Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

The next wave of hundreds of dark corruption coils comes crashing down toward my cores.

Instead of aiming to destroy my greater form, they all have a much smaller target to land on, the three damaged cores covered in a veil of soul energy, divine threads, and a purple layer of an external artifact's protection.

I don't have a perfect visual of what is going on outside my mind after my entire body was destroyed.

Yet, I can sense energy fields, and with a strange recreation of ether and vibration-based echo-location, I can make out where and when I'll be hit again.

All of the core memories of the most intense breakthroughs, training regimens, and moments of epiphanies and profound understanding are the only memories strong enough, rooted in my subconscious deeply enough to withstand the brutal attack on my decaying mind.

There are even more massive cracks forming all over the mind palace, making it tinted in a dark black, purple, and red ominous light.

Many rows of bookcases have all fallen into the black abyss where my manifestation breaks, and Royal Vibrations flood in to speed up the process, suppressing my mind further.

I understand that what I've managed to do, by concentrating all of this compressed understanding of energy manipulation together, and paired with the rise in my levels, my system finally allows me to fully grasp what Celestial Energy is.

Yet, the white glowing energy forming from these books is still not fully formed.

It's bright, hot, and a near imitation of the real thing, but I still sense a need for something extra to trigger the complete breakthrough.

This energy feels like ether in a sense, but at the same time it's far more pure, and feels more physically rooted in reality. So much so, that the ether pools in my mind react very strangely to the mental imagery of the Celestial energy I summon.

When it touches it, I lose Low Quality Ether, yet my pool doesn't feel as though it's been drained.

It just feels like it's been brought closer to the surface of my mind, and compressed, to become more pure, and far more easily accessible.

My mind begins to move through what control it has left on the system, and my senses, and soon there is a chunk of white energy deep inside my item storage that floats to the forefront of my mind.

It's a consolidated fragment of 50.6205 Medium Quality Ether.

Before now, it looked like a dense white rock with energy trapped inside that was impossible to use. Yet, now it looks like the most delicious glowing candy I've ever seen.

I let it slip out from my item storage, and drop into my mental ether pool without any resistance. It just feels like the right thing to do.

The moment it drops in, the fragment begins to melt and spread throughout the entire deep pool.

The Low Quality Ether refinement elixir that Ember granted me has been purifying all of the low quality ether inside my mind for the last few seconds, even the additional ether I absorbed from the citadel at the start of this battle.

The moment the medium quality crystal spreads outward, the elixir stops purifying completely, and all of the 100% refined Low Quality ether goes through a drastic change.

It glows hot white, and rises to the surface of my mind.

Instead of staying two different densities, all of the Low Quality Ether in my pool seeps inward toward the new denser pool of liquid, and it is simultaneously converted to medium quality ether while I have an enlightening moment about understanding Celestial Energy.

The books around me glow brighter and brighter, lighting up the small part of my mind with more luminosity, while the rest of the palace turns darker and darker and crumbles all around.

In this moment, I understand that Celestial Energy is just the next natural progression of Soul Energy.

When ether is refined far enough, and the system allows mana to become mature enough, the true combination of the two creates unique properties in every system user that achieves it.

–

As hundreds of coiling tendrils of corruption slam downward on my cores again, a floodlight of white glistening Celestial energy bursts outward.

It only acts on pure emotions and instinct, and latches onto the only sturdy form of defense in the vicinity; Celia's Purple divine threads.

Shimmering white energy floods through them, adding a new layer of protection; now, not only protecting from physical attacks, but ether-based ones as well.

Though, upon collision, this does not seem to matter.

My mind palace shakes so violently that the cracks and fissures in the existing palace tear open and swallow everything around me.

It turns completely dark.

Other than the small throne I sit on, and the fading manifestation of my Noble Body.

Even the books that were spinning around me fade away to darkness.

I feel weak and cold, nothing else.

This is what being on the true verge of death feels like.

I only see extremely faded visuals of my generals left in my consciousness.

The one I stay focused on with everything left in my active mind is Maria's.

Not only to see the end result of her battle, but it's the only one my fading instincts draw me toward. It gives me a sense of comfort. As, outside, all three of my cores are being viciously attacked by hundreds of coiling masses of corruption.

The Celestial energy covering them protects from the ether-based attacks, but the unfathomably strong Royal Vibrations still phase through all matter and energy lesser than it.

More and more dark black cracks eat away at my three cores, covering them in fractured marks, bringing them closer and closer to shattering completely.

–

The final visuals I watch are of a beautiful blue angel slicing through the mutilated frozen body of a High Noble Demon.

Sisco's frozen face shatters along with his cores as Maria's Soul Sword releases a wave of rainbow ice, glowing with a royal blue aura through the air once and for all. At the apex of the hit, as her 500 kilometer long Destroyer Class Soul Sword crushes the monster's mind, body, and soul; her own Soul Energy Core pulses with a white ring of energy around it.

All of the dense ether within this demon's mental pool begins to siphon through her blade, through her body, and disappears into her black core. The only visual is a light glow around its outer ring.

For the first time since she consolidated her yellow true core in the Lower Realm, the Soul Energy core contracts slightly, getting even smaller for a moment in time; then pulses outward like a single heartbeat.

Maria's entire Angelic form bursts outward with even more power, blue light, and becomes filled with a far denser dazzling rainbow refracting glow.

It looks like she is going through some kind of new bond or break through transformation with her Soul Sword.

Her greater form grows in size, and the area around her she gains total control over, and freezes in an icy array begins to increase.

Yet, my visuals of this epic display are fading more and more with every passing moment.

Even the small white throne I sit on in my mind is starting to crumble away, and my faint manifestation of arms and legs are dissolving into the black abyss of this mental construct.

As even Maria's spectate feed fades from my consciousness, all I hear are thousands of light dinging sounds, and a final text prompt that floats in front of my eyes in the darkness.

[Rank Up]

[YES][NO]

I press yes.

There would be a smile on my face, but even now, the mental manifestation has already dissolved all of my facial features to conserve energy.

The text prompt fades away, along with the white throne I'm seated on.

My body slowly fades and disintegrates with it, all I become is a small white orb in an endless black void.

Yet, I am just as calm as the moment I realized I was going to be hit by that first 6 tendrils of corruption.

My generals from the Lower Realm pulled through. I gave them the energy to fight in their battles, and now, they have given me a chance to unlock the power I need to finish mine.

The sensation of the mental construct I'm in shaking every time I'm struck outside fades away.

Even the low cold hum of Royal Vibrations doesn't even sway my mental focus.

I fall into a complete and total meditative, relaxed state to rank up deep within my mind.

It could be minutes passing, hours, or days. I could even die before I'm broken out of this perfect state of concentration and not realize it. It's as though time is not passing any longer.

I mentally blink, and during this time, the small white light floating in the darkness shrinks even smaller; yet its center consolidates into a core and grows stronger and stronger.

The mental pool of newly formed Celestial Energy holds the final drops of my consciousness from dissolving, and contained away from the violent attacks and cold suppressing waves of Royal Vibrations long enough to complete a single system command.

Once I open my eyes from this mental blink, a single notification shines in front of me in the black void again.

It's at the very bottom of my system, added as a brand new buff. There are countless other notifications streaming through my consciousness, but only one can be sensed to my dying mind right now. It's the one I have to activate.

[Celestial Emperor's Sacred Body]