[CH598+ Continued] Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster's Power

[All Conditions In Completing Trial 2 Met.]

[All Challengers Have Arrived.]

[Would You Like To Start The Third Trial?]

[YES] [NO]

This text immediately appears in my vision, but I seem to be in an empty black room.

However, it is shaped in a triangular fashion, with Ember and myself standing at its furthest side, facing the pointed end.

I press the [YES] option, and the room around me begins to mutate and change, just as it did before the first Trial.

The ceiling rises, and the walls expand, revealing three more triangular rooms, connecting them to form a circular outline of the actual outer walls of the black tower.

In its center, a shimmering silver pillar of light shoots up from the floor, no more than 500 meters wide, stretching high into the endless darkness above, where the ceiling seems to have no end.

Six dense True Cores reach my senses over the next few seconds, tens of kilometers away on separate sides of the massive room.

Elara, Beckman, and the Vermillion Family Demon are waiting at the back of their triangular sectors, with their soul bonded partners, all looking at the silver pillar in the center of the room.

More text, and the tower's ancient voice echoes in my inner ear.

[Trial 3: Soul]

[Calculating Necessary Difficulty...]

[Difficulty Calculated: Trial 3: Round 1 of 2 Shall Commence.]

[Round 1 of 2 Title: Negotiation.]

[Objective: Only One Bonded Pair Can Walk Through The Final Door, Be the Last One Standing.]

The silver pillar in the center of the room pulses, its barrier becoming more translucent, revealing a massive spiral staircase twisting upward high into the sky.

However, there is no entrance into the silver barrier, suggesting it is not part of this first round. It must be a result of the difficulty calculation...

My attention on the massive staircase is ripped away as a woman's angry voice echoes through the empty room toward me.

"What happened?! This is impossible! You're the brat Redgrave was meant to kill! I was waiting to have a good fight with that old man! Where's he hiding?"

My gaze shifts to her as her body erupts in white icy energy, growing to over 50 meters high, her serpent's sharp eyes fixed on me.

If this were before I entered the tower, I would be on full alert, immediately activating my greater form; but her True Core's strength is roughly equal to Redgrave's...

My own True Core is far more powerful than hers, and with the absurd amount of stats flowing through me, multiplying my strength even further, not even my Soul Sword reacts to her rage.

Her level jumps out at me at [Lv. 19,112], similar to the fire user, and her only skill is supreme-grade ice summoning.

By the way the ground is becoming covered in white ice as her greater form grows, I could have guessed as much.

Beckman, the man in nothing but a suit and glasses, riding on an armored horse, opens his system interface and replies to Elara's yells while glancing over at me.

"Impossible... Maybe Redgrave was late entering the tower. He must be—no—I cannot sense him in the outside world. This doesn't make sense...."

The man on his horse looks down at his status, trying to decipher this, while the 10-meter-tall Vermillion Family Demon watches us with an amused expression, and the black and purple dragon beside him gazes at the silver pillar, uninterested in human affairs.