Risen World

Chapter 273: Canyon Dungeon Part 21

"If that is all the power your mages can put behind their attacks then it will be impossible for you all to win this battle. " The boss said before once again striking towards Joshua who dodged just in time. He slashed across the spider's leg while rolling out of the way of the defensive spore response. The gash was small, but from what he could tell the spider didn't have much in the way of regeneration abilities like the ram and the beetle. It was just difficult to get any clean hits on its weak spots while under the barrage of its attacks.

The other tanks in the group weren't able to even attack in response since they were forced to use all their strength just to block the spiders attacks whenever it targeted them. The Carsen bothers new they were at a disadvantage since their axes just glanced off of the spider's exoskeleton whenever they used quick swings and they didn't have the time to put their full body into an attack since the spider would move out of the way before their swings could connect. Jayce was constantly struggling to make sure that the venom didn't get on anyone with his shield wall and lastly Abigail was looking for openings to use her stunning strike whenever it was off cool down.

The close ranged fighters were having a bit more success than the tanks since they could get in and out more quickly with their attacks. Adrian was using his shadow steps to move around the large boss quickly while striking at the joints in its smaller legs. He was moving at a pace fast enough to avoid the spore defense of the spider and was able to do some damage, but the cuts were too small to truly matter to such a large beast. Luckily he was using the pair of blades that increased bleeding of the enemy struck which would pile up over time. Allen stayed behind Jayce and struck at one of the spiders legs with his spears in response to whenever Jayce was attacked since his slow friend wouldn't be able to counter attack in time.

Adam had found a leg and basically stuck to it alongside his shadow. In his case he was able focus on trying to form cracks on the exoskeleton of the leg with his increased strength and heavy swords. On the other hand his shadow was able to attack the furred weak spots on the leg with the same moves. Since it was just a shadow the spores had no effect on it and it was able to continue to hack away. Even if its strength was less than Adam's own its ability to focus on a weak spot without any repercussions made it extremely useful. Lastly Amy was smashing his fist straight into the spider's sides. Aiming for the legs would be counterproductive to her abilities so she focused on getting in close with the aid from Jade's shadow movements.

After a time the giant spider let out a roar causing all of the sand around it to lurch up in a wave and knock everyone around it away. The damage was minimal to it, but it realized that it shouldn't just allow them to continue attacking it up close so easily. With this in mind the boss seemed to smirk as large portions of sand started to float into the air and form orbs the size of Tank's head. "Well let's see how you all survive this!" It roared as the orbs exploded shooting bullets of sand all throughout the room in every direction. Joshua immediately had Light create a shield around him before getting into a defensive posture to withstand the bombardment. All of the close range fighters got behind Jayce and Abigail as they both through up shield walls and braced themselves for the impact as well. When the sand bullets collided with their shields it felt as if they were going up against a powerful hail storm that lasted for a few seconds. In Joshua's case the constant bombardment eventually broke through his shield and forced him to block the last bit of the attack with his scale blade and aura.

Cinder on the other hand created a large wall of fire that exploded against the wave of sand coming in her group's direction. With the help of Henry boosting her power and Laura creating a poison cloud that exploded when meeting the flames all of the sand had been knocked away from their location. By the time they had all gotten back up and were looking towards the boss the creature was once again on the move as it rushed Joshua with a look of excitement on its face at the fact that they had survived its attack. Joshua dodged one of its front legs while rolling out of the way of another spout of venom from its mouth.

'We need to hinder it somehow.' Joshua said through the mental link while thinking on the fly. 'Cinder come over and attack it from the side. While she's over here Monika I need you to create those orbs of light and help me flash bang this creature. We need as much light as possible for this to work.'

'Alright, just tell me when.' Monika said back through the mental link as Cinder rushed over. Joshua knew that he could create a quick burst of light in front of the spider, but with it having its full focus on him he wouldn't have an easy time getting close to its eyes for his idea to have full effect. So instead he'd have Monika use her ability to create orbs of light to help out. The giant beast once again struck out towards Joshua as he tumbled underneath it. Its focus on Joshua had taken away its focus on Cinder who smashed into its side with the full weight of her body. She was far smaller than the boss, but even so the force of the impact caused it to stumble a bit.

Cinder bit into its furred skin and injected some burning poison into it. Of course a blast of spores poured out into Cinder's face, but she hung on knowing full well that the healers would help calm down the effects of the spores quickly. Monika sent five orbs of light directly near the eyes of the large spider which caused it to turn and wince at the sudden bright light for a moment. For the entire fight the room had been dimly lit and the sudden brightness had irritated the creature. That wasn't the end of things as Henry sent out a large orb of light of his own which collided into the others and caused a brief flash of light on one side of the spiders face.

The boss shrieked in pain from the sudden blinding light, but before it could do anything else Joshua blinked next to the other side of its face and had Light do something similar to what Henry did. It created another large flash of light that briefly blinded the rest of the eyes on the spiders head. Of course briefly blinding the creature wasn't the end of Joshua's goals as he coated his scale blade in aura and slashed across the creature's eyes. The boss reared back shaking Cinder off of it in the process. The moment she landed all of the mages on her back started bombarding the boss with powerful spells that struck across its underbelly and did more damage. The healers however got to work on clearing Cinder of the effects of the spores as Cinder got back up ready to fight.

The boss was enraged at the fact that a large portion of its eyes had been cut through as it used the few it had left to glare over at the group. It then created another large surge of sand that towered over even its own body and forced it towards the group like a wave of water. Cinder leaped up on to some webbing before leaping up once more to attach to the ceiling. All of the people on her back clung on so that they wouldn't fall off into the wave of sand below. Joshua rushed over to the remaining members of the group that were still on the ground in the path of the wave. He concentrated his aura on his scale blade once more before using a combination of an aura blast and energy slash to create his own waive that cut through the large wave of sand and left the group an opening to go through.

The boss didn't give them any time to plan their next move as it leapt through the air and clung to the ceiling right on top of Cinder planning on dealing with a large group of enemies at the same time. The mages had fired several spells at the large spider to try to get it to change course but even with all the damage they caused it still landed right on top of them. It's large mouth was preparing to bite down onto Cinder's back and spew venom on all of the people that were there still trying to create spells to shoot it in the face, but it was surprised by Cinder's actions more than the actual mages.

The spurs on Cinder's back stood up along with a lot of fur. Because she was in her fire based state the spurs had a glowing red tent to them as the fur around them stood straight out as well. Before the boss could open its mouth and plunge in several of the spurs shot out and embedded themselves into the spiders face causing it to scream in pain as the poison quickly started taking effect. It had already been bitten by Cinder before so the previous poison only made the spurs poison take effect even faster. The spiders head felt like it was on fire with all the spurs embedded into it and soon it went from feeling like it was on fire to actually being on fire.

Laura and Julia both conjured their most powerful flame spells as Laura shot out a large flame that took the shape of a bird and slammed into the spiders chest and forcing it off of the ceiling. Julia's inferno came right after and covered the boss's entire body in flames that she controlled to increase the pain. The large spider crashed into the sand as it quickly started thrashing around trying to put out the flames. This caused the room to shake from its sheer size, but they all knew this was the perfect time to do as much damage to the creature as possible.

Marcus and Becca both started using items from their inventory such poison grenades and other flammable items that just kept feeding the flames that the boss was trying to put out. Julia and Laura were both running low on mana after using such a powerful attack so Laura just tossed some small fireballs down in an attempt to keep the flames going while Julia continued to control the flames that were still burning the spider's body. Madalyn however took a more proactive approach as she rushed over alongside the rest of the close range fighters. She stopped just out of range of the flames before tossing a few canister into the flames that immediately exploded when reaching the fire and blew off two of the bosses' legs. She then started to breath out a cloud of poison that engulfed the boss completely rather quickly.

At first nothing seemed to happen with the cloud of poison, but Joshua knew Madalyn fairly well at this point and doubted that was the end of things. She cut off the cloud of smoke and looked up towards Cinder. 'Go ahead and use your strongest flame Cinder.' Madalyn said with a smile as she took in a deep breath and backed away a bit. The rest of the group did so as well so they would be out of the way.

Cinder did just as Madalyn said and twisted her body so that her back legs and some webbing she had made was the only thing holding her to the ceiling. She then concentrated a bunch of mana before breathing out a torrent of flames directly towards the poison cloud. Before it reached Madalyn shot out what looked like another smaller cloud of poison that flew into the path of the flames. She then jumped back to where everyone else was as they all watched the upcoming spectacle.

The small cloud of poison seemed to react with the bigger cloud that Madalyn had previously made and made that cloud flammable. The flames from Cinder seemed to be the last trigger as the poison cloud erupted into a large ball of flames that nearly reached back up to the ceiling. The wave of heat dried the air even more and made it hard to breathe as everyone backed away a bit more. Joshua couldn't do anything but stare at the awe inspiring sight of Cinder shooting flames down onto the giant inferno. It'd be a while before the flames would die down and they'd be able to check on the boss.josei