194 Chapter 140: The Dungeon that is a Puzzle in Itself part 9

All of Joshua's group stood there still staring at the gate that had closed minutes ago. The whole scene that they had just witnessed was heart wrenching, but even so none of them had backed down or felt like they should run away. They had already come to the dungeon knowing the boss would be incredibly difficult based off of the fact that Adrian, Aito, and Henry were forced to leave the first time around simply from the exhaustion they had faced getting to this point. They had felt the pressure of the boss from the other side of the gate and could tell that they weren't ready to take on such a creature without help. Now they had that help and had the ability to face such a boss Although Joshua, Amy, and Lilly might have all been under leveled at the moment with the boost they were gaining from Flutter they were closer to the strengths of a level fifty-five explorer and if you added in the boost from Light on to Joshua and Jade on to Amy then they were getting closer to the level needed to normally fight in this dungeon.

One thing they all knew was the fact that they weren't going to be able to take this boss down with numbers like the last group that had gone inside. From what they could see there were at least fifty people in the group that had just died to the boss so quantity was definitely not the answer. For that to be the case the boss must have had some sort of ability to protect itself from so many people attacking it at once. They also realized that the boss wasn't the type to have a wide area type of ability like the sub-boss did. Otherwise it could have wiped out the previous group that was fighting it well before they were able to get there. Instead it took some time and it seemed to be tearing them apart one by one. This all made it likely that the creature fought one on one for the most part and focused on one target at a time.

"Well, are we going to challenge this thing?" Adrian said waking everyone from their thoughts. "I say that we should. We haven't come all the way here for nothing and I'm itching for a challenge."

Joshua smiled at his friends reasoning. He had to admit that he was also feeling sort of excited to fight such a challenging creature. He just needed to calm down a bit after seeing so many people get killed by the thing. This wasn't going to be the last time he came across such sights, it was part of the life of being an explorer. "Well if we are going to take the thing on then I have to warn you guys to be ready for its killing intent an aura. I'm not sure how well it can use aura, but it was able to freeze Kalvin in place long enough to kill him. Don't fall for the same thing." Joshua said getting nods from everyone.

"Plus this is an intelligent creature, it won't just continuously go after Joshua, the whole time so be prepared to defend yourselves at all times. Joshua, Adrian and Amy will try to keep it off us back line members, but we have to be prepared to defend ourselves at any moment." Henry explained getting nods from both Aito and Lilly. After the little pep talk they all turned back towards the gate and noticed that the blood that had been pooling at the bottom of it had vanished meaning that the room had probably finished resetting at this point. It would have been fairly uncomfortable to fight in a room filled with corpses, but the dungeons would devour the bodies of those who died inside to gain more strength. If enough people died inside then it was possible for a dungeon to level, but that would take a long time.

"Alright let's finish this dungeon off. Lilly and Henry go ahead and set up all your buffs before we go in." The both of them nodded before going ahead and buffing the party. Joshua could feel the surge of strength from both Flutter and Light while Amy gained some extra strength from Jade as well. At the same time Henry was busy casting all sorts of buffs on everybody in the group. He gave the red aura buffs to Adrian and Amy so that their attacks would become more powerful after dodging an attack, he gave a purple buff to Aito and Lilly that would empower any forms of attacks they used depending on the distance from which it starts. Thus all of Aito's shots would become more powerful while Lilly's spells would do the same. Lastly he gave Joshua the yellow aura buff while giving everyone in the group the green aura buff that improved their healing.

Maintaining so many buffs at once was just about as much as Henry could handle at the moment without making himself a sitting duck. He made sure to leave some energy for casting spells against the boss or defending himself in the worst case scenario. Now that they were all prepared they touched the gate as it glowed once more before opening so that they could see the inside of the room. Unlike before the place was cleared of any corpses except the now different leg that the boss was busy eating. From the clothes that was still left on parts of it Joshua could tell that it was Kalvin's.

The room was fairly spacious, but not too big, creatures like the ant queen and the prairie dog boss would have a lot of trouble moving around in the space, and even Tank would feel that the place was a bit small for him. Before the fight could even start Lilly had Tank come out and start to spread bubbles around the room with her before switching over to Cinder who she synchronized with for the moment. Although Tank might have far higher vitality she was certain that this boss wouldn't have to much trouble breaking through her defenses. Instead of betting on that and ending up getting mortally wounded Lilly decided to stick with Cinder and avoid direct danger.

When everyone was in position to fight as the boss continued to just sit there and eat its meal Joshua finally drew the creatures attention when he flared his aura and his shroud came into being around him. This seemed to peak the boss's interest since the power radiating off of Joshua was similar to its own. Joshua observed the boss as it stood up to its full height and stared directly back at him. He hadn't noticed the name of it the last time he had observed it since he was so focused on its level along with the destruction it had caused, but now he could see that it was call the Scorpion Prince. It seemed more like a title in comparison to the other boss names he had come across up to this point.

As the boss stood up to its full height it looked down on them and glared at Joshua in particular since it could feel the aura rolling off of him. In response the creature let out a fierce roar as aura poured off of its body in waves while its killing intent filled the air and pushed against the will of the group. That's when Joshua started to radiate a bright light from his aura and the effects of the killing intent lessened greatly. Joshua knew that it was the ability of Light that was currently residing in his aura and helped the group resist the creature's attempt of intimidating them. It seemed to help out Lilly and Henry the most while Amy and Joshua both had fairly high wills so they didn't freeze up for a moment.

The boss seemed surprised by this fact, but decided to take action instead of doing the same thing over again. Its body moved like a blur as it moved straight towards Amy instead of Joshua like everyone was expecting do to the glare it had been giving him the entire time. Joshua of course wasn't going to let it have its way. He stepped in front of his sister and blocked the creatures charge. The force of the impact sent him sliding back as the creatures fist slammed into his scale blade. Before Joshua could disengage the boss's stinger came flying around its back and aimed for Amy, but Adrian caught it between his two swords keeping it in place as he struggled with the strength of the monster. Cracks were forming beneath both Adrian and Joshua as they struggled to keep the creature at bay. It was surprising since the ground in the room was made of solid stone instead of dirt.

Amy took the moment while the boss was preoccupied to get in a blow to its side. Instead of going for a normal punch she made sure to use an empowered skill to get the most out of her attack. The blow slammed into the creatures gut and sent it skidding back, but to everyone's surprise that was all. Up to this point they would at least be able to see the discomfort on an enemy from any of Amy's attacks since they penetrated to the insides of those who were hit by them, but this time something was different and they needed to figure out what it was if they wanted to be able to actually damage the boss.

The boss decided to lunge straight towards Adrian at a maddening speed as it aimed to rip his head off. Adrian dodge at the last moment and countered with three quick slashes before the boss could attack again but each of his slashes felt like he was trying to cut through reinforced steel. The creature's body didn't even so much as get damaged, and there were no weak points for Adrian to go after. Before the boss could attack again Aito shot in the face with a sniper bullet that was empowered by Henry's buff. The attack knocked the creatures head back for a moment, but when it slowly lifted its head back up they all could see that it didn't even leave a scratch.

If they wanted to be able to take down this boss then they were going to have to figure out how to actually damage it. The creature looked as though it was going to rush over towards Aito when it was bombarded with several fireballs that only seemed to slow it down for a moment before it continued its pursuit. When it got close enough to Aito to try to rip into him with its clawed hands Aito already had his shot gun ready and fired point blank into the creature's chest. Joshua was racing over to help and noticed a slight shimmer around the creature, but other than that it seemed fine as its body was only pushed back a bit from the blast. It tried to skewer Aito with its stinger, but he was already out of the way. Aito had used the blast to propel his body backwards and avoid the boss's follow up attack. Before it could try to charge over again Joshua reached the creature and swung his scale blade directly into its side with all of his strength. The aura that coated his scale blade smashed into the creature first and Joshua could feel it hitting something that was impeding his attack. His aura seemed to spread out around the creatures entire body instead of where he was hitting it and that made it so the force of his blade dispersed and was only enough to knock the creature back.

The boss glared towards Joshua, but was interrupted when vines sprouted out of the ground and started entangling the boss for a moment. It wasn't going to be able to hold it in place for long, but both Aito and Lilly let loose on the boss in that moment to do as much damage as they could possibly do. In the end all it did was enrage it even more as it tore its way out and they were all back to square one, but this time around Joshua had an idea of what exactly was going on and he might just have the way to get around their problem. He pulled his scale blade up to block the Scorpion Prince's charge once again and was being pushed back under the force of its blow.

Joshua used the moment it was stunned from the buff that Henry had given him to kick it forcefully in the chest while pushing his own aura through the boss and sending it skidding backwards. It was in that moment that Joshua had a plan.