Kae
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Dungeon Diver CH884
🕑 Added 2025-05-30 23:00:06 +0000 UTCThe Celestial energy from the dragon burns through me, but with many other threats coming our way, there is no time to sit and wait to refine it in peace.
Instead, I grit my teeth and bear through the pain.
Maria deals with the abnormally unrefined surge of energy that comes through her with a painful expression as well; but it doesn't slow us down.
We both run past the dead demon lying face down on the floor. The surge of new Celestial Energy expands our ether senses even further, as the imagery of two dragons heads, and four commoner demons running on the ground below them, comes into view.
They all range from 3 to 5 meters each, and run toward us in some kind of battle formation; but this doesn't deter us at all…
A bright flash of white, blue, and red light illuminates the cave.
Maria and I spin about, interlocked in the air, kicking off the incoming dragons' heads, wings, and the cave walls.
Every cycle of this new wave of Celestial Energy surging through our cores makes our movements more focused and refined, and in under a minute, the cave floor is covered in the remains of another massacre…
One of the dragon’s wings has frozen off, and its core has burst in a wave of fire, while three of the four demons have been sliced in half.
Two more dragons come flying in from the darkness as backup, but they both fall dead to the ground before they can even join in on the battle.
With three new surges of Celestial Energy being refined through us, our power increases by over double again; making the final demon and dragon pair remaining almost as easy as killing fledglings. They attempt to run away, but ice breaks the demon's legs and a wave of fire slices through its head and downward toward its core to end its life in seconds.
–
While exciting, we don’t have much time to celebrate.
The intensity of Celestial Energy surging through us has drastically increased. It may have pushed our ether sense far enough to see to both sides of the cave walls, just about 20 meters wide of an area; but at the same time, our senses are being overloaded with white energy.
My inner mind is being clouded with sharp pain and the sensation of ringing in my ears. It’s extremely off-putting, considering I haven’t heard anything but the silence of this void for over a month.
Even so, two more factors are weighing on my mind.
The first is that I sense even more waves of Celestial Energy coming from deeper within the cave, and the second fact is the strange discovery I’ve found after absorbing the energy from these demons and dragons.
When the finishing strike lands through a dragon’s core, the only thing I manage to absorb is Celestial Energy, and a small amount of cyan threads.
However, in the few demons I sliced through, each one of them grants me small amounts of demonic energy, as well as shattered and distorted memories of their time within this abyss. It is a strange sensation, because it makes the demons I kill seem more real… and the dragons more like pure avatars or energy manifestations.
Though I don’t dwell on this mental problem long, I run forward with Maria as more demonic enemies appear from behind a bend in the cave, and the head of a demon’s dragon soars down from the darkness in the sky.
Three more bonded pairs attack us, but it just gets easier and easier to kill them.
Even through the pain, and dampening of my senses, the cycles of energy that bounce back and forth through us grow so intense; that even when the demons attack with their full Celestial Energy strength imbued in their arms, our blades can slice straight through them.
There’s no need to dodge or find the optimal strike point; we’re faster and stronger, and smarter than them in every way.
Only melting corpses are left behind as we reach the back of the cave and raise our red and blue blades in the air, scanning our surroundings and both laughing into the abyss.
Once we’re sure that no threat remains, we both sit back against the cave’s furthest wall in, and close our eyes to focus, and truly refine all of this raw Celestial Energy flowing through us.
Unknown to us, as we burst cycles back and forth through our bodies every 4 to 5 seconds, weak waves of Celestial Energy pulse through the floor, walls, and air. It is like a mini beacon blasting out our location into the abyss, just like the demons that led us to this cave before.
–
Being in full focused battle mode, with our vibrations perfectly aligned, allowed us to suppress the negative side effects long enough; but now we must spend about 15 minutes to fully cycle through this energy.
We’re both forced into a near-unconscious state, where our minds are burned with the visual of pure white, with only the natural Celestial Energy refinement movements active, and our two bodies linked together by a single palm floating in a void of energy. But these visuals fade as our bodies and minds adapt, and are flooded with the familiar icy blue source resin and red celestial fire.
The cave’s presence, and our positions sitting at the back of it, float back to the surface of our minds. This, and our extremely heavy breathing, and heart rates bursting out of our chests in unison.
Though, after the pain, it's only bliss and relief that washes through us as we stand to our feet and look around this cave.
Other than high above, where there is no ceiling, everything else is illuminated in perfect clarity.
It’s like my eyes are spreading a bright white light all over the cave walls wherever I look; almost nothing is out of my range.
I see more ancient texts on these walls than I’ve seen ever before.
Every square centimeter seems to be covered in it here.
There must have been a reason all these demons and dragons were here…
Maria’s eyes widen as she’s fixated on the drawings of Void Creepers praying to a black orb, and the depiction of horned monsters that look like demons both fighting them, and other drawings show one of the demons that appears to be celebrating with them.
My gaze, on the other hand, pinpoints toward the originators' language that I can comprehend.
The large majority is unreadable text, but I see the words “The World Eater Returns” repeated over and over above all these drawings.
Though, the ones with the demon, or at least horned creature, in them read “Half Demon” or an even closer translation would be “Half Evil” near all of its depictions.
In bulkier areas that are only filled with text, I see the words “Great Split” return again multiple times, and even it referenced differently as “The Great Divide” or even “The Last Divide,” but there is no context for me to make any sense of it all.
I scan these walls over and over, then start walking back through the cave with Maria as the floor starts to flood with dark black goo from the decaying avatars of the demons and dragons we killed.
As we wade through these pools of ankle-deep gunk, I do pick up the horns of all the demons we killed.
They’re all small, none of them longer than half a meter at most; but there are 11 horns in total.
Some of the commoners had 1 horn, while others had 2, but none of the dragons drop any remains that stay solid.
I take advantage of our newly refined Celestial Energy, and use the same craftsmanship technique to mold these horns into more armor.
Both of us get new boots, shoulder guards, and upper forearm reinforcement for our fighting arms. However, I can’t make any large-scale gear like a chestplate or full armor; the horns just do not have enough mass or latent energy in them to allow for such a craft.
Still, even with these new minor gear additions, I feel my strength, defense, agility, and speed grow. I even feel a slight increase in my mental strength, allowing me to use my Celestial Energy better. I believe these items are affecting my Soul Energy core, but there is no definitive way to prove it with my system still dark.
Despite this, I believe it's making a difference, and admire the red and blue glow that sparkles not only in our swords, but the armor built from the demons we’ve slain all over our bodies, as we walk further back toward the exit of the cave.
Less writing on the walls can be found as we walk away from the cave’s back, but there are still mentions of the same World Eater, and Great Split here near the entrance.
Only one other drawing at the mouth of the cave catches my attention. It looks like one of the Void Creepers has a pair of wings.
There is no legible text to explain this oddity. In fact, a large portion of the wall looks like it’s cracked off. I can’t tell if they’re all pointed toward something that was there before this cave drawing was ruined… or if the other Void Creepers are worshiping one of them with wings.
We stop and stare at this interesting drawing for a while, as the flood beneath our feet spreads out and dries.
There are even fledgling demons that have appeared from high above in the darkness, licking up the remains after they sensed we left the deepest portion of the cave.
Yet, both mine and Maria’s attention shifts far away from the pests at the back of the cave, and even away from this final ominous carving in the black stone.
We both point our swords out into the void, where we haven’t dared to travel yet.
No Celestial Energy waves are rippling through the floor to prompt us to believe an enemy is approaching.
Instead, something far more interesting.
The sensation of Noble Vibrations resonates toward us from the void, and it gets stronger with every passing moment.
Something far stronger than the commoners has found us.
Comments
Tim Scripter
Sick chapter! Thanks Kae!
Capplesactus
I was of the same mind
Youkai-sama
Callin it. Maria's the winged void creeper, the 🌍 eater. 😆
