Risen World

Chapter 264: Canyon Dungeon Part 12

The more damage the stone ram took the more it fixed its body and the more the stones in the room started to disappear. This cycle kept going until the point where every inch of the enormous room was covered in the glowing glyphs that were pulsing a golden color. At this point the entire group knew that something was about to change in the fight. Things had been going way too easy in their opinion in comparison to the last boss. It was as if this portion of the fight was simply designed to tire them out before the real boss fight started. Once the mages had noticed this they stuck to using less mana intensive spells just so that they wouldn't run out of mana when things started getting more challenging.

At some point all of the smaller rams stopped reforming as they grouped up and just crumbled into rocks as they surged back towards the large central ram statue like the rest of the rocks in the room. At this point there wasn't a stray rock left to be seen around and instead the floor had become extremely smooth and felt like it had been glossed over and prepared for just this moment. There were no cracks or uneven spots to be seen which proved how strong the material was considering the fact that several of the spells and attacks that the group had used had impacted the floor as they fought the boss. The glyphs that surrounded the room seemed a bit ominous as well and the entire group knew something drastic was about to happen.

As if to prove everyone's thoughts correct the large stone ram that had been battered and beaten the entire fight had distanced itself from Tank by letting the piece of stone that Tank had locked onto with his massive jaws fall off. As Tank let the stone fall to the floor it broke into several pieces that started rushing towards the ram and putting itself back together once more. The ram was now standing on one side of the room while the group was on the other. The eerie glowing glyphs constantly thrummed all around them and seemed to only glow brighter after the ram had backed away.

The ram let out a loud bleat that started shaking the entire room as the large gem on its forehead started glowing brilliantly and matched the color of the glyphs surrounding them all. The glyphs shined back in response and the entire group heard them hum in response as well. That's when the room started to shake even more putting everyone on edge. Tank took the front and prepared to stop the ram if it went on the attack, but the ram only seemed to chuckle in ridicule at Tank's actions before it charged over. Tank prepared to stop its attack, but at the last moment before the two were going to clash the ram leaped into the air while twisting. It stomped its large hooves on the ceiling which caused all the glyphs to glow once more before it hurled its body down towards the top of Tank's shell. It smashed directly into it causing Tank's legs to buckle under the pressure, but the shell endured the attack without a scratch.

If that were all there was to it things, would have been fine, but the moment the gem on the rams head smashed into Tank's shell it let out a massive pulse that caused all of the glyphs in the room to light up in response. Then the shaking suddenly stopped for the briefest of moments before a loud cracking sound split the air. That one crack was followed by several more as the entire room seemed to be filled with the cracks along all of the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. That's when the floor gave way beneath them and they were all sent falling into what looked like an enormous pit. The stones that crumbled seemed to surround them blocking their vision, but Joshua knew they needed to get to the wall as soon as possible or they'd gain too much speed in their fall.

'Get to the closest wall now and grab a hold of it.' Joshua shouted through the mental link since all of the crashing around him was too loud to try to yell over. 'Avoid getting knocked down by the rocks.' Most of the group sent positive responses as they leapt from the rubble and stuck to the nearby wall as quickly as possible. Joshua dived further down to get beneath the others so that he could help anybody out that needed it. He didn't worry too much about himself or Lilly falling too far since they both had equipment that would allow them to float down if needed.

When Joshua turned to look back up he could see Tank falling down as the last bits of the room that were still collapsing fell apart beneath him and the ram. With his size it would be impossible for him to cling on to the wall so Lilly immediately brought him back in to her soul realm. That left the giant stone ram to crumble apart on its own as the goat inside of it started to fall down into the pit as well. Cinder on the other hand was easily using the large clumps of stone to leap around the area and grab any of the members of the group that were struggling to get to the wall. By the time the giant spider had made its way over to the wall she had all of the healers and mages on her back. The rest of the group didn't have as much trouble as they used their weapons or hands to grab hold of the wall.

Now that Joshua was certain that everyone was out of trouble he smashed his scale blade into the wall to completely stop his momentum along with using his scarf's ability to slow his speed down as well. By the time he had stopped he was a decent ways away from the rest of the group, but he could climb his way back up if he had to. What caught his interest was the large goat that fell past him and kept falling along with all of the stones. It fell to the point where Joshua was no longer able to see it, but he could feel that the creature had yet to die. Otherwise he would have felt a large surge of experience and could consider the boss fight over.

Soon all of the ruble had stopped falling and things grew quiet as the group waited to see what would happen next. Most of the members higher up started climbing their way down towards Joshua in case something happened and he waited for them while staring into the hole beneath them. For a moment he could feel a surge of energy beneath them and he knew that things were about to get chaotic again. His suspicions were confirmed when the bright glow from the gem once again lit the area and he could see the several pieces of stones that had been falling beneath them glow brightly in response. Then all of the lights seemed to swarm together making crashing sounds that shook the wall. Everyone in the group were forced to stop their descent and hang on tightly to the wall so they wouldn't fall off.

It once again grew quiet, but they could all see the glyphs glowing brightly as they started to form some sort of massive creature beneath them. Soon the creature came within their sight and they could see what looked like some kind of abomination of a human made out of stone with a giant goat head crawling up the wall towards them. The creature was enormous, it was big enough to wrap Cinder's whole body in one of its hands and it took up the entire wall beneath them. It let out a loud roar as it stopped moving upward, but they all knew they would have to get passed it if they wanted to get off the wall. The problem with that was the fact each time one of the glyphs on its body started to glow the wall underneath the creature would shoot out large spikes that could kill them if given the chance.

The only way for the group to get down was to kill the beast so that the glyphs wouldn't keep creating the spikes along the wall. While Joshua was trying to figure out a way to go about doing just that he heard a large thump above them and could see that a part of the wall towards the ceiling had suddenly shot out and smashed into the other side. He knew right away that they were on a time limit and judging by how little room they had to spare they had at most five minutes to finish the fight or they'd either end up squashed into the wall or impaled on a spike.

'Damn it what do we do now we don't have much time!' Adrian shouted through the mental link as he climbed down to Joshua.

'We have to destroy the gem on its head. That's what's keeping the creature and all of the glyphs together.' Henry said as he used a wind spell to float down to where Joshua was and hung onto the wall. The entire time the giant creature just waited to see what they'd do. It knew that it had the upper hand at the moment and could just wait things out. 'Taking it out means the creature will fall apart, there will be no glyphs, and there for no spikes to kill us on are rush downward.'

'Mages target the gem and go all out.' Joshua shouted through the mental link getting mental nods in response. All of the mages on Cinder's back started shooting powerful spells of any type down towards the creatures head, but it seemed to expect that as it raised one of its massive hands to block off the attacks. The large explosions that followed cracked the hand in several places, but it wasn't breaking like with the previous body the goat and gem had formed. 'Aito, Natalie get down here now!'

A plan was starting to form in Joshua mind, but he would need to take out the arm for it to work in the slightest. Another large thump came from above them and he knew they were running out of time fast. Laura started pouring in lots of magic into her next spell and Joshua knew that she was about to cast something powerful that could help them out of the situation. Even so he knew it wouldn't be enough to blow off the arm and damage the gem at the same time. When he stared at the gem he could see a shield of aura covering it which meant he needed to break that before he could even attempt to destroy the actual gem. That meant it came down to either Joshua attacking it since he could use his own aura to overpower the shield or Amy who could penetrate through it to some extent. Magic and other physical attacks would just end up being negated and Joshua was certain that all of the glyphs would be able to repair the shield quickly if given the opportunity.

Laura let out a powerful spear of fire that pierced through the giant hand and exploded causing flames to cling to the area within the explosion. At first Joshua thought she was trying to destroy the entire hand, but he soon realized that she was aiming for something completely different. The flames that were left around the hole in the hand kept burning along the stone causing it to glow and warp slowly. That's when Joshua noticed Julia using her ability to control the flames and make them spread around the hand quickly. The powerful heat was draining the glyphs around the hand and making it impossible for the creature to reform the hand at a fast rate. This allowed the spells everyone else was creating to do major damage without having to worry about the hand and arm regenerating.

'Well that's one thing out of the way now we just have to worry about actually killing the thing.' Joshua thought as he started finishing the plan he had in mind. Now with one of the massive arms out of the way he had an idea of how to end things quickly and he planned to take it out in one quick sequence of events.