Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Wasting no time, Godwin attacked. The sword in his hand howled with raging winds and divine power and quickly expanded to a size of twenty meters.

"[Resilient Tempest Sword Mastery]- [Ability Conferment]-[Divine Magic Mastery]-[Tempest Magic Master]—[[Resilient Divine Sword]]"

Godwin roared out loud and quickly conjured his skills. A twenty meter huge golden sword radiant with apowerful divine light and tempest magic swept forward towards the Fourth Finger.

The might of the skill created by Godwin was so powerful that it could tear space and travel through it. In the blink of an eye, the sword was already upon the fourth finger.

Godwin's attack did not stop, after attacking the newest variable, he used the lion shield on his left hand to assail Simon. The shield skill of Godwin was no less powerful than his sword skill that he threw at the fifth finger.

Simon responded adeptly, the numerous swords floating around him moved, even the finger of Ozymandias charged.

The peace that had settled into the battlefield, was broken and another clash of epic proportion ensued.

Godwin with his transformation, attacked both Simon and the Fourth Finger. For him, the both of them represented evil that needed to be purged. His morals and justice will never allow him to ally with one evil to fight the other.

And thus a tripartite fight where all the three parties attacked each other, ensued. Simon attacked and defended against both of his enemies, the same went for Godwin and Fourth Finger.

As for the adventurers, Simon was no longer as easygoing as before and commanded the Andromedas to attack them. Since he had the weakest level out of the three, he had to divert off some of the pressure using Revenant Crows and Mk 6.

The chaotic battle became even more chaotic with the addition of the newest variable, the Fourth Finger. The curse skills that he used were powerful enough to plague skills, magic, weapons and even space.

Nothing was unaffected by it, even Godwin was slowly starting to feel the pressure and dread of curse energy as it slowly latched onto him like leeches slowly plaguing his aura. The more he became exposed to it, the more burdensome it became for him.

At this point, Godwin no longer looked as composed and confident as before, facing the curse attacks from both the fourth finger and the finger controlled by Simon, he had a grave face.

The same could be said for the Fourth Finger, facing the divine magic was not an easy task, even the main body had failed when it faced the divine magic user in the ancient times. Much less needs to be said for a finger that only possessed a small fraction of the original body's power.

What aggravated Fourth Finger even more was the other finger that was repeatedly attacking him and getting in his way. Even though they were the parts of the same existence, the fifth finger no longer obeyed the remnant will of their master.

What's more the Fourth Finger couldn't even take control of the fifth finger without the two people getting in its way. The battle between the three was so hectic that none of the parties had the freedom to hold back.

Well, except for Simon who had the aid of his Andromedas, [Thousands Swords mastery], Finger of Ozymandias and most of all, he wasn't affected by the curse energy. It was the same in the previous trials and even now.

For some reason, Simon appeared to be immune to the effects of the curse energy. What's surprising was that he was even able to use the curse energy released by the fourth finger thus empowering his own attacks.

Unless the fourth finger switched to a more refined pattern of attacks, it was hard for simple curse energy to damage Simon. Of course, he did not reveal his advantage to his opponents after all, if they knew about it they would surely make him their first target of elimination.

Besides, even if he was immune to curse energy, the same cannot be said for the divine magic. It was still his bane as ever, and as such, Simon pretended to be hard pressed and be affected by the curse energy while slowly biding his time and waiting for his opponents to exhaust each other.

When the right moment arrives, he would sweep in and use his other trump cards to defeat the exhausted parties thus reaping all the benefits.

And so, the battle continued for an entire day. The time limit set for clearing the trail was also slowly approaching near. There were only over ten hours remaining. If they did not defeat the Abomination by that time, all of them would fail.

Another thing of note was that more than half of the adventurers from Godwin's team had already died at the attacks of the Andromedas. Those who were able to live, were barely hanging on.

The condition of his teammates caused Godwin to no longer be able to fully focus on the battle. Thus causing him to take some loss in exchanges it would have been impossible for him to get hit otherwise.

Simon saw this and was slowly starting to realise that Godwin was getting weaker, his aura was no longer as stabilised as before. How long could he maintain that transformation?

Just as he was thinking that, Godwin who was bathed in a golden light spoke out in a loud commanding tone.

"Listen up everyone. The situation has changed completely out of control. I cannot say with certainty that I will be able to clear the sixth trial. And so I am giving you an order. Use your Transit rocks and get out of here, tell everything that happened here to the guild master. He will know what to do next. Now go".

As Simon had thought, Godwin was telling his subordinates to run away. This was a telltale proof that Godwin had used up all of his trump cards and was no longer confident in coming as a victor in this three way battle.

If he fell, there would be no meaning to their sacrifice, as such, he wanted his comrades to at least get away from here. The adventurers who heard his words, were all devastated, their faces pale.

This was the first time, they heard Godwin give such a command. In all the other situations and perilous circumstances before, he was always the one giving off a positive aura. He would always be the one to lead them out no matter what kind of trouble they faced.

However, this was the first time he gave them an order to retreat. This told them how hopeless the situation was. The adventurers did not blame Godwin, on the contrary, they could understand why he came to this decision.

If anything they felt despair and furious over the fact that in a time like this, they could do nothing but watch from the sidelines as Godwin faced all of the powerful opponents by himself.

The adventurers hesitated questioning what Godwin planned to do. However, when the latter roared at them to run, they finally took out the transit rocks and prepared to leave. It was the same for Raven who had an unwilling expression as he watched his friend face all of the danger alone.

The adventurers prepared to leave; however, how could it be so easy to leave just like that?

"Want to leave? You have to ask my permission first"

Simon glared menacingly. On his command, the army of Andromedas surrounded the adventurers and engaged fiercely. The Mk 6 and the Revenant Crows stepped forward to stop any and all adventurers trying to activate the Transit Rocks.

They even went as far as to self-destruct to stop them. The explosion brought forth by a powerful war machine self destructing could be imagined. Any adventurer who was unlucky enough to get caught, immediately died.

Not even their ashes remained intact.

From this extreme method, it was clear that Simon was hell bent on not letting any adventurers get away, even going as far as to incur a loss like that. However, despite his efforts a few adventurers still made it out alive, Raven was amongst them.

Before disappearing, he glared at Simon with eyes that burned with irreconcilable hatred.

The number of adventurers that managed to escape- 5.

Godwin released a breath of relief when he saw some of his teammates make it out alive. The golden halo covering his body flickered and his transformation soon came undone.

It was as Simon had guessed, Godwin was finally getting weaker. The other party had used up all of their trump cards and even their ace in the hole, the transformation that gave them access to powerful divine magic, came undone. They had no cards left in their sleeve.

As for the fourth finger, it too was struggling from the effects of the divine energy wreaking havoc inside their body just like him. There cannot be any more perfect time.

Simon glanced at the Abomination from the corner of his eyes and after checking its condition, he finally brought out his own trump card.

Artifact Name- Radiant Crown of Brilliance

Rank- Legendary (Missing Spirit)

Stats- Magic +2000

Wielder- Unregistered

Skills- [Divine Absolution], [Infinite Imprisonment], [Damaged], [Damaged], [Damaged]...

The Radiant Crown of Brilliance that he got from the Fourth trial, finally showed its appearance.

As expected, as soon as the artifact appeared, it attracted the attention of the Fourth Finger who trembled ever so slightly. Although it did not have any facial expression, Simon could still make out the fear in him.