[CH399+ Continued] Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster's Power

Chapter 553

I point my daggers at him once he pulls out his sword and steps closer, glaring at me but not replying.

"What's it going to be? Your choice."

He keeps walking closer, eyeing me up and down, so I let a surge of lightning out to show that my ranked up buff is activated and I mean what I said.

Then, the lightning mage looks back toward the rift, then at me, and lets out a grunt through his gritted teeth while putting his sword down by his side.

"You're right... It would be a waste to fight now... I'll find you once you've farmed artifacts for me."

Then, he runs off into the woods with his feet covered in static.

I smirk and power down my lighting but continue to watch him on my enemy detection skill as he ventures off into the forest alone.

Every few minutes, more applicants come out, and I wait by the treeline.

Most of the Apex Region hunters confront me just like Trax did, but instead of instigating a fight and taking them out, I point them off in the direction their leader ran off to.

The other Vice and Veridian applicants that made it into the top 20 don't bother talking to me, they just run off into the forest and avoid eye contact.

Once Ember makes his way through the rift, he slowly walks over to me while his eyes wander the woods and look high up into the sky above us.

As soon as his reading pops up in my enemy detection skill, his vitals and geo-location reappear and update in my Rising Emperor's domain too.

His first words to me through our link once he gets near are, "This isn't what I was expecting... This is quite an old rift, it seems the Association has been forcefully keeping it open for a while. We're not in the Divine Realm, but we're not too far away from it either."

His gaze keeps looking up into the blue sky above us, but there's nothing up there to see.

I reply.

"Then where are we...? Is this another world? Like the Demonic Realm, or wherever that Void Creeper's Rift brought us to? My ranked-up buff isn't registering anyone's presence but yours."

Ember nods.

"Something like that. It makes sense that you wouldn't be able to contact anything outside this realm... I doubt teleportation crystals will work here either."

His eyes lock onto something far away in the trees.

"Don't worry, what Rodrigo said is true... no matter what happens in here, we'll be right back where we left once this realm rejects us. If we make it far enough in, we won't have to worry about our concealment barriers decaying either."

"Okay, but that still doesn't answer any of my questions. What is this place? Where are we really...?"

Ember grins, but his mind still looks preoccupied and his eyes are glossed over as he scans the horizon.

"To be honest, I'm not sure. It's a construct made by a Divine Beast. Kind of like a simulation, but really it's the half-finished creation of an entire Realm. I've never seen an artificial one this massive. I'm in the dark about the rules of this place, so you can ask as many questions as you want and the best I can answer with would be guesses. Every construct has its unique limits set by its creator. I just know we need to head that way to reach its center..."

More people start coming out of the rift one by one.

Nat walks over next, and her vitals and stats come rushing into my consciousness, then even Marcie wanders by soon after.

A few minutes after she does, another jaguar attacks, and she's able to defend and defeat it with ease. This one wields water magic instead of wind, and Marcie is equally as disappointed when nothing drops from its remains.

Ember speaks through our link once he sees my expression while looking at the dissolving monster.

"Monsters down here won't have what we're looking for."

He points off into the forest, but his finger is angled upward.

"If we want to find any of those so-called artifacts, we'll have to venture out in that direction and find stronger monsters with fully developed cores."

I nod and watch the woods as every few minutes more black jaguars attack the new applicants that come through the rift and enter the forest.

The large black cats all wield different elements, but share the same sharp eyes.

Some use earth, others use fire, and I even watch one of them use light magic to make illusions of itself while attacking.

Yet, they all fall and drop nothing when they die all the same.

Finally, Dane comes out of the rift and meets us. His vitals and geolocation update in my mind as well.

I nod as he approaches, then use lightning magic beneath my feet to levitate upward to try and get a better vantage point while coming up with some basic ground rules and a strategy to rely on if we're going to take this on as a team.

My first instinct is to go on ahead with Ember and reap the rewards of this construct all for myself, but an even better idea comes to mind.

While having lower levels tag along may hold me back at first, it doesn't mean they'll be weak for long. If I'm able to gain MCP from killing these monsters, that means anyone with a link of loyalty can use my skill and become stronger very quickly as well.

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Author's Note:

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