Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

My perception of time jitters and overlaps, making it extremely hard to tell if the creepy, lifelike smile of the demon before me is truly real or a hallucination in the void.

Every fragment of his being squirms and blends into whirlpools of gravity spinning and collapsing in strange directions.

It’s like a near-infinite veil of existence is constantly being lifted before my eyes. Every time I latch onto the inkling of something real, more truths seem to be uncovered, and I doubt the validity of the existence of the scenes I’ve just witnessed.

My mind quickly attempts to adapt to the violent shifts, and for brief instances, it feels as though small areas of space are held intact. Yet, the moment I look away and lose focus, everything glitches back to the confusing state of horror.

 “You’ve met your end, and you are not even intelligent enough to realize it. The frail minds of lesser beings are so simple. You’ve delivered yourselves right to me.”

Echoes into my mind, but this time, the fragmented images of the demon’s lips moving are transmitted with the words.

When I try to sync them up with the waves of telepathy over and over, they never fit quite right.

It’s like an annoying itch I can’t scratch. There are pieces missing, but I do not know what the missing parts even are.

Everything in this state feels like I’m trying to see my own reflection in a broken mirror, but every time I try to fit the pieces back together, more break and crumble to dust.

I can’t even properly see my own body.

The only constant images left in my mind are the three merging cores in my chest and the constant gravitational pull of the silver threads pulsing through me. The heavy sword in my grasp stays a constant too, but the small tip that has pierced this demon’s flesh is completely lost from all my senses. It is swept up in this eerie, glitching and oscillating nightmare.

I can’t tell if time has passed or if I’m receiving this next wave of telepathy immediately after the first, but the demon’s voice echoes through my consciousness again.

“Do you see now, how that dragon has led you wrong? You are not gifted, you are not special. Fate is not real, and it was never on your side. Only true strength can prevail. Talent, fortuitous events, or your cheap legacy can’t save you now. I understand that collection of glyphs even better than you could ever know. I studied it for more years than your lesser minds could comprehend. I created a whole new path deep within the Demonic Legacy. It is not as simple as just a one dimensional power transfer that the Creator’s Legacy grants. You two have been guided to a dead end in the dark. Do you think that because you have fractured the remnants of my soul that I cannot use the ether you brought me from the Realms below to re-summon it?”

I attempt to digest and understand its words, but even their meanings seem to twist and slip away from my consciousness. It’s like I hear them, but my active mind is still living in a state of existence where the words were never spoken.

Another burst of Noctus’ words flows into my mind in the same fashion. “This will be nothing but another insignificant event in the many eras to come. The Fallen One’s last desperate attempt. When you are gone, and I grasp the silver threads he left behind, I can restore my soul to its former glory, and there will be no legacies strong enough left in the Lower Realm to contend with the new demons birthed by the system itself for eons to come.”

Then another, “That’s right. We are not natural races. We are the very opposite. The dark side of mana, destined to exist long after you all perish.”

After this burst of telepathy, something stirring deep in my soul shifts.

Instead of trying to make sense of the seemingly random fractals and bending space and time around me, I allow the part of my subconscious that has begun to unravel the hidden side of the Creator’s Legacy to deal with the brain-melting phenomena around me.

It is only because I sense a pattern that I cannot comprehend, yet it holds a very close resemblance to an equally impossible problem I still can’t solve.

These two complex problems start to merge, and the fragments of my active mind that remain trying to perceive this madness simply stop trying to fit them into boxes of thought I already understand.

Instead, I watch the void spin and bend, and let all of the background knowledge I have accumulated slip away, only to focus on learning from scratch.

For a frame of time, everything goes dark, and every single unanswered question about this void disappears completely.

I get a moment of complete and total silence. Then, in the next frame of thought, reality around me bursts into view with a blinding and vibrant existence.

The Silver-Cored Demon in front of me looks crystal clear, without a single stray thread or energy particle.

I can see it all.

Especially the micro-movements of his face and his moving lips that speak to me in a deep and disdain-filled tone.

“You still know nothing.”

Hits my ears in perfect clarity, like no telepathy is being used at all.

Then the two clawed hands of the demon reaching up in the air toward the shattered soul array move down extremely quick and grab hold of both the blades threatening to pierce his chest.

A dense pulse of energy ripples through the demon, through our blades, and into our bodies.

As the sensation of an extremely potent Realm Wave starts to creep into my consciousness, so does the total comprehension of the mind-numbing illusions I just witnessed.

This demon’s complete system status now shines bright before my eyes.