Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster's Power-Chapter 798

Ava's eyebrows raise with surprise and understanding. After spending years of her life trapped beneath Ellipsia in the Exile Zones, it's only natural the Grand Citadel would make something similar. It would be illogical to miss out on so much profit. Though, she is still in the dark about how exactly profit is made... and so am I.

So, she replies back, "Yeah, I was serious. We arrived here at the Grand Citadel just a few hours ago... What do you mean we can't leave? Is there some kind of quota we need to hit, like filling these crowns?"

"W-Well..." The white-haired Lord pauses but keeps moving forward at a steady pace.

Ren's head stays down as they walk forward, and I decide to speed up and place a hand on this frail Lord's shoulder.

The increased feelings of confusion, shock, fear, and, oddly enough, a tinge of hope rush through me. But I'm not here for comfort—I'm here for answers. A secure telepathy link is created just like before.

"No one can hear us now. Please do explain—why can't we leave? Was everything that Demonic Guard told us a lie...?"

I'm already pretty convinced I know the answer, but I'm curious what this Lord has to say.

Ava's mind can be felt patiently awaiting a response in our three-way link as we continue forward.

The two wolfmen that trail behind us wear smiles and march without a care in the world, looking left and right occasionally when there is movement in the woods.

However, Ren doesn't reply for quite a while. With wide eyes, this Lord doesn't understand what's going on, as we're taking the fact that we're trapped here with such nonchalance. The fact that my mana control is touching the Lord's true being again, giving off a density it didn't even know was possible to obtain, causes sweat to start forming on the pale forehead beside me.

"Yes. It was probably all a lie... Well... the thing is, I don't know. I don't have any memories before entering this place. And every new Lord I meet either dies to another eventually or goes in for an avatar upgrade after completing a crown cycle."

Ren gulps, and my gaze tightens on the five full crowns floating right in front of my vision.

"So then, what's so bad about completing a crown cycle? Aren't you eligible for an upgrade?" Ava replies.

The white-haired Lord's head shakes, and beneath the long hair, I notice pointed ears.

It surprises me, and a larger-than-normal burst of my mana control flows through our contact point, making my hand slightly shift to touch my purple ring to Ren's skin again. It vibrates with a familiar feeling.

This sudden questioning, paired with this strange resonance, lets another warm burst of that familiar aura from deep down inside the Lord—the one that felt kind of like Ava's—come out. It's far stronger than before, so much so that I even get a flash of memories from it that are not my own.

They seem to be going in reverse—starting at the battle Ren witnessed today, then moving back to dozens of other ventures out into these woods and nearby biomes, hunting wild beasts with many random parties of Lords. I even see the exact location of the safe zone just past the high mountains in the distance where we're traveling.

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The visions get less high-definition and more convoluted the further back I see, but I can tell this Lord has been wandering for months, or actually years... maybe far longer than that.

I see tens of safe zones, battles, and adventurers within this wilderness fly by, as it looks like this Lord has been moving around in a circle around the entire construct for as long as it can remember.

Everything gets fuzzy and hard to make out, very similar to the fractured memories I watched from Celia in her construct, but one moment in time stands out to me. This white-haired Lord sits at the edge of a lake hundreds of years ago, looking down at itself with wide eyes, repeating a few phrases.

"Never turn in your crowns, always keep moving, wait for his return..."

Over and over, the image of this elf—with even longer hair than it has now, but its five crowns still bright white—is all I see.

Then, the flash of memories stops, and I come back to reality to hear Ren repeating these words now in a state of shock as we're walking forward.

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Ava, being so closely linked to us via telepathy, witnesses some of these flashes too, but the only one to feel the depth of emotions that have moved by is me—through my ring, which continues to vibrate and resonate with the frail Lord.

I retract my mana control, as I've subconsciously dug too deep. This jolts Ren back to a conscious state again, stopping the mindless murmurs. Yet, I don't know if they realized I've seen what I did.

Ren's voice becomes far less shaky, as though something within them reset. The Lord becomes slightly more distant, and the same analytical eyes that were watching me during the fight between the wolfman and the serpent return.

Even the strong emotions flowing through this body are suppressed once a reply comes out.

"I seriously don't know... I just know the creators of this dome are using beasts and Lords to collect ether. Or—I don't know—refine it somehow. At the safe zones, there are places where you can have your crown cycle collected... though... I've never done so myself, for personal reasons..."

Now I'm quite certain Ren doesn't know I peered into their mind. Then again, the Lord I'm looking at now feels like a robot in comparison to who I was looking at moments ago. With all the stress from the fight, and now the constant questioning, I decide to pick my hand up entirely and sever the telepathic link before I take this too far too quickly.

"You know what? The Demons have taken over the Upper Realm anyway, it would make sense they would create a sanctuary for Lords to continue living on in a controlled environment, but exploit them to the max while they're at it," I reply out loud, ready for anyone listening to hear.

It's common knowledge in Ellipsia, even for Lower-Class Lords, that the Demons rule this zone; so if any of them are listening in now, my nonchalance about the situation could easily be construed as acceptance that humans are powerless to Demons.

If I've learned anything from my dealings with Demons so far, its that they are suckers for an ego boost.

Ava adds to the shift in tone as we walk further with a shrug.

"I wonder if they're going to show the fighting events live from the safe zones. If we're not going to be teleported there, I'd still like to see what the strongest Lords of the zone look like in a fight."

She turns around, and the two wolfmen repeat her words, asking about the fighting event and if they can see it too.

Ren continues forward in silence as I ponder what I've seen and just heard.

The slow drip of ether from within the outer fake avatar that now holds over 1,000 low-quality ether from killing the wolfman and the serpent has made the pull from my stores into my crowns even faster.

A small visible white glow can be seen on the bottom of one of the five grey crowns above my head.

It makes everything click.

Especially after the long training session I had beneath the Sea of Corruption.

Using my ether stores to such incredibly high demands and refining tens of millions of low-quality ether per day, while using up millions in just hours to break the seals around Seraphel's body, certainly refined the low-quality ether within my stores.

While it isn't up to the purity and smoothness of Medium-Quality Ether, I can certainly tell the difference in the purity of my pool since the first few days I absorbed barely refined ether from dead etherstones.

Ether loses its purity when not being constantly used by living beings.

That is why the majority of the ether in the vast galaxy has settled to the Lower Realm, in its completely unrefined state, as Qi.

While my full ether sense is not activated to do a proper scan, given the knowledge I've just gained, I have a pretty well educated guess of what's going on here. Whoever, or whatever, created this Citadel is using it as an Ether refinement farm.

Even ether resting within the consciousness of Lords, like the Warlords from Ellipsia, given enough time unused, can regress.

So, if enough ether is circulated through millions of living beings within this dome, it can stay fresh—or even refine further.

These speculations and theories are what rush through my mind as we travel further into the wilderness...

While any normal Lord in my shoes, understanding that they've been tricked into the largest honey trap in the green zone of the Upper Realm, would be cursing their fate, I have to hold in the pure excitement building up inside me of a mystery unraveling. It would be quite odd to have a wide smile plastered on my face right now after learning that we are trapped inside this Citadel.

—

We pick up the pace and trek through the final stretches of the dense forest.

Many packs of wolves come by to attack, but Xaden and Togi fight them off. Some run away, but others are more persistent. The spear and axe wielder don't have a problem killing their own kind when they are vicious and unreasonable, it seems.

I don't really care to ask about the balance of intelligent and beast-like life on wolf race worlds, but Ava does bring it up in their small talk while we walk.

Neither of the two know the answer, as apparently, they both leveled up high enough to rank up for a second time in these very woods... and were once unintelligent beasts just like these wolves around us.

"Hate to break it to you, but you two still might be unintelligent beasts..." I whisper under my breath as we near the edge of a cliffside at the edge of the forest, between two mountain peaks.

Just because they're following Ava as their leader now doesn't mean I've forgotten that they tried to kill us earlier. If they can switch up that fast, I don't trust that they're loyal to us now, but I'm sure they'll be useful tools.

Ren is the only one close enough to hear my rude remark, but doesn't react and just points downward, where a cold breeze rushes up at us.

I see the edge of a new biome to our far left, covered in a light blanket of snow, and far off to the right behind the other peak, the beige coloring of what looks like a desert comes into view as well.

In the center of all three, a thick layering of ether commands can be visibly seen. The minimap in my subconscious updates to connect what's in front of us, finally noting the exact location of the safe zone.