Risen World

Chapter 272: Canyon Dungeon Part 20

Joshua stood at the head of the group since they weren't exactly sure what kind of abilities the large spider would have. He could sense that the creature was only starting to prepare for the fight as well as its body started to tense up and the aura around it started to shift from a friendly demeanor into an enemy. Even so Joshua still didn't sense any killing intent coming from the creature. It felt as if he was fighting against Adrian or his father in a spar instead of against a gigantic evil spider that wanted to suck out their innards. Even so the power the spider was giving off dwarfed the other bosses that they had faced up to this point and Joshua knew they were in for a far more challenging fight even though this fight was more straight forward since the boss itself decided to make things that way.

While Joshua was trying to look for any weakness on the spider things started to shift as the room shook from the spider's power. At first Joshua thought it was preparing to charge in and attack them since its body started to crouch into a jumping position. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to block such a massive creature and realized this fight would most likely force him to use his aura to its fullest if he wanted to endure the creature's blows, but that wasn't how things actually started out. Instead all of the shaking in the room seemed to settle and instead the area near the trap door where the boss had come from initially became the only area that was constantly shaking.

The shaking of the trapdoor drew everyone's attention as the large spider seemed to smirk as it simply watched them all with interest. Just when Joshua was about to turn his attention back towards the boss that was still crouching and ready to pounce across the room a giant torrent of sand spewed out of the trapdoor like a geyser to the point where it nearly reached the ceiling. At first Joshua thought the amount of sand wouldn't be too much, but it just kept pouring out until the whole room was filled with it. The sand was not only everywhere, but was also extremely hot and made the room far more dry and arid. Joshua realized right away this was a huge disadvantage for Tank since moisture in the air was now hard to come by and he'd have to create the water from his own aura and mana.

Cinder was also forced to stay in her fire form since the heat would just disrupt any of her ice attacks which restricted the amount of abilities she would be able to use going forward. It was a shame since the spiders in the dungeon seemed to have a far harder time with the cold than with flames. The only reason Laura and Julia's flame spells were able to do so much damage to the spiders was because of direct hits and overwhelming force. Isabella would also be greatly affected by this new environment and she seemed to frown a little bit as she looked around at all the new sand. The only person that had a small smile was Amber, but if the spider had brought in all the sand Joshua was certain that it was an expert at fighting with it around. Desert was in its name after all.

Joshua could feel his feet sinking into the sand a bit as well and it brought another problem to the forefront of his thoughts. Joshua had fought in an arid area before on the way to the puzzle dungeon against all of the scorpions, but that area wasn't filled with tons of sand and instead had cracked earth to walk on. This would be the first time he'd be forced to fight while having sand as footing and he could already tell it would slowly sap away his energy from the extra strain his body would feel from running along it and trying to dig into it to stop his momentum. He wasn't the only one having that issue however as he turned to see just about everyone else trying to reaffirm their footing. Tank's legs had almost sunk all the way into the sand with the amount of weight his body had thanks to his massive shell. Cinder however was struggling to get used to walking on the surface, but was adapting rather quickly.

"It seems this is the first time for you all to fight in such an environment huh." The boss said as it agilely walked along the sand without seeming to have any problems. "You better get used to it quickly because I won't be waiting." The moment he said those words some of the sand seemed to float up into the air and started to hover around the giant spiders legs. It was as if he was controlling the sand itself and Joshua knew right away how much of a problem that would be.

"Mages and Healers get on to Cinder's back. We can't have you guys getting dragged away into the sand. Everyone else stay on your toes and move out of the way if you feel the sand shifting beneath your feet. Lilly put tank away and bring out Jade to help out instead. This is a horrible set up for him to fight in at the moment." Joshua explained before he let his aura flare out and surround his body. He didn't hold back anything and went straight into aura hardening just in time as the large spider moved nearly as fast as Cinder even though it was three times her size. One of its large legs slammed into Joshua's scale blade. The force of the blow nearly dug him into the sand, but Joshua twisted with the force and spun out of the center of the impact. He then pulled himself up onto the leg and used it to jump out of the pit of sand that the impact had created.

He tried to slash the boss's leg, but noticed that a regular swing of his scale blade barely left a scratch. He then leaped back out of the way as another leg tried to slam him into the ground. The large spider was then forced to back away as a large spear of fire was going to pierce its head. It was too fast however and avoided the spear as well as a few other spells. Joshua knew that Heroic shout wouldn't have as much of a hold on this opponent since it had some intelligence, but used it anyway to boost the morale of the group and momentarily keep the bosses attention on him as he tried to figure out all of its abilities.

The large spider once again lunged towards Joshua, but this time around it shot a large amount of venom from its mouth that Joshua had to dive out of the way of while giving up his defensive posture in the process. This seemed to be the spiders plan since soon after one of its legs shot towards where Joshua was leaping to and was about to smash into him. Light immediately threw up a major shield that shattered on impact, but was just enough to stop the spiders attack. The impact of the shield shattering still forced Joshua further back, but he was able to regain his footing quickly by digging his feet into the sand.

Unfortunately the boss seemed to be trying to quickly overpower Joshua and his position of shielding the rest of the group. Before Joshua could get into position to take on the large spider once more he could feel a surge of sand beneath him and quickly used an aura blast from his feet to leap out of the way as the sand that he had been standing on seemed to erupt into the sky blocking his view of the boss. Just as he landed another leg shot straight through the sand, but Joshua was expecting something of the sort based off of how the boss had been so proactive. He quickly used his scale blade to block the attack as he slid underneath it and redirected it away from his position and away from the rest of the group.

"Hmm, it seems your defenses aren't so bad. I was expecting to at least injure you from that series of attacks." The boss said as it once again came into a view as the sand fell back down and crashed into the ground. "Well then I hope you provide a challenge for me, I haven't had a good fight in over a century."

'Damn it, guys were going to need to figure out a way to pin it down in place if we want any of our spells to land.' Joshua said through the mental link since he knew that the boss was able to understand his words. 'Cinder try to set up some webs around the area to give us at least some areas to slow the boss down in. It doesn't seem to be the type of spider to use webs.'

'On it.' Cinder said as she started to quickly make her way around the room. For the moment she had a lot of passengers on her so she couldn't be too acrobatic, but she was fast enough to keep ahead of the boss if it went after her.

'All tanks make sure to use high level defensive measures if you have to take a hit. Otherwise one strike might fatally injure you.' Joshua explained after having felt the effects of having Light's shield be broken through. 'If you can, try to hit any openings you can find to slow it down. Abigail it's up to you to try to stun the boss whenever the mages and ranged fighters try to hit it with a barrage of spells.' After the short pep talk everyone got on the move with Joshua taking the lead as he rushed over towards the boss. He was slowly getting used to running on sand without having trouble with his balance so he knew the longer the fight went the better he'd be able to combat the boss, but at the same time the longer the match went the more chances the boss would have of killing his group.

"Come on show me a good fight!" The giant spider let out a loud roar as it leaped into the air and crash landed in front of Joshua and the rest of the tanks. It immediately started spewing venom towards Joshua, but instead of Joshua Jayce moved forward and blocked the venom with a shield wall. The venom itself didn't have much powerful force behind it so the shield wall was the perfect defense against such an attack. It prevented the corrosive effects of the venom from getting close to any of the tanks.

Joshua leapt over Jayce and coated his scale blade in aura as he swung at the heavily furred joints on the spiders legs. He knew any other area would be hard to cut through and he was surprised at the fact that his scale blade still had trouble slashing deep into the fur. He left a small gash on the spot, but the fur seemed to react to his attack and let out some spores that clouded the area. Joshua's aura helped filter most of the bad effects that the spores gave to him as he backed away from the cloud of it, but he still felt a bit dizzy. It was as if he had a massive headache and the effects seemed to linger as the spider tried to slam one of its legs into him.

Joshua blinked out of the way knowing his body was still a bit sluggish from the spores, he soon felt a soothing feeling as one of the triplets cast a detox spell on him that seemed to alleviate the feeling the spores created quickly. Joshua knew that the effect would be even more severe on the other tanks considering they didn't have aura to filter out the spores or his extreme regenerative capabilities. 'Don't breath in the spores. If you cut into the furred area make sure to get out of range of the spot quickly.' Joshua said through the mental link.josei

Abigail nodded at his words as she swung with a stunning strike into one of the spider's legs before kicking off of it to get away faster. The spores exploded out and flooded the area, but she had gotten out of range fast enough. The giant spider had been stunned for the briefest of moments, but it was the perfect timing as several spells came flying over and slammed into the spider's body. The large fireballs created by Laura, Julia, and Cinder created a big explosion on the creatures side, but its body barely swayed as it was once again was able to move. Outside of a few burns the boss was still looked fine and was going on the attack. The entire group knew at that moment that this boss was going to be hard to take down.