Risen World

Chapter 258: Canyon Dungeon Part 6

The door was quite heavy as Joshua strained his muscles to push it open as it groaned loudly from his effort. By the time he had finished pushing it all the way open everyone in the group was able to look into the room that was shrouded completely from sight by the darkness even with the lantern right behind them. It was just like when they first entered the path and once again their eyes were struggling to try to adjust to the darkness after having been around the lantern for a while outside of the room.

The first thing Joshua noticed about the room was the fact that it was enormous. He didn't notice this because of the fact that he was able to see anything, but instead he noticed it because of the echo sound that the room generated from the door being opened. The sound seemed to reverberate around the entire place and that was a good way to tell just how large it was. The group was about to go back to having Natalie send images of the surroundings from Becca's vision, but before either of the two could get ready to do just that the lantern than was behind them just outside of the door started to hover off of the wall and float into the room.

This sudden change grabbed everyone's attention, but they all made sure to have their weapons ready and to be on guard since they didn't know how things would go moving forward. Joshua was especially weary of his surroundings since he had to be ready to protect the rest of the group at any moment and the sudden change of lighting behind him caused him to tense up even more. The moment he had entered the room he could feel the presence of two other creatures in the area without even using his aura sense. The reason he was able to feel their presence was simply because of the massive amount of killing intent that was pouring off of them. He was certain that the others were feeling something similar, but for the moment nothing seemed to be happening except the lantern floating into the room slowly.

The instant the lantern had completely passed through the door both sides of the door slammed shut with a loud thump that echoed throughout the entire room. The group assumed the small amount of time it took for the lantern to come into the room was the same amount of time the group was given to turn back if they didn't feel like they were ready for the boss fight up ahead. It was actually a fairly decent set up by the dungeon since it gave any parties that tried to take on the dungeon a chance to feel how powerful the two creatures in the room were. If the group felt like it was too much of a challenge then this was the time for them to rush back beyond the doors and head to safety.

Now that the doors had slammed shut behind them they were forced into fighting whatever was waiting for them as the lantern started to float ahead of them. They all kept their eyes on the lantern as it grew brighter and floated ahead lighting up the room. The light started to shine on the floor ahead as the large area it brightened up seemed to expand showing more and more of the room, but at the same time the lantern was slowly starting to flicker as if it was starting to have trouble resisting the darkness in the room. It was similar to when Henry tried to maintain the orb of light and had to struggle as the orb was being overpowered. It was then that Joshua realized that looking directly at the lantern probably wasn't a good idea, but he also needed to be able to see what exactly they were up against before they were forced into a fight. It didn't take long for Joshua and the rest of the group to find that out as the lantern floated to the middle of the room at a faster pace as if it was rushing to accomplish its mission before it ran out of power.

As the lantern rushed to the center of the room it started to illuminate a large figure that it was passing by as it floated up into the air. From the small glimpses of the creature that Joshua was able to see he could tell that the beast was definitely a beetle by its heavily armored exoskeleton that seemed far thicker than any other creature he had seen before. It was even more heavily armored than the ant queen even if it wasn't as big. The exoskeleton had hard spikes protruding from all over the creature from what they could see as every area the lantern passed had the large spikes. This would make it hard to fight the creature up close and already had the group thinking that magic would be the best way to go about fighting the beast.

Eventually the lantern passed by the beetles face and Joshua frowned as he was able to observe the creature for a brief moment. It was simply called a heavy armored beetle which didn't come as much of a surprise to Joshua, but its level did. The creature was actually level eighty which of course put it up another tier from all of the level seventy creatures they had to face in the canyon along with the fact that it was a boss class beast. It had five stars by its name and seemed to be glaring ferociously at the group before the lantern left its face. One other thing Joshua noticed about the beetle was the fact that the horn protruding from its face was far thicker than any of the other beetles which would make it extremely difficult to try to cut it off. In fact Joshua doubted they'd be able to take out the horn especially if the creature had any sort of healing factor.

When the beetle was out of sight Joshua turned his attention back towards the lantern to see if it would be able to show off the other boss as well. He didn't know what types of skills the beetle possessed, but he at least knew how big it was and its basic body structure at this point. From what he could see of it he estimated the beetle was around seven stories tall which would make it bigger than Tank. Its body also seemed rather bulky so it was probably slow moving, but powerful. Now Joshua could think of how to handle that boss and was waiting to see the other enemy that they'd have to face. Soon the other creature came into the line of sight as the lantern floated higher into the air. It reached the point where it was illuminating the ceiling and making it possible to see the other beast that they would have to face.

The creature was clearly a bat from what Joshua could tell. It became obvious when the lantern started floating passed the creature's large wings that seemed to cover a large portion of the ceiling in the room. From how long it took for the lantern to just float passed one wing it was clear to Joshua that the bat was enormous. When the lantern started to shine on the main body of the bat Joshua was able to tell that the bat's body was at least as large as Cinder and its wings just made it even bigger. The long wings were like dark curtains that seemed to drape from the ceiling as the bat started to look down at them.

It was as the lantern passed its head that Joshua was finally able to observe the creature. It came as no surprise that the bat was the same level as the beetle at eighty and had five stars by its name of razor blood bat. Its features were a mix of blood red along with black which would make it blend in well with its surroundings. After illuminating the bat the lantern came to a stop and hovered in the air as it continued to shine brighter and brighter, but Joshua knew that it wouldn't be a good idea to keep looking at the lantern any longer since it would mess with his sight and put him at an even greater disadvantage.

'Close your eyes guys, we don't need to be blinded by the lantern as the two bosses charge at us. Natalie help us all switch over to Becca's sight so that we can at least have some idea of what's going on around us.' Joshua shouted through the mental link as the lantern started flickering rapidly. He closed his eyes and even with his eyes closed he could still see things brighten up around him through his eye lids. The lantern flared with light one last time as it seemed to burst out with so much light that the entire room was lit up, but that was only for a moment as the darkness once again took hold of the area.

It was in the moment that the light faded away that both creatures rushed into action. The beetle started charging forward causing loud thumping sounds from its heavy body crushing the floor beneath its feet. The bat on the other had unfurled its wings completely as it dived from the ceiling and started flying around above the group. Its simple movements were so quick that Becca's echolocation sight wasn't able to keep up and it made it look like the bat was teleporting short distances with each movement it made.

"Tanks protect the back line from the bat. Abigail and Jayce this is your priority. Use any shielding abilities to stave off the bat whenever it comes in for the attack since it moves to quickly to try to stop with regular defenses. Magic user focus fire on the beetle since it'll be easier to hit even if it doesn't do as much damage. Isabella get started on lowering the temperature in the room to slow the bat down, Lilly have Cinder come out to help." Joshua shouted out loud to get as much attention on him as possible.

The rest of the group got ready for the battle and took Joshua's words seriously. Lilly summoned all of the beast she could at the moment to help out. Cinder immediately turned into her ice form and started helping Isabella cool down the entire room. Henry of course cast a small warming charm on everyone so they'd be able to hold up better in the chilly environment. It was a small charm spell from Henry so it didn't drain much of his mana although it would only last thirty minutes before he'd have to cast it again. Every other ranged fighter started bombarding the beetle as it charged forward. At first the charge was slow, but it was quickly gaining momentum to the point where it could run over the entire group if given the opportunity.

The spells exploded on the beetles body while the arrows and bullets only seemed to leave small dents. Aito and Natalie weren't able to aim for the eye because there was a visor in front of each of its eyes from its armored exoskeleton that protected them. Even with all of the attacks the beetle didn't slow down for a moment. Instead it kept picking up speed and Joshua knew that he was going to have to stop its movement quickly before things got too bad.

The bat on the other hand was flying up above as it wings started to give off a heat that seemed to ward off the chill from its body. It started to turn in the direction of Isabella and Cinder as it prepared to swoop down and attack the back line. Before things got bad Joshua charged forward and used a heroic shout to grab the attention of both bosses for the moment. He then set up defensively in front of the beetle with the stance he had practiced with Marlow for so long. He was using his scale blade like a shield as he used his arms and shoulder to brace for impact. The beetle was aiming its horn straight for Joshua so he didn't have to move to halt its charge, but he made sure to go into his aura hardening state to withstand the impact.

The moment the horn bashed into his scale blade Joshua was pushed back several feet from the power as the beetle continued to try to run him over, but with the help of his rock steady ability Joshua was able to slow down the beetle's momentum before it could shove him back into the rest of the group. Once all of its momentum had been taken away the beetle was once again back to its slow self as it was locked in place still trying to push through Joshua. Joshua responded by twisting his scale blade and knocking the beetles horn away. He followed up by dashing forward and leaping into the air and smashing the beetle with a sword smash to knock it back a bit and give the group some more room to continue attacking.

The moment Joshua landed he could feel the giant bat blur to his side so fast that the echolocation that Natalie was feeding him through the mental link wasn't able to keep up. Joshua quickly twisted trying to avoid the bat's bite, but it moved so quickly that he was grazed by one of its large fangs leaving a large gash on his shoulder even in the aura hardened state. That wasn't the problem at the moment though since Joshua knew that he would heal up quickly, the problem was the fact that the fang had some sort of paralytic poison that froze Joshua in place. With a large bat preparing to dive in again from above and a beetle trying to stomp him into the ground he wasn't liking his predicament.