Risen World

Chapter 217: Cinder's New Strength

Everyone was surprised once they figured out who was talking to them. It was already odd enough to have a giant talking turtle, but now they had a giant talking spider as well. The first thing Joshua noticed about Cinder's voice was the fact that it still seemed rather young. If he had to guess he'd say she was in her adolescent stage and probably had another step in evolution to go before she reached her final form. If that were the case Joshua had no idea what else this powerful spider could gain to get any stronger. She was already powerful as a child and judging off of the aura she was giving off now she had stepped into an entirely different league putting her right up there with Tank. They wouldn't have to fear letting her take care of powerful opponents on her own anymore from what he could tell.

"Yeah it's me, Cinder. I'm surprised you couldn't tell just from the fact that I'm talking to you all by using my aura and I don't sound like the old turtle." Cinder said with a peppy and proud sounding voice. It reminded Joshua of how Amy's voice used to sound when she was younger but just a little deeper probably to match Cinder's giant size.

"Hey don't disrespect your elders little spider." Tank said with an annoyed grumble causing everyone else to chuckle a little bit at the by play between the two enormous creatures. It was when Tank spoke that everyone outside of Joshua had taken notice of his change in size and features. His skin looked tougher and his enormous jaw made his mouth seem even more lethal. Joshua could also tell that the bumps on Tanks shell were becoming more defined as if they were shifting into something that had been sealed away, but they didn't seem to be quite finished at this point.

"Oh don't be like that uncle Tank, you know I love you." The spider said in a sickeningly sweet way causing Tank to just grumble a little more before just ignoring the rest of the conversation.

"How come you sound so much like me?" Amy asked with a big grin. "I thought if anything you would sound like Lilly if she was trying to be vicious and evil."

"Hey don't make it out like all spiders are evil and only care about killing our enemies and feasting on their remains or something absurd like that." Cinder said with a pouty voice as everyone just looked at her like she had to be joking.

"Oh come on Cinder, your always charging forward first whenever given the chance and you tend to tear your enemies apart piece by piece rather aggressively. Hell I'm sure I've seen several of the cocoons you make to eat later still shaking like whatever's in it is still alive at first." Joshua said getting the large spider to look away. If Cinder was a normal human girl he'd expect to see her blushing alongside the action.

"Well you've got me there, but in the end I made my voice like this because Amy is the female I've met with the closest personality to me. So I decided to mimic my voice after hers a bit." Cinder finally replied after she got over Joshua's former statement.

"I guess you two are a lot alike in several ways in the end." Henry said with a small smile. "Loud, overly energetic, and battle happy to name a few of the similarities."

"Hey!" Both Cinder and Amy shouted back at the same time getting everyone to laugh a bit at their response.

"Well we've still got a while before the boss appears and the fighting starts up again so let's hear about what new things you can do Cinder." Joshua asked getting the large spider to be happy again.

"Well I'm not sure about everything yet, but I can feel that I have strong control over both fire and ice, or I guess you can say I'm great at shifting between the two elements. You'd have to ask Lilly about all of my new skills in particular since I still need to figure them all out myself after all." Cinder said as she started concentrating on controlling the ice cold fog that was now once again pouring off of her body. They still had around twenty minutes or so before the upcoming boss fight, so it was a good chance for Cinder to practice on controlling her abilities before the upcoming boss fight.

After Cinder started working on her control Joshua decided to go to Lilly for his answers since he knew the system would give her all the information she needed for her beast partners to understand their capabilities. Lilly seemed to be a step ahead of Joshua as she was already reading through Cinder's information and she was smiling the entire time. She then sent it out to the rest of the group so that they could understand the changes that Cinder had gone through. The first thing Joshua noticed was the fact that Cinder was still considered a mutated black widow, but instead of child she was considered an adolescent. All of her stats had gone up by quite a bit with her strength stat going up the most and it was closing in on the giant spider's dexterity. The biggest change came in the form of the new skills she had gained.

[Temperature shift (Passive): Cinder has a better control of her passive ability to create heat and now can also generate cold with her new empowered aura. She can also balance the two out completely to help hide her presence and prevent herself from effecting the surroundings.

Ice fog (Active): This ability is similar to Cinders smoldering smoke and allows her to generate a freezing cold fog that will greatly lower the temperature of anything it touches and given enough time will freeze the enemy solid. Also greatly hampers the enemy's vision and makes it easier for Cinder to hide her presence.

Freezing Venom (Active): Unlike Cinders burning poison that is designed to create as much pain as possible for her target this poison numbs the body and makes it hard to feel anything. Given enough time it will make it so that the enemy can't use anything near the infected area as it spreads throughout their body.

Toxic spurs (Active): The spurs on the top and back of Cinder's abdomen can be used as a defensive measure. If touched they will send either version of Cinder's poisons into the enemies boy causing the effect of the poison. The spurs can also be shot out from Cinders back and deal damage while poisoning the enemy as well. It takes time for the spurs to grow back, but otherwise there is no cool down for this ability. The poison changes depending on which state Cinder is in.]

After reading through everything Joshua was able to see the major changes with Cinder's combat ability. He also noticed some of her former skills like heat exhaust were replaced with the new ones that allowed her to use both flames and ice. She could also do similar things with her web either having it slowly burn the target, or slowly freeze it. This made Cinder far more versatile for upcoming fights and also made it so that she had far more ways to slow down enemies if needed.

Lilly also sent Joshua the changes to Tank as well. Although tank didn't get any new abilities with his small change after reaching level fifty his stats did grow quite a bit. He was still as slow as ever, but his vitality just kept sky rocketing along with his strength and will. This meant the giant turtle's aura would be even more powerful in the future and it was clear why the turtle focused more on training aura even though it could use some basic water magic. Tank might have mana just like Joshua probably did, but their focus was on their aura first and foremost in the end.

During the small break Cinder seemed to get a good control over her abilities as she happily moved around creating ice on the platform and skating on it with such ease for such a giant creature. Cinder was always great at shifting the environment and it seemed like that wouldn't be changing anytime soon. It was when Cinder finished another spin and made her way back over to the group that the portal to the exit closed off and everyone was once again prepared to take on the boss for the dungeon. It would probably be their last time doing so for a while until they brought in some other people that they wanted to gain the Fade Presence skill.

They all prepared for another fight with Cinder seeming to be the most excited to try out her new abilities. Tank decided to take the front this time for the upcoming clash. Now that he had reached level fifty and unsealed some more of his powers he would be able to stand up against higher level bosses more easily. He might not outright kill them on his own, but he sure as hell wasn't going down with the ridiculously high vitality he had. At this point even the supped up Ant Queen wouldn't stand a chance of breaking through his shell and would have to claw at Tanks exposed body parts if it wanted to do any damage, but that was unlikely to happen with Tank being far smarter than any other beast they had come across up to this point.

Soon the large portal that announced the presence of the incoming boss appeared and it went the exact same way as last time with a giant spirit beast coming out first then a smaller yet just as powerful spirit beast following it soon after. When the two spirit beast came down to the platform the platform once again shifted and became covered in rocks as it grew out to make room for the massive creature that the spirit beast was about to take the form of. Cinder didn't wait for that to happen though and decided to change the environment to benefit herself more. Her cold fog spread out throughout the entire platform and the only reason it didn't affect Joshua's group was a combination of a warming charm that kept them in good shape thanks to Henry and the fact that the fog was being controlled by cinder through her Aura. It didn't affect those she was fighting alongside nearly as much as her enemies. In fact Tank was pretty much able to brush it off completely with a little aura even without a warming charm.

The cold fog made the platform cold and frigid as well which made the environment nothing like the spirit beast would have wanted. First the large spirit beast started to morph into a new form and when it was done they could all tell that it had taken the form of the enormous two headed lizard that Joshua and Lilly had faced back in the marsh dungeon. The smaller spirit beast boss on the other hand didn't morph into the form of the warlock that had fought alongside the lizard back in the dungeon, but instead took the form of the elite ant that fought alongside the Ant Queen in her dungeon. With this combination Joshua new the two creatures would focus on power and speed respectively.

After that several of the low level spirits formed different creatures to help strengthen the two bosses. One formed into a Flutter mimic that boosted all of the enemies while several others formed into the small squirrel like creatures that would boost the strength of any beast they attached themselves too. There were a couple other beast that got in their way, but they were cannon fodder for the most part to try to wear the group down. Before the fighting even started Joshua could see that the fog was having an effect against all of the enemies. They all seemed to be slowed down from it with the chill having an even stronger effect on them because they were spirit beast and were far more susceptible to mana or aura based attacks.

All of the small creatures looked as if they were going to be frozen on the spot after a few moments with the butterfly being the first spirit to be frozen solid thus destroying the buffs to the rest of the creatures. The squirrels lasted a bit longer, but while the two headed lizard charged towards Tank through the fog they could all see that the squirrels were starting to fall off and freeze to death as well. Tank and the giant lizard smashed into each other and everyone was shocked at the fact that Tank seemed to have the advantage with his aura giving him much more strength. The lizard tried to claw at his shell to create space, but the new round protrusions made it impossible for it to get a grip thus letting Tank snap its aura filled Jaws on one of its necks and tear into it.

The elite ant was about to rush over and help, but it wasn't nearly as fast as it could be because of the fog freezing up its wings and slowing it down. This made its blinding speed seem average at best and that was all it took for Cinder to shoot it out of the sky with a thick amount of webbing. They could hear the elite ant screeching as its body was slowly being frozen by a combination of the webbing and fog. It didn't take long for Cinder to march over and put it out of its misery by tearing off its head. Then she rushed over to help Tank tear apart the big guy quickly. With no help the two headed lizard was killed off in minutes and the whole group was just stunned as they watched things take place.

It was clear that the combination that the dungeon had picked this time wasn't very strong in comparison to the last time through, but it was still shocking to see Cinder and Tank take care of the whole thing with only the added boost from Flutter as help. When the fight finished Cinder turned excitedly back to the group before speaking. "Well how did I do?"