Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

However, unlike the past, the current Earth Shattering Lower Dragon was many times bigger and more powerful than before. Its entire presence gave the feeling of indestructibility.

"Those enormous crystal like stones on its back didn't look that ancient before" Simon reckoned. Though those stones were covered with moss and dust, their lustre was like the gem whose brilliance refused to fade away at the slightest.

After the Earth Shattering Lower Dragon was done roaring at the heavens, its eye finally looked down and it landed on the demon who remained unfazed even after it showed its appearance.

The dragon did not bother to speak, it raised one of its limbs and clawed down.

BANG…

The ground was immediately cracked apart from the sheer force of its attack. one would expect a body this big to be extremely slow; however that attack earlier was enough to break all preconceptions that anyone had about its speed.

After crushing the ground near the demon, the eyes of the dragon immediately darted up and landed on the demon who was casually flying in the sky.

"Straight to business eh?" Simon grinned.

The Earth Shattering Lower Dragon was a member of the dragon clan, thus it was extremely intelligent. Forget about understanding him, it could even speak if it wanted to. Not to mention it was about to break through the level 500 barrier and enter the disaster class.

The dragon narrowed its eyes, it didn't expect its attack earlier to not accomplish anything causing it to glance at the demon carefully.

FWOOSH…

A sharp sound of wind tearing came and a black shadow hurriedly magnified in Simon's vision. The thing was so fast that it was right upon him in the blink of an eye. It carried a tremendous force and momentum as it came crushing him.

Just when the black thing was a few inches away from him, Simon took out his [A] tier crimson blade and using his sword mastery skill he diverted all that force and momentum and easily repelled it.

BANG…

The earth cried and the land in his vicinity was easily crushed. After the dust and tree splinters settled down, a hundred-foot deep pit appeared in the place.

The hand which held the sword, trembled intensely and blood leaked out from some of his nails. After clashing with the Earth Shattering Lower Dragon head on, Simon finally realised how much of a monstrosity the other guy was.

Even though he had used the sword to buff his stats and redirected all of the force of that attack, it still manage to slightly injure him. Although this kind of injury was nothing to him, and it healed within seconds, it was enough to tell him that his stats were still inferior to the other.

Finally, after even that attack failed to do anything to the demon, the dragon became a lot more serious. Its body moved and the black thing was quickly retracted back. The thing that attacked Simon earlier was none other than the flail like tail of the dragon.

"So you have also come coveting my blood too? You all are nothing but insects yet you dare to look down on this king? All of your constant bugging has gone for long enough. This king will show this time that it is not so easy to take my blood".

The Earth Shattering Lower Dragon spat out a few words of vehemence. Right after that, the energy inside him started boiling and raising even further.

'Finally willing to talk huh' Simon did not know what blood and intrusion it was talking about, but he could see that his opponent, was finally serious. It had stopped looking down on him.

"Well might as well get over with it" Simon did not bother to hold back either and swiftly activated the [Ancestral Symbol Ignition] skill.

Since the other guy reached the peak of its evolution already, its base stats were already higher than his. Not to mention the skill they had should not be inferior to his. If he did not increase his strength further, the result of this battle would be totally one sided.

The complex tribal like markings on Simon's body, started heating up and with a brilliant golden light, it started igniting. A mighty aura that was not any weaker than the Earth Shattering Lower Dragon erupted from him and the collision of their auras alone was enough to create wild storms.

A solemn expression descended on the Earth Shattering Lower Dragon's eyes after seeing that he wasn't able to suppress the other party with its aura. Its body shook mysteriously, and the numerous spiky boulders on its back lit up with dusty brown light.

Waves after waves of ripple passed through the ground. Immediately afterwards, the land for a few hundred meters started moving as if it was alive. The mud, the sand even the small granules, everything that comprised from soil started moving towards the Earth Shattering Lower Dragon. 𝗳𝗿𝐞ℯ𝙬𝗲𝗯n𝗼νel.𝒄𝑜𝘮

Simon looked at the changes occurring with grim eyes. He was trying to use his [Analysis] skill on the dragon only to find that it was unable to see beyond its level and race. His attempt to peer at its skill had failed.

While he was bracing himself for what was coming, the soil quickly crept up to the body of the Earth Shattering Lower Dragon and disappeared inside those glowing crysta stones on its back.

The process was extremely fast, it only took a few couple of seconds before the soil around hundreds of meters was swiftly sucked into its crystals. After the crystals on its back finished devouring the soil, the light emitted out of it brightened even more.

After which, it was fired towards Simon. This light wasn't just any beam of light, it contained a heavy pressure like that of a mountain and had an extremely destructive power within it.

Simon did not dare to slight this kind of energy, he tightened his grip on the sword and slashed forward. At that moment, the blade of the sword lit up with a brilliant golden light that vaporised the moisture in the surrounding few hundred meters of land.

The sword slashed forward a golden glow sped towards that brown light.

RUMBLE… a blinding light erupted when the two attacks collided followed by a rumbling noise. A surge of wild energy waves and flames burst from the two attacks and spread around the surrounding destroying anything and everything.

Trees, land, monsters or even mountain, everything would burst apart and then turned into tiny debris. f𝔯ee𝘸𝘦𝚋𝒏oѵ𝐞l.c𝒐𝓂

The energy waves from the first collision was yet to fade when Simon noticed several more pillar of brown light shoot towards him.

In the distance, the Dragon was repeatedly firing one shot after another from those large glowing boulders on its back.

Simon did not give it time to mount the pressure, his calmness turned into a fervour, and his attacks became ore intense. He matched every attack of the dragon with his own golden blade glows.

Each of those blade glows contained an infernal amount of heat and his understanding of the sword mastery skill. They were in no way, weaker than the brown light pillars shot by the dragon.

BOOMM… BOOOM…BOOOMM…

Numerous eruptions of brown and golden light dotted the sky, the land was flipped upside down and even the space around the explosion showed signs of distorting.

In the blink of an eye, Simon had exchanged numerous blows with the Earth Shattering Lower Dragon.

Previously, it was much too strainful and draining for Simon to use infernal magic repeatedly like that. However, after his flame magic had advanced, and that drastic increase in his level, coupled with the fact that he had gained the [Minimal Mana consumption] skill allowed him to dish out such attacks without any problem at this moment.

He was a vastly different person than the time he had first encountered the dragon. After a while, when both parties failed to gain any edge over the other, the brown beams of light stopped coming.

The Earth Shattering Lower Dragon had stopped firing probably realising that it was useless. The brown glow on those crystals had also diminished by a lot.

"My turn" Simon grinned, after exchanging a few blows with the dragon he realised that the other party was vastly different from any of the opponents he had faced up until now.

He couldn't gain even an inch of advantage against the Earth Shattering Lower Dragon. Not only were its attacks powerful, it had yet to show him their entire power. It still had many cards up its sleeve that it was yet to use.

Simon flapped his wings and utilising the surge of power that came from igniting his ancestral symbol, he zipped towards the dragon and appeared a few meters away from its body.

A faint blue layer of aura covered the edges of the blade and slashed towards the underbelly of the dragon that wasn't covered by those solid looking stone scales.

After clashing with the Deep Sea Alligator king, Simon was aware of some of the weaknesses of a streamlined body. Even if the Earth Shattering Lower Dragon was a genuine dragon from the dragon clan and not a reptile type beast like the Deep Sea Alligator king, it had a streamlined body that made its underbelly its biggest weakness.

Seeing that the demon ignore its upper body and directly go for its weakness, the Earth Shattering Lower Dragon panicked for a moment. Nevertheless, it swiftly composed itself and interrupted the demon before it could get any closer to its body.

A black shadow appeared in front of Simon in a lightning like speed forcing him to swiftly pull back.

BAM… the black thing that was the tail of the dragon flattened the ground where Simon was just a second ago.

"This speed still not enough" Simon muttered inwardly, he grit his teeth and activated [Super Enhanced Agility], [Super Enhanced Strength] and his various other augmenting skill.