons from the trees behind them.

Both of the Demons that attacked Vardon have incinerated in a close-up pillar of flames, only leaving their shattered cores and weapons behind. He charges forward and skewers another pair, using sharpening arrays at the tips of his tusks, and layers of hardening glyphs around their outer bone shell. The attackers are thrust up in the air helplessly and roasted alive like the others.

The next few shockwaves are the Demons that took the rear and have had enough time to charge up long-range attacks imbued with Demonic Essence.

Ulgar is in midair when two waves of dark purple energy filled with Demonic Glyphs and extremely potent poison fly toward him. However, he disappears in a blur of black aura, spinning around a nearby tree with far greater speed than any of these attacking Demons. He slices another one of them in half, instantly killing it, and charges in to attack the final three in the back line of his group.

Vardon has far more destructive power, but his speed does not match Ulgar’s.

When Demonic Essence comes rocketing his way, he stomps both of his front feet, tearing up a massive chunk of the remaining ground and roots. Then, he moves out of the way and toward the attackers.

An explosion of ground and roots fills the air, diffusing enough of the attack’s momentum to allow Vardon to dodge it and send waves of rust-colored fire straight into the chest of the closest Demon. He stabs another through the core moments later, leaving only a single fighter from the squad attacking him left.

While Maria and I watch, every single collision destroys more of the ground we stand on, and evaporates layers of our protection array. With the shockwaves of energy moving so fast around us, large amounts of the energy I sacrificed are being whisked away. Once the glyphs break, they’re no longer under my control. In order to replace them, I have to continue pouring more and more Celestial energy into this creation we’ve made.

It doesn’t take much. About 10% of our ether pools in total is being used right now to comfortably block all of the harmful aura outside. Thousands of Glyphs are pouring out of our palms, and they’re being destroyed at the same rate. However, my eyes are wide, admiring this battle.

I watch Vardon kill the final Demon on his side, and Ulgar kill two more that were hiding behind trees, as they tried to retreat.

One final Demon is so far away, it’s almost impossible for me to see in my limited vision. Yet, Ulgar’s yell makes me realize why.

“He’s been charging up this whole time! Get away from the blast, you can’t withstand an impact!”

At his words I watch the Black Ogre twist his body around an extremely dense arrow of Demonic Essence. It looks like a pointed bolt, like something shot out of a crossbow. However, it’s over a billion kilometers long and millions of kilometers thick.

The energy reading on it makes it seem like it’s almost as strong as an entire Royal Demon’s Core all funneled into a single attack.

It’s so fast… and the only possible way I can see myself dodging this would be letting down our defensive arrays to gain back mobility. Doing so would expose us to the intense shockwaves in the air, and that would be equally as harmful as just getting hit by this attack.

Maria and I come to the consensus very quickly our best course of survival is to brace ourselves, and we pour far more of our ether pools out of our hands. We increase the output by over five times, pouring half of our total refined Celestial energy pools into our defensive array. Instantly over a hundred thousand red and blue glyphs spin and interlock in front of us, tightening and preparing for a clash.

The last thing I see is Ulgar killing the last Outer Guard with an angry glare far away, then feel the sharp tip of this spiked bolt arrow colliding with the center of our defensive array.