Kae
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Dungeon Diver CH413
🕑 Added 2024-02-15 00:00:04 +0000 UTCA large white portal of spatial magic opens up below me about 15 meters down. It’s halfway between me and the ground.
Without waiting any longer, I let the Cursed Windstone fall from my storage and plummet toward the sandy floor.
The moment it emerges, the wind picks up and the mana manifested sand from the dungeon floor begins to float up into the air to meet the falling stone. In mere fractions of a second, a twisting sand tornado is created, and I turn to Bri and grab her wrist.
“To be safe, we’ll need to put even more distance between us and this test.”
The craftswoman's eyes are locked on the items below us as I Dungeon walk us over 200 meters away in the direction we just came from. Before blipping to safety, I could feel the mana seeping out of me already.
Once we re-materialize, a loud metallic twang like two mana shieldings colliding hits my ears. It’s followed by thuds, cracks, and a massive explosion of sand.
The violent Windstone hits the dungeon's sandy surface and in turn, a rippling shockwave follows but weakens into a light breeze as it nears us over two sports fields in distance away. The impact makes a dome of swirling sand that expands outwards, then gets sucked back into the impact point like a dense center of gravity is pulling it in.
I let out a small sigh of relief seeing that the damage isn’t instant, but also keep the thought at the back of my mind that this item's description said its mana plundering speed was exponential. Meaning, it's only going to get more powerful from here.
Bri speaks up as we both air step higher into the sky with a half frightened, half excited tone.
“What kind of item is that…? A special kind of wind element stone? Or-”
She thinks to herself, staring out at the item ripping through the dungeon floor like it's paper, wondering what exactly she’s looking at. My eyes tighten on the dome of swirling sand in the distance as it slowly expands.
A deep-toned buzzing sound begins to fill the air.
My all-seeing eye picks up on the intricacies of what's actually happening.
Through the expanding dome of sand, a large hole in the dungeon floor is being created as the element stone sinks deeper into the desert.
Sand, which is really just pure mana manifesting as dungeon mass, twists around it like a whirlpool and disappears into a dense center point once it gets close enough to the stone. It expands quickly, and I respond to Bri’s question as we both watch in awe.
“Yes, it’s an element stone. Well- it used to be. Have you ever heard of cursed items?”
She nods and her eyes widen, focusing even more on the violently spinning rapidly expanding dome of sand.
“Yes, I’ve made some myself, but nothing of this magnitude… Where did you get it? Or- don’t tell me you killed a craftsman and made this thing yourself…?”
She turns her head to look at me as she pieces everything together.
Bri is one of the only people that has ever seen my true status. It was a requirement for me to show it when I first got my blood bonded sword and entered the underground fight arena. Her memory is very good, I guess that’s why she didn’t question any of my other skills like stealth, wind magic, or dungeon walker when I used them in front of her.
She’s aware I’m no normal hunter.
So, I respond in a sarcastic tone with a relaxed shrug.
“Yes, I killed a craftsman to get the skill. You’re lucky I didn’t set my sights on you earlier when I was spending time in Vice City.”
She rolls her eyes and snaps back with her own joking remark.
“Yeah right, I doubt you could have laid a finger on me even if you found me sleeping back then.”
We both chuckle, but stare back at the growing dust cloud as I explain how it was really triggered.
“I managed to get a crafting skill of my own in the Dark Continent and mixed two of the wrong ingredients together to create this… Or depending how you look at it, maybe two of the right ones. It’s a long story, one I can tell you after we witness this creations full power and get out of here.”
The corner of my lip curls upward as the swirling dome of sand expands even further and the wind starts to pick up even 200 meters away from the eye of the storm. The deep low-toned buzzing gets louder and louder too, expanding throughout the entirety of the dungeon. I feel a small percent of my MP get drained with every gust.
In just about 60 seconds, the diameter of the cursed element stone's pull has increased over 10 times, and the gaping hole in the dungeon floor has become over 40 meters wide and deep.
Bri responds.
“I think we should get back… Or possibly leave this dungeon for good.”
She reaches for my hand and I grab on to teleport us backward again another few hundred meters.
The entire dungeon shudders as we do and the dome of destruction grows larger at a faster and faster rate. Massive hills of desert sand and rock formations begin to fall away into the growing mass of violent wind.
Just 30 seconds after, the stone has created a 100-meter deep hole in the desert floor, making a dome over twice that in diameter, and its mana draining winds reach us even half a kilometer away.
Sand golems are being sucked into the enormous wind-powered black hole, and everything made of mana does too. My rings, necklaces, and even the direction of my fluttering cloak have a slight pull toward the center of the mass. Trace amounts of mana are sucked from both mine and Bri’s bodies.
However, the interesting part is we’re not being pulled in ourselves, only mana. While the environment around us is getting sucked in and even the helpless dungeon mobs, our flesh bodies are not affected by the pull at all.
This doesn’t mean I want to find out what would happen if we get any closer, but it is an interesting phenomenon.
I dungeon walk both of us backward again, over a kilometer away to find ourselves at the dungeon exit portal.
Far off in the distance, the dome of sand and energy continues to grow. Even here, the buzzing mana and MP draining winds reach us slightly. It’s been just under 2 minutes since the stone was dropped, and it's already done this much damage.
The entire dungeon shudders again and the blue spinning portal near us shifts to a crimson tint. A grin crosses my face as I speak up.
“Let's let the guards report the break, then get them out of here before they get themselves killed.”
Both Bri and I activate our light magic and stealth skills, then walk out of the red glowing portal back to the outside world.
The higher level guard with a fire magic skill awakened is staring straight in our direction, but can only see the spinning red mana glow as his partner speaks through a silver transmission tablet.
“Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? I’d like to report unusual activity at the Green Ridge Lookout Dungeon. The portal has turned from blue to red, this is a break. I repeat. The portal has turned from blue to red, this is a break.”
His partner looks back at him as we walk past in full stealth mode.
“We should stand guard inside to make sure no mutants escape into the forest. We may be over 20 kilometers away from the city, but we wouldn't want to take the chance of any monsters slipping out and harming civilians.”
The guard with the transmission tablet finishes up reporting the break to the Association and responds.
“You’re right, we should.”
Wisps of sand and wind magic start to flow outside of the portal now, pushing manifested dungeon mass into the outside world. The only other time I’ve seen anything like this was that one time I faced the Volcanic Salamander dungeon with Maria in the Dark Continent. The heat expelled from the dungeons out into the cave. This was only because the dungeon was on the verge of complete collapse.
The fire magic user points it out to his partner.
“Look at that…. We must be in the midst of another intense surge. This was a stable dungeon as far as I knew. I have no idea what could have caused it to act this way… Let’s go-”
As soon as they both turn to enter the portal, I whisper under my breath to Bri by my side.
“Brace yourself for a high-powered mental attack. This might hurt a bit.”
Fractions of a second later, I turn around and release my stealth skill and take down all my mana shielding barriers to activate my intimidation skill on full blast focused at the two men that are about to step through the red portal.
Their eyes roll into the back of their heads and they both fall to the forest floor knocked out from the burst of intense focused mana attacking their psyche.
“Body double.”
Next, I create a body double and use it to run forward and plunge deep into the red portal to watch what is about to unfold inside with no risk to my real body.
It disappears into the crimson swirling mass of mana, and in my real body, I turn back to Bri.
“Help me carry these guys to a safe distance away. I have a feeling once this dungeon fully breaks and collapses, it isn't going to be pretty.”
Bri deactivates her light magic while holding her head and shaking off the effects of getting caught in the crossfire of my intimidation skill.
“You weren’t kidding. That's a pretty strong mental attack. I’m glad I’m not on the wrong side of it.”
We take one guard each and sling them over our shoulders while air stepping away from the mountain off the cliffside. The sun has almost fully set over the horizon, but with my enhanced sense and eyesight specifically, it's basically as light as day even at night.
We make it to the ground in the valley just below the mountain and the memories from my double come flowing back into my mind.
“I already died…”
Inside the dungeon, the moment my double entered, the light swirling winds had already reached the exit point.
Considering my double is fully made of mana, it began getting sucked in toward the center of the swirling mass. Using plunderer and my other stat-boosting buffs, my double was able to resist the pull for about 30 seconds as Bri and I made our way down the mountain, but ultimately the dome expanded too far out to resist any further.
All of the sandy hills and rock formations have collapsed and been sucked into the windy mass, and dozens of sand golems have faced their demise all around the dungeon.
The hole in the dungeon floor reached a depth of over 400m and the diameter of the swirling dome hit over 1km as my body double got sucked in and broken down into pure mana to add to the central mass.
Once these images show up in my mind I imagine the possibilities of what will happen once it has no more energy to pull from.
My all-seeing eye can sense the red portal swirling more and more violently now, starting to spew larger amounts of wind magic and mana into the real world.
However, suddenly it stops.
The twisting wind and violently glowing crimson portal stops expanding with power and contracts on itself quickly and instantly.
Everything is calm and peaceful.
Bri and I don’t stop moving forward toward the city, and the sun fully sets, leaving us in the dead of night for a full 20 seconds of silence.
Then, a glimmer of transport magic brings all foreign material out of the collapsed dungeon.
The foreign material being a highly concentrated, extremely volatile, unpredictable, cursed element stone imbued with a mythic grade skill holding billions of MP from a high C Grade Dungeon.
Once it spawns in, my All Seeing Eye picks up on it like a bright candle burning through paper on the radar in my mind's eye.
It gets hotter and hotter, reaching out for mana to drain, but out here in the plain old real world, there isn't much of that to go around.
It sucks up the trace amounts of mana in the atmosphere, but soon begins to crack and splinter as its needs are not satisfied.
The item description warning about it’s structural integrity collapsing repeats in my head as I watch the outer crystal walls of the stone break down in my mind’s eye.
A few seconds later, and the eruption of power that is released is far greater than anything my imagination had in mind.
The dark night sky is lit up like its daytime as the element stone explodes.
Comments
Paperback Hail6
I think that just maybe the association will find out about that tiny small explosion.
oFROSTYFLAKESs
Loving this story I just started reading this about a week ago and I finally get caught up and I want is more, I’m glad I’m all caught up!
