Chapter 32: That's One Spicy Gator!

There weren't too many hours left in the day so Joshua was preparing to take on the giant alligator before it got dark. It would be a nightmare to take on such a beast in the dark where other creatures could get involved in their fight if they were unlucky. So it was time for them to make their move so they would have enough time to take down the lake guardian without any interference. The only problem was how they were going to lure it out of the water. Joshua didn't want to risk any of Lilly's pets before the fight even started, so that they could actually help him out against their target. The best thing he could think of was to lure another poor frog over to be bait in their stead.

That's why they were currently making their way through the forest in search of another frog to anger and lure over towards the lake. While searching Joshua made sure that Lilly put away her giant frog now named Mr. Hoppy. At the time he was surprised that Lilly gave the frog a genuine name…well in her case a genuine name. After what she had said about the lizard not having much potential he figured the three star frog was probably in the same boat sense it wasn't a variant or anything special, but apparently he was wrong in that regard. Lilly could feel that the creature had a lot more potential than any other creature they had come across while going through the marsh, and she even claimed that it was close to evolving into a different beast.

Joshua wasn't sure how far the frog would go, but he could tell it was a bit different from the other frogs he had come across up to this point. Not only was it larger and more powerful, it was also more intelligent than the rest of its kind. That could be seen from the fight it had with the alligator before. The entire time it had tried to keep its distance and attack from afar to go along with its only advantage. Even when it had lost its partner it didn't charge in with a blind rage like the other frogs tended to do, but ran away instead.

The only problem Joshua saw with the frog was its size. It was too big to be used in smaller places like the halls in a dungeon and it also relied too much on its size like others of its kind. Unlike the alligator that had large dense scaled for defense to protect its body the frogs relied completely on their regenerative abilities to tank attacks. It might work against enemies that couldn't over power their healing abilities, but the alligator could tear any of the frogs apart in a matter of seconds if given the chance. The frog's strong suit was as a ranged attacker, but they had the mind set of melee fighters. Luckily Lilly would be able to command it going forward so he wouldn't have to worry about it charging in recklessly. In the future he would have to find Lilly a pet that could actually work as a tank that could draw attention away from him in a tough fight if necessary.

After a while they found a small pond with a perfect one star frog croaking arrogantly on its edge. The frog was rather young in comparison to the one Lilly had tamed and it wasn't going to be able to put up any fight against the alligator, but it was large and juicy enough to get its attention. "Go ahead and summon your lizard to ride on while we lead this guy over to the lake. I'll run ahead of it and you follow close behind and out of sight. Alright?" Joshua explained getting a nod in return from his partner.

Lilly summoned the Lizard and hopped on to its back before the two bunnies she was holding both used their presence concealment ability to hide the entire group. If Joshua wasn't looking towards them he would even have a hard time noticing they were still there. Joshua then flared his aura brightly grabbing the attention of the arrogant frog that glared over in his direction. It croaked angrily before hopping after him for entering its home. Although Joshua could easily out run the frog he made sure to move at a pace where the dumb frog believed it would be able to catch up to him. A couple of times he even let it get close enough to where it tried to grab him with its tongue. Both times he easily avoided it and angered the frog even further.

It didn't take to long for them to reach the lake at the pace they were moving. When Joshua could tell he was getting close he rushed ahead at a faster pace making the frog chase after him more frantically. When he burst out into the clearing he immediately suppressed his aura to the fullest and hid off to the side where he saw Lilly waiving at him to come over to. Although he couldn't hide his presence nearly as well as she could the fact that his large amount of aura was suddenly gone made it hard for the frog to find him. It hopped into the clearing and looked around for Joshua only for a moment. When it couldn't find him it turned its attention towards the lake that was far larger than its previous little pond.

The frog took notice of the fact that there weren't any other creatures in the vicinity which meant the place was free territory in its eyes. It croaked loudly as if to challenge any creatures that might have been within hearing distance for the location. When nothing responded it eagerly made its way over to the lake in a strutting like fashion. Its overconfidence and pride would be the reason it died in a few moments. It didn't take too long for Joshua to sense the aura from the alligator in the lake start moving towards where the frog was resting next to the water. In the end it was like déjà vu all over again.

In one flash of movement the large alligator erupted from the lake bit down ferociously on the surprised frog. The only difference this time was it didn't drag it back into the water. There were no other enemies around that could disturb its meal so it just bit down more ferociously on the belly of the frog before walking completely out of the water. Its large frame and long tail were all covered in large plated scales that would make it hard to damage. Even its head was covered in what almost looked like armored plating from how thick the scales were. The beast laid down at the edge of the lake as it slowly chowed down on its meal, piece by piece.

Joshua took in a deep breath as he observed the creature. It still had four stars next to its level and it name was a crimson red color, but from what Joshua had seen of the creature it relied on its strength and surprise tactics to make quick work of its opponents. This time around Joshua planned on being the one causing the surprise. "Alright Lilly. That's are target." Joshua said as he looked over towards his partner. She was looking at the alligator in awe for a moment before frowning. "What's wrong?"

"I can't tame it." She replied while pouting causing Joshua to sweat a bit at her act. "Oh well, I guess I'll just have to hope there is something even better in the dungeon."

"I'm sure there will be, but for now here's the plan on taking that big guy down. I'm going to start off getting in a surprise attack on one of its legs at first. I would love to go for the head, but then it would probably react before I can get in a good shot." Joshua explained getting a nod from her in return. "You will get onto your frog and use its acid bubbles to attack any of the spots I damaged it at. Although the acid can't penetrate those scales it can probably do damage to what's underneath them. Once we've got it beaten down and injured enough I'll go in for the kill."

"Sounds fine, I'll make sure Flutter boost your strength the whole time while Mr. and Mrs. Floppy are on standby to heal you if needed." She replied while summoning her frog out of sight of the large alligator. The moment Mr. Hoppy appeared it glared ferociously towards the alligator that it had recognized. The only reason it didn't charge over was because Lilly was telling it not too through their link to each other. The frog lowered its head as Lilly climbed up on top with all of her other pets except the lizard that had been replaced by Mr. Hoppy. She signaled to Joshua that she was ready.

Joshua took out his blade, but didn't ignite his aura just yet just to keep himself hidden. He ran towards the back of the alligator while keeping on his toes to be as silent as possible. When he got close enough for the alligator to hear his approach he activated his scarf and used the light feeling to jump as high as possible into the air. He floated well above the now alert alligator that had looked in the direction of where he had been approaching from. Now that he was up in the air above it the beast couldn't locate him fast enough. Now in prime position he stopped flowing aura into the scarf and started to fall down with all the weight of his large scale blade at his disposal. Before he swung the blade he let his aura shroud flare into being and coated the sword in aura causing the enchantment on it to start up.

The moment the scale blade made contact with one of the alligators back legs the weight of the blade doubled and the force of the impact created a loud crashing sound followed by the breaking of the heavy scales around the point of impact. Even with all that force built up it wasn't enough to cut off the leg, but it was still enough to create a large gash that started spilling blood immediately, but the attack wasn't finished. Soon an aura echo appeared right above Joshua as it mirrored his previous movements and attacked the exact same spot. This follow up blow widened the area of damage and completely tore off a few scales that had been clinging on to the skin around the wound.

Before the attack had even finished a loud roar erupted from the giant alligator that turned around and glared fiercely towards Joshua. Its large mouth was held slightly open showing off its rows of dirtied teeth that still had bits and pieces of frog skin and meat hanging from them. Its eyes narrowed before it swung its massive tail towards Joshua at a far faster speed than he was expecting. Joshua used in aura blast from his feet to dodge out of the way in time while creating some distance between himself and the angered beast. As he was preparing to go in for another attack while the alligator was turned around after swinging its massive tail a large ball of acid came flying in from the side and smashed into the wound he had created on the alligator's leg. The giant beast screamed in pain at the attack and turned its attention to his new attacker.

Lilly was sitting atop Mr. Hoppy and they were both staring right back at the angered alligator. It looked surprised to see another frog willing to attack it for a moment before it charged towards the pair of them. Lilly immediately commanded her pet to hop away while shooting another ball of acid at the maddened creatures face. This only annoyed it a bit, but it did get them more than enough time to get out of the alligators range of attack. While it was distracted Joshua charged in with another full forced blow to the side of the creature causing it to yelp in pain at the attack and turn its attention back towards him. He jumped out of the way of its retaliating attack before sending an aura blast from his sword to cut along the fresh wound he had just made. It didn't do as much damage as a close up attack, but did widen the injury a bit more.

Of course Lilly didn't stay idle while this was occurring and sent another acid ball towards new wound to do some more damage. She also had Flutter cast its boost ability on Joshua and the frog so their attacks would do even more damage while one of the rabbits casted its regen ability on Joshua while the other was focused on the frog. Like this the battle carried on for a while as Joshua went in and out to deal devastating blows to the massive creature. It didn't have the healing capabilities to keep up with the amount of damage Joshua was doing, and the acid constantly being blasted onto its wounds only made it even harder for it to heal up at all. After a while the alligator roared angrily at its situation and let out a massive surge of aura that turned its dark green skin a heated red color. Steam started to float off its body as Joshua backed up far away from it.

When the alligator finally settled down it turned towards Joshua and charged over at nearly twice the speed as before. The situation became dire as its large mouth was already seconds away from chomping down on him when he barely dived out of the way, but the attack wasn't over. The large alligator twisted sending its tail swiping towards Joshua at a speed he wouldn't be able to avoid. So instead Joshua quickly took up a defensive stance and used aura hardening to amplify the density of his shroud and strengthen his defense to new heights. When the large tail struck his blade the impact sent him sliding across the muddy grown for several feet, but he was able to maintain his position. Even with his aura hardening he could feel the soreness in his arms from taking that blow, but his natural aura regeneration and the healing from the rabbits quickly fixed any problems he would have.

The large beast charged over again intending to chomp down on Joshua and drag him underwater to finish him off, and this time it was able to reach him before he could react and move out of the way. Its large mouth surrounded him, but Joshua simply smiled and allowed an ability he hadn't used before to form around him. It was his aura shield. It was like a large sphere nearly the size of one of the frogs that lived in the marsh area. Of course it was only that large because Joshua projected it to be that size, but it filled its role perfectly. The moment the large alligator's mouth tried to chomp down on the shield it froze up in surprise at the fact that its teeth couldn't penetrate the shield.

Not knowing what to do it decided to drag him into the water, but Joshua wasn't having any of that. He charged up another aura blast with his scale blade and swung directly up into the back of the mouth towards the head of the beast. On the outside it had scales that could protect it from such a blow, but from within the sharpened force was so powerful that it tore right through and up into the creatures skull. The force was so powerful that a loud dull thud could be heard from the other side as some of the scales on the outside of its head started to crack. The echo strike came next and destroyed any chance of the beast surviving the attack.

Joshua jumped out of its mouth before the dead beast mouth could clamp shut on him. With a bright smile Joshua looked on the large enemy he and Lilly were able to take down. He could feel a swelling of pride along with a surge of strength that was a sign that he had leveled up from the fight. Now the only thing left to do was check out this dungeon.