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

The moment my blade leaves my storage, I feel the core within it instantly sync with my own.

Excess threads from the atmosphere fall in all around me, filling my body with a surge of power and extreme pain at the same time.

I feel my entire being exposed to the merciless pressure of the Upper Realm in all of its glory.

My flesh continually deteriorates and heals, and even my Soul Sword breaks apart with millions of fractures the second it's exposed to the open air.

It too adapts and heals as I airstep forward using mana, divine energy, and ether to power my footsteps.

In the last few battles, I've tested out my limits and found I'm able to withstand the pressure for a few seconds at a time; and this is all I really need for the monsters before me.

My All-Seeing Eye pulses outward, getting me a perfect view of the entire mountain; and my Foresight instantly replays the thousands of best options I can take before me.

With Ava's mana signature rising to large degrees, zig-zagging in front of me trailing with green light, I activate one of my newest skills, [Shadow Step], paired with the divine flames that are magnified to their greatest strength with my Soul Sword, and lock onto all the targets directly in my line of sight.

I grin and feel shifting transport points all over the flat portion of the mountainside we're on.

They move around based on where the light source above us blacks out the ground beside the Demonic Orcs and Cyclops.

Memories of Drako Vermillion using this technique during his decades of training on the Demons' world fill my subconscious senses, and the pairing divine skill with my divine core creates a unique ability; allowing me to seemingly disappear from everyone's senses, and reappear less than 5 meters away from the closest Demonic Cyclops that holds its dual axes high in the air, trying to intimidate me from afar.

It doesn't even realize I've come into its striking range, yet my Soul Sword erupts with red flames with white ether being channeled through their core, and it cleaves the Demonic Beast's avatar in half, shattering its cores.

The natural aura of intimidation that erupts from my being makes all of the guardians on this mountain, even hundreds of kilometers away, turn their heads even without having the system tell them an intruder is near.

The automatic ether defenses on this 2nd Class Cyclops' High Grade Avatar fully activate, but my power is too overwhelming. Notifications ring in my ear, notifying me of its death while I use the small time I have remaining with my barrier up to teleport through the shadows to the Demonic Orc less than 100 meters away.

In a single slash, the Orc's avatar is sliced in two as well.

Shockwaves of condensed mental ether permeate through my hands that both grip my blade, and as the monster's physical form is being shattered, so does its mind.

I disappear, and reappear another 80 meters away to shove my flaming blade into another Demonic Beast's back, instantly killing another Cyclops and melting its mind.

From the outside looking in, when I saw this shadowstep technique being used, I always assumed it was similar to luminite transport crystals, or an instant position swap technique like Dungeon Walker or the Body Double perk.

However, it's actually a high-speed movement technique combined with a strange stealth ability similar to Raven's invisible pocket dimension.

I can only transport into areas that are visible to my eyes, and those areas must be in the absence of light.