Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

A week passed by amidst the constant exploration of the western region of the forest. During this time, Simon had discovered that the western part was humongous, it was so vast the other three regions combined wouldn't even make ten percent of the western part of the forest.

Simon tried to map as much as he could with his skill [mental Map], but even he was amazed at the vastness of this place.

The deeper they delved, the stronger the monster got. Tall wide trees that reached hundreds of meters blotted the sky and did not allow even a ray of light to pass through. Luminescent mushrooms and plants lighted the entire forest and even the moss growing around was glowing with a mysterious light.

A marvellous sight in this dark environment where not even a single ray of light could penetrate through.

In these past few days, Simon had levelled up quite a bit and even the Bloodthorn Demonic Warhorse had reached level 230. As for Irene, she was at level 89 right now, though her level was lower than the both of them, her actual strength couldn't be measured just by looking at her level.

Even though most of her powerful skills and magic were locked, she still dominated her opponents with her superior abilities and battle techniques. Each of her movement was precise with impressive delicacy and skill.

Simon looked on as Irene's beautiful figure shone with an enchanting azure light that froze the attack of her opponent. WHOOSH... A whistling sound was heard behind him, he hurriedly sidestepped and the next moment an attack came smashing towards him.

BANG… Tens of meters of land was uprooted as an enormous branch of a tree was smashed towards the ground. The ground cracked and the shockwave sent Simon tens of meters back. He looked at the enemy that was in front of him.

Right now, they were surrounded by three Elder Treants whose levels were around 220. They were quite huge and their height reached more than one hundred fifty meters. At a glance, they looked just like an ordinary tree and blended very well with their surroundings. But when a prey approached them unaware, they would bare their fangs.

When the elder treants are in their battle mode, their bark would shine with a metallic lustre and their leaves and branch would become sharp weapons. These treants had a ridiculous amount of defence that nullified low-level attacks and were a difficult opponent to deal with.

They had quite a lot of skills and were even able to use the novice tier earth magic. But the most annoying of all was their regeneration speed which swiftly recovered any injuries they received.

Clicking his tongue, Simon flapped his wide bat-like wings and swiftly dodged the branch that was aiming to smash him. Immediately after dodging, he conjured hundreds of flame spears using his intermediate tier Flame Magic Mastery and rained it down on the treants.

BOOM... BOOM... BOOM...

Each of these flame spears was much stronger than before and burned with an intense ferocity. Simon could feel his Flame Magic Mastery getting better and better.

But the retaliation didn't stop here, immediately after a giant back shadow of a demonic warhorse formed in the air.  The shadow looked illusory but seemed to emit a threatening level of power. It had three pairs of crimson red eyes and bore some resemblance to the Bloodthorn Demonic Warhorse.

The black horse shadow was releasing a dreadful aura that gave goosebumps to anyone looking at it and packed enough power to easily destroy anyone below level 100. It was the novice tier dark magic attack of the demonic warhorse. The black horse shadow roared and looked somewhat lifelike as it charged towards the burning treants hit by his flame spears.

Like black smoke, the shadow enveloped the treants. KIEEEEEEEEK… darkness shrouded the surroundings as the piercing shrieks of the treants echoed out. Dark Magic was one of the rare forms of mana and not only does it have decaying properties, but it also corrodes the target from within.

TREMBLE... TREMBLE...

The ground trembled for a while before huge swaths of earth rose into the air and dispersed the darkness and flames surrounding the treants. Although the dark magic did quite a lot of internal damage, it swiftly recovered due to their regeneration.

"As expected their [Steel Bark] Skill mitigated most of the damage and their [Root] skill is slowly but surely healing their injuries" Simon said as he looked at the treants regenerating from the damage they suffered.

The [Root] Skill was similar to his regeneration but many times more effective. As long as the enemies have their roots underneath the ground, they would be able to use the rich mana veins to swiftly recover their strength and injuries.

The skill may be more useful but it has its own disadvantages such as to avail the functions of the skill, the roots of the treants should always be near the mana vein or else the skill won't activate.

Judging from how quickly these Elder Treants were healing, they must have found a rich mana vein underneath. Simon knew that if this keeps going on, his side would be the one to be defeated first as they did not have an unlimited pool of MP and stamina unlike their opponent.

Since he was aware that it couldn't go on like this for long, therefore he decided to end it fast with an attack strong enough that not even their [root] skill would be able to heal in time.

Simon looked at Irene who was similarly having trouble keeping the enemy in check. Even with her superior skills, she was having trouble freezing them as they kept regenerating and thwarting the ice by manipulating the earth using the earth magic.

No matter how strong her skills and magic was, due to her low level her mana pool was limited. Unless she freezes them to their root, which was hidden deep inside the earth, they would keep on regenerating.

"Stall them for as long as you can" after shouting out loud, Simon swiftly rose into the air and started casting his magic. Since flame magic did not have enough firepower, dark magic couldn't decay them as they kept on regenerating, and freezing them was just delaying the inevitable.

Then he had to dish out a magic powerful enough to penetrate through their high defence and destroy them from inside so that their healing couldn't keep up. Infernal magic could do that, but it ate up a lot of his manas plus the enemies this time was defence-oriented as such he did not know if his remaining MP would be enough, and also he did not want to always rely on external items to defeat his enemies as it was not his own strength.

A magic powerful enough to penetrate through their [Steel Bark] at the same time had enough firepower to swiftly kill them. What came to Simon's mind was lightning and flame. Since he knew the novice tier electro magic, he wanted to combine it with the intermediate tier flame magic.

But he had never tried the amalgamation of flame and electro before, and this would be his first time using it in an actual battle.. He knew that the consequence of a failure would be quite dire, therefore he had to make it a success, there was no option for failure.