Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Chapter 379

Simon used the entrance to dive inside the tomb and found himself on a dry and dark pathway. Igniting his flame magic, he proceeded forwards and soon arrived in front of a big hall in the middle of which was an Altar.

Although Simon couldn’t read those ancient writings, it seemed that all the tombs had an Altar which had the exact same letters written on it. It might have some specific meaning but since he can’t interpret it, there was no point dwelling on it.

Behind the Altar, he could see five doors each of which had a different letter written on it. Simon walked in front of one of the doors and tried opening it; however, it was locked. He tried opening the door near it but just like the other one, it seemed to be locked too.

It was not like he did not try opening it using other means, he even channelled his mana into it nonetheless, it remained locked.

Since that was the case, Simon tried opening all the doors and the one on the leftmost corner was the only door that clicked open. He narrowed his eyes, checked the marking on the door before boldly walking inside.

[You have entered the first vault of numerals, Ozymandias is furious at the one who seeks the crown and sends its subordinate to destroy it. The crown is inside one of the doors that lead to Yela’s crypt].

]Find the zombie that has the key to the door before the time runs out and Ozy’s subordinates destroy the crown. Warning, each wrong zombie that you kill will strengthen the other zombies. Time limit- 5 hours].

As soon as he entered, a window popped up in front of him notifying him of the rules of this trial. There were many information to take from that but first, what did it mean that he had entered the first vault of numerals?

Were the mark on different doors numbers? If that is the case then did it mean that the door he opened was numbered one?

There were many information given but Simon got the general gist of it. He just needs to find the zombie that had the key to the door that leads towards Yela’s crypt where the crown was before the time runs out.

Additionally, he couldn’t kill the other zombies since it will only strengthen the others. The information was fairly simple, Simon even felt that the time limit was too much just to find a key.

But when the zombies started spawning in this wide hall, he had to retract this preconception of his. There were thousands of zombies flooding the place all of whom were unique zombies with abilities that made them quite annoying.

Additionally, what he didn’t mention yet was that the trail was set in a way that the zombies became stronger along with the growth of the challenger. That is to say, the unique zombies that are spawned, were much more stronger and higher levelled than the time when he was clearing them in the second and first tomb.

If previously the unique zombies were around 350-380, now after his growth, they were all above level 400.

TSK… Simon clicked his tongue, although finding that one zombie amongst these hordes of zombies was annoying he still felt like the time limit was just too generous. He had this foreboding feeling as if he was missing something.

GRAAAHHHH… the moment the unique zombies spotted him, they pounced on him using their unique attacks such as claws, acid spray, grapple and various other skills. After fighting so many of them and for so long in this trial, Simon was used to their attack pattern and dealt with them accordingly.

He took out his crimson blade and cut off their torso so that they couldn’t move for the time being. By now he had also acquired the sword mastery skill himself and was much more adept and confident in his sword swings.

Simon immobilised one special zombie after another but there were thousands of them and there were still many more spawning from the ground. It was just like an endless horde and the worst thing about it was that the zombie that had the key, was hiding with the horde.

However, since Simon was for some reason immune to these effects, he did not have any problems, on the contrary, he even felt a sense of familiarity with it. His gaze shifted and landed on the hordes of zombies that showed no signs of stopping being spawned.

p<anda> He would have agonised about the unfair condition of this trail otherwise if not for him being able to use the curse energy. Now though, he did not find them being spawned all that unpleasing. </anda>

Simon used his claws that was being augmented by the curse energy in a wild flurry of attacks as he culled down numerous zombies one after the other. The curse energy that would seep out from their body would be absorbed by him making him stronger by the second.

“[Cursed Claw Fury]”.

After familiarising himself with the curse energy over the first two tombs, Simon was now even able to create some skills with it. A huge hideous looking claw that was three meters big and made of curse energy, materialised itself.

With his will, it flew forwards and easily bisected any and all zombies that were in its path. Now that he had found the flaw in the system, he no longer needed to play by the rules. That is to say, there was no reason for Simon not to kill all of the zombies that spawned instead of just killing the one that had the key.

And just like that, a huge massacre started with the demon noble going wild, culling the number of the zombies which kept on spawning. More than an hour had passed by now and Simon was engaged in a frenzied battle with the zombies when suddenly he saw a zombie that had a key tied to a locket on his neck, getting spawned not far away from him.

“The Key” Simon yelled and immediately started clearing a way towards that zombie.

A few seconds later, the key was finally in his hand.

“With this, I can now open the door that leads to Yela’s crypt” holding the key in his hand, Simon rushed towards the exit of the vault, not caring about the zombies whose numbers kept on increasing by the second.

As soon as he came out of the first door, he started unlocking the doors with it thinking that the door that the key unlocks was the one that was Yela’s crypt but to his surprise, the very first door that he tried opening with the key clicked open just like that.

[You have opened the second door of the vault of numerals and find an empty place. The doors will be reset, tries remaining ¾].

Before Simon could question the information, he found himself back inside the first vault of numerals.

The zombies immediately pounced on him the moment he was sent here. As he culled the number of his enemies, he pondered about the information that popped in front of him when he opened the second door of numerals.

It was empty which meant that he had opened the wrong door and was thus sent back here again. At this moment, he finally realised his oversight, something that he was seeing clearly previously.

In the first place, the information never told him that there would be only one key that would unlock the door leading to Yela’s crypt where the crown was. There were multiple doors there for a reason, since the first door was open and the others locked, it meant that he had to find the key to unlock those doors.

But he cannot just randomly open any doors as it could be seen from his last attempt. Excluding the first door, three out of the reaming four doors were hoax placed to eat up his time.

“That’s right, time!!” when Simon looked around at the window displaying the time he had reaming, he immediately narrowed his eyes.

The time limit was now less than 4 hours and in that time limit, he had to find the correct door and key from the hordes of zombies that were continuously spawning. Additionally, from the information, he knew that the logic that the second door was a hoax, wouldn’t work anymore since the information clearly told him that all the doors of numerals would reset.

Which meant that he cannot count on the second door being hoax again. It was all fine up till here but what bothered Simon the most was that he only had a limited amount of tries.

Out of the four tries, he had already used one and now he only had 3 more chances. Simon did not want to think about what would happen after all three chances were expended.

Unlike the first two tombs where the worse that happened when the time limit ran out was the influx of curse energy seeping out from the ground to cover every corner, the third tomb was different in that it involved Yela’s crown.

If the time limit was up, Yela’s crown, a quest item that he needed would be destroyed and he would fail the trail. Just thinking about that soured Simon’s mood and he couldn’t help but curse the one that made this forbidden trail ground.

Simon continued to cull the numbers of the zombies and absorb the curse energy to prevent the zombies from getting stronger. However, there was also a limit as to how much curse energy he can absorb, once that limit is passed, he would have to tread more carefully.