Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

"This-This is not possible, how can you survive that attack?" Giz-Bozo muttered like a broken tape recorder.

After using it as a shield to protect himself from their attacks, Simon kept the finger of Ozymandias back inside his [Inventory].  Since he was unable to use his skills right now, it was impossible to manipulate the finger without the [Dominator's Control] skill.

After keeping the finger back inside his inventory, he turned to face the ogres fighting him and flashed his most wicked smile up until this day.

SSSHHIII... the curse energy that was dormant within him up until now, burst forward like an enraged beast and a thousand meter big halo of death formed behind Simon.

Transferring all of the curse energy that was currently within him towards his blade, he condensed it till the point his crimson blade visibly took a purplish hue. Next, he executed the basic stance of the [Sword Master] skill and slashed towards the gobsmacked ogres.

WHOOSH... the space was painted a purplish black by the blade of light as it travelled towards the ogres. The highly condensed curse energy blade was a skill that Simon had just created now, thus it was highly volatile.

The blade form quickly crumbled and the curse energy took the shape of a skull with its mouth wide open. The skull quickly inched closer in front of the despairing eyes of Giz-Bozo and Mogo and in a matter of seconds engulfed them within.

What was left afterwards, was the slowly rotting bodies of the two ogres that were once feared by the inhabitants of this ghastly winding forest.

No matter if it were the orcs or the ogres, they weren't able to believe the sight in front of their eyes. Giz-Bozo and Giz-Mogo, the ogres that possessed the crimson horn and who were like some diety to the ogre army, were sprawled on the ground with their bodies slowly rotting away.

The black ogre army who have never seen this sight of their leaders losing, much less dead, naturally would be unable to process the information that was in front of their eyes.

For the orc army who had given up all hopes of living, this was a situation that was completely unexpected for them.

The onlookers were stunned but more than them, the attacker who dished out that attack, Simon himself was gobsmacked at the power of the curse energy.

A few seconds earlier while fighting with the ogres, he had this sudden epiphany to use the curse energy like a sword blade thus without any hesitation, he put all of his concentration into doing it. The result was in front of everyone's eyes, the skill that could instantly corrode a disaster class being, was formed.

What's more, the skill was something that did not follow the standard system of this world and needed mana to execute and instead utilised the curse energy.

This revelation told Simon that skills were not only limited to the mystical energy system. Additionally, Simon felt that the curse energy was still hiding a lot more secrets; if he wanted to uncover it, he would have to continue using it in the future too.

"Who knew the curse energy would be able to do this… perhaps I should use this energy from now on…".

Simon quickly shook his head at the thought, it was still too early to forsake the mystical energy and deem the curse energy stronger when he hadn't even comprehended the true essence of the former.

It would be foolish, no utterly stupid to break his years of hard work and the foundation that he had built for his growth. Thus, he came to a conclusion, he would be sticking to the mystical energy but also be learning the mysteries underlying the curse energy and why he was able to use it.

After defeating the two leader ogres, Simon next set his gaze on the black ogre army who trembled from head to toe just from his glare.

Under the effects of the curse energy and due to the impact it had on the onlooker after he killed two of the strongest ogres present on the battlefield with just one attack, no one was gutsy enough to meet his gaze.

Simon wasn't particularly trying to intimidate them or anything, he was simply searching for his subordinates amidst them.

All three Valkyries had already finished their battle and were waiting for Simon to deal them the last blow. Simon extended his hand and created three stakes out of the miasma in the air which impaled the three Gir-Brothers.

The skill that he used, he named it [Curse Stakes] and unlike the [Curse Slash] it did not have much decaying power. Nevertheless, it was more flexible to use and could be conjured more easily than the [Curse Slash].

DING… when he got that familiar notification, Simon flashed a satisfied smile. This trip to the Diluvian High orc territory ended up becoming a great one with him reaping such incredible profits.

"Now then, it's time for me to clean up this mess" Simon muttered to himself. He stretched his hands wide and using his newly increased understanding of the curse energy, he started manipulating the spread of the miasma faster and faster until it became a purplish-black storm razing through the ground.

The ogres that were exposed to it, started losing their minds one after the other as their bodies slowly but surely started decaying.

Seeing this, all hell broke loose on the side of the black ogre army and they dropped their formation to quickly flee from this place.

Simon manipulated the curse miasma with the greatest amount of power he could gather right now and tried to contain the fleeing ogres within. They were going to be the stepping stone for his future growth, how could he just allow them to leave like this?

Nonetheless, even with his increased mastery of curse energy, a few thousand ogres still managed to escape from the reach of the miasma and flee back to their territory.

Simon did not pursue them since the duration of time he could use the curse energy was up. Curse energy was not the standard energy of this world and it wasn't something that an inhabitant of this world should be able to use.

But for some reason unknown to even him, Simon was able to use it. However, it did not mean that he could keep on using the curse energy forever. The curse energy compared to the mystical energy he had access to right now, was much more profound and powerful.

A strong power naturally needed a strong vessel. The body of a demon viscount wasn't strong enough of a vessel to hold that power. Thus Simon could only use it for a short duration of time before the curse energy starts adversely affecting his body.

The purplish-black miasma enveloping Simon started dissipating and he returned back to normal.

"Kuh…" pain from overexerting himself a little started assaulting his body all at once making his centre of balance go a little awry.

"Master are you alright?" the Valkyries immediately came to his side and asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I cannot collapse when I'm yet to finish what I started" Simon replied looking at the ogre army. Not counting the ones that have fled, there were still more than twenty five thousand ogres under the effects of the course energy and waiting for him to make them his experience points.

Fortunately for him, they have lost their sanity and their powers and defence have dropped by a lot. Thus it was much easier to kill them.

"Flame magic Mastery… [Flaming Doom]" Simon cast one of the intermediate tier flame magic with the highest AOE and destructive power currently in his arsenal.

Now that curse energy had left his body, he was once again able to access the mystical energy and cast the magic that he was most proficient in.

Probably because he just had an epiphany and his mind was still in that transcendent and mysterious state, the flame magic he was conjuring started taking more and more of a golden hue.

Previously, Simon was only capable of converting a part of his crimson flames into golden flames when compressing them to their extreme limits.

However, now when he wasn't even deliberately compressing it, the colour of his flames started taking on a golden hue on its own indicating that his flame magic was about to breakthrough to become advance tier Infernal magic.

Thousands of infernal snakes materialised in the air raising the temperature of the entire battlefield to a dangerous degree. The night sky was lit up by the golden hue of his magic and a pressure like that of a volcano erupting descended onto the place.

So what if Simon wasn't being buffed by the curse energy anymore? The magic that he conjured using more than half of his MP, even Giz-Bozo and Giz-Mogo if they were alive, wouldn't be able to look down on it.

Much less these ogres whose powers had been eroded by the curse energy. When the magic came down and the thousands of golden snakes dropped down on them, they did not even have time to scream before their bodies were scorched to cinders.

DING… DING... DING… DING… DING… DING… DING... DING...DING...DING...DING...DING...

The sweet notification bell rang inside Simon's head like a heavenly melody evoking an absolutely smile from him.

As they watched, the ogre army burn in the golden flames of hell, the orcs all instinctively felt a fear that grasped their very soul in an invisible grip. Some of them fell on their butts, some unwittingly took a step back while the others gulped down their nonexistent saliva.

The ogres were their enemy who were slaughtering their brothers like cattles, needless to say, they did not feel any pity nor any remorse for them. If they were feeling any emotion, that would be the cold strokes of fear