Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Simon swiftly backed away after he opened a deep gash on its underbelly.

SHATTER… the Deep Sea Alligator King feeling the pain and the burning of its organs, bit down at the barrier with even more strength and shattered it into nothing but light fragments. However, it was already too late as the assailant had already backed away.

Blood flowed out of its mouth, it looked at the large wound on its underbelly, its eyes were absolutely enraged.

<strong>GRUHHH...</strong> a deep guttural roar emitted out of the Deep Sea Alligator King and in front of Simon's eyes, its skin started to change colours. The last attack from Simon had dealt it a considerable damage and burned multiple of its internal organs. The pain was so excruciating that it had lost its mind in pain and activated its [Berserk] and [Overpower] skills at the same time.

Its ash grey skin started turning the shade of red and in the blink of an eye, it grew twice its size. Even its eyes which were a sandy yellow before, turned completely crimson at this moment. Clearly, the beast had lost its mind and had become even more dangerous.

<strong>GRUHHH…</strong>

In the face of its change in behaviour and that hatred filled roar, Simon smiled. He had a fair share of experience of fighting beasts that have gone berserk. He knew how dangerous they become once they enter this state. Thus instead of growing complacent, he stood sharp and ready to deal with any kind of attack that came his way.

The Deep Sea Alligator King now under the effects of [Berserk] and [Overpower] two stats boosting skills, repeatedly slammed its tail in an attempt to crush the demon. It did not care about anything else as it used all of its power to erase the demon from its eyes.

<strong>BANG… BANG… BANG…</strong> the tail now strengthened even further, generated a storm of wind as it slammed into the ground and devastated a few meters of land every time.

It was only to be expected, a monster right around the boundaries of disaster class. Every time they moved or fought, they caused huge environmental damage.

Simon dodged left and right and utilised his advantage in flight to outmanoeuvre the outstretched tail. However, even if he dodged the tail, the earth magic from the Deep Sea Alligator King would come targeting him.

Although these spiky boulders forming out of the ground didn't do much damage to him, it was enough to stall for some time before the tail arrived. Simon would counter attack by firing his magic at a low altitude. However, after suffering an attack on its underbelly, it now deeply guarded that place.

Unlike its front, upper body and back that was protected by hardened skin and multiple layers of plated scales, his underbelly only had a layering of soft muscles thus making it its weakest spot.

Simon understood that long range attacks wouldn't be able to damage the deep Sea Alligator king which is why, he was only using the magic attacks as a diversion to attract its attention towards guarding its weak spot.

His main objective was… using the skill [High Speed flight] to their limits, Simon made a beeline towards the Deep Sea Alligator king. "Infernal Magic Mastery- Infernal Heatwave" the sword lit up but before it could erupt out in brilliant golden flames, an enormous tail filled with ruthless momentum came attacking Simon from the side.

<strong>BANG…</strong>

However, instead of the demon's body being flung back into the distance, a golden barrier stopped all of the momentum of the tail.

'Got you' Simon displayed a wicked smile, wildly poured his mana into the crimson sword and threw it towards the Deep Sea Alligator King. More specifically, he targeted its eyes which was yet another weak spot for the Deep Sea Alligator King in a sense.

A blade covered in golden flames, drew a golden line across the sky and distorted the space whenever it travelled.

STAB… caught by surprise, the Deep Sea Alligator King tried to move its eyes away. However, it was just too late as the blade of the sword managed to dig into the corner of its left eye. Although it was painful, this kind of damage was something that could be healed over time using its [High speed regeneration].

Nonetheless, the sword was imbued with a large amount of golden flames that severely burned its left eye making it impossible to regenerate through the damage in a short time.

<strong>GRRRUHHHH…</strong> the Deep Sea Alligator king roared in agony, shaking the nearby mountains. SHATTER… as time was up, the golden barrier gave up. Simon was just about to press forward with his attacks when he realised that the tail of the Deep Sea Alligator king hadn't moved an inch from its spot and had instead circled around the barrier in a grip/hold.

Now that the barrier was gone, Simon was unable to get away from its clutch in time even if he tried to fly away.

GRAB…

Caught, Simon was now solidly under the grasp of its tail.

The Deep Sea Alligator King looked at the demon with its remaining right eye while smoke and puss came from the left. It gnashed its teeth in absolute hatred and tightened its grip onto the latter in an attempt to squash it.

<strong>CRACK… CRACK…</strong>

Simon grabbed the tail with his hands to try and pull himself free from its clutch but even he could hear multiple of his bones breaking and creaking from the pressure.

<strong>GRUHHH…</strong> a furious roar that drowned all the other noise around the surrounding came from the Deep Sea Alligator king as it flung the demon into the distant walls of the mountain with all of its strength.

It was like somebody fired an enormous cannon and Simon who was the ammo of this artillery, broke the barrier of sound and was sent flying towards the mountain. He struggled, flapped his wings and even fired some magic behind him to offset some of the force.

However, the momentum his body had was just too much for him to solve in one go.

<strong> BOOOM…</strong> Thus his body was slammed and plastered into the walls of the mountain, causing it to tremble intensely. If one looked carefully, there were deep cracks running through the mountain showcasing how much force there was behind that toss from the deep Sea Alligator king.

Puff… Simon puffed out a mouthful of blood and tried to regulate his disoriented mana and blood flow. His entire body creaked from pain and multiple of his bones had completely cracked. Other than that he had also suffered multiple internal injuries and his wings and been bent at weird angle.

With his wings in such bad shape, there was no way he would be able to utilise his flight skill for a while. Simon coughed out a few more mouthfuls of blood, pulled one of his hands out and quickly drank on a few elixirs of healing.

This along with the [High Speed Regeneration] skill of a demon viscount was enough to offset the damage for a while.

'Damn, I let my guard down at the last second' Simon thought internally as he surveyed his surroundings and saw how far he was flung.

At the last second, he had dealt a blow to the deep Sea Alligator's King's left eye that should have been excruciatingly painful for it. Even he didn't expect this much tenacity from the latter to not even move from its place even while enduring that hellish pain of burn from the infernal magic.

What was more surprising was that, it did not even pull back its tail and instead chose to press forward at that time. Simon wouldn't have been in peril had he used another golden guardian stone.

However, the golden guardian stone had a fixed time period before it can be used by the same user again. Even though Simon had more than thirty golden guardian stones with him, he cannot use them consecutively to overlap the effects of all thirty of them and gain a moment of invulnerability.

After every use of the golden guardian stone, that same user had to wait for some time before he can use another golden guardian stone. If he had to estimate the downtime it would be around ten seconds. That is why, whenever the golden barrier shattered, Simon would always distance himself from the enemy or reposition himself.

TREMBLE… TREMBLE… the land started shaking and debris was starting to fall down from the mountain. Simon did not have much time to reorganise himself since he could see the Deep Sea Alligator King charging towards him from the distance.

He pulled himself from the dent he made onto the wall of the mountain and jumped away just before the beast could crash into him.

<strong>BOOOM…</strong> it was as if dozens of explosives had gone off together, the mountain that was multiple times bigger than the Deep Sea Alligator king crumbled down unable to bear the power of its charge.

Of course, it was buried underneath it which gave Simon a few seconds of time to reorganise his breathing. Or so he thought, but the next second he saw the light seeping out of the debris and a powerful blast that travelled in a straight line, blew away everything in its path.

When Simon finally gained clarity as to what happened, what was the thing that travelled at such a high speed was high, his eyes contracted and he hurriedly broke a golden guardian stone.

At that instant, a pressurised cannon of water crashed onto the golden barrier surrounding him. Everything around him, was swept through by that blast of water and even his golden barrier had many cracks running through it.

Simon's eyes which never left the Deep Sea Alligator king, clearly saw it opening its mouth and shooting something.

Breath Attack!!!