Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster's Power-Chapter 912

There are many deep growth ridges in the glowing white bones.

Different stages of its development over its millions of years in the Ravine can be sensed through them. Incredibly pure and dense celestial energy flows through them as a constant, but the structure and wavelength of its Royal Vibrations change throughout the sections as we walk forward and examine the horns.

We separate and float around the massive specimens to examine them further.

They’re the largest raw bone artifacts I’ve seen in this abyss so far, stretching over 40 meters long each.

I slide my hand against the growth ridges, and it stimulates the memories I just absorbed to run through my mind all over again.

I can feel every shift in this Demon’s will throughout its lifetime and gain an immense amount of insight on creating and harnessing a Royal path. A lot of which stays internal, as subconscious dos and don’ts, but by the time I’m done examining it, I have come to a vital truth.

The foundation of my journey is just as important as every step closer to my goals I take now.

I have been instinctively following goals directed to me by the system and the environment I’ve thrown myself into.

Even thinking about it so deeply now, I begin to feel the most powerful soul bond vibrating with an invisible energy nearby as Maria makes discoveries of her own, feeling the Demon’s horn.

Becoming closer with her was a choice I made in order to strengthen and widen my path, but this opens my eyes further to the fact that there are so many more variables inside me. The separation of two powers, destruction and creation, have naturally split over many years here in the Ravine, down in the Green Zone, and even in the Lower Realm.

In fact, I was sent down this path unknowingly the day I became soul-bound with Ember, accepting a Demon core into my body.

I can feel an intangible energy connecting this bond now that I sit with it and focus on that Crimson-Eyed Dragon’s face... However, for some reason, I have the instinctual feeling to look upward.

I stare toward the rift in the sky, but I’m looking in a direction through the zones, feeling the sensation I felt with Maria as we split through the green zone to come here.

It’s not that I can see Ember in a higher zone or even sense his system or presence at all; I just know he’s there... It makes me shiver, like I’ve just touched upon a new sense I’ve never felt before.

I look down to relieve myself of this sensation, but instead, it only opens up new pathways connecting me with this invisible force to all of the armor on my body and the many souls captured to strengthen them.

The moment this clicks, my mind expands even further, automatically connecting the dots to my blood-bonded armor and unlocking invisible sensory pathways down into the green zone and even the Lower Realm.

For a moment, I feel connected to all of the generals, administrators, commanders, and knights again. In fact, billions of worlds’ worth of beings in the Lower Realm connect to a part of my mind for a moment like a flash of realization before the whole connection is cut off.

I feel as though I gained a connection to the system again for a moment, but without any access to its mana or numerical features. I stare down at the Royal Demon’s horn, now lacking this overwhelming stimuli that flashed before me with a blank stare.

It felt like miniature soul bonds were tethering me to every living being and artifact connected to the rising emperor’s system.

–

I take a deep breath in and look down at my hands, then back up to turn toward Maria.

She’s already started floating over to me, recognizing something strange is happening.

For a moment, I feel completely disconnected, like I’m having a withdrawal from the overwhelming pull of souls that flashed before my mind. However, once she comes close enough, I feel my awareness of this invisible force grow between us again.

"Jay... what’s wrong...?"

"I’m not really sure..." I answer while holding my head and floating down to the ground between the two horns, while two hands comfort me.

Over the next few minutes, I tell her what I just saw and simultaneously use my Celestial Grade Craftsmanship to infuse these horns into our largest sets of armor, our chestplates covering our vitals.

The Celestial Energy is compressed, and the Vibrations of this monster from its peak are isolated and dominated by our wills to create a protection equal to the armor that we couldn’t break through during our own fight earlier.

Maria’s expression as I tell her about this invisible force brightens, and her eyes widen with understanding the more I go into detail about what it felt like.

We float out of the Ravine’s bottom, up high into the dark sky toward the rift as she replies.

"I’ve felt it too... for a long time, actually. Ever since I compressed my True Core back in the Lower Realm."

She summons her crystalline soul sword, and out of reflex, I do the same to summon my flaming blade.

The tether between this blade and my soul becomes vivid to my senses the moment I concentrate on it. We both let go of our blades to let them slowly orbit around us while flying upward further.

"I thought it was a side effect of creating my Destroyer Class Soul Weapon, like some unique feature of bonding with raw Source Resin... but—after our Souls bonded too... I feel like we have always been connected in this way, just not as strong. In fact, everyone, and anything we interact with... being in the presence of another being with life creates a small soul bond of sorts... At least, that’s my theory."

We float higher as I consider her words, and the darkness around us fades as the bright white light of the rift above illuminates the sky far brighter than even our red and blue auras.

"I think you’re right... I just don’t know how the system itself is intertwined in all of this."

We float in silence, staring at each other and examining the soul bond with newfound insight, but eventually, the slowly swirling rift above sways our attention.

I vividly remember over a million years of the Royal Demon’s desperate attempts at breaking out of this prison and realize force will not be a viable option to escape.

Even our attempt to break through it before our full soul bond is fresh in my mind.

Yet, we have to try again to make sure.

We send our strongest attacks in our current forms at the white barrier above us.

Some together at a single point, and others kilometers apart. We even try flying through the ravine to other portions of the rift to see if there are any weak points, but the result is exactly as I thought it would be.

None of our attacks make even the slightest fluctuation in the ether flowing above. It is like we’re not even here. All of the force we throw at this rift stops the moment it makes contact.

No energy is even absorbed, and there is no negative backlash either...

The attacks just stop.

It is like unreadable ether commands are holding back our movements and not allowing certain events to take place in the reality that exists beyond the rift in the sky.

I understand now completely, there is no amount of force that could ever break through this strange barrier.

It is a higher-quality ether base than I can comprehend. An artifact of the past created by Demons that reside two zones above this one...

In addition to this confirmation, as we float throughout the Ravine, there are massive artificial holes in the dark black ground. These are all past attempts at escaping downward as well, but I have vivid memories of this Royal Demon’s failure in that regard too. There is nothing but endless black stone that gets denser and harder the deeper down one digs.

I even remember him attempting to saturate his Cyan Core. Many High Nobles and partial Royals of the past tried to attempt this too. However, something held them back from doing so. Just like the system is still suppressed, the ability to compress Cyan threads past a certain density in this darkness seems to be present too.

I didn’t fully realize it until now, but it makes me wonder if my Royal Vibrations are being suppressed in ways I cannot feel or comprehend right now.

Maria and I share our thoughts and theories as I describe sensations and memories from the demons, and we explore the Ravine from an aerial view with full visibility rather than the blind journey we had to take through the darkness before.

This time, we release waves of aura to kill every last straggling demon we see, leaving no survivors. These were all monsters loyal to Lucian Morvale at one point, so all I see them as now are enemies.

After a long loop around a few thousand pedestals, finding no weak points or new ideas on how to get out, we come back to where the temple once stood and touch down on the raised pillar that shows statues of a demon and an angel both looking up to the sky, where we’re both trying to go as well.

I walk toward the Demon, whose horns match the corruption manifestations poking out of my forehead perfectly. Maria walks toward the angel, whose wings match her sparkling source resin manifestation down to the last feather as well.

"Maybe we aren’t done here... There still is no explanation for the extra writing in the stone. The ones that guided us here using originator text... There could still be more of this inheritance that we aren’t remembering. It could be the key to getting out of here," I say with a tightened gaze, staring into the chest of this Demon statue.

Then, the floor beneath my feet starts to grow warm, as bits of my soul energy react with it.

The two statues glowed with a dull red and blue hue while we were being lifted into the sky before our battle, but fell back to their black stone state when we left.

Now that we return, I watch the Demon begin to glow crimson again, and the statue in front of Maria begins to glow blue.

Both of the statues’ chests light up with that same familiar white glyph, and a low audible hum fills the air.

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Author’s Note:

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Thanks for reading:)

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