Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster's Power-Chapter 833

Hundreds of scans—both automated and manual by servants—are conducted on the way down before their orb is finally deactivated and the two wolfmen can walk into a wide open room.

They see thousands of other Lords, all lining the outer ring of this room that stretches at least 300 kilometers across.

Every single one of the Lords in this room—5th to 1st Class—all have full white crowns above their heads, but every single one of them is equally confused about what they need to do here.

A few more Lords enter from random walls and holes in the ceiling and floor, until the room lights up white instead of the black coloring it's been showing.

From the center of the room, a shady figure with long horns emerges and lifts two long arms covered in what looks like oscillating black liquid.

It moves far too fast for anyone in the room to even react.

Not even the 1st Class Lords have enough perception to turn their heads in time, or even sense that something dangerous has entered the room.

The wolfmen both fall unconscious to the floor at the same time as everyone else in the room, but the recording feeds still show glimmering white ether traveling through the tendrils of black liquid from every single Lord's crowns into the shadowy figure in the center of the room.

In a matter of seconds, the liquid all returns to its body, and the shady figure descends through the floor to leave.

Lords begin waking up in a daze, like they've just fallen into a quick nap, and I see the footage quality now become noticeably worse...

The wolfmen's avatars were attacked and siphoned of all their refined ether. Even the hidden commands I hid within them were drained of a large amount of their ambient power.

Every single crown floating above these Lords' heads is now grey and empty.

Demonic Servants come into the room next, activating new fast-travel commands and begin sending the Lords here back.

Those that are intelligent start to argue, many of them asking how they got here or what happened to their hard-earned crowns. A large majority don't say a single word and still stare off into empty space like they've seen a ghost.

The two wolfmen that stare at each other are acting the same.

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"Hey Xaden. Where are we? We were getting Avatar Upgrades right?"

"I don't know, Togi... Maybe Boss Lady sent us here..."

They're swept away back through the many tunnels beneath the Citadel and back toward the surface.

Other flashes of ether orbs are visible going in different directions. These wolfmen are brought through the network of tunnels again and brought down into another upside-down tower, this one filled with Demonic Servants and dense white pools of ether commands.

System text notifies the two Lords of their avatar upgrade procedure, and the two close their eyes and let the process take place.

This time around, it doesn't touch any of the leftover ether commands I did—only that long-horned figure's strange energy did so.

Xaden and Togi are brought back up to the surface right after and are soon tracked down by the Admin I had retrieve them.

All the footage following leads to where we stand now.

"Interesting... So I was right. These Grand Citadel Avatars are used to refine stagnant ether, and the Vermillion Family Head collects it all for himself," I comment through a private link with Ava, then turn to both of the wolfmen again, patting them on the backs with my cuffed hands one by one as their eyes get glued to the glass screen showing the Arena Dome before them.

Something still feels different about them... There is a lingering piece of energy remaining in them from their contact with Miriel. It reminds me of the Admin I turned over to a link of loyalty—despite being fully loyal, their eyes and mind turned dull when I asked certain things about the crowns.

I decide not to pry any further, as I got all the answers I needed. I send these additional scans directly to Ember, as he may find them useful. Then, turn around and enjoy round 6.

–

The monsters in this round are even stronger than the last.

A pair of Berserker Giants brawl for the final few minutes, but they do not have enough time to finish the match. Both move on and get teleported into this holding cell.

In round 7, there are many more mammoths, serpents, golems, and even another one of the mantis creatures that Ava fought before. Almost the entire arena is obliterated this round it gets so intense. Only an abnormally strong mammoth and the mantis make it out.

Round 8 is even more hectic, I hardly spot any 2nd Class Lords at all, only 1st Class and over two dozen from this Star system of Elites.

It's brutal from the start. A Mantis and a Berserker Giant dominate the majority of this match, but never fight each other. They fight off multiple Elites on either side of the ring.

The Arena seating grows more and more packed, nearing 150 million watching, and even surpassing 100% capacity on seating. There are Demonic Servants installing more rows higher in the sky to curve up and around the top of the dome to view it from above to accommodate more Lords here for the fun.

Round 9 starts, and even more Elites are present in this round, maybe close to 100. The Announcer's voice echoes out as it begins.

"Find your seats everyone, this will be our second to last round before the main event begins! I repeat, our second to last round. There are only two hours before the real show begins. It has already been an exciting preliminary trial, but this month's event is far more stacked than usual. Make sure to place your bets before the time runs out!"

At the same time, I scan the listed entries and look throughout the dome's visuals that I can see, but it just seems to be the same as all the other rounds before. 'No other Griffons, huh? Are they really that rare?' I think to myself.

The eyes of this half lion, half eagle still stare into mine and Ava's back no matter how crowded this holding room gets. It makes me more and more curious as to why, and where such an elegant creature like it came from.

–

Meanwhile, back on Ellipsia as these last few hours watching the rounds of the fighting event pass, the generals all begin to finish their assimilation in the central tower.

Abby arrives on the 1000th floor first, completing the final array built to trigger ether commands and a teleportation device to bring her up a final floor into the private control room where surveillance and private trades for demons are made.

Once she touches down on the smooth black and green floor, the atmosphere she's present in now is dozens of times less dense than what she's used to.

A bright green True Core calmly spins in her chest, and the Immortal healer now stands unaided by anything other than her own stats in the Upper Realm as the 2nd human in history to bring their untainted body to the Green Zone.

Next, Maria completes her climb as well.

Commands and notifications to deactivate all harmful techniques before transitioning to the lower quality atmosphere outside prompt her to deactivate her Angelic form and put away her soul weapon into storage before teleporting up to the final floor.

She appears in a flash of white light in the same room as Abby.

Maria's blue eyes, blond hair, and light skin stand out like a bright light against the dark walls and floors of this control room. Though, she does not have a bright green core in her chest like Abby.

There is only darkness, the absence of light or energy where her core should be.

The rest of her body, however, does have millions of tendrils of green divine energy coming out from where a core should be though, tethering her to reality and making her the 3rd human to ever step foot in the Green Zone of the Upper Realm with their true flesh intact.

The two generals pull up live monitoring feed of the Citadel, one that was very commonly shared with them from the Rising Emperor, but now is at their fingertips and to be seen with their own eyes.

Arie is on floor 998 and Raven just made it to 995. Every general's assimilation process is nearly complete, with less than 2 hours to go until they're meant to make their moves.

Yet... one of the Citadel's surveillance systems begins to blink with flashing white lights and automated alarms and protocols being activated.

A holographic view of what the problem is shows up on a massive screen covering a 50-meter-high wall.

It just shows a bright blue explosion of energy coming toward the Citadel from a direction not detailed on any of the maps.

The thin white orb of ether commands around the Citadel auto-activates a defensive array that blocks a large amount of the blunt force of the shockwave.

However, even from a distance over 10 million kilometers away, a violent burst of High Noble Vibrations still makes the whole Citadel shudder.

The light tints the entire Citadel's vision blue for a few seconds, and Abby's eyes widen the most as she recognizes what these Vibrations are—and who they're coming from.