Dungeon of Pride, Laplace



Annette had been playing an inactive part in this battle unlike her sisters. The reason for that was simple, her role was different from her sisters. Her task was to ensure the safety of their master rather than to fight the harpies.

She was unwilling to budge on this point ever since Simon told her that he would fight the queen on his own.

Since it looked like he would be unable to persuade her otherwise, Simon let her do whatever she wants. Besides, the others didn't need her help to deal with the likes of the Harpies.

Simon nodded his head and questioned "How many does that make?".

"Counting the one she had been directing at us just until a few seconds ago, it makes three" Annette counted.

The three that she mentioned, were the number of Evil Eyes the Queen of Harpies had used up until now. Since Simon couldn't gaze into her eyes, he was unable to tell, but Irene was different.

She was a superior spirit and using the aid of necklace which an Heirloom, she was somehow able to look into the enemy's eyes.

That being said…

"Three Evil Eyes huh, I feel like she has much more than that, be on your guard" Simon cautioned. The queen of the Harpies wouldn't have received her title if she only had three Evil Eyes.

"Anyways, it's good for us. The more the queen exhausts herself buffing her subordinates, the better it is for us. Tell Bianca and Emma to continue mounting the pressure".

Simon's strategy was simple. Force the queen of the harpies to continue to use her Evil Eyes. They had all overheard the Harpies discussing how draining it was for their queen to activate an evil eye.

From what they heard, she was already in an exhausted state. Given that fact wouldn't she run out of gas sooner or later if she continued to use her evil eyes?

As if aware of her own predicament, Melinda gave a loud cry of frustration and deactivated her Evil Eyes of Empowerment.

"Go to sleep, Evil Eyes of Slumber" Seeing that things were going nowhere even by buffing her subordinates, she instead put those who got controlled to sleep. Once they fell asleep their fellow harpies were easily able to restrain them and lock them in place.

'That makes four' Simon silently counted in his head.

Huff… huff… Melinda took deep breaths of air, the strain from activating four evil eyes in her current state was starting to get to her. Nevertheless, as the queen of the harpies and one of the seven kings, she refused to show any weakness in front of her enemies.

She glanced at her struggling subordinates, then at the maids before shifting her eyes towards the demon. Looking at the lineup he brought, she finally understood why Gil-Garna was so cautious against this demon going as far as to even create an alliance to fight against him.

It turned out that the demon was no less powerful than them, the seven kings.

"I must say mister demon noble, you are quite scheming. To think that you would attack me at such a time, were you waiting for this opportunity?" Melinda questioned, her voice bitter.

"Hm? I wonder what the queen of harpies is talking about?".

Seeing him still playing the rascal, Melinda bit her lower lip and came to a decision.

"Alright, I give up. I will do as you say and ally with you"…

"What?"

"My Queen"

The harpies unable to believe their ears, turned towards their queen. But Melinda did not bother with them and continued to glance at the demon.

"Didn't you say that your motive behind coming here was me? It doesn't look like you aren't here to take my head or else you wouldn't have only suppressed my subordinates. Am I wrong?".

The fact that none of the harpies here was killed, made her certain that the demon did not come here to kill her, he had some other goal in mind. However, the words that came out of the demon next, burst her bubble and caused her beautiful face to distort in shock.

"I don't know what led you to think like that, but you are severely mistaken. Indeed, I did say that I was here for you but I never said that I wanted to ally with you".

"What are you trying to say?" Melinda spoke dryly. She felt like she was unable to see through the demon at all.

"It's simple, the reason why I'm not killing these harpies is because they are soon going to become my subordinates. Why would I cull down my own force?".

"Hahaha, how funny. You think you can win over my subordinates? Go ahead give it a try, all my subordinates are loyal to me to their bones. They would rather die than have you as their king".

The demon did not get angry at her remark, instead, the grin on his face became even wider.

"Of course, I know that. But what if their queen becomes my subordinate? Wouldn't that solve everything?"..

"What?!!"…

"You bastard!!"... The two calamity class harpies offended by those words, immediately charged towards Simon; however, before they could get any closer, Bianca stepped in and sent them flying back.

It was not only them all the harpies here seemed to have been enraged at Simon.

"Interesting, to think that there would be someone this bold in this forest. Aren't you being too greedy Mister Demon Noble? You might end up losing what you already have for trying to possess something you don't"

Melinda spoke narrowing her eyes, one could tell from the boiling aura around her that she was seething in anger. She was the queen of harpies and one of the seven kings of the forest, a position that others could only look up to.

Who would ever dare to talk to her with such disrespect much less say something like that? The demon in front of her was the only one she had met in many years that had the audacity to say she becomes his subordinate.

How could Melinda take such blatant disrespect lying down?

"Very good, it seems like I have underestimated your appetite. But if you think it will be that easy to subdue me, let me show you the cold hard truth".

Right after saying that, Melinda issued a sharp cry that shook the entire mountain they were on before spreading around and echoing through the surrounding lands. This was the racial skill of the queen of the harpy's, [The Queen's Prestige].

To others, the shriek would simply numb their ears for a while, but to any harpies listening to that shriek, it was nothing short of insanity inducing cry that would cause all of them to go berserk.

As could be seen from the behaviour of the surrounding harpies who were her personal guards, their eyes became red and their powers started skyrocketing all of a sudden.

Not only that, after the shriek echoed across the surrounding lands, from the distance and from all the directions came the hooting and flapping noise of wings.

Before long, thousands of shadows pierced through the cloud and appeared in front of the mountaintop. The harpies that were in the immediate surrounding all gathered here at this moment after hearing the shriek of their queen.

All of them had red eyes and were in a berserk state.

Looking at the number of harpies which was in the thousands, Simon couldn't help but arch his brows. A rough count told him that there were more than three thousand harpies assembled here at this moment.

Although this was nowhere close to their total population, it was still quite a number to face. Especially if there were a few disaster class harpies in the mix.

"You might have caught me in a bad time and your subordinates might be more powerful than mine. However, it still does not give you the authority to look down on me. Have you forgotten mister Demon Noble? The land you are in right now, is my territory".

So what if she was in an exhausted state? This was her territory, she could simply drown her enemies with their numbers if she felt like it.

Looking at the shocked face of the demon Melinda flashed a smile of elation. She felt like she had repaid some of the frustration she had been feeling because of the demon. This was just the start, she planned on paying for all the humiliation she suffered and exhaust her enemies to death while she recovered her recovered mana.

Once she was done, she would then deal the demon the killing blow by activating her more powerful Evil Eyes.

Or so she thought; however, even in her wildest dream she couldn't have imagined that the numerical superiority that she was so proud of, would be snuffed out in a puff by the demon.

Melinda's eight pupils stared at the demon who casually took out a small metallic cube out of thin air before throwing it up into the sky. Immediately, the cube enlarged and became the size of a small mountain.

It's edges shifted around like a Rubik's cube and multiple passages formed on it after a while. what came out of those passages were mechanised, sleek looking  warmachnes whose presences were enough to even drown the army of Valkyries. 

The battalion of warmachines who came forth from inside the cube, were none other than the Andromedas. The Mk8 made up of most of the numbers of the battalion with some golden ones in the mix.