抖阴社区

                                    

Orange threads still slowly fade off my body each time, but the amount is almost none compared to the amount of energy I would lose on the first couple stones.

It feels exactly like the breakthrough point I hit with my red core.

I just need a few more, and there will be a monumental change.

"Almost there..."

I stare off into the endless sky that looks exactly the same as it always has with black trees stretching up into the unknown while eating another fragment.

The process is soothing now.

Another thick orange layer of shielding is added to my body to make it denser and stronger than before.

I take deep breaths while this fragment dissolves and the last remnants of my red core are overwhelmed by the thick orange threads.

My heart beats in my ears loudly while a bright orange aura envelops my entire body and I stand from my seated position while a gravity wave of orange energy pulses from my chest.

I grin while staring down at my hands, then up at the sky again.

A small group of insects flies by, soaring through the air on their way to the floating island.

I count 7 of them, then jump off the swaying chain I'm on to follow them.

My strides filled with wind magic leave behind orange footprint shaped dents in the air. They begin to fade once I'm far enough away.

I pull out my sword from my item storage and orange threads slowly creep up it once my grasp tightens around it.

I fill the blade with Soul Energy. The dark mana and Qi are reinforced with millions of orange threads on the outside of the sword, and its weight feels as if it's been multiplied many times over.

This feeling of strength is far greater than the intensity I felt while wielding this same soul energy in my greater form days ago with nothing but a red core.

I could activate that buff now to increase my strength even further, but it doesn't seem worth the hassle.

I grin while slashing through 6 of the insects in just two swings of my blade.

Their outer shells are obliterated by the weight of the hot Soul Energy in my blade.

My speed is still similar to theirs, so one of the bugs manages to escape my second swing.

It charges in to avenge its fallen allies, attacking my unguarded back, but its entire arm shatters to pieces as it makes contact with my new skin-tight unbreakable defense.

Its antennae move rapidly and its beady black eyes widen while I turn to slice it in half.

While the insects fall, dissolve, and I collect their cores, I do some tests with my blade.

As long as I keep it connected to my grasp, the orange threads stay intertwined to strengthen it from the inside and create an orange barrier around it.

However, when I let go, the threads retract and fade away to leave it in its natural state.

I place it back into my item storage with the newly collected cores and float back over to Ember to wait for his orange core to awaken as well.

While my sole focus these past few days was absorbing fragments, he farmed many more stones for us, leaving hundreds of excess in my item storage.

It takes about 6 more hours for his core to awaken; in the meantime, I practice on the insects that pass by.

I thought that by now, after awakening my orange core too, I'd understand why they're so eager to send themselves into that death trap of an island, but their infatuation still is a mystery to me.

Ember tests out his new powers too on some of the nearby monsters, punching through the tough outer layers of exoskeletons with nothing but a soul energy-powered fist, not even in his hybrid form.

I join in the fun as well.

His fists and my sword break through the tough outer shells of these insects, and the image of that yellow-cored lizard crunching through dozens of them in a single bite flashes through my mind with every kill.

We slowly make our way back toward the island filled with obsidian trees.

A battle strategy slowly begins to form in my mind of how we'll take on one of those lizard creatures together, but my concentration is broken once I see the purple barrier beneath the floating island appear out of thin air again and ripple with waves of gravity just like it did when it stopped the island from falling down into the depths of the sea before.

It feels and looks different this time.

Instead of stopping the island from falling, it looks as if it's exerting force to push it upward instead.

A loud echoing creek, and the jingling of a long chain below the island hits my ears.

I have to make a split-second decision and change my plans once I see the island of black trees and golden fruit start to move upward again toward the endless sky above where it came from.

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Author's Note:

If you're enjoying Dungeon Diver and want to follow Jay on his journey 20+ chapters ahead of schedule, check out the Patreon link in my profile bio.

There's custom chapter art for every new daily upload too!

Thanks for reading:)

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[CH399+ Continued] Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster's PowerWhere stories live. Discover now