After the loud roar the massive Gorilla started to walk forward to come into the light. Its figure was pretty much the same as the last time they had seen it. All of its injuries from the battle in the town were gone, and if anything the power that it was giving off only seemed to grow even more. It still towered over everything in the room as it stood tall, but it surprisingly didn't charge ahead like all of them had expected. Instead it stood back as the other figures started to walk out of the darkened area to stand right beside it.
Joshua wasn't surprised when he saw the orangutan make its appearance. It explained right away why the gorilla wasn't charging ahead to create havoc the moment they entered the room. If it had done that then they would have been able to surround it and take it down quickly with the numbers advantage after having dealt with it before in the past. The orangutan clearly understood that fact and kept the big guy from being able to do what it clearly wanted too.
Outside of the orangutan there were four other figures that came within view of everyone. This time around there were four monkeys that looked small in comparison to the orangutan and the gorilla, but still much larger to their counterparts that Joshua's group had been coming across all throughout the dungeon. The monkeys stood out in front of the two larger apes as they danced around the vines agilely and prepared to strike out at any moment. With the vines all around the room it would be easy for the monkeys to become an issue if they were given the chance to use those vines to their advantage.
The apes weren't the only issue that the group noticed however. They also took notice of the two far larger vines that hovered across the ceiling and carried large fruits on them. They all knew what those fruits were capable of this time around and they didn't want to sit around and give their enemies a chance to use the fruit to their advantage.
'Alright everyone let's go with our plan.' Joshua said through the mental link before rushing forward with his scale blade held aloft. Even while rushing forward the gorilla still hadn't made its move, but Isabella was about to force their hands in to taking action. Before Joshua even made it half way through the large room a blizzard started to form around the area. The orangutan seemed to get angered at the fact that they would dare to try to go after the vines right away. It knew that the fruit and vines were their greatest advantage in a fight so it let out a roar that got the attention of the other apes. They all followed suit and started to charge over while the orangutan stayed near the back of the group trying to avoid being the targeted first.
Joshua knew that he wasn't going to be able to stop all of them on his own, but that wasn't his responsibility at the start of this fight. His focus was completely on the massive gorilla that was now rushing towards him, but didn't seem to be focused on him at all. Joshua quickly used a heroic shout to get the attention of all of the beast on him, but the orangutan clearly shook it off instantly before roaring again to make sure the others stood steady in their rush to go after the rest of the group. Knowing that it wasn't going to be easy he let his aura shroud take form before willing his aura along with using an aura blast from his feet to launch himself forward towards the gorilla.
The gorilla could see Joshua flinging himself towards him, but because of the size difference the gorilla tried to casually knock Joshua out of the way with its scorpion tail. Even though it was done casually the speed of the tail was still faster than the eye could see as it appeared right in the path of Joshua's lunge. The moment the tail was about swat Joshua aside he blinked past it to get right in front of the chest of the gorilla surprising it as it didn't have any time to react to Joshua's next move.
Joshua twisted in the air to get as much momentum as possible with his strike before using his sword smash skill. The force of the blow along with the weight of his scale blade was enough to bring the gorilla's momentum to a halt. Even with the powerful knock back effect of the skill the gorilla still wasn't pushed back in the slightest by the attack. This just proved how hard the creature was to stop, but Joshua had accomplished his motive. By stopping the gorilla's movement he separated the gorilla from the monkeys that were still rushing ahead towards the rest of the group. The orangutan was also separated since it was behind the gorilla and was forced to stop in its tracks when its far larger partner had been stopped in front of it. In this moment Joshua had split the beast into two groups which was exactly what he wanted.
The gorilla glared down at Joshua as he fell to the ground and landed in front of it. The vines around the area seemed to grow quickly in attempt to try to surround Joshua, but with a quick energy slash he was able to clear the area out around him. The gorilla in its angered state was about to try to pummel Joshua into the ground, but suddenly Joshua's presence vanished. Joshua used his presence hiding skill to give himself three seconds where he would lose the boss's attention.
Usually under those circumstances the boss would use that time to catch up with the monkeys in an attempt to go after the one that was causing the vines in the room to start freezing, but another problem stood in its way. The moment Joshua hid his presence Lilly summoned both Tank and Cinder right behind where Joshua stood. Tank at his full size was more than enough to get the attention of the gorilla, while Cinder was already releasing a heavy ice fog into the surroundings which only made all of the vines around the two freeze up immediately. This enraged the gorilla as it roared after seeing its vines frozen solid around the immediate area. It rushed forward attempting to attack Tank, but that was when Joshua decided to reappear.
Joshua popped up right in front of the Gorilla's face as he stabbed his scale blade into one of its eyes before tearing downward and gauging it out. The giant creature roared in pain, but didn't get much time to dwell on the injury as Tank reared up and slammed all of his weight into its chest. The gorilla was shoved stumbling backwards as Tank continued putting on the pressure by head-butting the gorilla to keep it off balance then he opened his large maw and bit down hard onto one of the gorilla's arms. Tank's mouth was coated in aura so there was no way for the gorilla to force him off in its current position.
With the gorilla being forced back the orangutan had to get out of the way which left it open to Cinder's attacks. Cinder shot over a couple large ice spears that not only forced the orangutan further away from the gorilla, but also made all of the vines in the room freeze even faster. Then Cinder launched herself at the orangutan to keep it from being able to give orders to the others, but she wasn't alone. Amy and Madalyn were both riding Cinder's back as she went into battle preparing to help out at any time they could.
Cinder tried to pin down the orangutan, but it was too smart to allow her to do that from the start of the battle. The orangutan used two of its arms to hold off Cinder's front legs. It was preparing to use its other arms to take the advantage in the fight, but Amy leaped off of Cinder's back with Jade empowering her. For this fight Lilly decided to forgo using Flutter to empower everyone for the moment since they were all spread out and the effect of Flutter's ability wouldn't be able to reach them all. That's why she allowed Light to empower Joshua from a distance and Jade to empower either Amy or Madalyn. At the moment Jade was in Amy's shadow and the moment that Amy got close enough Jade's tails shot out of her shadow and pierced into one of the orangutan's arms.
The orangutan looked at Amy in surprise since it had never seen this ability before, but the damage wasn't enough to be much of a threat to it. That wasn't Amy's or Jade's intention though as they used Jade's tails to swing up into the air in front of the orangutan's face. Amy punched out with a powerful blow that knocked the large ape's head to the side allowing Cinder to gain the advantage and bite into the ape's neck. The freezing poison that she was injecting would make the orangutan more sluggish, but Cinder didn't have enough time to inject too much of her poison as the orangutan attempted to spear her large thorax with its scorpion tail from underneath.
The one advantage Cinder had over the orangutan stats wise that was useful in their close quarter's confrontation was her speed and she had no problem putting that to use. She jumped into the air with her back legs avoiding the scorpion tail before using her webbing to pull herself up to the ceiling. In that moment Madalyn jumped down off of Cinder landing on the orangutan's shoulder near its neck. She used the moment that the orangutan was focused on Cinder to infect it with her own poison. She tossed a container that easily broke open the moment it slammed into the wound on the orangutan's neck. The contents splashed over the injury and started seeping into the wound rather quickly.
The orangutan roared in pain as it slammed one of its hands onto its neck, but Madalyn quickly used her grappling hook to make a quick escape towards Cinder on the ceiling. The orangutan roared in rage, but didn't get much time to roar as Amy launched a blow directly into its chest. The force of the blow penetrated directly towards its inside causing it to cough up some blood as it backed away to try to gain some space. It swung the arm that jade had stabbed its tails into to send Amy away from its body.
Jade released her tails just in time so Amy wouldn't be swung across the room, but the orangutan wasn't going to let up that easily. It already had its fist preparing to slam into the spot that Amy was going to land, but was surprised when Amy's body seemed to merge into its own shadow. Jade used shadow travel to move around the bosses shadow and avoid its retaliation. Amy just followed along until she was given an opportunity to strike out and attack any of the orangutan's openings while it was trying to hold off Cinder who kept attacking it from the ceiling.
While that fight was going on Joshua was busy helping out Tank hold off the gorilla. While Tank was going toe to toe with the giant creature Joshua made sure to keep the gorilla's scorpion tail away from Tank. He wasn't sure if the tail would be able to pierce through Tank's shell but he wasn't going to try and find out. Tank was too busy clinging on to the gorilla and enduring its barrage of fist to have to deal with its tail as well. To block the scorpion tail Joshua had to go into his aura hardening state while also using a large amount of will and positioning just to make sure the heavy strikes wouldn't break through his guard. Even so it was a tiring process to go through, but he just needed to hold off long enough for the others to do their part.
While blocking off another tail strike and sending an energy slash to get the gorilla to back off from trying to strangle Tank Joshua turned and noticed that a lot of the vines in the room were frozen at this point. Even the fruit hanging from the ceiling were starting to freeze. He smiled a bit at the fact that their plan was working up to this point.