Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

A greenish black light flashed from the centre head and a breath was fired towards Godwin. [Voidfire Breath]... One of the scary sounding skills of the Abomination. It packed enough power to violently distort the surroundings and leave spatial tears in its wake.

Looking at its might, it spared no doubt that it would deal devastating damage if it connected. Even Godwin did not dare to block the breath and dodged left and right using his mana wings.

He would also use [Mana Armaments] that was conferred with various skills using [Ability Conferment] to counter attack.

While the Abomination was busy targeting Godwin, a shadow creeped near it. Immediately, the figure of Raven came out of the shadows and executed a complex dance of blades that targeted the underbelly of the creature.

However, the abomination agilely dodged his attacks. It appeared that one of its heads had spotted him. Afterwards, multiple feelers came attacking him, forcing Raven to quickly duck into the shadows.

The Abomination was quite intelligent, it was using [Parallel Thinking], [Fury of the Multitudes] to cast various magic, [Atrophy Gaze] to intimidate and [Transmutation Surge] to synchronise all the different abilities of its body.

It kept everyone else at bay and solely focused on Godwin. It could tell that the greatest threat to him was from this man. As long as it could kill him, it wouldn't have to worry about the other ants.

As for Raven, this was a slightly annoying ant that's all, the other party couldn't harm him. And so, the Abomination came charging at Godwin with its [Chemeric Fury] and used [Nethermaw Devour] and [Serpentine Strike] to overpower him.

Godwin was still fine even under the heavy barrage of its attacks. However the same couldn't be said for this team. Even though the Abomination was only using its magic to keep them at bay, enduring intermediate tier magic of all five basic attributes was not an easy task.

The mages couldn't stop all magic with their magic shield and the warriors did not have resistance for all the five attributes. As time passed by, more and more injuries occurred which put heavy pressure on the formation. It was slowly starting to fall apart.

If this continued, soon Raven and Godwin would be the only ones alive facing the Abomination. The two also realised this and increased the intensity of their attacks.

Godwin was a Ranker who currently held the 7001st position, he defeated many rankers to climb to the position he was now. His rise was quick and it hadn't been long since he joined the Rankers.

If he was given time to grow, he would even reach the peak of ranker and maybe even go beyond. As for Raven, he definitely had the potential to become a Ranker and rise in the ranks. However, potential was only potential, the current them were clearly not the match for the Abomination.

Realising this difference, Godwin extended his hands out. Golden light shined and a pendant appeared on his hand. The design of the pendant was simple, it did not look overly extravagant nor did it give off any extraordinary aura.

No matter how you see it, the pendant looked totally normal. However, it was this seemingly normal pendant that overturned the situation.

As soon Godwin opened the pendant, the sky above them changed, an enormous magic formation that was more than hundreds of kilometres in diameter, shining with complex runes and markings appeared overhead.

As soon as the magic formation appeared, it quickly engulfed the area with its magnificence. Every eyes turned towards the sky even Simon looked at the formation with astonishment.

Its size aside, just the fact that it carried such an oppressive atmosphere easily drowning the presence of the Abomination was enough to make him realise that the formation was extremely powerful.

"This should be his rump card right?" Simon muttered to himself observing the formation. Since Godwin dared to confront the abomination, he had to have some kind of measures prepared, some tricks up his sleeve.

The magic pendant should be his magnum opus. As Simon was wondering when he should intervene, the situation on the battlefield had already changed.

Eight enormous pillars appeared out of the formation and quickly erected themselves around the Abomination in an octagram. The pillars released golden lightning that transformed into chains and bound the creature in place.

No matter how the abomination struggled or what skills or magic it used, it was unable to break out of the seal. It turned out that the trump card that Godwin had prepared, the pendant was actually a sealing artefact.

After accomplishing its effects, the pendant lost its lustre and was quickly put away by Godwin.

Now that the Abomination was sealed in a place and could no longer move, everybody rejoiced. They seemed to see the glimmer of victory where Godwin defeated the creature already.

SWISH...

However, just as the latter moved to deal with the abomination, a huge greyish pillar of light came attacking him at a speed that was difficult to ignore.

Swiftly, Godwin changed the trajectory of his attack and instead targeted the greyish pillar of light.

BOOOM… a powerful shockwave erupted waking everyone up from their stupor. Space collapsed where the two attacks collided, the radiant sword light from Godwin had already dissipated leaving behind only the greyish pillar of light.

No, it would be wrong to say that it was a pillar after, the thing that attacked Godwin was an enormous finger. It was huge, larger than the trunk of a tree and was dotted with complex runes that glowed with a mystical light.

What else could it be than the Finger of Ozymandias? After the finger was stopped, it pulled back and returned towards a figure that was flying in the sky not far in the distance.

"Godwin you alright?" At this moment, Raven and the other adventurers reorganised around him.

Godwin nodded his head, his eyes glued to the figure in the distance. Nobody could see it; however, his hand which was holding the sword, was trembling a little. The greyish pillar earlier had given him a powerful sense of death, causing him to counterattack without holding back.

However, all his attack managed to do was block that pillar. What was going on? Where did this person come from?

Could it be he is the other challenger?

It was not only Simon who had received the notification, Godwin too received the same. He was the other challenger who was recognised by the master of the forbidden grounds and thus allowed to go through the trial.

However, at that time Godwin did think of much of the notification back then, thinking that it might have been one of his teammates surviving. After all, their numbers were more than one thousand when they started the sixth trial around a month ago.

But the harsh environment of the trial had slowly culled down their numbers, leaving only the elites of the elite to survive.

The weak died and only the strong remained, that was how the law inside the trial worked. Given their numbers, it was only normal for Godwin to believe that the number increased because one or two of his teammates managed to survive.

However, it appeared at this time to him that he was wrong.

While Godwin was busy deliberating and sorting out his thoughts, Raven squinted his eyes when he saw the figure in the distance. His mind churned and soon he realised who the other party was.

Killing intent flashed in Raven's eyes as he reminded his team of who they were facing against.

"Snort… So you are that Demon Noble who killed former Vice leader Dalton and tens of thousands of adventurers from our Sea God's Trident guild? I heard that the guild leaders of the other top five guilds had also disappeared inside your dungeon? It's a shame that I didn't destroy your dungeon at that time"

Godwin clenched his sword and glared at Simon with righteous anger. Of course, he had heard about the great expedition of the kingdom of Ellesmere, that turned into the greatest failure and disaster in their history.

The expedition into the Ghastly Winding Forest was led by the top five guilds and many other big guilds of the kingdom of Ellesmere. There was no one who believed that the expedition would fail at that time.

However, when none of the adventurers who participated returned even after months, many people started to speculate if something had gone wrong or if the expedition team had failed to usurp the dungeon.

As days passed by their speculation turned into reality when numerous search teams went diving into dungeons in search for them and came out empty handed.

They did not find any trace nor any clues about the expedition team. It was as if they had mysteriously disappeared after they went inside the dungeon.

The nobilities of the kingdom tried to keep the news in check. However, how could such a big event be hidden? Like an explosion, the news of the failure of the expedition quickly travelled across the kingdom, becoming exaggerated and horrifying as it spread.

Some said that the dungeon had devoured the expedition team, some said that they had become the minions of the dungeon and others speculated that it was the conspiracy of the top five guilds to eliminate the other big guilds who were a thorn in their side.

The event had been overblown by the people; however, no matter the people thought at the time, the one who took the biggest blow were the top five guilds and the kingdom of Ellsemere who lost more than 70 percent of their elite adventures in that expedition.