Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

I can see this Demon’s Noble and Royal Bloodline Transformations are both fully unsealed, leading to its enormous Demonic Greater Form. Its Demon Core is much darker than normal, and I still cannot see it clearly, but I can see the [First Blood Royal Demon’s Core] tag as its descriptor.

There are many unique soul armor pieces all over its body as well, that give off readings similar to Artifact Class Soul Weapons, fully imbued with High Quality Ether. There is a familiar [Celestial Prism] buff on its status, it glows with a dim light, and I feel soul ties connecting it to all of its armor pieces. However, in the combat attacks, it is not being used; it is definitely a technique hardly used in this Zone.

The Demon’s Glyph Imprints are all attached and in main control of its ether pools, but there is no mention of them on its status. These Imprints, just like mine, are an internal inherited Legacy that is not directly visible on the status screen.

There is one thing that pulls a majority of my attention. It is the fact that this Demon holds a single skill: [Demonic Energy Manipulation]. It is at a rank I’ve never seen before, [Primordial Grade].

The moment I stare at this skill, another veil of invisible shielding lifts from my vision, and I feel a strong soul tie connecting this skill to a buff at the bottom of its status, below all of its bloodline transformations, called [Primordial Defense].

My eyes widen even more after this. The last thing I see before its shielding is placed back up is a bright [Lv. 1,268,091] in the forefront of my mind, confirming that this Demon must have gone through some kind of rank up again once its level surpassed 7 figures.

–

I don’t have much time to analyze these readings. All I do is mirror what I saw to Maria, then pool my focus into creating defensive glyphs again while my makeshift corruption bolt cannon recharges.

There is no shortage of Celestial Energy in the air anymore.

Almost every building in our surroundings has been torn apart, fractured to pieces, or destroyed by the impact of us slamming into it. Shrapnel that was blown high into the sky in the shape of Dryad’s Glyphs and black stone from the structures are still falling down from above.

It is utter chaos, but the air is so dense with Celestial Energy, we absorb more than enough just through the outside of our souls; our only limiter is how fast we can summon new glyphs.

Yet, even this is becoming less of a problem for two reasons.

The first is the fact that our Souls are filling with so much excess Celestial Energy that the outward flow becomes stronger and faster. Glyphs are being formed faster because of the pure volume of Celestial Energy available.

Secondly, the debris that showers from the sky is all imbued with the Dryad’s dormant consciousness of that warm helping hand. With Maria and my Glyph Imprints frantically pulsing, and massive amounts of ether being stimulated, many of the glyphs in the air that were tethered to the towers start to spin and activate on their own.

I feel them latch onto my Sacred Body for milliseconds at a time. Small pulses of non-threatening high quality ether spread throughout our bodies and scan all of the actions we’re doing. They begin replicating the intricate motions and funneling more Celestial Energy into compression arrays to help us summon glyphs even faster.

When we move positions, the Dryad’s glyphs lose their intimate touch, but with so many in the air and in the surrounding buildings, more continue to flake on and help when we fly through.

The First Blood Demon quickly regains its composure and forms two purple whips in its hands again.

Less than a full second goes by before it sends two lethal attacks our way, and explosions of blue and red glyphs erupt through the settlement again.

All nearby buildings that somehow managed to stay standing in the last assault now crumble around us from the shockwaves.

Over twenty million glyphs surround Maria and me, so this time only the outer layers of our defenses shatter. Our flight path is not even changed, enough counter-propulsion arrays behind us went off predicting the force of the blows.

The attacks don’t just stop at one retaliation. The Demon’s arms begin to flail and the whips fly about in erratic patterns. At times, they straighten out and move incredibly quick in laser-like patterns, while at other times they go slack and use the crack and momentum to land slower but far more impactful strikes.

The ends of these attacks hit our defensive arrays tens of times over the next few seconds, traveling hundreds of trillions of kilometers as we make a full circle back to cover the maximum amount of buildings in this settlement while I charge up my soul weapon again.

It is a shame to watch the remaining architecture on the outer limits of this settlement all be destroyed, but the enormous amount of Celestial Energy and aid from the Dryad’s Glyphs is necessary to become stronger as these attacks continue to hit us.

I can feel the pressure of this Demon’s High Royal Vibrations in the air growing tighter, and it’s exerting more and more pressure from its Primordial Aura every passing second too. I rewatch the initial realization Maria had about them over and over in my head, and see that this First Blood is actually unsealing its potential.

It is trying to suppress us, but we’re growing in power at the same rate.

I can feel the dense Primordial Aura in its whips becoming so heavy and thick that if it struck us during our first clash with this, both of us would have been vaporized in an instant. Even now, the strengthened whip shatters over 15 million glyphs in a single slash.

Even seconds ago, this would have been devastating, but we can form this many now with the flick of the wrist.

Over 100 million red and blue glyphs combine to create massive defensive arrays and movement commands all around us. The outsides of both our bodies glow bright white as a large amount of the high quality Ether surrounding us is not even ours.

The Dryad’s glyphs are piling up.

It was slow at first, but a chain reaction has begun to trigger. More and more of these stimulated glyphs are activating as we pass the abandoned towers.

I even begin to feel massive moving arrays start to flicker beneath the rubble of the settlement we fly over. There is something below this ancient civilization, and it’s calling for us with wide open arms.

The First Blood’s facial features start to become visible again, and popups of its status screen start to flash in my mind when my aura breaks through its defenses every once in a while.

I even get to see its face, and it matches the anger growing in its Vibrations extremely well. This Demon is frustrated, and it’s about to hit a breaking point.

“Alright… Ready?” I whisper with Telepathy into Maria’s calm mind.

She nods, and we both instantly shift our flight paths.

Instead of the wide circle around the outer edge of the settlement, we make a strict 90-degree turn and launch ourselves right toward the incoming whips.

Portions of our defensive arrays shatter, and the layers beneath are manually lifted so that I can raise my right arm out again with 7 fully loaded bolts ready to fire.

The sight of it makes our attacker subconsciously flinch, so I let out a laugh while firing off the first two shots.

“A First Blood Demon is scared of a human’s attacks? What was that you said before? Lesser races could not comprehend the difference between us?”

While internally, I know the difference in strength of our Vibrations and Primordial Aura compared to this First Blood is undeniably vast. The raw power it holds is hundreds of times greater than my own, but there is something strange about our glyphs that slice through this power gap.

Even the sparkling Source Resin on Maria’s sword and wings, when it touches this aura, it is like an anomaly, unaffected by the Demon’s will.

The black spiked bolts I send act in the same way, tearing through the atmosphere and colliding with the center of the incoming purple whips.

When they break, and the explosion of black corruption tendrils begins to devour this demonic essence, I hear a ferocious demonic roar come out of the First Blood.

Maria and I keep rocketing forward while I send out my next two shots.

I aim for the whip’s slack point near the Demon’s hands, but instead of taking the hit, it lets go of the remaining demonic essence like it is already a lost cause.

The impact creates two more dark clouds while my corruption devours the rest of its demonic essence manifestations. Instead, the Demon raises its hands, and the invisible mirror-like gravity wells of Primordial Aura in its palms grow denser.

It remembers the last hit it took, and does not want to experience that again.

I smile wide and let the two smaller bolts fly, and then let the kill shot arrow go right after.

The Demon’s dark purple eyes are completely visible, and they stare me down with pure hatred while it raises its hands and grits its teeth. I’m not sure if it’s stubborn, arrogant pride from the words I provoked it with moments earlier, or real confidence. Either way, it is exactly what I hoped for.

It moves its palms in the way of both arrows, and bursts of invisible Primordial Aura and an unfathomable collection of High Royal Vibrations burst outward to surround every tendril of corruption.

For a small moment in time, there is an opaque barrier of black glyphs, pure corruption, and Primordial Aura that shields my perception from reaching the Demon. However, same goes for it.

Maria steps forward and swings her blade across her body next, letting out an attack she’s been holding back longer than me.

At the same time, the largest bolt I sent its way curves upward, as I imbued an enormous amount of timed propulsion arrays in its base to make it twist and change direction. Instead of aiming for its chest, I’ve intended for it to collide with the Demon’s head.

When the wall of corruption fades, the First Blood’s laugh echoes through the domain.

It moves its head to the left, barely dodging the kill shot arrow. However, both of its palms are fully intact. Neither have cracked armor or any blood dripping down.

It even looks smug, thinking that it easily outwitted this cheap trick of changing the bolt’s position while it was momentarily blind.

However, its smugness quickly fades.

The First Blood’s eyes widen in fear, and it jerks its body out of the way when it feels an unbearable cold near its chest.

A thin crescent of extremely compressed blue glyphs and pure Source Resin rockets in behind the chaos.

Reflexively, the Demon’s survival instincts kick in, and it raises its left hand still covered in Primordial Aura, but even this is not enough.

The crescent of energy collides with its palm and slices right through.

It breaks through every piece of armor on its arm as well, splitting its flesh in half right down the middle, and through its shoulder and back. The crescent of Source Resin seems unchanged as it keeps ripping through the atmosphere further behind.

All of the areas where this thin crescent touched instantly erupt with diamond-like ice crystals.

The entire upper left half of this First Blood Demon’s body is destroyed and mutilated by living ice in an instant. A horrific wound opens up, ejecting frozen demonic flesh, armor fragments covered in glyphs, and raw Primordial Aura that is no longer attached to this Demon’s soul into the air.