Kae
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Dungeon Diver CH810
🕑 Added 2025-03-17 23:00:05 +0000 UTCI look out into the wilderness, scoping out a new biome that spans over 100 kilometers before me. It is a unique mountainous region, with small wildlife like trees and shrubbery; but a large percent of the biome’s floor is full of lava pools.
In them, unintelligent salamanders live, most of them triple-ranked up with supreme fire summoning skills.
This appears to be a large trend in the biomes around here.
There are hardly any intelligent Lords outside of the safe zones, and many of the wild beasts are elementals and 3rd or 2nd Class. The occasional 1st Class beast even appears every once in a while.
Pretty much every single monster is strong enough to be a premium quest in the biomes we started in a few days ago.
We mostly avoid the aggressive ones that attack, but Ava kills anything that won’t leave us alone. A handful of dead soul weapon artifacts are still harvested every biome we move through.
Another full 24 hours pass, and I do manage to come across two new unique skills.
One called [Energy Preservation], from a plant race that mostly used earth magic, but a few have the ability to store extra mana in a pseudo mana core, almost like an item storage skill, so that when their energy stores are depleted, they do not have to continue draining MP from the environment. Instead, they’re able to activate this skill and gain a full restock instantly.
While I can use Plunderer and deposit mana crystals from my item storage to gain a very similar effect, it also has a True Core ability that I’m itching to try.
In addition to this, I gain a new skill called [Whisper], which is a weaker form of telepathy and has to be sent directly to a single target within a certain range. A mental message can be sent, though the receiver cannot reply.
However, one of the upgraded perks of this skill allows the caster to send messages into inanimate objects and have audio recordings play in perfect quality from anywhere.
Fighting the mutated humanoid bat creatures with this skill was quite annoying at first, as they used this perk to make it sound like they were in places they were not. Though, Ava’s instincts were not fooled at all.
Dozens of other zones with higher-ranked-up forms of monsters I’ve seen in dungeons before pass by, and I watch the Great Wall that everyone in the safe zones talks about get closer and closer.
Ava is having a great time, visibly smiling and laughing while killing 2nd and 1st Class beasts left and right with brute strength. My expression is quite positive too, but I stay very calm at a steady pace by Ren’s side behind our Goblin Queen bodyguard.
The white-haired elf’s expression changes from indifference to confusion, to worry and contemplation the closer we get to the Great Wall.
Once less than five safe zones away, under 1,000 kilometers according to my minimap, the 5th Class Lord poses a question to me with a shaky tone.
“Why…? Why are you bringing me along?”
We still run forward, following Ava’s trail of carnage through a mountainous trail with light blue rocks, keeping a lookout for the massive bear creatures wielding ice magic in this region.
I think about the answer for a moment but decide to place a hand on Ren’s shoulder and reply through telepathy.
“To be honest… I don’t know. At first, it was pure curiosity. I was going to ask you a few questions and split ways after the first safe zone.”
The purple ring on my finger vibrates again upon contact with this Lord, and I grin and continue talking, remembering the strange memories I received the first time we made contact like this.
“Then, there happened to be a few more questions I wished to be answered… I’ve never seen an elf before… I thought they all went extinct by now. Well, I’m still not sure I’ve seen a real one…”
My gaze tightens as I try to look deeper into Ren’s physique again, but I am struck with the same results, only sending back pure energy as this Lord’s makeup. It really does feel like I’m trying to scan a Soul Weapon without a wielder, full of ether, mana, and divine threads.
Then again, this is extremely similar to how Seraphel felt when I first met him beneath Ellipsia and did not have enough perception to comprehend or see past his seals.
The massive blue creature only looked like a hot white glowing mass below his skin.
A reply comes back from Ren as we jump off a mountain’s ledge, following Ava down into the next biome—a black sand desert.
“If you’re only bringing me along to learn about the elves, I’m sorry, but I cannot tell just anyone what you want to know. Even if that means you will kill me here and now.”
A sense of loneliness and nostalgia ripples through my ring, and I can’t help but let out a laugh as we both slam down onto the ground after a 500-meter fall.
“It’s not that serious. Even if you don’t have a word to tell me, I’m not going to kill you… but—”
My words are cut off as, at the moment of impact, the emotions rippling through the ring begin to heighten like one other time before.
Ava even turns her head backward, sensing something strange happening between us.
Then, my vision goes completely blank for a moment as more memories start rushing into me.
I see the imagery of this elf looking into a still body of water, repeating words telling it “Never turn in your crowns, always keep moving, wait for his return…” but it quickly fades, and the feeling of moving even further back in time hundreds of years shows this Lord wandering the outer ring just like in the previous memories.
I watch Ren use all kinds of light magic illusions, hiding from countless 3rd, 2nd, and even 1st Class beasts, outsmarting them to go in for the kill or running away when they know it is a battle impossible to win.
The years go back further and further, making countless laps around the outside of the wilderness.
Easily thousands of years.
From the experience absorbing the memories of many unintelligent Demonic Beasts beneath Ellipsia, even if these memories are fractured and fuzzy, I have quite a good gauge on how much time has passed.
The indifferent, fearful, and solemn look on this Lord’s face begins to make far more sense once the memories speed up, going even further back—over ten thousand years, then twenty thousand, then forty, and then easily fifty thousand years or more pass.
They are not crystal clear, and it’s only moments of high emotional peaks that are transmitted; the rest are irrelevant, fading away in the past.
The memories get weaker and weaker, and I get the feeling I’m about to be cut off again, jolted back into reality; but an extremely strong and clear image is burned into my mind out of nowhere…
I see a massive tear in the ceiling of the Grand Citadel.
Ear-piercing screeches fill the dome, and countless Lords all around as far as Ren can see have fallen to the floor unconscious.
I cannot feel the energy waves in memories, but the way the environment is reacting, it appears as though Noble Vibrations are leaking through that tear in the dome…
Hundreds of Green-Cored Wyverns fly through the open air of the Green Zone, and there is a similar force of Demons riding dragons clashing with them.
The white-haired Lord watches with awe, and the feelings of hope and nostalgia ripple through this entire image, flowing through my ring and into my heart.
“He’s returned again…” the elf whispers while watching the wyverns clash with demons.
My attention within this memory shifts to see a massive Blue Wyvern, with its greater form stretching over 100 kilometers wide, leading the strike.
Though, many of the Demons and their dragons have dark black greater forms stretching tens of kilometers wide as well.
My heart begins to race as I recognize who that wyvern really is leading the army, and my excitement to watch Seraphel in a real clash grows…
Though, I can only see through Ren’s eyes in these memories, and this elf Lord is not watching the wyverns. It’s watching one of the dragons on the side of the demons that breaks formation and starts to spray translucent fire across the front line of demonic forces, instantly melting them alive.
A massive blast of aura fills the sky as the true battle begins, blinding Ren’s view of the fight, but the single image of a very familiar sharp crimson eye in the dragon that betrayed the demons makes me question if I have just witnessed Ember in one of his past lives for the first time…
—
This blast breaks me out of my trance, and Ren realizes that something wrong has happened as well, as the purple ring touching their shoulder has become burning hot and is making a ringing sound in both of our ears.
The elf Lord jumps backward with terror on their face—not looking at me, but looking at the ring on my finger.
“Where did you get that artifact? No—how has that possibly come down from the higher zones… does that mean? No—who are you…?”
I feel this Lord’s light magic begin to flare up, and the intensity in their eyes returns, as speculative and ready to fight as the first day I saw them with the wolfmen.
It’s like I’m looking at a whole new Lord before me.
Ren’s hands heat up white with burning hot ether, and words come out of their mouth that I was not expecting.
“Tell me now, or I’ll be forced to kill both of you where you stand.”
The intensity increases even further, and the frail and confused Lord that has been following us for days seems to be completely gone.
The blank look behind Ren’s eyes has disappeared, and this Lord’s personality has flipped a full 180 degrees.
I grin and activate Ether Commands in my hands to make them glow white as well.
“I found it on my homeworld, in the Lower Realm actually.”
The sharp elf’s eyes shift to the artifact, which is now nothing but a black ring, as my Ether Commands and the ring itself have been completely concealed since the moment we entered this wilderness. It looks like nothing more than a dead Basic-Class Soul Weapon.
However, upon contact, during the accidental siphoning of memories, it appears Ren has seen its true Divine Thread coloring.
“Lies! She would never fall to the Lower Realm!” Ren screams back in an angry tone.
I open my mouth to reply, but an intense Mana Control washes over both of us from about a hundred meters to my right.
Ava’s voice yells out. “Stop fighting, you two! You can kill each other when we’re done here… We have bigger problems than the whereabouts of some ring!”
Both of our heads turn to the Goblin Queen filled with confusion, but our eyes widen simultaneously once we see why she yelled at us to stop.
In the distance, descending down from the sky in the center of this black sand desert, there is, in fact, something far more important than our disagreement.
Over twenty 1st Class Demonic Servants with crowns above their heads float downward and begin to alter their rigid formation, creating a large circle and landing around us in a wide ring. All of their hands light up with white energy, activating simultaneous Admin-only Ether Commands.
Comments
Erik McPherson
TYFTC Kae
Tim Scripter
TFTC Kae!
Capplesactus
Tyftc!
Vergandi
Oh boy things are about to get interesting in more ways than one
Bokhos
Is he going to walk away with talking... I hope not 😂. Tyftc
