Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

Just hours after the Realm Wave stabilizes time between realms again, Randel and Syl returned to the Ogre conglomeration headquarters, carrying an entire long-term storage locker worth of ancient goods in their ether storage systems.

A series of transmissions are sent to 3rd and 2nd Class Orcs, along with Red Ogres on Torvak's old payroll.

Over the next few hours, the entirety of the storage locker's contents is delivered through fast travel orbs by carriers who have no idea the Warlords are still alive. Many believe they are just delivering normal products to the top floor of the High Orc Tower, conducting business as usual to the remaining strong High Orcs in charge.

A hatch on the top floor of the tower opens and closes for hours as Torvak brings all their work materials to Asic, who looks much better than he did three days ago.

The High Orc stands up from his throne, which was covered in medical mana and ether tubes, and opens up one of the many crates from the fortress.

Once opened, a bright white light shines out, illuminating his face in the dark tower.

"I've waited all my life to craft something with this... It looks like the time has come."

–

Down in the Lower Realm, on Kelfar, the three True Cored Generals attach small yellow monitoring crystals to their status so those up on the moon base can see their actions.

Bri's voice rings through their telepathy links in response to Arie's words.

"Your main objective is to move their fight path away from the throne so prospecting can continue. If that means facing them, I advise you to isolate one and take advantage of all three of your abilities... Then again, I cannot properly gauge the extent of yours or the King's power..."

Raven replies through their link before anyone else.

"We'll stick to the plan, and stay a safe distance away. I'll make sure of it. But once we shift their path, I'm quite curious about the sword wielder's fighting style. It uses two blades just like me."

Abby shrugs.

"I'll help move them, but I'm not interested in fighting."

–

The three leave the base and fly through the barren lands that the commanders already cleared out.

The corpses of many looted demonic beasts still litter the ground, and weaker 3rd Class beasts feast on them, but the generals do not stop to eliminate any more of these threats.

A bright hologram of the globe shows which areas have been fully searched and rough coordinates of where the Kings are, updating whenever one sends a big enough shockwave to be visible from the moon base.

Live trackers on their surveillance devices show their moving position on the demonic world as well.

Now that they are off the moon base and do not have weaker humans nearby, the three generals pull a full 4% of stats each and let down the barriers they've been summoning, allowing their entire auras to leak out.

As they fly through a rocky mountain region, about 10 kilometers above the ground, two massive orbs of yellow light expand off of Arie and Raven.

The two of them fly up front while Abby trails behind, forming a backward triangle formation as they head toward the Kings.

The moment these two enormous orbs of divine energy expand and tether to the absurd levels of raw stats being infused into their systems, the mountains below their feet begin to crumble, fracture, and even compress instantly into flat sediment from the immense pressure above.

Raven's aura is bright white and yellow, pushing the demonic energy in the air away from it, while Arie's melds with the environment a bit more evenly.

While his distorts the atmosphere, it doesn't necessarily push it away. It just takes control of the active demonic energy and Qi floating through space. 𝐫ÃɴОＢΕș

Abby, on the other hand, has a bright yellow aura tinted with sparkling green light that erupts from her True Core once she allows her mana control to burst out.

However, it phases through the atmosphere and ground beneath her with ease, not affecting it at all. It's as if her entire aura and presence are an illusion.

–

This release of powerful auras sends shockwaves through the demonic energy covering the surface of the globe. Even though they're tens of thousands of kilometers away, this massive display of power sends cues into the Kings' psyches, alerting them that new danger is on the world.

Over the millennia, armies have come to this world and tried to do exactly what these generals are attempting now.

What seemed to be a random battle path at first is actually an instinct to protect their world's greatest treasure—programmed into them so long ago that they do not know who did so or what they are even protecting.

All the degraded minds of these two Kings know is that if something strong exists on this world, it must be eliminated. That includes each other. Allowing someone else to come close to the throne would be a fate worse than death.

–

While most parties that have come to this world have True Cores of their own, and others have even hit full saturation, it usually takes months—if not years—to even make it past a single 1st Class Demonic Beast on the outer edges of this world.

The genes, combat prowess, and even raw stats of these monsters have been mutated to such an immense degree that it is unlike anything Alveron or any of its past trade allies have ever seen.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Then again, none of them have ever gotten their hands on a Noble Grade World before, nor do they have a reference for what one would even look like if they did.

A 1st Class World is considered the peak of the Lower Realm to those that aren't Demons. Those that know of the location of Noble Grade Worlds are instantly killed off or enslaved by one of the Five Great Families, and their worlds are all seized.

So, what seems to be a mutated testing ground for a Demon Army in the past is only half true. Most of the species on this planet are not native and have been artificially strengthened and tested on by Demons of the past.

This is the remnant of a long-forgotten Noble Grade World that has degraded over time to show the average energy readings of a 1st Class World, but its strongest warriors have remained to carry out the orders of their Demonic Lord.

–

Despite this being the peak of a World-Class in the Lower Realm, a small group of humans killed off two-thirds of its population in just a few months. Now, three more humans float above the destruction, en route to conquer a world that has been forgotten in time by ancient higher life forms.

As the group floats closer, they increase their energy output and split ways.

Raven curves off to the west, activating her greater form to send out a shockwave of energy multiple times greater than her resting aura.

Arie flies off to the east and activates his second ranked-up buff, pulling back three light purple arrows and sending them flying up into the air toward the Kings.

They curve down to collide with the ground about five thousand kilometers in front of him—still over thirty thousand kilometers from the Kings—but create a big enough explosion and ripple in the atmosphere to begin the next phase of their plans.

Abby continues to fly forward and just holds both of her hands out in front of her to create a massive, growing pillar of summoned stone.

It glows hot with yellow threads in its core, but its outer layer is covered in her sparkling green soul energy.

Then, she thrusts it downward to sink deep into the ruins of an old battlefield where Fisher and Lydia fought.

The pillar of earth sinks below the rubble but does not change the surface of the ground at all. It's as though a hologram is disappearing below the surface.

Her eyes track its movement as she slows down, but she lets the pillar of stone she's created continue moving toward the Kings like a submarine floating through solid stone.

A total of ten more shockwaves come from the west and east, and Abby comes to a complete halt as Raven and Arie continue causing havoc at a safe distance to try and get the Kings' attention.

After a few more seconds pass, she nods once, receiving confirmation, and flicks two fingers upward, controlling the pillar of stone that has moved through the ground.

In the middle of the battlefield, a floating green cylinder of rock erupts from the planet's surface between both Kings, less than two thousand kilometers away from each other.

One of them, standing at over five hundred meters tall in its full Demonic Berserker King form, sees the threat and crosses its blades, bracing for impact while letting out a massive pulse of aura to figure out where this threat came from.

An ear-piercing screech comes from its mouth, traveling with the cold aura being released into this world.

The second King has glowing purple eyes. It shifts its bow toward the threat and lets a glowing yellow arrow fly from its grasp mere milliseconds after the pillar emerges.

This King has a greater form as well, standing at a similar height of half a kilometer tall. But deep within the purple demonic energy form, there is no flesh that holds it together like the Berserker.

This being died long ago, and the only logical explanation is that its will to serve the Lord of this World keeps it alive through some kind of necromancy curse. Its race should be long extinct as well, as their time has come and passed as rulers of the system before the Wyverns. Though, as its yellow arrow illuminates its appearance, the only physical features that can be seen are the black bones of a humanoid figure underneath.

It looks like a skeleton—very similar to the appearance of the fallen Lich King—but the only light glowing in its divine True Core is bright yellow.

–

The arrow it shoots off with perfect accuracy hits the center of Abby's stone pillar, but this is exactly what she wanted. She serves her connection with the summoned pillar immediately to negate her Soul Energy's effects.

The green sparkling layer around it dissipates, and the stone shifts back to its physical form.

Then, a burst of divine energy erupts between the Kings. A combination of the energy Abby stores within it and the power within the King's arrow creates a massive explosion. It starts as nothing more than a small yellow burst of light but quickly expands into a massive yellow ball that eats up the atmosphere. It can even be seen from the moon base, appearing on the planet as a yellow semicircle growing on its surface.

The aura bubble bursts once it reaches roughly a thousand kilometers in width, and a large amount of energy shoots upward. However, an equal amount expands outward and downward, reaching both of the Kings, while most of it creates a crater beneath their feet, spanning thousands of kilometers while pushing them both back.

The Berserker, who had nothing to do with this release, takes the wave of aura head-on, blocking it with its crossed blades and mentally latching onto the three generals that ruined its concentration.

The only thing that matters is protecting the throne, and it just had to turn away from the highest-priority target—the other King. This pisses it off past its breaking point, and once the worst of the blast passes it by, the King swings its swords to create red, black, and purple crescents of energy sent flying toward the distractions.

Though, after the second swing, one of the targets completely disappears from its senses...

The Archer, on the other hand, is only concerned with the source of this stone and turns to pinpoint Abby's exact location the instant its arrow collides with the distraction.

It turns its body and sends off another yellow arrow even before the shockwave of the first blast hits it.

–

Telepathy messages are sent in rapid succession through the generals' links, and even yellow blurs of light start streaking through the demonic clouds that cover this world.

"Just as expected. Instant retaliation," Abby whispers while watching the arrow from the massive Lich rocket her way.

Her eyes glow bright green, and a pulse of hot, sparkling aura envelops her body, making her grow in size about five times over, while simultaneously making her being seem opaque.

The demonic clouds part for hundreds of kilometers on both sides as the arrow tears through the world. A cold vibration surrounds it, one that for millennia has made every demonic beast that has ever stepped near it bow down to its King.

However, Abby crosses her arms and doesn't move from her position, floating in the air.

The bright yellow arrow flies right through her, as if she isn't even there...

–

Simultaneously, Raven activates her Divine Stealth Skill to disappear from the world's senses, further cloaked by the thick demonic energy swirling through the air.

While the Demonic Berserker King's sword strike was in direct route for her exact location just moments ago, it is impossible to direct the attack any further, as the target is gone...

Arie senses a massive energy wave coming his way as well, and in response, activates his third ranked-up buff, multiplying the Demonic Spirit Arms that reach out from his back.

For every new arm he creates, the demonic energy in the atmosphere begins to swirl around him faster, and the purple glow in his eyes becomes as bright as the very beasts that roam this world.

Some of the arms grow over a hundred meters long, others tens of meters, while some stay close to his back. It's as if a chain reaction of demonic flowering arms are blooming behind him, and hundreds of purple arrows with bright yellow cores are pulled back in summoned bows.

The shockwave from the explosion Abby triggered is what hits him first, but it is significantly weaker as he is over twenty times further away from the blast point than the kings were. So, this is just a signal for him to release his attack in turn.

A flurry of arrows rockets out from his battle form, heading straight for the crescent strike thrown at him by the Berserker.