Chapter 212: Canyon Dungeon Part 14

When the group reached the floor the area above them was closed off as if to prove that they were now safe from the trap. A ceiling had started to be created from the rocks along the walls and it separated them from the trap that they had been running from for the past hour. The room they were now in was strangely enough lit up by the fading light of glyphs on all of the stones spread across the room. It became clear to the group that all of the stones were the remains of the boss that had died. They soon found the remains of the dead goat but its body was surprisingly still intact after having fallen from such a height. Sadly the gem seemed to be the life source for the goat seeing as its perfectly unharmed body was dead.

Joshua walked over and stored the goat's body into his inventory seeing as how it could be useful later on to sell to the system. It didn't seem all that different from the other ram like creatures they had faced so he highly doubted the materials would be any better. If they ever decided to try to clear this dungeon again he'd try to see if he could actually take the gem away from the boss and keep it for himself, but they'd have to be in a stronger position to do such a thing.

After searching the rest of the room they were able to find the exit which was a teleportation glyph at the back. They also found another royal blue treasure chest that was sitting right next to the teleportation glyph. The fact that they had found another one right after killing one of the bosses proved to everyone that each boss would leave behind a reward for them to take. Of course they all looked towards Joshua waiting for him to go over and open it. He just went along with it and the group left the room with another higher tier blue print that they were all happy about.

Going through the teleportation glyph had taken them back to the central point of the dungeon where they could all see that another section of the final boss room had been unlocked. The amount of pathways on the enormous door that had been cleared was larger than the amount that had been cleared from taking down the bat and beetle bosses. "Well now we know for sure that the bosses have a different tier list to them for this dungeon." Henry said getting everyone's attention.

"I figured." Joshua simply said as he looked over towards the giant door. "That means that the last two bosses might have a difference in strength between them as well. For all we know we could end up waltzing into some fight drastically different from what we were expecting like with that golden goat." The entire group turned to look towards the last two doors besides the boss room that they had to explore before they could try to take on the final boss of the dungeon. They were half way through at this point, but they all realized that they had basically finished off the easier parts to the dungeon so far and had tougher challenges ahead of them.

Joshua looked over his group to see what condition they were in and realized that the close range fighters and tanks were all exhausted since they basically spent the last half day climbing down a large wall at a hurried pace to avoid getting squashed to death, then fought a crazy boss that forced them to waste even more energy since it kept reforming itself, then finally they had to once again rush down a wall at a hurried pace. The mages weren't any better off since they had to constantly fire out spells at the boss and drain their mana away even if they were on Cinder's back while going down the wall.

At this point everyone was fairly exhausted even if they didn't give off the impression. He could still feel that it was a good time for the group to take a break before going forward. They would have to decide which path they would have to take next anyway and they weren't in too much of a rush. The last path had only taken the better part of a day so they didn't lose too much time. Joshua wasn't certain how long the last two paths were going to take the group to get through so he decided they should take a break while they had the chance. If they ended up going down another path with no breaks like with the ram path then they might end up burning themselves out and putting themselves in unnecessary danger.

"Alright let's set up camp here for the night and get some rest before deciding on which path we should take in the morning. Get some rest so that you will all be in top condition for the next path. It doesn't matter which path we end up choosing, both the spider and the snake were far more powerful than the rest of the creatures in the canyon so be prepared." Joshua explained getting nods from everyone. After that the group went through the routine of setting up camp and getting dinner ready. At this point they were all used to each other's habits so everything went rather fast and soon enough they were all sitting around a fire while eating and discussing how things had gone so far on the dungeon exploration.

From what Joshua could gather from what he was hearing from everyone the mages felt that so far the dungeon had been geared against them heavily. The first path had blinded there view and made it hard to attack one of the bosses altogether. While the second path had them trying to climb down a wall at an insane pace that most mages wouldn't be able to keep up with. What was worse in their opinion was the fact that both boss battles consisted of enemies that could easily regenerate or straight up reform themselves. It made them feel a bit hard pressed to do any real damage during boss fights.

The healers seemed to feel that things were going far better than they expected. The triplets were used to spamming healing spells on the main tank of any dungeons they had been in before. It was a fact that tanks were usually slow moving and often had to take the brunt of blows from their enemies. They had the defense to withstand such attacks, but they usually didn't heal up faster than the boss would do damage even in the case of berserkers. This was the first time all three triplets had gone through a dungeon where the main tank not only rarely took any major damage, but could regenerate on his own at such a fast rate that they didn't have to waste all of their mana trying to heal him. Joshua knew he was an anomaly in this regard since he was a well-rounded fighter stats wise which allowed him to dance around slow bosses while keeping up with the faster ones and minimizing the damage he took.

The tanks of the group for the most part found the dungeon to be going rather smoothly. They had plenty of healing if they were ever put in a bad spot and a lot of the strategies that Joshua, Henry, and Isabella had been coming up with to fight throughout the dungeon had kept their safety in mind. Plus having Tank there to take the pressure off of them against the massive bosses was also a huge help. At this point they had a good feel for the roles they should play in the group. The Carsen brothers were single target tanks that could take pressure off Joshua. Jayce was a wall that could protect the group from unexpected attacks or any abilities that got past Joshua. Lastly Abigail was a stun machine that can go in to stun a target at the opportune time while hanging back to guard the mages and healers against any surprise attacks. They all felt their group worked fairly well together.

The close range fighters however realized that a lot of the bosses they were facing were heavily armored. Although that had been a problem for the mages to an extent it was an even bigger problem for the close range damage dealers. Adrian had trouble finding weak spots along the bosses since they had been so heavily armored while Adam had to focus on extremities for the most part if he wanted to deal any real damage to the enormous bosses. In the end the two main bosses they had fought against had regenerative abilities which ruined their hard work. The only one that was able to do any real damage was Amy and that was because of her soul beast abilities.

After listening in on everyone's opinion Joshua realized there was still some issues with how they fought the bosses, but with each boss bringing something completely different it was hard to adjust on the fly in a way that would make things easier. In the end he put those thoughts to the back of his mind as he tuned out Madalyn discussing something about a poison she'd figured would help deal with some of the regenerative issues of the bosses they had faced. He knew Henry and Isabella would figure out the best way to form a new strategy going forward, but for now he needed to decide which boss he should prepare to fight against next.

At this point they were down to the last two creatures that they had faced from the canyon, and if the pattern continued from earlier then Joshua was certain that the bosses would be far stronger and creative than the regular beast from the canyon that they had recently taken down. The first thing Joshua thought about was which creature was stronger from the fight back in the canyon. Based off of that he'd decide which path he would chose next. At this point he was on the verge of leveling up again and he knew that he'd need all the strength he could get before taking on the stronger one of the two just in case the leap in strength was enormous in comparison to the bat, beetle, and ram.

From what Joshua remembered of the fight between the snake and the spider there were a few things that stood out to him. First when it came to the spider the main thing that caught his attention was the fact that it had extraordinary burst speed. Unlike the bat that could continuously move at high speeds and make it nearly impossible to hit, the spider was far too big to rely on that type of speed to avoid its opponents. Instead the type of speed it used had more to deal with its attacks. Its legs could strike at blinding speeds that rivaled the bats movements, but the main difference between the two was the power behind the attacks.

When the bats fang had ripped into Joshua's shoulder it still wasn't enough damage to leave a serious injury. His aura hardening was able to hold off most of the damage and leave a small cut that healed rather quickly with regeneration and a couple of healing spells. The spider however could literally rip Joshua's arm off in the same situation and he was certain a boss level spider could do something even more dangerous. This burst speed was the main advantage for the spider, but it also had a large weakness. It wasn't heavily armored and therefore would take a beating from any of their attacks. They just had to land them.

The snake on the other hand was a completely different animal. Its biggest strength was a combination of its size and scales. Its enormous size did make it hard to miss, but it also made all of their attacks seem small in comparison. The scales on its body also acted as an extra defense that was hard to break through with their damage output in the canyon. Joshua was certain that the snake boss would be far harder to hurt and would have a couple other tricks up its sleeve like the other bosses in this dungeon. The only weakness the snake had was the fact that it was lazy in Joshua's opinion which often lead to it leaving openings since it so easily believed in its defenses.

'Choices, choices. Which one do I make?' Joshua asked himself as he started eating his food.