Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

An eerie silence descended onto the place and bore down on the seven swords out of which only five stood standing.

"Nowwww!!" Morgress roared in a grave tone, he along with Kendric rushed towards the warhorse while the rest of the group kept the maid busy.

The scene was quite messy with skills and magic being thrown around everywhere causing serious destruction around the area. At a glance, the five humans seemed to be even with the subordinates of the demon.

However, the adventurers weren't actually trying to defeat them instead their main objective was to creep closer towards the exit.

"Hmph, do you really believe that such an obvious objective would go unnoticed from unnoticed from elder sister Annette?" Bea folded her hands and commented. She along with Simon, Irene, Valkyries and the five [helpers] were watching the whole show from the mountaintop.

"Ouch… that must have hurt a lot, mister warhorse didn't show any mercy when stomping down on that human" Alice said empathising with the unfortunate adventurer.

Emma: "I-I'm sorry".

Bea: "Sigh, why are you saying sorry for, it is all the fault of those humans, they deserve it".

"But wouldn't it go against our master's order if that human died?" Alice asked tilting her head.

"Hmph, it would be too merciful to kill him just like that. The warhorse held back enough and simply knocked the human out" Bea explained.

While they were talking about all that, Simon called Coleus out who bowed in front of him.

"Did you complete the task I told you to?" Simon asked.

"Indeed my lord, I have planted that thing you told me to in all of those floors" Coleus reported.

Simon nodded and dispersed the [Helpers]. Irene beside him heard the conversation between them from start to finish but did not comment since she was already aware of what he was planning.

At this moment, the situation in the distance changed once again, the remaining humans frantically tried to use each and every skill and ability in their arsenal to get to the exit. However, their hopes and attempts were brutally smashed apart by Annette's impossibly quick tempest magic that made a huge AOE vortex in the area that pulled all of the adventurers into one place.

The bloodthorn demonic warhorse used its [Demonic grip] ability to encroach their unstable mind and break their will just like how it did to Lombus. When it all seemed like escape was impossible for the adventurers, they did something which even surprised Simon.

Having realised that escape was impossible for all of them, the last of the mage of this team, Orson decided to at least allow his guild master to escape from here. He was able to somewhat resist the mental encroachment from the calamity class beast due to having mastered light magic and was the only person sane enough to think properly.

The wind was pushing them opposite of the exit thus even if he ran with Morgress in tow, he wouldn't be able to make it. That is considering that their enemy even allowed them to run in the first place.

If running towards the exit was impossible, then there was only one thing he could do in this situation. He grabbed his staff that was a [C] rank item tightly, and overloaded its core stone to reinforce the magic he was casting.

"Gale Magic Mastery- [Gale Tunnel]" Orson cried out loud, his staff made a cracking noise and broke apart into numerous splinters.

The energy that erupted out from the destruction of the core stone, was infused with the magic. A powerful gust of wind that spun at high speed blasted Morgress who was affected by the [demonic grip] skill and carried his body all the way to the exit.

Fortunately for Osborn, Morgress' body was facing the exit.

Realising what the enemy planned to do, Annette tried to use her disruption skill at the last moment to break the magic; nonetheless, she was a step too late as even she didn't expect the light mage to suddenly use an offensive spell on his teammate like that.

The Gale tunnel that was created, opened a hole in the AOE vortex created and went unimpeded carrying Morgress through the stairs and all the way to the thirty-fifth floor.

THUD… successful in his attempt to at least allow his guild master to get away from this floor, the mage fell onto the ground on his butt huffing and puffing.

He then used this moment when Annette and the Bloodthorn demonic warhorse were momentarily stunned to try and cast a quick novice tier light spell to dispel the mental encroachment skill. But his hand were quickly shot down by a bolt of thunder that came from dozens of kilometres away from the distant mountaintop.

Alice having used one of her skill, blew at her hand that was gesturing as a gun right now.

"Alice do not use any more of your skill…" Bea stated turning towards the blonde girl next to her.

Alice tilted her in confusion then suddenly realised the words Annette had whispered to them.

"Ah!! Right.. right… hehe, I'll be more careful".

"It's alright, we have shown them plenty of our strength, they should make their move soon" Simon said moving towards the place where the adventurers were with his entourage. Seeing their master come over, Annette and the demonic warhorse bowed their heads.

"I'm extremely sorry master, because of my negligence one of them escaped. Please allow me to make up for it by going after that human immediately" Annette said, dejected at her failure.

"There is no need…"

"Hehehe, my magic sent guild master far away, even if you pursue him right now, you will not be able to stop his escape" Before Simon could answer Annette, the mage responsible for the blunder, spoke out delightfully at this moment.

The wide grin on his face rubbed the subordinates around Simon the wrong way as they made a murderous face.

However Simon himself was calm even after that comment, he arched his brows and even entertained the mage n a little chit-chat.

"Why do you think he will be able to escape from us?" Simon asked.

Orson looked at the demon's crimson eyes and felt his body shudder. Nonetheless, he still fearlessly answered him.

"Do you think we dived inside this dungeon without any preparation? Don't underestimate our guild we still have the last resort of some sort to escape from this place. Once guild master escapes from this place, he will disclose the actual strength of your dungeon and at that time powerful adventurers will come flooding and you won't be able to stop them… hehe".

The man had a wide grin of victory written all over on his face but it didn't last long and quickly crumbled apart after the comment from Irene.

"The last resort you are talking about must be a return scroll right?" She said after musing a little.

"What's a return scroll?" Simon asked curiously.

"Ah, it's a scroll enchanted with the laws of space. Although it is useful in certain times, it is extremely cumbersome to use and needs a fixed transit point and exit to be set beforehand" Irene explained nonchalantly.

"H-how do you know about the return scroll?" Osborn asked in a grave tone.

"Hmm? Well, it's not like you guys are the first bunch that tried to use a scroll of return" Irene dispersed the questioning of the man with a few simple words and turned towards Simon.

"You don't have to worry, that man is not a mage and with the condition and the mana pool he has, it would take him a long time to set all the parameters for the scroll to activate. The thing you have planted on the floors above will be able to easily stop that from happening".

Simon nodded his head and glanced back at the man whose face seemed to be frozen at this moment as a faint black smoke came out of his body. It looked like the man had finally succumbed to the [demonic grip] skill after that blow.

Now that all of these humans have been apprehended, it was time they dealt with the last of the intruders.

<strong>Remaining Humans- One</strong>

"I believe you have seen enough, isn't it time for you to come out?" Simon said gazing around his surrounding.

Soon after his words rang out, the air in a few meters distance away from him, trembled and a silhouette of a person came out.

"Hehe, so you were aware of me huh?" Bryan said smiling ear to ear.

Simon looked at the man with an illusory pair of wings protruding out from his back, he did not know how the man was able to trick the system of his dungeon and disappear from the [Archive]. Nevertheless, he knew that the man was dangerous and had some other goals in mind.

"It seems that you are not with them… What are you after?" Simon asked.

"Hehe, why do you think I'm not with them?" Bryan asked back intrigued.

"Isn't it obvious, you have been hiding your presence and observing everything that was happening here as if it doesn't concern you" Bea was the one to answer him, she observed him with her eyes ready to make her move the moment the latter showed any movements.

The reason for them prolonging the conversation was because they knew that the man was hiding his true strength from the start and coupled with his bizarre ability to hide from the sureillance of the dungeon, it made the man quite a troublesome opponent to face.

"Indeed, you are right, I was not sent here by the guild that employed these guys. I'm Bryan, you can also call me number 007, a senior executive from Cerberus. The reason I came here was to observe the source of the rumours that has been making its waves all across this kingdom" Bryan gave a polite greeting before making known his objective.