320 Chapter 266: Large Town Dungeon Part 7

Abigail stayed back and stood right next to Isabella to make sure that she was well protected alongside the healers. Jayce took the front preparing to use a shield wall to block off all of the vines that were going to charge into the group. The Carsen brothers were there beside him to help hold off the larger vines that would be too much for Jayce to hold off on his own. On the other hand Laura, Adrian, Adam, and Allen were all more focused on the monkeys that were coming in their direction.

'Alright Adrian and Adam, you need to take care of a monkey each so that we can separate them.' Laura started to explain as she took out her sword and prepared to get up close and personal this time around. 'Allen and I will focus on the two that remain. The long range members of our group will give us support when needed.'

'Sounds like a good idea. Let's me have some fun.' Adrian said with a grin before rushing forward towards the monkey at the front of the approaching group. He was the fastest member in the current group with his shadow steps and it showed with how quickly he closed in on the group of monkeys. They still didn't seem to have eyes for him so he was going to have to make his target pay attention. As the group of monkeys were about to pass by him Adrian ran underneath one of them and turned so that his pair of blades could strike at the back of one of its knees. His blades cut deeply since the area was considered a weak spot and blood sprayed into the air.

The monkey was crippled for a moment and was forced to one knee while the others continued running towards the rest of the group. Adrian quickly leaped to the side as the scorpion tail tried to strike out at him while he was looking towards the other monkeys. 'Well at least it seems I've got your attention now.' Adrian thought as he positioned himself to take on the monkey. As the creature started to turn around to face him an arrow passed by its head before swerving around while maintaining momentum and slamming into one of the ape's eyes. The arrow then exploded taking the eye with it.

Adam took a different approach when he rushed towards his own monkey. He didn't have the speed that Adrian had so his monkey was able to get closer to the rest of the group. Adam decided to meet his head on without dancing around the confrontation too much. Out of everyone in the group Adam actually had the highest amount of strength as long as Joshua didn't use his aura to empower himself. Adam decided to use this to his advantaged as he rushed in front of one the monkeys and sent out his clone to stop its charge. The monkey's scorpion tail struck out piercing through the clone, but that left the monkey wide opened as Adam leapt into the air and left two large slashes across its chest.

The monkey cried in pain as it was forced back and was stuck between trying to catch up with the others, or trying to take down Adam. The orangutan had given them all the order to go after the ice user, but as it tried to go around Adam the clone clung on to the scorpion tail that had pierced it by stabbing it with a larger dagger and stabbing another dagger into the ground. The sudden tug of force brought the monkey to a halt giving Adam another chance to strike out and cut deep into one of its four arms. Now that Adam had its full attention he focused on keeping it from going towards the rest of the group.

The final two monkeys hadn't taken notice of the fact that their numbers had been cut in half as they rushed their approach and tried to make it all the way to Isabella. The room was already getting extremely cold and everyone in the group could see the frost like breath that was pouring out of the monkeys' mouths as they screeched in their direction. Unfortunately for the monkeys they were too focused on rushing towards Isabella that they didn't take notice of the odd dirt in front of them that barely blended in with the stone floor. The moment the monkeys stepped on to the dirt the land mine contraptions that Marcus and Becca had set up while the monkeys were distracted by Joshua's charge earlier went off.

The mines didn't explode, but instead released a cloud of green gas that quickly had the monkeys coughing as they tried to force their way through. By the time they got out of the gas everyone in the group could already see signs of the fast acting poison's effects as the eyes of the monkeys seemed more blood shot than before. Their movement had slowed down a bit, but any type of hindrance to the two beast was a win in their book. With the tanks busy holding off the vines from attacking Isabella it was up to the close range fighters to take care of the pair of monkeys.

Laura and Allen both rushed forward to get into the path of the two monkeys that continued their relentless dash forward. Laura quickly used a spell to enchant her sword with a searing fire that made it glow white hot. The blade was made to be extremely heat resistant by Naomi so it was perfect for her. At the moment she couldn't use any wide area flame spells otherwise she would only end up hindering Isabella. Even so the concentrated flames on her blade were more than enough for what she planned on doing. The monkeys didn't have the same amount of muscle and mass as the gorilla so she wouldn't have any trouble breaking through their defenses.

With the monkeys' sluggish movements Laura was easily able to avoid both of their attempts to knock her aside before going in for the strike. She singled out one of the monkeys before kicking off the ground and aiming for its flank. Her blade was more made for stabbing than slashing which made her more of a fencer when it came to style of close combat. Although that meant any injury she did cause would be small the injury would be precise. Not to mention the fact that the wound would pierce deep. The moment Laura thrusted her blade forward the searing heat made it cut straight through and pierce deep into the muscle of the monkey. It also seared the nearby area causing the monkey to shriek in pain.

Laura continued to dodge around the monkey and strike out repeatedly creating a mishmash of deep wounds all along the monkey's arms and chest. The advantage her heated sword gave her was the fact that all of the wounds that she created couldn't be regenerated quickly. Plus the injuries only made the poison in the monkeys system spread even faster. After a minute or so of fighting the monkey could no longer use two of its arms and the only reason it was still able to keep Laura from going for a killing blow was the fact that its scorpion tail was to sturdy for Laura to easily cut off.

Allen on the other hand went for a different approach. He didn't have the speed that Laura had in close range combat to dance around her opponent like that. Instead he used the fact that the monkey wasn't paying attention to him to his advantage. He waited for the monkey to pass by and leaped in from behind. The scorpion tail was busy trying to strike out towards one of the tanks so that the monkey could rush towards Isabella, which gave Allen a large opening. He used a large amount of mana to extend the reach of his spear and slashed across the back of the monkey's legs. It quickly fell under its own weight do to the cut muscles.

In its current position Jayce was able to send a projectile shield over to knock it back and keep it from falling over towards the tanks up front. This gave Allen the chance to attack it from behind as he took out the monkeys other leg while it was falling. He then took every opportunity he was given to get as many clear strikes at the monkey as possible.

'We need to figure out a way to take all of the monkeys down at the same time.' Henry said over the mental link while casting a few support spells to help out the close range fighters. 'If we take them down one at a time then they will just continue to make the rest stronger. By the time we're down to one monkey left we might as well be fighting a smaller gorilla that will have more than enough ability to break through our front line. We can't give them that kind of opportunity.'

'Well then I might just have the type of spell we need for the current circumstances.' Julia said with a small smile. 'I just need you guys to get all the monkeys lined up in a row for a clean shot.'

'Alright just get prepared on your end.' Adrian shouted back before focusing on moving his monkey into a position where it was directly behind Adam's. He did the same thing and made sure his would line up with Laura's and then finally Allen's was the easiest since his monkey was out front and on its knees because of the injuries it had taken. There was no way it was going to be able to move anytime soon as Allen damaged its arms to keep it focused on him entirely.

After a minute or so everyone in the group could feel a concentrated amount of heat coming from Julia's direction. It wasn't enough to hinder the freezing blizzard that was thriving throughout the entire room, but it was enough to get everyone's attention. Henry caught on to what she was up to and rushed over to help her out by using his skill to share mana with her. It was clear the more mana that Julia had the more powerful the spell she was using would end up being.

'Alright get out of the way.' Julia shouted through the mental link before firing off her spell. It turned out to be an extremely concentrated version of the inferno spell that shot out like a laser from the power behind it. The spell was traveling so fast that the first monkey wasn't able to react in time at all. It was trying to get up off its knees after they had healed up a bit, but that put its head in the perfect line of shot. The moment the spell made contact it pierced straight through its skull and continued traveling to the next monkey.

The second monkey didn't fare much better as it tried to raise up one of its still functional arms to block the spell, but after all the damage that Laura had caused it was barely able to lift one in time. The inferno tore straight through the arm and pierced through the center of its chest leaving another dead monkey to fall over. The third monkey however had time to react and put up all of its arms to defend itself since Adam and his shadow had locked it in place. The spell was slowed down considerably on impact, but still tore through its body.

When the inferno spell finally reached the last monkey it had lifted up its last two working arms after the torment that Adrian had put it through. The inferno spell was no longer strong enough to pierce straight through so it exploded on contact. The explosion destroyed the two working arms of the monkey and left a large wound on its chest. 'Damn we've got to take it down fast before it can absorb the others!' Henry shouted through the mental link.

Adrian was about to rush over, but before he could even take a step the sound of a gun shot rang in everyone's ears followed by the disturbing sound of blood splattering. By the time Adrian turned to look at the monkey in front of him there was a large hole in its chest as it had a look of shock on its face before it collapsed.