Chapter 53: Floral Dungeon Final

The large boss immediately let out a loud roar that reverberated throughout the entire room the moment its two minions had come out of the ground and were in position to charge towards Joshua's group. It was weird to hear a roaring sound that sounded half way between a shriek and a wail come from what looked like an overgrown mushroom with arms and legs for the most part. Even so it did have the mouth like structure at the center of its flower like head that opened up once it started roaring. The two minions had similar mouths inside their flower heads with the vines around them ready to grab ahold of anything and pull them into the dark pits that were probably filled with all types of spores.

The moment the boss had let out the roar the two minions started charging towards the group, but Joshua new that with the large bubble encased around the back line they wouldn't want to move from the spot as they charged up their spells to go on the attack. That's why Jayce and Ivan both took the front and braced themselves with their shield walls to stop the charges of the two creatures. The force of the blows sent them sliding backwards, but they were eventually able to stop them before they were able to get anywhere near the back line.

Joshua took this as an opportunity to charge past the two large minions and start heading towards the boss that had hung back. He could feel several support buffs influence his strength as he rushed forward and covered himself in his aura shroud. All the support members of the group were already into the full swing of combat with Henry casting several support buffs on Joshua and Amy as they both charged forward towards the boss. He could also feel the boost coming from Flutter which also let Joshua know who the last creature Lilly was summoning for the battle.

Jacob and Evelyn also started to play their music causing a buff to enshroud everyone in the group. Evelyn played a tune with her violin that seemed to increase the power behind mana and aura based abilities. Jacob's more somber playing of his guitar placed a debuff on the three fungal creatures that slowed their movements down making it easier for the group to react to any of their attacks. With all of the support set up the mages started peppering the two minions with powerful spells of all types in an attempt to take them down as soon as possible. Julia had to rely on neutral spells since they weren't sure if the heavily corrupted air in the room was flammable or not. Taking such a risk didn't make any sense.

The three large beast companions didn't remain idol while this was going on either. Tank immediately blasted one of his torrents of water towards one of the minions pushing it away from Ivan's shield wall and creating some space. He then shot several large bubbles that floated around the room and acted as traps to keep the minions from using their speed as an advantage in anyway.

Cinder went after the other minion launching herself directly on top of the larger creature in her ice form. Her legs pierced into its fungal frame latching onto it and weighing it down so it couldn't move around too much. She then started breathing an ice cold breath onto it trying to freeze it solid as quickly as possible. Natsumi noticed what the large spider was up to and rushed over to help out by using one of her talismans to create and ice blade and slash different spots all across the minion's body. All though the ice she created wasn't at as large of a scale as Cinder's, it dug deep into the creature effecting the fungal plant's insides speeding up the process of it being frozen.

Of course the large plant didn't just sit back and let this happen without putting up any type of fight. It squirmed around making it hard for both Cinder and Natsumi to stay on top of it. The thing also tried to grab ahold of them with the vines around its mouth. Cinder was too big for it to try to swallow whole, but Natsumi wasn't so she had to be careful not to be grabbed. She would cut down any vines that got to closer to her for comfort while making sure to move out of the way whenever one of Cinder's giant leg would move to another location of the creature, stabbing it and freezing the area.

Adrian and Victor both rushed forward to help Tank deal with the other minion. It was impossible for Tank to use his usual offensive style of chomping and enemy and tearing it apart with his bites. If he had tried to do that the bubble surrounding his head would break causing all of the spores and stench to fill up his airways and disorient him at the very least. So instead Tank would slam the minion with his shell and knock it into some of the bubble traps that he had set up around the area. Adrian and Victor charged over and stuck onto the minion dealing devastating blows with either energy slashes or well-placed sword strikes in an attempt to add more damage to any wounds that Tank had created.

Both Robin and Julia helped out the front lines by using neutral spells since their forms of magic were likely to start a fire if used recklessly in their current environments. Their neutral spells still packed a decent punch with the buffs they had gained from the support members of the group. Their spells kept the two minions from being able to completely focus on Tank or Cinder through the entire fight. Aito helped as well from a distance with some heavy piercing rounds since he couldn't use incendiary bullets at the time. He would charge up his shots before hand allowing them to pierce deeply into the giant minions and creating even more wounds.

While the rest of the group was handling the minions Joshua, Amy and Titus were racing across the room to the giant boss creature. Joshua knew they would get support from the rest of the group once the two minions were taken care of, but he didn't want to give the boss monster an opportunity to go after the group as a whole with some sort of devastating attack. It seemed he had made the right decision since the moment they got close to the boss creature it reared its flower head up as a foul miasma started leaking from its mouth.

Joshua immediately grabbed Amy before using his aura blast the second his foot touched the ground to send them both careening towards the side of the massive creature to avoid its massive attack. Titus on the other hand started pouring several spores out of his body that grew large vines that created a barrier around him to defend against the incoming attack. The large flower creature stopped rearing back as it opened its mouth wide and started pouring out brown and red colored spores that flooded in Titus's direction. Joshua's leap was strong enough to get out of the range of the attack, but the smell of it alone was disconcerting and hard to deal with.

A blast of wind came from the direction of the rest of the group that started blowing away the miasmic breath and allowed Joshua to see Titus. The large gorilla seemed to have held up well, but his vines looked as if they were rotting after being saturated with the breath attack. Luckily they were more than dense enough to prevent the breath from reaching Titus, but they would have to be careful of similar attacks coming from the boss. Titus quickly rushed forward with a roar after blocking the attack. His spores poured out of his body fighting off any spores from the boss that still lingered in the air after the attack.

Joshua and Amy stood back allowing some of the spores to fade before they would go in for the attack right after Titus. Titus was outclassed when it came to size which made it difficult for the ape to fight in the way he was used to but instead of trying to take on the entire boss on his own he slammed his body into the lower portion of the beast shoving it back and knocking it off balance before it could attack again. Titus did grow more vines with his spores to try to tangle up the boss some more, but the vines would die rather quickly because of the environment where the spores and fungus around the room would eat away at the vines before they could root themselves anywhere.

Even though Titus wasn't exactly able to take on the boss one on one due to how advantageous the room was set up for the boss, he was able to distract it long enough for Joshua and Amy to get to work. The giant gorilla was tearing away pieces of the fungus which would grow back rather quickly. Aito was also firing on the boss from a distance along with Katsumi who was also shooting off arrows at the boss, but the wounds they created were too small and would heal within seconds.

The boss didn't seem to care about the attacks that were landing on it as it shot the vines around its mouth down towards Titus who was keeping the boss from trying to push him down with its arms. The vines were trying to restrain Titus, but his plants were fighting back and his spores would just grow more plants whenever the previous ones died. This put Titus and the boss in a long struggle that didn't seem like it would end until one of them used another powerful move and by the way the miasma was gathering around the Flower's mouth Joshua knew that Titus was about to be put in a bad spot.

Before Joshua could charge into help he could feel a surge of experience which told him one of the minions were killed. This gave him the confidence to take care of the boss, but he needed to find out where its weakness was. When he and Amy got close they bombarded it with all sorts of attacks in an attempt to find the weakness of the creature, but they weren't having any luck. Even with Amy's penetrative attacks the plant was able to easily restore its body.

It was during one of the times when Amy landed a hit near the chest area of the fungal body of the plant that would have been similar to the heart of an actual beast that Joshua noticed the large plant shudder. It didn't last for long, but it was clear that was something there that was key for them to take down the giant creature. Joshua stretched out his aura sense and could feel that near that area was the core of the beast, but its body was so big that most of Amy's penetrative attack was dispersed by the time it reached the core. Joshua needed away to get the core closer to the surface so that Amy could deal a fatal blow.

That's when a crazy idea came to mind as he looked towards the mouth of the creature with a grin. "Amy prepare to strike out near where my aura is in a few seconds. It'll lead you to the core." Joshua said getting a nod from his sister in return who moved to the side to avoid some of the spores that had leaked down from the boss's mouth. Joshua did the same before leaping up and climbing the body of the fungal creature and heading towards its open maw that was preparing to spew out more of the fatal breathe towards Titus. On his way up he felt another surge of experience which meant the other minion had been taken down.

When the boss opened its mouth wide preparing to spew out the breath attack Joshua leaped right in front of it and used aura hardening to condense his aura even more around his body for protection. He then used aura shield to create aim impenetrable shield around himself for a few moments just as he dived inside the mouth surprising everyone that was watching the scene. He dived in at the perfect time since the mouth was opened to its widest to let out the breath attack which made it easier for him dive down through its throat and into its interior.

The breath attack tried to push him out, but with an aura blast from behind himself he was able to force himself through it fairly easily and rush through the interior of the beast. The inside wasn't like what you would expect from a normal beast, instead it was just several layers of fungus around a core, so Joshua had to tear his way through towards the core the moment his aura shield gave out. The spores on the inside of the creature were trying to eat away at his aura shroud, but do to the hardening effect he had up at the moment it was taking sometime for the spores to break through. He was also constantly pouring in more aura into his shroud to regenerate it as he dived further down.

With his scale blade and aura Joshua was able to tear his way all the way to the core. The thing was left open after he broke thorough the last layer of fungus. Joshua then used an aura blast to blow through several layers of fungus in the direction of Amy before shouting through the party link for her to attack now. He made sure to time his attack with hers with his aura sense so that they'd do as much damage as possible. He didn't want to give the creature any chances to survive the attack and heal up while he was still inside it.

The penetrative force of Amy's blow surged towards the core through the opening that Joshua had created. At the same time Joshua smashed his aura coated scale blade from the other direction with an echo strike just to make sure he did as much damage as possible. His blows caused the core to crack but the strike from Amy caused the cracks to grow and the core to shatter. Before anything else could happen Joshua used his blink skill to leave the inside of the boss and ended up next to Amy outside of the creature as it shrieked in pain once more.

Joshua couldn't wait to get a good shower after what he had just done, the bubble had long since been popped as he rushed through the inside of the boss and the stench around him was even worse when they opened the room in the first place. Hopefully it would all be worth it.