Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

Arie makes the split-second decision to block the incoming yellow arrow with the remainder of his spirit arms.

At such close range, and with even less warning than the last arrow he blocked in the air, this collision makes Arie even more aware of the true strength of this Lich.

All of his arms are destroyed, and the shockwaves from the arrow being obliterated send him flying over a thousand kilometers back. But the eeriest thing is the feeling he continues to get from this cold aura that disables his ability to properly use his skills and buffs.

The only portion of his being that isn't suppressed is the concentrated essence of beasts he's absorbed in the past. Refined Demonic Soul Energy, rich with Qi—or, as the Rising Emperor called it, Ether—is the only thing that isn't affected by these cold vibrations.

However, that's not to say the Demonic Lich's attacks aren't imbued with their own Soul energy and dense divine threads. It's just that, with the addition of these Noble Vibrations making Arie's attacks less effective, it is far stronger when they actually clash.

It feels like a heavy hand is pressing down on him, squeezing out the warmth in his body—like the will of his mind is being stretched and tested.

Though, after catching a glimpse inside the Lich's being, the even eerier part is that he subconsciously understands that the pressure and power pressing down on him isn't even that of the Lich.

Still, coming in contact with it again only compounds his drive to become stronger.

While being blown back past the hundreds of demonic beasts he killed when touching down here, he senses dense wisps of Concentrated Ether in every single one of them and knows he must make this energy his own if he wants to compete with this Demonic Lich.

Though, as his momentum backward from the blast slows and he can actually control his desired landing point, shifting his gaze to a fallen pair of Cyclopes, another dark portal is summoned between him and his desired power.

Another yellow arrow's tip pierces out from the darkness, but this time Arie is very aware of his surroundings.

With no spirit arms coming off his back, his mobility is far greater, and he can channel all of his energy into perceiving his surroundings.

He kicks off the air, leaving a purple stain bent into space, changing his flight path by a full 45 degrees in an instant.

It looks like a light purple comet is streaking through the dark clouds of demonic energy as his entire body glows with the same Soul energy mist he was giving off in the moon base right after he was done cultivating.

His body twists around the yellow arrow once it comes out of the black portal, and he dodges it successfully.

Though, it is a very close call—less than a kilometer away at their nearest point. Arie's mind and body feel cold and weary as he flies by, but the momentum of his last thrust keeps him moving toward his target on the ground.

While the yellow arrow flies upward into the atmosphere, Arie crashes down on the ground again in between the two enormous 1st Class Demonic Beasts he killed with a flurry of arrows moments ago.

He puts out both of his hands to the sides and manipulates the demonic energy in the atmosphere nearby to control the energy flow, forcing the dense white concentrated essence to flow into him.

He gets the urge to use it to allow his spirit arms to grow back, but he holds off, and the bright purple mist around him becomes brighter while this foreign refined Qi is filtered through his demon core.

It is a far different sensation than any of the beast's essence he drained from the human world's abyss.

Taking energy from them felt as though he was just attempting to absorb more basic Qi into his core, while some of the stronger creatures would leave behind temporary soul energy based buffs. One in particular that has stayed far longer than others is the potent poison of a scorpion beast that was one of his first big kills.

Now, the essence he's absorbing feels like it flows far easier, like honey, whereas the essence he was attempting to merge with before was like molasses left out in the cold.

The difference is like night and day, as every millisecond that passes, Arie's senses feel sharper and it feels as though his will is gaining experience that could only be acquired by training thousands of hours by normal means.

It's quite easy for him to pinpoint when the next black portal is forming behind him, even before the tip of the next yellow arrow comes out.

He jumps upward, leaving purple mist below as the yellow arrow destroys the landscape and obliterates the remains of the two Cyclops corpses.

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Arie did not drain their entire essence stores, but his gaze is already locked on a Lizardman with about two dozen 3rd Class underlings surrounding them that were killed by his rain of arrows.

There is no point in fighting the Lich as he is, and without attempting to fight back at all, Arie is fast enough using borrowed stats to dodge with ease. The most logical thing to do is take advantage of the available power all around him before putting his life at risk again.

—

While flashes of purple light zip around a region close to the throne and yellow arrows desperately follow, Raven and the Berserker begin to play their own game of cat and mouse.

After feeling the rush from her first successful attack, leaving two gash marks across the Demonic Berserker's chest, Raven dives in for more.

A series of loud roars echo throughout a deep basin with mountains in the distance as the two fight in what must have been a great lake millennia ago.

Deep yellow gashes keep appearing all over the Demonic Berserker's greater form.

Over a dozen are scattered across its chest, while each of its arms and legs becomes riddled with deep wounds as well.

While any other monster might become defensive or attempt to run away after being completely overwhelmed by an invisible opponent, this Berserker is doing exactly the opposite.

Its wide, deranged eyes grow more crazed, and the sharp rows of teeth are revealed for Raven to see as it smiles wider and wider while she tears through its flesh.

After every exchange, Raven's thrill for the fight gets heightened as well. Her instincts for how much energy she can use before her senses are clouded become far more honed, and she's even able to gauge when more of her body can be revealed from her stealth dimension before and after attacks to get the desired results.

Her longer-range crescents of energy are far safer and risk-free, but after a few tests, none of them leave more than a scratch on the demonic creature's greater form.

This is because they lose a lot of their power when not directly connected to her True Core, as her main body is not fully suppressed while attacking behind the stealth veil.

Getting in close and sinking the blood-bonded blades into its being may be riskier, as she has to get up close and personal, but the damage is far more devastating. Each exchange that passes, she pushes the limits on how deep her gashes can reach, leaving even more deadly wounds.

However, in the process, two problems arise.

Raven finds her upper risk limit, where plunging her energy form's swords into this beast's greater form begins to shut down her mental and physical capacities so much that she cannot control her flight trajectory away from danger properly.

While deeper attacks aren't necessary to cause damage to its extremities, the divine core in its chest giving it power is too deep to reach without committing to a major risk.

This isn't even the worst of it.

The second issue is one that is happening within the Berserker's greater form.

After so many exchanges, Raven begins to conceptualize this creature's true being versus the strange cold energy intertwined with it. While she can't physically see the difference that Arie did by making contact with its core, she is able to understand that this is a foreign power.

The world Alveron mentioned in their briefing about the Kings being a result of blood transfusion testing long ago makes a lot of sense.

All of this only clicks when the Berserker's fighting behavior completely changes.

After one invisible slash that cuts a bit too close to the monster's True Core, it completely snaps.

A screech multiple times louder than any of the others erupts from its wide-open mouth, and the deep crimson aura in its eyes becomes more and more intense until it completely consumes them.

Unlike the Lich, who was consumed by the Noble Vibrations and is now being controlled like a puppet, this Berserker's red aura completely seeps through its greater form, saturating it with rage and pulsing outward, overpowering the cold aura that was taking dominance of its surroundings.

While a pressure is lifted off Raven's mind, like the cold is receding, a new dangerous feeling creeps in after that, making her feel like she's being watched.

The instant the red aura flows through her, the blood-red monstrous greater form turns its gaze straight toward her and swings its blades across its body while lunging forward.

At first, Raven believes it's just lurching in a random direction on instinct, as there's no way anything could sense her behind divine stealth-warped space...

But once it is close enough that she feels the red aura rippling through her become stronger and more intense, like a sharp fire getting hotter in her mind, she reflexively lifts both her blades in a cross and braces for impact.

One of the Berserker's black blades, covered in red aura, slams into Raven's greater form's two-blade defense, breaking through the stealth veil, making contact with her through previously impenetrable space.

On contact, sharp splintering pain ripples through both Raven's swords, into her body and mind. And in the same moment, she feels the cold aura she was trying to fend off before being suppressed beneath this Berserker's rage.

The source of this power is hard to pinpoint, but it's clear this is the Berserker's energy—not borrowed from anywhere—and it is truly horrifying.

Fractures begin to form on the contact points of Raven's silver blades, and the immense force from the strike sends her flying backward thousands of kilometers.

While she's in shock, the further away from the source of this aura she gets, the easier it is to think. But that doesn't account for her inferior weapons that now look like they won't be able to take many more hits—and her whole body writhing in pain like she was just dunked in molten lava.

On top of everything, as the Berserker lets out another horrific roar, cracking the ground beneath its feet and sending tremors through the entire basin, Raven can still feel its gaze on her, telling her that even her divine stealth trump card is useless...

The monster can see her every move.

–

On a First-Class world, many star sectors away, Alveron's antennae perk up.

The yellow slug pauses and zooms in on all of the recordings sent back to it from the planet, replaying the moment where the Berserker King's eyes turned completely red and it saturated its entire body with this hot crimson aura.

This scene is replayed and analyzed thousands of times in a single second, and all of the texts and data it has collected on Berserker Giants over its lifetime are simultaneously scanned within its mental system.

Once it finds what it's looking for—myths of a flow state that First-Class monsters from this race can reach, one that can rival nobility—its concentration shifts to solely focus on Kelfar. All of the other simultaneous tasks being carried out among its hundreds of worlds cease as it concentrates on a once-in-a-lifetime event, collecting as much data as it possibly can in case it never sees this again.

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