Kae
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Dungeon Diver CH895
🕑 Added 2025-06-10 23:00:06 +0000 UTCWe begin to climb the massive flight of steps.
The imagery of a tower, with four flights of stairs leading up to it on all sides, similar to a flat-topped pyramid structure, is still at the forefront of my mind. This is what the temple in all the drawings looked like. So, this must be one of the sides.
Even with my ether senses at their full power, I cannot see the outer edges of these steps. We zigzag across them out of curiosity, a few kilometers to each side, but even now we do not find their outer borders.
Each stair is over 10 meters high.
There are many Noble Demons struggling to climb up them, and we slice through them to increase our strength further as we climb.
Every step higher, the vibrations of these Nobles become stronger and stronger.
Many of them are far more talented than any of the pedestal guardians we fought on our way here.
In fact, they all have far more potential than every other Noble Demon I’ve ever killed, in both the green zone and Lower Realm.
It feels normal to come across them left and right now, but there is an uneasy feeling building in me; as we have literally slaughtered over a thousand Nobles during our time in this Ravine.
As we climb higher and higher up these stairs… we burn and freeze a thousand more.
Why are there so many Nobles here? I thought they were an extremely rare talent. From all of the memories I’ve absorbed from Demons in the past, the number of Nobles in the entire Demonic Realm is less than the amount I’ve killed in the last 15 minutes.
The vague feelings and memories of Miriel watching hundreds of thousands of years go by return, and him watching the Demon’s talent dwindle as the generations passed before his eyes…
Yet… this is absurd.
If what I’m thinking is true, and these are all ancient Demons from the era of the Morvale Family that were thrown away as trash, it makes me wonder, what are their elites like?
As we traveled through this ravine, following a strict path, there were hundreds of cracks in the cliff walls and detours to sections of the abyss that looked identical to the path we were traveling.
I’m fairly certain, without this compass and a perfect map to follow by a mysterious figure of the past, we could easily be wandering through the darkness for decades, centuries, or maybe until we died of old age…
The thoughts that this abyss is full of ancient demons, and spreads out far further than I can fathom, build up as a certainty while the High Noble vibrations above us grow stronger and stronger.
The white spot on the orb that was wavering slightly before now begins to grow for the first time. Every few kilometers upward we climb, I pull it out from my soul storage to check, and it’s slightly larger.
I still can’t tell if it’s pointing toward something in particular, or if the dot is just pointing at a living being with extremely strong Celestial energy. Though the High Noble pressure becomes far more readable, and I can start to differentiate one from another. It is definitely two demons, but a shiver runs through both of our bodies at once the very moment I piece this together in my mind.
The pressure in the air becomes far more intense. So intense, that for the first time in this ravine, we have to both exert pressure back to combat the mental strain.
It’s confusing. A High Noble aura forcing Royals to push out our own vibrations in a defensive layering array in order to not feel pressured?
The result makes all of the surrounding Nobles within my line of sight instantly pass out. The clashing auras disrupt the environment to an immense degree.
For the next few kilometers upward, every Noble Demon we kill is already lifeless on the ground.
The faint pulsing of Celestial energy starts to seep down from above through the stairs.
It actually lights up my ether senses further than normal. It is like a spiderweb of interlocked vibrations and Celestial energy. Every time our auras clash, I can temporarily see a few kilometers outward in thin windows following the most intense portions of the celestial energy with my mind.
It reveals the state of these stairs in a much broader view.
Some of them are cracked and chipped, with claw marks or soul weapon dents every few steps.
The bottom of the stairs was actually in quite good shape comparatively, but I can tell there have been some intense battles on these steps higher up.
It doesn’t slow us down.
We change our path to avoid large chunks of missing steps in order to save Celestial Energy. Flying over those portions would be wasting energy, when we can just jump up the normal steps with our raw strength.
The amount of defensive Royal vibrations we have to exert outward continues to increase, and the massive holes, slash marks, and cracks in the stairs grow larger.
A few of the obvious battle remains are enormous, stretching over a full kilometer long. They look like sword markings, while others are just massive holes like the stairs were hit by a blunt weapon.
It makes my heart race more and more as we speed up and keep climbing kilometers upward every minute that passes.
The waves of Celestial energy are lighting up the darkness beneath our feet. The black temple shown in all the drawings now glows white. These stairs are the only bright thing I can see.
Every time we take the orb out to check our progress, the dot on it grows significantly.
It begins to cover over a quarter of the black ball’s mass. Then, it grows to over an entire side. Eventually, there is only a small black blotch remaining pointing away from the temple.
When we step onto flat ground, and the stairs upward cease, the entire orb is glowing white.
It has become useless. Now, the feeling of being unable to navigate the void returns.
As we walk forward, I put away the compass, and we both hold our soul swords tight, staring toward the High Noble waves.
They feel as though they’re on equal ground with us now.
However, the feeling of an even greater force watching, or suppressing me, returns. I can’t tell if it’s paranoia or real, but I feel the sensation of the seal of darkness tighten more the closer we walk toward these two Demons.
I stay on guard, and feel Maria’s hand squeeze mine tighter as the nerves build up in both of us.
Just from their auras, I can start to picture the enemies we’ve been tracking in my mind, but I don’t have to imagine it for much longer…
Every few pulses of their energy, that reveal themselves to be slow footsteps, give me a flash of their full forms.
Enormous bulky, muscular Demons, easily 30 meters tall, each walk our way. They both wear helmets, shoulder armor, and upper chest plates. Their boots make the ground shake beneath each step, and are certainly the cause for such excessive Celestial energy pulsing through the stone floor.
They have lower body armor as well, but there are small openings all over near their joints and lower abdomens.
The Demons’ sharp eyes cut through the void, staring down at us with nonchalant gazes, looking down at insects that have crawled into their home.
One carries an absurdly large hammer. It is flat on one end and has a curved spike on the other. He lugs it over his shoulder, and walks with a slightly inconsistent step to counteract the weight.
The other carries two soul weapons: a heavy one-sided axe in one hand, and a short sword in the other. It looks slightly leaner and quicker than the other, but the massive axe is still supported by an absurd amount of muscle.
Both of them have three horns curving out from their foreheads in the same pattern, like they are identical twins.
Both even smirk at the same time as they realize we can finally see them coming.
There are no dragons in sight, but I know they must be lurking nearby somewhere. My best guess is circling up in the air above us.
The ground beneath our feet is hot with Celestial energy.
There are remains of small symbols and markings, but a majority of the stone here looks worn down, like it’s been trampled over and defiled for millennia.
This assumption comes true when the thicker Demon lunges forward and slams his hammer down on the rocky ground. It doesn’t shatter; instead, the soul hammer hits it with a heavy thud, and only the ripples of Celestial energy through the ground are what move.
They’re imbued with dozens of layered High Noble mental attacks. We have to use our full focus to begin imbuing many Royal shields of our own to block them. The attacks don’t only come through the ground, they ripple through the air in invisible wavelengths as well.
This is the first time I’m feeling the full power of their auras, as their declaration to fight.
Both Maria and I stand our ground, taking the mental challenge on while keeping our senses sharp and eyes forward, but it is far more intense than I expected it to be…
It feels like we’ve been struck by a hurricane. Without the instinct to step forward into the attack, we might have just been blown off our feet by the wave.
I stack even more defensive barriers than offensive attacks I can sense, and feel them all begin to be shredded through. The waves that hit me are sharp, layered with unwavering confidence. I can feel the endless refining practice to create perfect auras, and millions of battles won behind each wave that hits me.
As their aura alone keeps us locked in place, using a majority of our mental strength to withstand, the second Demon swings his short sword forward as well. The pair is still over a kilometer away, so he is nowhere near in range to hit us with such a short-range weapon.
Yet, I watch a white curved current of Celestial energy burst out from its blade, and can sense countless High Noble layers of hardening and sharpness tethered into this attack.
It can throw long-range attacks…
None of the Nobles we slaughtered on the way up here were able to release Celestial Energy or Vibrations outside of their bodies.
Comments
Tim Scripter
World shattering 2v2 coming up. Stay tuned for the best fight the ravine has seen in millinia! TFTC Kae!
