Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

The text covering the walls, floor, and ceiling continues to glow bright yellow even after the room falls back into silence while the ancient voice echoes through my mind.

I think carefully about the voice's words. It speaks in vague terms, but with its emotions streaming through me and a rough translation coursing through my mind with the full power of my true core backing it, many connections with past conversations—with Pluto the demon, the saint, Raven, Celia, and even Ember—all surface in my mind.

This wave it speaks of must be referring to the phenomena of the system connecting to this world.

Its repetition of the word *light* must mean some kind of power source, but I'm unsure if it's referring to divine energy, or mana, or something entirely different.

Though, the fact that it talks of there not being enough light for everyone to leave the physical world sounds extremely similar to the ascension of a demon lord.

Not wanting to ask too many questions at once, I respond out loud with a simple, open-ended question to see what kind of being I'm dealing with right now.

"Who—or... what... are you...?"

My index finger stays touching the artifact, and small amounts of threads continue to drain out of me, but in return, my mind perceives exactly where the threads are going.

They ripple through the walls of this room, spreading through the statue's skull, and moving throughout the enormous being lodged into the ocean's floor.

Its voice echoes back into my mind, this time sounding more coherent and natural rather than the animalistic metallic rhythmic noise from before.

"I am Atom."

This name echoes through my mind as I feel my own memories being sifted through, while I, too, see a fast-moving slideshow of this same statue, completely white, standing atop an ancient world, watching beams of light all over the globe flash and disappear.

I watch clouds fly by, and the yellow sun rotate above the sky hundreds, then thousands, and millions of times before I lose count.

The only thing I can see is the white statue's color fading, turning slightly darker, and the worlds around it shifting and changing.

As millennia pass, trees and wildlife build up sediment, and the feet of the statue are slowly covered in dirt. The plants and beings that grow around the statue often show stronger-than-average abilities, accidentally absorbing the trace amounts of white energy that seeped off the massive artifact.

On many other points around the globe, similar artifacts give off the same energy, and religions are born praising the larger-than-life giant that watched over them all.

As years pass, powers grow and fall, but no intelligent life ever matches the heights of what the Originators built.

The shifting of continents, volcanic activity, and heavy rainfall create an age of massive oceans on this world, covering the statue up to its knees.

The oceans freeze over, melt, evaporate, and more life grows in the dry plains around a dormant statue that watched an ancient race leave this planet for the stars millions of years ago.

The coloring of the statue begins to turn even darker—gray, in fact—and the speed at which the sun rises and falls moves too fast to comprehend and the memories become fuzzier.

Countless ice ages, floods, species, and world-ruling races rise and fall, and each time the statue grows darker, and the planet devours it slowly in more ways than one.

All that remains is the jet-black hand reaching out of the sea, with yet again, a society of the planet's ruling race congregating around it while the statue watches time sweep by.

The ancient voice echoes in my head again, this time, sounding not ancient at all. I can't even tell the difference between it and the base language I speak...

"Atom... At least, that is what I was called before I died. You are the first to visit my tomb; it seems your people call us Originators."

My eyes widen at its words, and the voice continues to answer the second half of my question.

"What am I...? I don't know. I am the echo of what is left behind from a civilization that has moved on long ago..."

My eyes look around at all of the glowing runes and texts all over the walls. It feels as if they're vibrating and trying to come off the stone. I reply, my heartbeat quickening, filled with excitement.

"So the Originators are real... Who were those that left this world through the beacons of light in those memories you showed? What do the words around us referring to light mean? And the doors... Everyone keeps talking about these doors. What do you know...?"

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I feel more threads leave my finger, and the words all over the room pulse and vibrate even more as the voice responds.

"I am dead. I have been dead for so long, I do not even know how I died. What you are asking of me is like asking if you can remember what food your mother ate on a specific date while you were still inside the womb. You have seen all I know, this is the first time I've opened my eyes in centuries. I know more about you than I do of myself..."

Its reply is not what I wanted to hear, but as I sift through the memories it shared with me, they flash by in spurts and have no true depth to them at all.

In truth, the white statue was already dead as it says, reaching up toward the sky as these memories began.

It continues speaking to me, and at the same time, the room shakes and vibrates more intensely than ever before, and I feel as though I can see through the being's eyes... but all I see is darkness.

"I do understand the texts my ancestors left me, and your memories of this world have led me to create meaning for many things previously unknown. These beacons in the depths of my mind were in fact the chosen ones, many texts here speak of their attempts at leaving this mortal realm to continue their journeys..."

The room tilts to the side, and I can feel the ocean crust cracking beneath and above me. However, it is not through my own senses; it comes from the statue's.

It continues, and I don't dare take my finger off the black cube. I need to know more, and I fear that if my connection is lost, I may never get it back again.

"This light and the wave printed all over these walls refer to the dominant energy source on the world we stand on. What your people know of as Qi was a far different power long ago; it was as abundant in this world as mana is now. The fact that you were even strong enough to access my tomb means another source was created, and the divine ones' game is being played again..."

Another violent tilt of the room follows its words, and the yellow words on the walls become so bright, it feels as though they're tearing off and falling toward me.

I reply with a question.

"So divine energy was here long ago too? It was an energy source before Qi? Or... whatever it was called when the wave came in your time?"

The yellow text of millions of characters begins coming off the walls, floor, and ceiling entirely, all closing in on the center of the room.

Simultaneously, the gravity in the room rises, and I feel as if I'm moving upward.

Moments later, as if two eyes are opening on the statue's face, I'm able to see the outside world, and what is happening begins to become clear.

The hand holding Palmyra above the ocean rises even higher, and an enormous bulge in the ocean's surface grows beneath the black palm.

It continues to bulge while the arm reaches out from the sea, pushing the island high into the clouds until a black head with enormous yellow glowing eyes emerges from the dark surface of the sea.

I hear a reply while watching the impossibly large statue push itself out of the planet's hard rock crust as if it's malleable sand.

"The power of the divine has always existed. It is the fabric of reality, but lesser energy sources are necessary for mortals to begin their journey and climb. These lesser sources are not as absolute in the grand scheme of time, but they are necessary to reset the mortals' worlds and allow for motion to continue taking place. Even gods die, they too must be replaced."

The entire black statue ripples yellow as it rises from the sea, creating massive tsunamis that head toward the coasts thousands of kilometers away.

At the same time, far away, the sun begins to rise, shedding a sliver of light upon the magnificent event taking place far out in the middle of the ocean.

The yellow ripples cover the entire black statue, then bounce back after covering its entire body to make their way back toward the head.

Once they do, all of the yellow energy settles in its skull, adding to the bright runes surrounding me, and making them all collapse in faster.

Its words echo through my mind again.

"Finally, the great wave has come again, and those who pass the trials shall walk through the doors. I have rested long enough; this world has finally awakened, and I shall fulfill my duty to make sure it is not forgotten as it was before. Promise me, if you ascend, you will not leave this world behind."

As its words echo in my head, a phrase of text collapsing in jumps out at me, reading, *This will be another forgotten world once we leave. Atom, I have trust in you to not make the same mistakes we have.*

Then, again, I remember The Saint saying something similar too, telling me he would help me if I don't forget my humanity.

I give the same response back, as the only reason I'm here, fighting, searching, building, and growing, is to make sure everything I have here is protected.

"Of course. I will always do everything in my power to protect what is mine."

The cube changes colors, turning red and morphing its shape to begin that repetitive cycle, and my finger sinks into the moving liquid.

It replies while shifting to orange.

"Good. All my years after death have not been in vain. The right one has finally found me."

The yellow runes collapse in and collide with my finger at the same time the artifact reaches the end of its cycle, and they all collapse into a single point, shining the brightest yellow-white I've ever seen.

All of the yellow divine light vibrates through me, then bounces back, emulating the same pattern that rippled through the massive statue when this whole process started.

Once it hits the black cube again, it disappears into it, and it pops off its invisible pillar where it was floating in place before, and even floats away from my finger.

It glows red and starts to shift to start its cycle again, but this time it rotates around me like I'm its center of gravity.

I try to reach out to touch it again, and once I do, it reacts by bouncing off my finger and orbiting in the complete opposite direction while continuing its cycle.

Instead of going for it again, my gaze is focused elsewhere.

First, on the smooth blank walls and floor all around me, as all of the text was consumed by the artifact. Second, I try to put out a perception pulse because my vision through the eyes of this massive statue ceased the second the runes and text collapsed.

Once I get readings back from my energy pulse, and get a feel for how things are in the outside world, the situation becomes more clear.

Previously, I wasn't able to sense a thing outside the statue's inner walls.

However, now, I can easily send pulses through thousands of cracks all over its surface.

The black outer shell becomes brittle, and shows the same signs as the pieces of black stone that were cut off from it earlier; turning gray, then white, then disintegrating into thin air.

The entire statue begins to dissolve away beneath my feet, and in a matter of seconds, I begin to smell the ocean air again.

The feeling of weightlessness takes over.

Above, I see a scene that reminds me of the time Ember and I had to dodge a falling island full of trees within the divine construct.

This time, it happens to be a massive city filled with over 70,000 residents, and below, is the dark depths of the violent crashing endless ocean.