Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

Red and white streaks of aura light up the sky, and biome-shaking shockwaves fill the air as my massive spiked club collides with the mammoth’s tusks, and every few attacks I manage to collide with its main body.

Ripples of fiery aura leave marks in its greater form, but the attacks are never strong enough to break all the way through.

I have to use less power to not shatter my new soul weapon, and dodge out of the way to not put Ren in danger from getting hit by the mammoth’s counterattacks or any stray energy beams from the remaining 1st Class Lords in the sky.

What I didn’t expect is that once I get far enough away, and take the few seconds necessary to heal, the crimson patches of flames on the mammoth’s hide are engulfed in white ether, and are healed just as fast.

“Well… you’re going to be even tougher than I thought…” comes out of my mouth while twisting away from another one of its counters, and slamming my club into a multi-armed Chimera beast with multiple heads and elemental abilities, waiting for me as it’s been studying my movements.

I am technically more vulnerable the moment after impact with the mammoth, as my soul weapon is not fully intact, but a few small fractures don’t mean much when I’m not trying to break through this monstrous creature’s ether defenses.

The premium-grade avatar of this chimera is shattered, and in the same swing as I jump upward, I tear through a bright green lizard holding two heavy spears.

[Kill Confirmed!]

[264 points added to Challenge Total!]

[Kill Confirmed!]

[170 points added to Challenge Total!]

Notifications ring in my ear as the prize pool increases to [1,632], and the live clock below it ticks down below 3 minutes remaining as I heal my soul weapon again, watching the live spectate feed play on in the back of my mind, zoomed in extra far on my greater form again.

“It looks like there’s not only one human, but two! Maybe they were hit by some sleeping technique, or the aura in this battle is too strong for them to handle… This is getting more exciting by the minute!”

The announcer goes on to advertise the betting odds again, then in the downtime while myself and the mammoth heal, the live feed cuts to the Rank 1 Berserker Giant battling an enormous black golem’s greater form in an icy mountain range, destroying multi-kilometer tall peaks with every clash. Their battle looks just as intense, possibly even more than the one I’m in right now.

The feed switches again, and a bright white serpent clashes with a black one of a similar size on the surface of an ocean biome. It creates tsunamis, and the announcer shows more and more stats, keeping the crowds amused.

My gaze darts back down to the mammoth, then I’m disturbed by another few crescents of magic flying by that I need to dodge.

At the same time, my opponent down below is hit by a few annoying bursts of magic too from the remaining 1st Class Lords disrupting our battle.

Despite the rage and focus in its glowing white eyes staring up at me, for a moment, we both share a single thought, and bursts of aura fill the atmosphere, followed by dinging notifications and trails of fire through the sky.

Every last 1st Class Lord in the air is eliminated by a single swing of my spiked mace, or a charged swing of the mammoth’s tusks.

The number in the sky ticks up further, stopping at [2388] with still just under three minutes on the fight clock.

“It’s a face-off now! Just the mammoth and the humans!” the announcer yells, switching the live feed back to our challenge.

I don’t waste a second, and attack with everything I have within this soul weapon’s limits, swerving through the sharp white tusks of the beast and slamming a fiery hot ball of spiked ether into its side.

Small cracks form in its greater form, and the sharp points of my mace break through its ether defenses slightly, but the pressure deeper into its greater form, closer to its real body, is too great. This Basic Class weapon can’t withstand it no matter how much I want it to.

“Even if I can’t kill you, I might as well have some fun!” I yell out, and fly all over the biome, in curved arcs of fire. It looks like I’m bouncing upward after each hit, leaving trails of fire in long arching patterns for a few seconds each time to let the cracks on my weapon heal.

In the live feeds, I see many Lords actually watching with interest now, as before they didn’t seem to care, but the announcer watching keeps showing replays of my attacks and is quite invested.

Of course, the other two major battles between the Berserker and Golem, and the Serpents over the ocean, are getting just as much screen time, but this fiery clash is certainly a spectacle for the over ten million Lords in the stands now watching.

Some are extremely happy, as their side bets on this challenge event are already paying off, while others are standing up angry at the impossibility of a human lasting this long.

I grin, and continue to send attacks down at the monster below.

It doesn’t lose focus for a single moment. The beast’s fierce white eyes are always tracking me, and its defenses are always perfectly placed to protect its vitals and blind spots.

Even the amount of time it allows me to attack it when its tusks miss their first strike feels calculated.

After a few dozen more exchanges pass, I come to the realization I’m not going to be able to defeat this monster without stepping it up a notch…

There are certainly cracks in its armor, but none I can exploit without giving away the fact that I have power that could rival a Noble Demon. What I’m showing now is absurd, yet believable. One wrong move, and I’ll be outing myself as a real threat to the demons far too early.

‘Soon… but not yet…’ I think to myself as I slam my spiked club down on the mammoth again.

Over the final minute of this battle, the same actions repeat themselves over and over, making for quite the boring display. The announcer loses interest and focuses on the serpents as their battle ends with the glowing white one devouring the other and flying high above the sea, claiming slot 6 on the leaderboards.

The Berserker and the Black Rock Golem continue to fight, destroying the snow biome they’re in as the Berserker slices it in half, but the black monster regenerates and sends dense black beams of light back at its opponent while reforming back together.

Their positions as rank 1 and 2 on the leaderboards is large on the screen.

[10…]

[9…]

[8…]

The timer in the sky above me starts counting down, and I manage to get three more full-powered attacks in on this mammoth, with no change.

[1…]

[0…]

[Challenge Complete!]

[Prize Pool Split!]

[You’ve Gained 796 points!]

[Calculating Prize Options…]

[Claim Additional Prize][i]

As I read these notifications, the barriers around this biome fade away like it was never here, and I feel Ren’s avatar vibrating on my back as the [1] above their head turns to a [797] at the same time mine ticks up to [980].

“Interesting…” I murmur, wondering how they’ll claim the additional prize.

[1 Full Rank Avatar Upgrade][Default][i]

[1 Full Rank Soul Weapon Upgrade][i]

[Select Elite-Grade Basic Class Premium Grade Soul Weapon][i]

[Additional 250 Points][i]

[Double Point Rewards for 100 seconds][i]

Out of the corner of my eye while I’m reading my options to select, I see the entire greater form of the mammoth below me rippling with the same bright white light that Ren’s avatar does, and realize they’ve both just received avatar upgrades.

Our challenge is over… but that doesn’t mean I want to give up on beating this monstrous enemy.

I smirk and select the second option in my reward list, and the spiked mace in my grasp starts to glow bright white with ether commands that flow down from the sky.

I see it from two points of view, as the live feeds watch me hold the growing soul weapon, wondering what this strange human will do next.

“The human passed up on the free avatar upgrade, and went for upgrading his weapon instead! Not the optimal move, as a weapon is only as strong as its wielder…”

These doubtful words only grow my inner excitement further, as I’m able to start borrowing stats from dozens, then even over a hundred worlds of the mixed 1st and 2nd Class variety; almost ten times more than this mace could withstand before.

When the ether commands coming down from the top of this dome cease, and the deep crimson fire from beneath floods in, this entire biome becomes tinted in my aura.

I push myself off the sky, down at the mammoth below me, and swing my spiked ball.

The chains connecting it to the long handle I hold begin to multiply and lengthen, creating even more downward velocity until they stop getting longer.

Instead of slowing down, the spiked ball disconnects from the chain and plummets down at its target with all of the stored energy I siphoned into it.

I plummet downward behind it, not attempting to change my flight path because I have full confidence in my attack.

This mammoth may have upgraded its avatar, but the defenses it’s been using so far were purely instinctual, and I’m certain they’re limited by the amount of pure ether stored in this beast’s true mind, not the avatar’s fake pool.

I have an upgraded weapon, attacking the same old target.

My eyes widen with approval as the mammoth tries to block my attack with one of its tusks, but a loud cracking sound echoes through the biome.

This time, it’s not my soul weapon, but the monster’s bone.

I let out a laugh that echoes through the live feeds while my spiked ball of soul energy flames makes contact with the mammoth’s body next, and fractures splinter through its entire greater form.

A ball of fire tens of kilometers wide erupts into the air as its greater form breaks into thousands of fragments, and its true body is crushed under the weight of my aura.

[Kill confirmed!]

[Points Awarded: 2,211]

[Total Points: 3,191]

[Congratulations, You’re Now Placed in the Top 10!][See Perks][i]

Tons of information streams into my mind, and even more excited roars from a crowd and the announcer’s yells blur in the back of my consciousness.

I just touch down on the shattered biome floor, where an enormous fiery crater has obliterated the entire center of this rocky wasteland.

The flaming spiked ball at its center reconnects to the chains and handle in my grasp, and the plumes of mana and ether surrounding me start to twirl like an enormous whirlpool.

Yet, I’m not pulling any of this energy in…

As all of these notifications ring in my mind, and an increased volume of Noble Vibrations buzz in my ears, the overstimulation pushes me into a survival mode. My paranoia increases, as I realize that display may have exposed me to the demons, considering I could have used half the power and got the same result.

At the same time, I feel a murderous aura of killing intent stab into the back of my head and tons of possible scenarios begin to formulate in my mind.

I swing my fiery soul weapon up in the air again, and prepare to face whatever it may be, but even as I turn, it tracks me with laser focus staying out of sight…

Then I hear an angry feminine voice yelling in my ear, “Where are we now? And what have you done to my avatar, I can’t move! You deceived me didn’t you!”

My back grows hotter and hotter, then I realize what’s really happened. My eyes widen as I release the mana and purple divine energy constraints to the elf strapped to my back.

A burst of bright white energy fills my field of view once I turn around to actually see Ren again, but an enormous white greater form begins to manifest before my eyes before I can get a single word out.