Dungeon of Pride, Laplace



Melinda had no doubt in her mind, if that many attacks hit her she would no doubt die. Perhaps she might have been able to do something about them had she been at her peak strength.

However, after using her [Evil Eyes of Temptation] on the demon, she had completely spent herself. As such, she did not even have enough mana to muster the weakest of defence.

"Chant Anthem… [Indra's Spear]"

Annette was uncompromising at her enemy's plight. The hundreds of thunder spears that she manifested in the sky were pulled into one to create an enormous orange-white spear to pulsed with an extinction level of power.

"Die" A cold word came from Annette's mouth as she dropped the orange white spear on top of the queen of harpies.

Melinda's face was aghast in terror as she glanced at the spear inching closer to her. What kind of magic was that? What kind of attacks carried such a destructive aura? The power bestowed inside that spear, was something that she had never seen before in her hundreds of years of reign as one of the Seven Kings.

As the spear approached closer, Melinda vividly felt her entire body trembling, her nerves became numb and all her energy left her.

She was going to die. Just as this realisation came to her, she commanded the demon who flew towards the trajectory of the spear and stood before her like a shield.

This was a bold move, a gamble that might have ended up with both of them losing their lives. However, she had won the gamble. The spear had stopped right before it could price the demon.

The maid had stopped her attack. It was just like what she had predicted, the other party was unable to harm her master.

"Hehe... I see now" Melinda laughed despicably. She looked at the demon and at the maid who seemed to have suffered the shock of her life and nodded her head in understanding.

What great luck, she was thankful she made the right choice by activating the [Evil Eyes of Temptation] to control the demon instead of killing him. Now that she had the demon under her control, didn't it mean that the maid was unable to do anything to her?

"Disperse your attack, or else I'll command the demon to kill himself" Melinda threatened. 

Immediately, the hands of the demon started clenching his neck. Seeing this, Annette plead with the queen of the harpies to stop and immediately dispersed her attack.

"Good, now go back. Tell the other maids and those golems to stop their attacks if they want their master to live".

Melinda ordered, the hand of the demon clutching his own neck strengthened all of a sudden.

Unable to disobey her order, Annette grit her teeth and fell back. Just before she left, she glanced at her master and arched her brows.

After Annette returned to the mountaintop and relayed the order, the chaotic battle stopped. The harpies took this opportunity to catch their breaths.

The enemy they were fighting did not need rest nor did they feel any pain. What's more surprising was that these golems seemed to have been aware of their attack pattern and every skill that they possessed. Thus making the battle quite difficult for the harpies. 

Fortunately, it looked like the queen had triumph on her side and brought the enemy leader under her control.

"My Queen"

The two calamity class harpies greeted Melinda the moment she arrived onto the mountaintop. Their gazes fell on the demon who was silently following her like a servant and their eyes immediately became awed. 

The enemy leader was under the control of their queen, which meant that they had won this battle. That said... " Are you alright my Queen?" The Queen of the Harpies looked quite injured and severely exhausted.

"I'm fine, it's just that I'm completely exhausted after activating my [Evil eyes of Temptation]" Melinda replied.

  "Why don't you rest a little my queen?" the harpies worried after seeing the condition of their queen, requested. 

Nonetheless, Melinda shook her head and continued to walk forward towards the place where the enemies were currently gathered at. Now was not the time for rest, she had the greatest trump card on her hand that she could play on her enemies.

This was the perfect time to seize the advantage while she still had it.

Seeing the Queen appear personally on the frontline, the low ranking harpies bowed their heads. Melinda did not mind them, instead, her attention was on the enemy lines, from start to end.

  At the front of the group stood four beings. Three women wearing maid outfits over their armours, one of whom tried to kill her and the last was a Warhorse whose presence was no less than her two strongest guards who were in the calamity class. 

Looking at them glaring at her, Melinda displayed a pleased smile. This frustrating feeling, she finally repaid it all back.

With the demon in her control, she was sure that none of them would be able to do anything to her. At first, she just wanted the demon; however, after seeing the prowess of the maids, she wasn't satisfied with just that, she wanted more.

"Good… good it seems like you did just what I asked you to. Now then, shall we start the negotiation? Hehe… as you can see, the demon is now under my control. As such, if you want me to release him, you must do as I say from now on".

"My wish shall be your command and from this day on, you shall call me queen too. Am I clear?".

Melinda was an ambitious and scheming woman. That's right, she wanted to gobble up the forces of the demon into her own. If she could bring those powerful maids and that army of golems on her side, then she would no longer have to fear the other seven kings.

She could even take revenge on Gil-Garna and absorb his forces into his own. No, she didn't just want to remain as one of the Seven Kings, she wanted to become the ruler of the entire Gahstly Winding Forest and expand her territory even further.

For that to happen, she needed to absorb the forces of the demon. Those three maids, the calamity class beast and the golem army would become incredible pawns to realise her ambitions.

As for them obeying her or not, she believed that as long as she held onto the trump card called the demon noble, there was no need to question that.

Also as a last case scenario, she can always use her [Evil eyes of Temptation] once she recovers to bring the others under her control just like the demon.

Melinda was busy hypothesizing a beautiful future when suddenly she noticed that the eyes of the maids looked strange. They should be angry, furious and even show killing intent towards her for capturing their master, should be normal.

However, under no circumstances should their eyes be indifferent and calm like that.

"Why aren't you guys replying?"

What was going on? Why were the maids all silently and calmly looking at her? Did they perhaps not understand the situation?

Just as these various thoughts popped into her mind, she realised that the maids weren't looking at her, more exactly they were looking at the person behind her.

Simultaneously, she heard a dark coarse voice sound next to her ears.

"They are not replying because there is no need to play along with this farce anymore…[Chilling Touch], [Dark Deprivation]".

"What?"

Melinda was just about to turn around when she felt her neck being ceased and a dark cold energy seeped inside her body. That energy locked her mana in place and deprived her of all her strength.

"Kuhehe… that was quite an amusing act from me wouldn't you say?" Simon laughed looking at Melinda's pale terror stricken face.

"Impossible how did you…"

"How did I break out from the effects of your Evil Eyes? Frankly, that was a pleasant surprise for me too. I didn't know that the fragments were capable of that" Simon muttered.

He did fall for the effects of the Evil Eyes of Temptation and was in a partially awake and partially asleep state. In that state, he was aware of his surroundings; however, he had no control of his body.

If not for the fragments of Pride activating and negating the effects of the Evil Eyes, Simon would still have been in that state.

From this, one could tell how formidable those Evil Eyes were. One mistake and he had almost lost the grasp he had on victory. As such, right after breaking out of the effects of the Evil Eyes, Simon did not rush to confront the Harpy queen but instead went with the flow.

The Harpy Queen was extremely scheming as such, he needed to be equally cunning if he wanted to win against her. Simon followed her orders, even going as far as to stand in front of Annette's attacks to lower her guard.

He silently followed behind her and finally, when the opportunity presented itself in front of him, he grabbed it.

"Do not move. If I sense you struggling even a little bit, I'll snap your neck"

Simon threatened seeing that the queen of the harpies was trying to get away from his clutches. Since he had already informed the Valkyries about his plans, they did not look fazed; however, the same couldn't be said for the harpies who looked like they had suffered a great shock.

"You bastard, quickly unhand the queen" The two calamity class harpies who were the closest to them, roared out in fury and rushed towards Simon to hack him to pieces.