Dungeon of Pride, Laplace



Their enemy's forte was the sky battle whereas the Valkyries although still capable of fighting in the sky using the Mana Wings, they were nowhere as fast as when on the ground.

Because of this, even if the harpies were individually lower levelled them, a group of them are still somewhat able to hold back the Valkyries.

"Master those two…"

"Yeah, I know" Simon could already see without Annette pointing it out, the two strongest subordinates of the queen of harpies were yet to join the battle. Those two were standing in the backlines and commanding the Harpies.

From their aura, it was evident that they were more powerful than the others around them. If the harpies fighting in the sky were around disaster class..ie. around level 500, those two would be calamity class.  Beings that broke through level 600. 

"Let's take them out of their comfort zone. Revenant Crows attack" Seeing the haripes fight all coordinately in the sky, Simon smirked and ordered.

BOOOM... BOOM... Immediately after he gave his command, two powerful explosions rang out and the harpies who were caught in the attack, fell down from the sky, charred and black smoke coming out of their body.

"What?!" caught by the surprise attack of an unknown enemy, the two powerful harpies turned towards the direction where they sensed the earlier attack coming from.

However, when their eyes landed in that direction, to their surprise, they found no one there. Only the empty sky greeted them.

"How could that be?!" There was an invisible enemy that was even able to escape from their senses. 

BOOM... BOOM... BOOM..

While the two powerful harpies were still in a state of shock, more and more attacks came from this invisible enemy from all directions.  The harpies who took to the sky, all fell back in front of the might of those blasts. 

Simon came prepared, he did not just invade the territory of one of the seven kings without a plan. He knew that the enemy would be a pain to deal with if they were allowed to fly. Thus to take them out of their comfort zone, he deployed quite a lot of Revenant Crows for this mission.

  It was not just one or two raven black drones that surrounded the mountaintop, but more than a dozen of them. It must be stated that the Revenant Crows Edition 5, were still in its work-in-progress state. And even with the current capability of the [Workshop], it takes a couple of weeks just to built one.

As such, the thirteen Revenant Crows that were deployed here, made up for 80% of the total spy drones he had with him. The rest were deployed near his dungeon and in the Black Ogre's territory to monitor their actions. 

  From this, one could tell how serious Simon was to take down the queen of harpies. 

"My Queen, there are invisible enemies all around us" The harpies stated with their heads down. Now that their queen had opened her eyes, even they did not dare to gaze at her.

"I know, they were the presence I felt a few moments ago. To think that there are things that can even avoid my detection skills... I will use my Limitless Seeking Evil Eye, make sure to destroy them promptly".

Melinda spoke, one of the pupils on her left eye that had a plus like mark glowed. immediately afterwards, a ripple spread through the space and travelled all around the mountain and the surrounding skies. 

These powerful ripples detected the Revenant Crows and forced them out of their invisibility. 

  "What are these things? They look like some magical constructs. Could it be that they are a new type of golems?" The harpies wondered. Golems were not a rare sight to see in this world. As such the harpies thought the Revenant Crows were golems. A mistake that the people of this world often made. 

That being said, the harpies felt a chill run down their spines, these things were able to easily bypass their detection without them being able to sense anything. if not for their queen revealing their existence, they would still be unaware of their presence and numbers.

"What are you dilly-dallying for you fools, quickly destroy them".

The two high levelled harpies shouted, snapping the others out of their daze. They flapped their wings and let loose a storm of attacks towards the Revenant Crows.

If one looked carefully, hidden inside the razor sharp attacks of the harpies, were strands of feathers that were like a bolt of arrow capable of piercing through even the most studies of metals. 

The frames of the Revenant Crows were made of Neosteel, a metal that was as sturdier than Balckgold and only a little lower than Mythril. Yet even the Neosteel was easily pierced through by those feathers as if they were paper.

This was one of the racial skills of the harpies, [Reinforced Feathers]. 

A couple of Revenant Crows that were priced through by those feathers, turned into swiss cheese and destroyed. The rest were targeted by the harpies again; however, Bianca activated her skill barrier and stopped any more of the warmachines from getting destroyed by those feathers. 

A small shield on Bianca's wrist absorbed all the damage. That was not all, right after the barrage of [Reinforced Feathers] stopped, tens of thousands of strings broke out of the ground and tangled with the harpies, binding them in place. 

"Cut them with your feathers and talons" By now, the harpies knew how to handle Emmas's strings. They immediately cut the strings and freed themselves. 

However, the strings behaved differently this time. After they were cut, the cut pieces would come attacking them again and again no matter how many times they cut them. It was as if every strand of strings had its own mind and consciousness. 

What's more, the more smaller the strings became, the difficult it was to deal with them. The tiny strands of strings dug through the harpies skin and inside their bodies. A couple of the strings were no problem; however, when hundreds of them dug into their bodies it was of they were starting to lose command of their bodies.

To their fear, after a while they lost all connections with their bodies. It was as if they had become a foreign entity in their own body. 

What's more, the harpies that have lost all command of their bodies, started attacking their own allies. With the sudden betrayal of the harpies, the situation on the mountaintop became more chaotic.

The other harpies tried to stop their fellow members; however, to their surprise a golden barrier covered those harpies controlled by Emma and returned any damage they suffered. 

.

.

Seeing the disorder quickly spreading among the enemy lines, Simon couldn't help but nod his head. His subordinates were displaying the growth that they had from these past ten months of training.

Coupled with the fact that they were also provided with their heirlooms, the Valkyries had become a true force to reckon with.

The way they were right now, Simon believed that each of the Valkyries would easily be able to take on the seven kings themselves without much problem.

However, Simon didn't want to take the easy option, subduing the seven kings was his trial. Although he relented to take their aid after they kept on bugging him, he was still unwilling to entirely rely on their powers to subdue the seven kings.

After all, if he did so there would be no meaning to the hellish training he had been undergoing all this time.

The Valkyries weren't the only ones who had grown in these past few months. Brandishing his new [S] tier sword that he had upgraded from the [Armoury] Simon was just about to flaunt some of his skills, when he was beaten to the punch.

Not wanting to be outdone by his peers, the Bloodthorn Demonic Warhorse activated its [Hundred Mountains Charge], [Stampede], [Demonic Grasp] and [Nether Shift] and charged into the enemy lines.

In front of the combined powers of the Valkyries, the Bloodthorn Demonic Warhorse, Revenant Crows, even the two calamity class harpies had no choice but to join the battle.

"At this rate, we will lose" Melinda came to a conclusion after watching the battlefield.

The enemies were constantly zoning them, not allowing them to use their advantage and created chaos constantly within their lines. Her subordinates were being forced into a situation where they are not even able to utilise their full strength. 

This was no longer a battle, it was a one sided suppression. The forces of the demon were just that superior.

"The enemies are far more powerful than I thought" Melinda deduced. She had been using her Evil Eyes of Decay for a while but the enemy seemed to have been aware of her powers and have been constantly avoiding looking at her.

"Hmph… Evil Eyes of Empowerment" Understanding that it was pointless using the Evil Eyes of Decay, she changed her tactic.

Melinda activated the Evil Eyes of Empowerment to buff the powers of her subordinate instead.

One of the pupils in her right eye lit up. When she gazed at her subordinates with that pupil, strength surged within their bodies and their hidden potential seemed to have been unlocked.

The harpies who looked like they were on the verge of losing, suddenly found their footing once again. With newfound strength surging within their bodies, they were somehow able to free themselves from the enemy's control.

"What happened, the Harpies look like they have been suddenly strengthened" Simon commented dodging a clump of [Reinforced Feathers] using [Intuition].

"I'm not sure, but it looks like the queen of the harpies had activated another one of her evil eyes?" Annette commented walking beside him.