Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

When I look deeply into the other demons, I realize the ones I cannot see are other First Bloods.

They only appear as black demon-shaped voids, or silver and purple glyphs. In fact, the longer I look at them, the more the ringing in my ears sounds, and the weaker my grasp on these memories gets.

I can tell there is one demon in particular that is larger than the others.

From the sense I'm getting, and the looks of the Outer Guards that I can still perceive, this is the leader of this Demon's generation.

At least, the one here in the Lower Realm.

The group of demons ventures through the barren deserts of this planet, following their leader past mountain ranges, wide open ravines, and desolate landscapes.

There is communication going on between them, but it's all removed from these visuals.

The further they fly to the other side of the planet, the harder it is to keep a grasp on this image.

I feel the edges of my consciousness growing fuzzy again, just like it did when I started absorbing this First Blood's memories, but I push through and hold on just long enough to see what I need.

A single massive black tower appears in everyone's vision. It crackles with silver light on its outer edges, and I can tell there is no memory manipulation going on here... this is truly what this First Blood sees in the moment.

My grip on the past loosens, and everything starts moving extremely fast again.

The visuals of the Imperial Family founding, and a single demon ascending while summoning a second tower, is what I see next.

It turns from green, to cyan, to dark blue. Before I can see it turn purple, to match the state of the Imperial's tower today, this demon leaves the Lower Realm following orders.

The Lower Realm is far less potent with ether at this point. The majority of the outer ring of the galaxy has been completely consumed by the Imperials, and a new generation after the Outer Guards is starting to spawn and spread their influence as well. I do not get to see what they grow into, or what timeline they are a part of.

Considering not even the Vanguard's Throne has been summoned in the Demonic Realm yet, I have a feeling there is still a large era of history in between that is missing.

When this First Blood ascends, the purple and silver glyphs actively fracturing and locking away its memories grow much stronger.

I can tell hundreds of millions, possibly even billions of years are passing in the Upper Realm, but I hardly get more than a few seconds of snippets.

Flashes of green, cyan, and blue light burst by, and the only thing I can make out are various enormous battles it faces alone, one versus millions of Royals from varying ruling races. It always wins without question.

Throughout all of its memories is an undertone of unearned pride, confidence of a spoiled god-like being that was born with more power than everyone else and no answers as to why.

One of the single frames of memories I grasp is the visual of a Citadel in the Green Zone. When I try to reverse the memory and look back, it becomes blurry and harder to see; and then when I try again, the memory is completely devoured by the glyphs around it. However, I'm almost certain I just saw the Fortress Citadel.

I even see glimpses of it wandering in the Ravine, looking for something, but eventually leaving because it never found it.

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No landmarks or potent memories are recovered from the Blue Zone.

Yet, when the final stage of its life flows into my mind, I can already feel the immense weight of time spent in the Purple Zone. Every moment of it has been crushed to unreadable dust by a curse. It's built into its Glyph Imprints, I can feel that even this demon did not have all of its memories while it was alive. Whatever it is, it was placed on this demon when it came here. It was not born this way.

The moment I connect these dots, a final image burns into my mind.

I stare through this First Blood's eyes, looking right and left, feeling a few hundred fellow demons near the same strength. All of them stand in a line.

They look forward, past the sight of thousands of Primordial Trees all cut down and destroyed.

In the center of the destruction, there is a single Purple-Cored Demon. He sits on the stump of an enormous tree. By the aura alone, I can tell it's the same demon that was their leader back in the Demonic Realm. This is the Imperial Family Head.

It's the same tree I saw in my visions many times before. It's the same one that looked so enormous, towering over the other Primordial Trees, making them look like saplings. It was in those memories I saw Ember, and the demon that tried to copy the Creator's Legacy.

Yet, when I look forward, I do not see any hint of silver threads in this Family Head's core.

There is also no dragon at all in its vicinity. None of these First Bloods have dragons by their sides.

I have a clear recollection of them all having bonded dragons in the Lower Realm, but now they are here all alone. I try to sift through the remaining fractured memories, but there is no sign showing where they've gone.

The only difference I can see in their beings now is the fact that every single First Blood lined up has fully awakened Glyph Imprints. They all resonate with the Imperial Family Head on a deep level.

When one pulses, so do all the others.

In this moment, I realize killing this First Blood will give up my position, and the fact that Maria and I are strong enough to kill one of them. There is no doubt.

This shift in my train of thought makes me lose grasp of that final memory.

Not even the battle I was just in remains in its mind, no memories of the mapping of the Purple Zone, or any clues of how that Silver-Cored Demon that was bonded with Ember managed to kill off the Dryads and chop down their tree.

As I feel my consciousness slipping back to reality, the strong emotions of this mystery in my mind focus on a wavering area of gravity in the center of the Primordial Tree's stump.

I never would have noticed it, nor did the demon that held these memories even look at it.

There is a weak area in space behind the Imperial Family Head, like a crude rift in space. It feels similar to the manual tear Maria and I made while breaking out of the Green Zone.

Flickers of silver divine threads crackle from its edges as the reality of the battlefield comes back to us.

Our Glyph Imprints are pulsing frantically, as more and more white symbols saturate and fill out on the outer walls of our souls.

The intricate understandings of how each glyph fits together, creating more and more complex arrays, flows through both our minds. As I share my new memories, we both mirror these waves of enlightenment through each other. There are waves of smaller and smaller breakthroughs following the initial burst until the flashing glyphs eventually calm down, and we reach a stable state.

In this flat area of land where the settlement of hundreds of enormous towers once stood, there is only a slight hum that fills the silence.

The excess high-quality ether mist fills the atmosphere, and a pair of Royal vibrations that are nearing the rank of a High Royal make the atmosphere extremely tense. The power output of these vibrations is far too extreme to be that of just a Royal, but there is a key piece of knowledge that is holding back the breakthrough.

Our Primordial Aura bubbles have expanded to astronomical levels. They flow outward almost a hundred trillion kilometers. From just moments ago, that's an increase of almost a thousand times.

I have far better control over it now. It is not just a mirrored version of my Vibrations. I can feel that if I activate my new buff [Primordial Defense], it would all compress back in toward me, and make a layer of armor around the outside of my soul instantly.

Yet, there are still far too many factors that don't entirely make sense.

Even my ether pools are still capped at extremely refined Celestial Energy. It has to pour through countless arrays to create high-quality glyphs.

My ether pool desperately wants to compress and turn itself into pure High-Quality Ether, but this too is held back by a bottleneck I cannot fully comprehend.

As Maria and I expand our senses outward, the dim black, white, and rust-colored aura of our allies slowly comes back toward us, but that is not what both of our minds are pulled toward. It is the blinding white aura at the center of this Ritual Domain that leads us to float forward away from this destroyed settlement.

It's the reason we came here, with hopes to fully awaken our Glyph Imprints, the Inheritance Artifact that these First Bloods stole from the rest of the galaxy.