Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

While the first known Noble Grade Destroyer Class Soul Weapon of this era is being born, the Upper Realm remains calm and still.

The Lower Class Lords in the Ellipsia Citadel are living better lives than they have ever known before.

Under the rule of this New Drako Vermillion Demon Lord, the servants who would normally strip them of every ether they could in taxes and fees are now shoveling millions of ether into their economy in exchange for trash worlds.

One million ether was given out in the first week, and now the servants are back for more with another million ether, scouring the lower-class markets for even more worlds.

Word has spread fast.

They even approach the black and grey markets, which would usually be shut down and charged fines for existing, but now, they look the other way as long as they can get a good deal for these trash worlds—overpopulated, with little to no resources left.

Usually, this means the dungeon divers on these worlds are overleveled, and their societies have many precautions and regulations for farming the remaining dungeons. Often, trying to create new contracts on these worlds is a negative investment almost 100% of the time.

Tens of thousands of 5th, 4th, and 3rd Class Lords are now able to live better lives and enrich their home worlds even further.

—

At the same time, inside the top floor of the High Orc Tower, Asic is finishing up assimilating with the Avatar upgrade and new Soul Weapon pairing.

A pile of shattered divine-energy-imbued mana and ether rests on the floor in a circle surrounding a massive, glowing High Orc statue holding a sharp, radiant battle axe.

It has been erupting with ether and divine threads for hours now, rejecting all portions of the old avatar and the impurities that have built up in Asic's body over the last many tens of thousands of years since he transferred his consciousness and cores into a new sleeve.

Torvak watches intently from the other side of the room, standing next to the other three shells of black avatars and their Soul Weapons.

For the first few hours of this assimilation, he helped stabilize Asic's bond with a large amount of his power, but after the initial link, it has been all up to the High Orc to finish the process.

The majority of the mana and ether necessary to complete the bond were already exerted during the crafting process. So, while it appears that the silhouette of the ancient 1st Class Warlord is exerting himself to the limit, inside his mind, this High Orc is actually having quite the pleasurable experience.

After a long week of crafting, he finally gets to bask in the glory of his creation.

At last, the immense white glow and pressure in the room fade, allowing Torvak to see the completed bond on the other side.

Asic swings his glowing dual-sided axe in front of his body a few times, leaving streaks of white ether behind it, then runs forward, zipping side to side in the room.

For a moment, he's moving almost too fast for Torvak to see, which is surprising, given that the old High Orc isn't even using any buffs or skills. With Torvak's lightning attribute, his reflexes and perception are usually far better than his crafting partner's.

He smiles and speaks up while struggling to track the High Orc with his shifting gaze.

"I take it the bond was a success."

Asic appears right in front of the Blue Ogre and lets out a laugh.

"Oh, it's a success, alright! I feel better than I have in forty thousand years. The command restrictions are all lifted too... It really worked..."

Torvak grins and sends out a few messages through his system telepathy links, notifying the others of this success and that their avatars and new Soul Weapons are ready when they are to bond with them.

—

Ava is the first to receive this message.

She has been working with a few of the demonic servants to reintroduce many slave workers back into the society of Ellipsia these past weeks but has managed to move every single one. Now, she is all alone below the Citadel, farming as much additional ether as she can while using her new senses.

However, she has reached a bottleneck, as there is not much more ether to be found down here other than stones buried extremely deep below the surface and worthless 5th Class stones.

With all of the lower-class worlds being bought up by the demons—worlds that would usually be compacted into the power plant—no fresh stones are being dropped down here either.

The cracks in her avatar have stopped growing. It feels like she is seeing light peek out from behind a closed door and has adapted to this small amount of information, pairing it with her instinct ability to create a rudimentary ether sense. However, it's clear that something is not right.

The limiters on this basic-grade avatar, provided to her by the Ellipsia Citadel upon entry, are suffocating her potential.

Even the hammer she uses is extremely lacking. It was the only one available to pair with the avatar—the lowest grade of a Basic Class Soul Weapon. It was not even specially crafted; the default shell was preloaded the moment she purchased it in the ether command shop.

While it has its perks—far better than anything a 4th or 5th Class Lord could purchase with their basic-grade avatars—this is far from what a general of the Rising Emperor should have equipped in preparation for a Zone Takeover.

The Goblin Queen flies back toward the central peak the moment she gets word that her new Avatar and Soul Weapon are ready to pair.

—

At the same time, a message sounds in Ember's inner ear, telling him the same thing about his training partner's new Avatar and Soul Weapon set.

Torvak knows what Ember is attempting to do, so he does not send a message to Zashen directly.

This is a wise move, as the Berserker Giant is in the final stages of awakening a Crimson Aura similar to the one Raven had to face back on Kelfar against one of its Kings.

After relentless attacks on this Warlord's psyche—each increasing in pressure and strength as his ether defenses adapt to the last—Zashen is being pushed to a limit he never knew was possible.

The number of times he has come within milliseconds of death is in the tens of thousands so far.

Ember's reaction time and precision with refined ether is far greater, so his ability to stop his attacks right before killing Zashen is unnoticeable. To the Berserker, it feels like he's had to push his body and mind to the limits every time, skirting away from certain death over and over.

With no end in sight and no set time limit for their training to end, this 1st Class monster—who has been the strongest Berserker in the Green Zone of the Upper Realm for its entire life—must evolve to push itself past its limits.

Ember's words, telling him that if he wants to fight a real Noble without any help, he'll have to survive this training first, echo in his psyche; and the fact that he actually wasn't able to truly go toe to toe with Andras Vermillion eats away at him too.

At first, he believed it was the rush of his life—to actually injure a Noble Demon and exchange blows in the same room.

However, after every new mental attack Ember throws down at him, his stress levels and instinctual rage to get stronger and survive grow.

The fact that he wasn't able to push himself to such a limit during that fight proves he's gone soft, living in luxury in Ellipsia, allowing others to win his fights for him.

This rage starts as a slow simmer, a light red aura in the depths of the Berserker's eyes, like a seed sprouting in his mind to aid his defense against these incoming attacks.

However, when Ember activates his full dragon form less than a second after this seed sprouts in order to keep the intensity at a maximum, this rage only grows more.

Instinctively, the Berserker knows he has broken through to a new limit, yet it feels the same. It reinforces the fact that it is not strong enough.

The crimson aura within the Berserker's mind grows. This seed of potential is forced to sprout into a sapling, growing into a tree yearning for sunlight but constantly limited by a growing aura of suppression from the Dragon. Ember matches its growth with an equal mental attack, taking advantage of the rare state that only a single digit number of Berserker Giants have ever achieved.

Ember grins when he receives the message that Zashen's new gear is ready, but staring down at the massive, red-glowing Giant, he sends another attack his way to continue completing this inner transformation before breaking the good news to him.

—

All seems to be moving along just as planned in the Upper Realm.

Ten million kilometers away, even the Wyvern's fallen Citadel is being put to good use.

The Sea of Corruption may be calm and unmoving, but deep within a ravine that hasn't felt the divine threads of the Green Zone in over two hundred thousand years, something is finally being set into motion.

A Noble Human and a Noble Wyvern are deep below its surface, submerged in the dark black liquid within the deep crack below the sea, working on a single task—to undo a seal that tainted Seraphel's fate.

—

However, in a zone even higher than the Green, a certain Cyan-cored demon is struck with a surprising bit of news.

After being hit with a very long Realm Wave, lasting three and a half years, the Morvale family head isn't expecting many updates from the Green Zone or the Lower Realm.

This is because he has already been given reports that their Realm Waves only lasted 16 minutes and roughly 79 days, respectively.

Not much of anything interesting could have happened in that time, as this wave was quite mild compared to some in the past.

No reports from any of the higher Zones have come back yet. Though, it's unclear if they are recovering after a longer-than-average wave or simply do not care to interact with the lower zones.

Whatever the case may be, it doesn't matter.

The Morvale family head is usually only occupied with matters within the Cyan Zone. However, one of his projects from a few hundred thousand years ago has just come to an abrupt end.

Just a week ago, he felt a strange disturbance on Kelfar, as if someone or something was trying to look at him through the throne. However, before he could react, the gaze of whatever it was disappeared.

His initial thought was that a stray 3rd Class or weaker beast with some kind of stealth attribute must have made it past the Kings, as they did not see it as a threat.

There are strange disturbances like this happening all the time—hundreds of them per second, actually, given the number of worlds this Demon controls. So, given that there was no attempt to damage the throne, he pushed it to the back of his mind and carried on with the important tasks within his zone.

However, now over a week later, a surge of cyan threads is returned to his body, and the world token on his palm ticks down by one...

The family head checks his consciousness to scan the world where these threads came from, but to his surprise, it is completely gone.

A tinge of panic runs through him as he sifts through his memories over the last week, pinpointing the one that has to do with that world, then replays it at the forefront of his mind.

Green eyes of a human are all he sees for a fraction of a second, but nothing more.

Other than this, the throne was completely dormant.

The last time this particular throne was stimulated was thirty thousand years ago, when one of its lingering Yellow-Cored armies was tactically overthrown by a very old Mind Flayer.

Though, considering there were no more attacks on the throne itself since then, and no additional support was requested from the branch in the Lower Realm, this Demon assumed the matter was taken care of.

The security system of Noble Blood-infused Demonic Beasts is more than enough to keep even the peak 1st Class Civilizations away from special worlds like this one.

However... the world is gone.

The Realm Wave has made things a little fuzzy, as over three and a half years have passed, but this Demon remembers speaking with Miriel Vermillion about a new Noble Demon that had recently ascended from a similar sector of space in the Lower Realm.

He sifts back through his memories and relives the conversation between them.

Then, is struck with a very odd message that he found amusing at first when it came from the Dark Blue Zone about this New Lord named Drako.

"The Vanguard Family does not approve. Eliminate the threat."

This is what he heard from the Vanguards, and he brushed it off as them being overly cautious as usual.

However, after spending hundreds of thousands of years waiting and making careful moves to build his empire in the Upper Realm, having so many oddities pop up within such a short time frame is not what he likes to see.

"Maybe the Vanguards were right..." He whispers to himself while sinking his mind into the dark chamber communication technique used for Family Heads. A message is sent down to the Green Zone, requesting more information on this new Noble Lord. Then, through a slower and more formal channel, another request is sent out for a force from the Morvale Lower Realm Branch to investigate what happened to Kelfar.