Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

FLAP… with a small flap of his wings, Simon was able to smoothly dodge the two attacks and counter with a lightning attack. Thick bolts of lightning accumulated and swiftly took the form of a bow.

When Simon grabbed onto it, he felt a slight dissonance which arrived from him not being able to give it the shape of his desire. Nevertheless, the lightning bow was powerful enough to dish out attacks that were no less powerful than his flame spears.

He swiftly condensed two lightning arrows and let loose onto the Red KIller orcas who had their backs currently facing him.

SWISH… SWISH… suddenly two blades containing a berserk energy materialised and collided with his Lightning arrow dissipating each other spectacularly.

Simon looked down and spotted the other two Red Killer Orcas swinging their caudal fin-like tails. The attack that dissipated his attacks from connecting, was definitely one of their skills.

Clicking his tongue at their unusual coordination, Simon circled around them and utilised his advantage of having wings to attack them from behind. No matter how good they were at coordinating, how could they be as good as the Diluvian High Orcs who could seamlessly cooperate with each other as easily as breathing?

One of his lightning arrows managed to dodge past their counterattacks and hit one of them severely injuring it in the process.

KIEEEK… After one of them was injured, the rest immediately went berserk, their eyes glowed a bloody crimson and the [Predator Aura] they were releasing, got even stronger.

'Since my opponents cannot fly, I can use this to my advantage and deal damage to them from a distance' while fundamentally, this kind of thinking was not wrong. However, opponents who can think for themselves can break this kind of advantage with some of their skills and overcome this edge he had as if was never there.

The Red Killer Orcas unable to reach their target, did something unexpected. They bore through the glaciers below them and swiftly returned to the water below.

Just as Simon thought that they had fled, four columns of water that broke through the glaciers and like a fountain, rose hundreds of meters high. These four columns surrounded Simon in between and using the water as a medium what appeared amidst them, were none other than the Red Killer Orcas.

They had utilised their skills [hydro Blast] which they can only use while they are near a water body, to reach their prey who was flying in the sky. That was not all, in front of Simon's stunned eyes, they used another ability of theirs [Swift Water Slash] that utilised the dorsal fin on their back to create a wide slash attack that came from four different corners and left him with no way of escape.

[Swift Water Slash] an ability of the Red Killer Orcas that they use when hunting for prey deep down on the ocean floor. Although the might of the attack was far less on the air compared to when in the ocean; nevertheless, four of these attacks were deadly enough to bisect even a Demon viscount who had reached the limit of their growth.

Not underestimating the attacks of his enemy, Simon brought out the twin blades from his inventory and slashed at the attacks coming from four different directions. His [A] tier Crimson Blazing Flame Blade although retained its sharpness, was mostly useless against these foes who were resistant to flames.

Additionally, since each attack from the sword eats up a lot of his mana, it was unsuitable for this kind of situation where his energy, stamina and stats were constantly being drained.

He positioned the twin blades and focused all of his attention on the incoming attacks. From watching how the little boy fought, Simon became aware of another area where he was lacking. When it came down to a simple sword fight without any skills or magic involved, he was sure to lose against the boy who had wholeheartedly trained in the way of the sword.

Perhaps he had been lackadaisical or overly reliant on his power physical stats, that he ignored training his sword skills even though he was a swordsman just like Denzel.

The four attacks coming from four different directions, was redirected by him amidst not so effortlessly and crashed onto the snow below. Each carved a deep cut through which the seawater seeped out.

Splash… seeing that their attack had failed to connect with their prey, the four red Killer Orcas dived back onto the sea below and utilised the same tactic once again to reach their enemy.

This time, Simon was prepared; he allowed them to dive inside the sea because he wanted to try something.

"[Sword Mastery], [Piercing Enhancement], [Cutting Enhancement], [Super Enhanced Strength], [Super Enhanced Agility] [Lightning Magic Mastery], …Thousand Lightning Misery" the moment he saw them resurfacing, he slashed his twin blades thousands of times down below onto the holes quickly being formed on the glaciers with a superhuman reaction.

Though the [C] tier twin Blades did not provide much in terms of stats and skills, it was still a weapon that was on the upper tier of [C] rank weapons and after the upgrade, its power and the feeling it gave Simon increased much more.

He brandished the twin blades thousands of times in a matter of a few seconds, utilised his powerful body and mana to dish thousands of Lightning charged slashes.

At this moment, feeling the sensation of the blades cutting through the air, Simon finally became aware of how to use the twin blades. The figure of Laris flashed briefly through his mind, the way he wielded his swords to his every movement and skill, one could see the hard work and practice he had put into it.

The Thousand Lightning Misery attack that Simon had dished out was fundamentally a little similar to Laris' [Hell Lightning Slash], just that it had his own variation mixed onto it.

After all, everybody learns like that, they utilise their past experiences, mix different variations and styles to create their own technique.

Each of these thousand lightning slashes were half a meter in size and carried destructive lightning and an incisive aura with them. The moment four columns of water rose up from the sea, they were bombarded with thousands of lightning slashes and created a beguiling spectacle in this colourless white world.

THUD...THUD…THUD...THUD…

Four figures that were badly electrified, fell on top of the ground and repeatedly writhed around. Their bodies were scorched with blood and smoke coming out of them; nonetheless, they were still releasing a ferocious aura.

The moment they tried to move their body and return back into the sea, Simon came swooping down like an eagle and fiercely stabbed at their vitals with all of his strength.

The four red Killer Orcas quickly stopped moving after their heads got pierced, and succumbed to their death. In some other cases, Simon would have celebrated his victory, however, right now, there was no joy on his face that a victor should have after winning a fight.

All one could see was a gloomy face. The reason for that was because, during their clash, he could constantly feel his strength slowly draining away from him whereas his enemies didn't seem to display any signs of being under the same effects whatsoever.

That is to say, the red Killer Orcas, the inhabitants of this place, were completely resistant or the restrictions placed on this place did not have any effects on them.

Although the fight with the Red Killer Orcas allowed him to level up once, Simon did not have an ounce of joy, instead the urgency to find the mechanism, went up even more.

From this fight, he became aware of beings that were residents of this place and from their perspective, he was the intruder. It made sense that they were hostile to outsiders. At the same time questions like, where this place was, who set up all these mechanisms and for what reason, piqued his interest.

For starters, he knew that this place did not look like this from the start and was tinkered by someone. These arctic clouds, snowflakes and the vast glaciers upon which he was standing on, was created by someone or something, and the way they set it up, seemed almost like a task or trail that they wanted someone to undergo.

He might be wrong, but Simon felt like he had unknowingly triggered a chain of quests that he had to complete before he could get out of here.

Simon hurried his steps and did his best to find any trace of the mechanism, it had already been more than three hours since all of them went their separate ways in search of it. The only reason they have not contacted him yet might be because they haven't found the mechanism yet.

His eyes looked at the thin window in front of him, though his status did not show it, Simon could distinctly feel his strength had gone down. This foreign feeling of something restricting him from displaying his full strength, was distressing to say no less.

Thus he wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible; however, as if to laugh at his resolve, his [Detect Presence] skill started warning him. This time, the scale of alarm was much bigger than previously and he could detect multiple presences swiftly approaching him from underwater.

The glacier all around him started cracking and soon beings that looked like Red Killer Orcas, surfaced out.  They showed up in double the numbers of what they previously appeared in and surrounded him from all directions.

Simon laughed bitterly, forget about searching for the mechanism, these beings did not allow him to move around much before they came hunting him in droves.