Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

Arie touches down on top of a massive demonic lizardman's corpse, and the clouds of dark energy all around him begin swirling like a whirlpool toward him.

The concentrated essence still stagnant in the lizard creature's body flows up into his, and the two dozen subordinates filled with puncture holes from his arrows leak out refined Qi that swirls in this whirlpool, flowing into his palms.

The purple aura around Arie grows even brighter, tinting closer to white, and his senses grow sharper.

The fluctuation in the air behind him triggers his senses even before the next black portal forms.

He turns his head to spot a group of fallen 1st and 2nd-class berserker giants, grins, and jumps off the air, leaving purple fluctuations in his wake.

An even brighter purple streak appears in the air as the human is already halfway toward his next target by the time the Lich's yellow arrow emerges from its portal.

A series of zigzags across a massive, desolate region of land makes the area glow bright with purple light, and every turn is followed by massive yellow explosions, destroying the remains of drained corpses.

The Demonic Lich attempts to follow his movements, but without its noble vibrations slowing him down, Arie is able to outpace the monster with ease. Without activating any of his buffs and channeling all of this new power into his movement, Arie only becomes faster and harder to track.

His aura becomes brighter and brighter, glowing primarily white with a faint purple mist around it by the time every one of the beasts he killed earlier in this region is either drained into his core or obliterated by the Lich's arrows.

Instead of turning to face the Demonic Archer, Arie sets his sights on another region even closer to the throne, with just as many demonic beasts still roaming the lands.

His senses pick up a very dangerous cold aura off in the distance, somehow even more intense than the Lich.

This is the tower itself...

While many beasts still roam around it, none dare to walk near it. There is a dead zone of land all around the black tower.

So, between this tower and the moat that the generals and kings made upon their first interactions circling the globe, there is a doughnut-shaped area of land remaining with demonic beasts left on it. Arie's raining arrows only took out 5% of this land at most, and with the bright red explosions emerging at the sides of his vision from Raven and the Berserker's battle, Arie wants to take advantage of as much of this fresh ether as he can.

The human archer zips off toward a new region and summons a suppressed form of his 3rd Ranked-up buff to summon about 400 arrows in the milliseconds he has free before he has to dodge again.

His demonic spirit arms that form are still as dark as the night, but streaming from his back, within the energy forms, it looks like there are bright white veins running through them.

The arrows he releases into the air are much brighter white as well, with the concentrated essence fueling them now overpowering the divine threads at their core.

Purple mist still surrounds them, leaving trails through the dark demonic clouds as he lets them fly, arching upward and spreading out, killing hundreds of the strongest demonic beasts across an entire 2,000-kilometer-wide region.

—

Raven sees bright arrows flying through the air like guided missiles but must concentrate on her own problems.

Her blood-bonded blades have fractured from blocking the Berserker's last attack...

While this is a problem, showing that her weapons are not as strong as the Soul Swords this beast wields, the real problem is that she was hit through her divine stealth veil.

Somehow, once this deep crimson aura erupted from this demonic beast, it could see her, and now her only advantage in this battle is gone...

Protecting her vitals behind the veil from this cold, suppressing aura was the surefire way to victory. Wearing down the beast with massive wounds until it slowed, then going in for the kill... that strategy isn't going to work anymore.

In fact, this cold aura that was so dangerous is now being suppressed by this crimson form.

The vibrations are still there, but the red-hot rage and desire to kill coming off this beast are overpowering them, forcing them to be pushed deep down...

Though, a similarity between the two is that once Raven is blown backward far enough from its crimson aura, the searing hot pain in her mind calms down. The physical damage from the attack makes her whole body tingle with pain.

However, it also tingles with excitement, as dealing with pain is much easier than having her system suppressed.

Even if she is three class rankings below these noble monstrosities, physical limits aren't the issue. It's this strange aura that she must figure out.

She grips her swords even tighter and disappears into her stealth dimensions again, circling the beast in the air.

Its greater form has grown slightly from the red aura burst, bringing it close to 750 meters tall, causing more and more tremors in the ground with every step it takes. For over 3,000 kilometers in every direction, the demonic energy clouds have all parted, leaving the battlefield clear, just tinted with a blood-red mist.

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Both of its previously black swords are now soaked with this red aura, and its eyes track her through the sky.

Raven charges more divine energy into her blades and speeds up her movements, changing heights and directions as she circles the beast, looking for an opening, but its eyes don't leave her position once.

Bright red crescents of energy come flying off the Berserker's blades, sent soaring upward.

To the observers, it just looks as though the massive beast is screeching toward the stars, sending waves of dense energy the size of sports fields into the atmosphere, dissolving before they hit the outer orbit where the moon bases lie.

In reality, Raven is fully invisible, and every attack thrown her way is a near miss.

The beast has gotten stronger, faster, more alert, and the menacing grin on its greater form's face looks happier with every attack it misses.

The gashes all over its body still glow yellow, even through this red aura of a greater form, reminding both fighters what Raven did to it just moments ago...

Raven does not have a hard time dodging its attacks from a distance, but every time she attempts to get much closer, within a few hundred-kilometer range, they become far too precise and quick, with no way for her to dodge in time without taking an attack head-on and blocking it.

This feels as though it can go on forever... but every moment that it continues, the Berserker gets more riled up, and the hot red aura coming off of it becomes more intense.

Raven is positive no fluctuations in the physical world are coming out from her Divine Stealth dimension, but somehow, this Berserker still sees her, and her mind is still filled with a hot pressure.

"That's it..." she whispers, thinking about this fact and dodging another two red slashes flying upward into the abyss of space.

In response, she does quite the unexpected thing and deactivates her greater energy form along with all of her borrowed stats.

In the moment, it seems quite illogical—now only relying on her True Core's stealth veil and holding two fractured blood-bonded blades full of divine threads and hot soul energy—basically leaving herself wide open in the air.

However, she feels like the opposite of a sitting duck. Raven's mind grows calm, and she focuses solely on the energy within her body, not relying on the system for anything at all for a moment in time.

Surprisingly, instead of being overwhelmed by the hot crimson aura, its negative effects on her leave her mind entirely...

Even the cold aura that was trapped within this beast disappears from where it was chipping away at her psyche.

While she's now in a state that cannot match this Berserker's strength or speed, its expression and frantic movements—like it's trying to find something that is lost—tell Raven everything she needs to know.

It couldn't directly see her, but this strange aura detected the use of a system and guided its attacks.

Now, Raven pieces together a new plan to finish this once and for all.

—

As the Berserker frantically turns in circles, gripping its glowing blades tightly while expanding its red aura to find the prey that got away, another white and purple flash of light zips by in its peripherals.

Arie has made it almost a full circle around this portion of the world, draining the concentrated essence from 136 1st Class Beasts, 390 2nd Class Beasts, and nearly one thousand 3rd Class demonic monsters caught up in the crossfire.

The majority of 2nd and 3rd Class Demonic monsters don't have much essence to drain, but the 1st Class monsters make Arie's mind sharper and his arrows denser with every one that he kills.

While the Lich's yellow arrows follow him with precision, appearing right before him within a few kilometers every time he gets near a new beast, the undead archer's real body cannot move as quickly as Arie can.

Even when Arie flies through the dense crimson aura of the Berserker and catches its attention from his heavy use of the system to boost his speed, it throws red crescents his way, but by the time they hit the ground, there is nothing left in the place where he flew but a trail of light purple aura.

By the time Arie makes it back to the region he started in, his entire body glows brightly with a light purple hue. It doesn't even look like it is only an aura—it appears as though he's entirely made of this energy now, like a new energy form.

He can summon hundreds of spirit arms in the blink of an eye, faster than he could even summon the six from his 2nd Ranked-up buff moments ago.

Multiple temporary buffs pop up on his status as he filters through the essence from hundreds of beasts, and his eyes glow bright white, staring down the Demonic Lich from a distance with a newfound resolve far stronger than their initial clash.

He leaves the bright red monstrous force behind him far in the distance, trusting that Raven has her own plans to deal with that beast, and focuses on his job.

The closer he gets to the Lich, the faster the portals of arrows are summoned again.

Its resolute purple eyes stare into Arie's as thousands of arms grow from his back.

The white veins that stream through them are even brighter now, some closest to his back making the entire arms look like they're made of Qi, while the bigger ones further away from his body still glow black and purple.

They grow to their full form almost instantaneously, creating a bowstring and forming a massive white arrow in its center.

Arie continues flying closer to the Lich while forming this, coming within range where he previously had to slow down and limit his movements because of the Noble Vibrations attacking his mind.

However, now, all he feels is a calm and focused mind.

While there are vibrations rippling through him, his mind feels protected by a strange, warm veil of refined Qi. It's as if the aura is being trapped in a filter so that he can focus on the fight in front of him.

The Lich's expression doesn't change either. Its arms just shift as though puppet strings are carrying them, and it begins to form another yellow arrow.

No more black portals are forming, and it aims straight at Arie.

With both archers pointing deadly shots at each other and the whole region's demonic energy churning and being channeled into one another, it is like they are having déjà vu.

The two of them are challenging each other, and both know that whoever's shot is more powerful will kill the other...

Though... one is filled with newfound confidence, and the other has far less of a mind remaining than it did at the start of the battle. Ever since its divine core was shattered the first time, the echo of that long-eared humanoid being has gone.

All that remains now is a Noble's puppet.

Both archers let their arrows go.

This time, just like the last, both arrows collide at their sharpened tips.

A dense yellow arrow is released from the Lich's black bow, colliding with the white glowing arrow trailing purple mist from Arie's.

This time, there is hardly anything for the Noble Vibrations to suppress. It is almost pure refined Qi that collides with the Lich's divine yellow attack.

This makes all the difference...

There is no magnificent explosion, and there is no simultaneous shattering of arrows.

Instead, the white arrow acts as a sharpened blade and splits the yellow divine energy attack down the middle.

The Lich's arrow separates into two even parts, flying off to the sides. Aries white arrow doesn't slow down or show signs of stress from the collision at all. The Demonic Puppet is hit directly in the chest—just as it was the last time.

Its bones are shattered, its True Core is split again, and the black orb within its divine core is punctured by the tip of Arie's arrow as well.

Inside the small black core, a violent white light is revealed to the world, triggering a blast so massive that even the Berserker King—solely focused on finding Raven over ten thousand kilometers away—turns its head and reflexively crosses its blades to block.

Arie smiles even as he's blown backward from the violent explosion filled with divine threads, black bones, and demonic energy.

That is because system notifications ring in his inner ear.

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