Kae
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Dungeon Diver CH792
🕑 Added 2025-02-28 00:00:07 +0000 UTCThe Grand Citadel gets larger and larger, filling every corner of my vision, making the entire horizon and sky before me turn black the closer we travel.
The density of ether commands gets thicker too, but my unaided senses stopped being able to tell the difference tens of thousands of kilometers ago.
If I were to really try and examine my environment, I would certainly be affecting it by looking, and that's the last thing I want. I do not know who or what is keeping track of these commands, as there’s a chance it's not an automated system.
Full minutes pass, and both mine and Ava’s eyes don’t stop widening.
I can deduce that whatever we’re headed toward is actually a sphere.
It looks like a plain black wall now that we’re closer, but when I first visualized it, the edges were faded, covered in the divine threads in the atmosphere.
This is only the fault of my own mortal vision.
The center portion is what I was able to see first, and the outer edges have become more visible the closer we get.
This means the further edges are, in fact, farther back than what is directly in front of me, so we are headed toward a curved wall at the very least.
Though, as we’re arriving now, the curves are so subtle, most likely spanning over hundreds of thousands of kilometers or more, that it just seems flat.
I cannot tell if it is still an illusion, and we’re still minutes or hours away from arriving, or if at any second now we will collide with the black wall.
It is quite ominous…
Yet both Ava and I stare forward and wait, watching as clouds pass and the dark black wall remains unchanged.
At the speed we travel forward, after almost half an hour passes, I’m sure we’ve traveled hundreds of thousands of kilometers forward, meaning the sphere before us is at least a million kilometers wide.
There are entire stars in the lower realm that are smaller than whatever this structure is.
I believed the Ellipsia Citadel was enormous, spanning the diameter of large planets, but thousands of them could fit inside whatever this is.
The name Grand Citadel is very fitting, and we still haven’t even seen what is inside or any tangible differences on its surface to gauge the actual size.
That is, until minutes later, a new notification rings in my ear paired with a gentle upward shift in the ether orb’s trajectory.
[Arriving At Grand Citadel Entry Point 021458]
[Please prepare for a manual entry scan…]
The clouds around us move even faster, and even though the ether commands around us are so impossibly thick that there must be billions of dormant actions just within a hundred meters of this orb, I can visually make out a single line of ether that our orb follows up toward a selected point on the wall.
Less than twenty seconds later, our orb completely stops, and a bright white rectangle opens in front of us on the black wall.
My lack of concrete depth perception without using my advanced senses makes me second-guess if this is an enormous opening, spanning thousands of kilometers—that an entire citadel could fit through.
However, once the entire black section disappears and a Demonic Servant stands in its place less than 30 meters in front of us, taking up less than half of the doorway's height, I get a proper gauge of what is real.
Its bright green outline glows against the pure white background of this wall, and it lifts a hand to activate an ether command that takes control of our ether orb and pulls it closer.
I feel a very familiar scanning command take place probing my fake avatar, and Ava’s expression shows the same is happening to her.
I’m quite confident in my disguise and the changes I made to her avatar. So I let it happen with no protest as we’re pulled over to stand in front of the demon on a solid surface inside the rectangular door that leads to a hallway flooded with pure white light.
“Welcome to the Grand Citadel, 5th Class Human Lord, and 3rd Class Goblin Lord. Are you traveling together or separate?” comes out from the servant’s mouth in the same default mechanical tone that all of the servant avatars use.
“Together,” I reply out loud, having to look up at the servant that is over triple my height, nearing that of Ava next to me.
It turns toward the Goblin Queen beside me, not reacting until she replies, “Together,” as well.
Then, the ether orb completely disperses as the servant nods.
“Very well. Are you here to trade, visit the wilderness, enter the tournament, or watch the fights?”
I think about a response, but the options this guard has stated are intriguing.
On top of that, a light gray holographic crown floats above the servant's head. It looks like it is halfway filled up with bright ether in a semi-liquid state. It appears to be part of this servant's avatar. My best guess is maybe a special perk for direct servants under the royal family head, but its features are unknown to me.
The crown slowly spins, and the guard catches onto my gaze watching it, but It doesn't comment on it while I reply.
“We’re here to trade… Some Low Quality Ether for mana and other unique items to bring back to Ellipsia.”
The servant nods mechanically.
“This must be your first visit to the Grand Citadel. You’ve already passed our fast travel re-route points for the trading terminals. I’m happy to order a new fast travel orb free of cost to the nearest hub.”
My gaze tightens, but I decide to just tell a portion of the truth in my next response.
“Oh—Yes, this is our first visit… I was hoping to get inside to see the tournament as well. There is one monthly, right?”
“In that case, I am very happy to be the one to make your first impressions as grand as possible.”
The guard’s facial expression doesn’t shift when he says he’s happy, making his words slightly off putting as he continues.
“The fighting tournament is an exciting event. I can book you both slots for the events that begin in just 7 days. Though, please, allow me to give you a better visual of what we have to offer. Being limited to only the trade terminals as a pair of young lords would be such a waste.”
Something churns in my stomach at this servant's words, as it seems so willing and almost eager to let us through these walls, or into their trading terminals, without any questioning or in depth scans.
Though, my focus turns to a hologram that forms above the demon’s two outstretched empty palms.
It shows what looks like a massive floating dome, a sphere sliced in half.
There is a visual of divine clouds surrounding it, just like there are behind us, and there are 12 large trading terminals that float around the top of the dome outside of it.
A few of the terminals are greyed out in the displays, labeled inactive, as whatever citadels they were previously linked to no longer trade with the Grand Citadel. Though half of them still light up bright green, two of which are linked to Ellipsia.
The Demonic Servant points to them.
“There are the two terminals where you could trade your goods. They have direct connections to the Mensa, Fortress, and of course, the main Grand Citadel Terminals.”
Then, it points back down to the base of the outside of the dome below them.
As the hologram zooms in, thousands of labels begin to fly by, and different-sized doorways on the base of the dome light up to show white doors identical to ours.
“This is one of the many hundreds of thousands of entry points to the Grand Citadel.”
It zooms in further, mimicking the action of flying through the door, and beneath the dome, I see a massive pillar in its center taking up over 25% of the Citadel’s mass. Considering my first guess that this structure is near a million kilometers wide, whatever is inside there is still far larger than Ellipsia by at least a magnitude of ten.
However, this pillar is not the main attraction. Surrounding it, there seems to be a massive realm of its own… Similar to Celia’s construct, but this is just a holographic rendition, so it's hard to tell if what I’m seeing is real.
There are thousands of worlds worth of life-like landscapes, but spread out on a flat surface surrounding the pillar.
Enormous mountains, deep valleys, deserts, oceans, lush forests, rocky cliffs, mushrooms the size of trees, open plains, volcanic regions, snowy hills, never-ending lightning storms, and peaceful meadows full of colorful flowers.
The Demonic Servant scrolls through all of this vibrant wildlife like it's nothing, hardly showing 1% of it, and shifting the view to focus on the pillar.
“Inside here is where all of the tournaments are held. I cannot give you access to this area until you have confirmed your visit for the monthly events. Casual access is restricted to 2nd Class and above Lords. Though, I must say, a majority of our Citadel’s population spends their time in the Wilderness. All Lord classes are welcome to explore, live their lives in paradise, and of course, receive Avatar Upgrades 13 times faster on average than an identical lord living their lives in Mensa or Ellipsia.”
I want to raise my eyebrows and turn to Ava in shock. Not because of the fact that there are tens of thousands of worlds worth of nature behind these walls in an artificial realm, but because of the blatant sales pitch this servant just tried to pull…
There has to be far more than meets the eye to this Citadel, and it's going to be much harder to figure out than I first expected.
The fact that the diagram this servant is showing is of a dome is one fact that stands out to me right away.
My eyes may not be enhanced by my full perception at the moment, but I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch to still believe this Citadel is a full sphere.
I’m not going to get anywhere closer to the truth by staying outside and visiting those trading terminals; but this is far more strange than any of my memories recalled.
I see no tall towers or complex structures in the hologram, so they must be within that massive pillar at the center of the wilderness.
A fighting tournament that can house battles with Noble Demons, and all of the strongest 1st Class Lords in the green zone of the upper realm must have some infrastructure built around it.
I send a quick wave of mental telepathy to Ava, as this is exactly where we need to go to get more information. She replies to the guard while my eyes track back up to the translucent crown slowly spinning above its head.
“Well, in that case, we’d like to reserve two tickets to watch the tournament.”
Comments
Erik McPherson
TYFTC Kae
Youkai-sama
Welp. Looks like I was wrong about the ⚖️ of this place. 😕
Tim Scripter
TFTC Kae!
