Chapter 372: Floral Dungeon Part 8

They had decided to get some rest before they would enter the portal that would lead to the next part of the dungeon. They didn't know where it would lead, but they all thought it was best to be well rested before jumping through. It was likely that it would at least lead them to a sub-boss of some sort or a way to get to the giant sphere in the sky. Either way it would be something they needed to be prepared for before diving head first into it. Besides they had cleared the first area in fairly decent time which fared well for the rest of the dungeon.

After a night's worth of rest and a good breakfast Joshua took the lead as the group entered the portal. He was surprised when it lead them all back to the entrance of the dungeon that they had come through first. He could see the stairwell behind him that lead outside and the large grassland around them alongside all of the nearby forest. After everyone had come through the portal disappeared and the entire dungeon began to shake.

Joshua and everyone else turned their attention to the giant sphere in the sky since it had been the main source of change in the dungeon so far. Joshua wasn't surprised to see that the sphere seemed to be the main reason for the shaking of the dungeon as it twisted around in the air causing harsh winds to batter all of the plants in the dungeon. Joshua felt like he was standing in the middle of a hurricane with how harsh the winds were. He was glad the portal had brought them to a simple grassland since there was far less danger with the position they were all currently in.

After a few minutes of spinning the sphere gradually started to slow down before coming to a complete stop as it hovered in the sky above. The caverns were no longer the only sources of light for the elemental colors on the sphere as it seemed to have grown several patterns along its entire surface after all of the movement. There were several glyphs morphing around the plants and rocks on the sphere and they all seemed to be gathering directly above Joshua's group as the main point of focus. The blue, red, green, and yellow lights all seemed to swirl around each other directly above them before a beam of light formed made up of all four colors shooting out and slamming down into the ground just in front of them causing the area to shake. A large cloud of dust formed blocking off everyone's view, but they all still prepared for battle not knowing what exactly was going on.

After a few seconds the beam finally came to a stop and the quaking of the ground beneath them started to slow down. Joshua took the lead to stand in front of the rest of the group while Ivan and Jayce both took up positions to defend the rest of the group as the cloud of dust and dirt started to fade away. The giant sphere above stayed in place as it seemed to turn back to its usual motionless form, but it still had the multiple different colors gathered around the spot just above the group.

When all of the dust was cleared away by the left over wind generated by the giant sphere Joshua was able to get a clear look at what the beam from earlier had done. In front of the group there was now a massive crater that was around the size of one of the giant lakes that Joshua had to swim through to get to the small orbs that locked up the waterfalls. It didn't have any specific designs to it that gave them any hints to what was going on, but there was one thing that Joshua noticed was odd. At the center of the crater there was a little mound of dirt that seemed tiny in comparison to the crater itself, but that was what had grabbed his attention since he could since a powerful aura coming from the spot.

After staring at it for a moment the mound of dirt started to move as a little bud poked its way out of the ground. The bud seemed to grow out at a slow pace, but clearly faster than any plant was supposed to grow. Even so it was tiny and seemed harmless if it weren't for the massive amount of aura coming from it. The bud bloomed out into a flower with eight petals. Four of the petals were a beautiful white color, while the other four were the four different colors that made up the light coming from the beam earlier. It was an odd looking flower, but Joshua got the feeling it was extremely dangerous.

The second that the flower had grown to full bloom the ground started shaking once again as massive vines tore themselves from out of the inside of the crater around the flower. Roots started spreading out beneath the ground from what Joshua could sense and the flower seemed to bloat up in size at a frightening rate. It went from a beautiful little flower into this massive structure that towered out of the large crater and into the sky. It shot up to the height of the pine trees in the forest that loomed over even Titus and was far thicker and more spread out as its vines shot out in all directions covering the entire crater.

Each of the vines of the now hideous looking plant were covered in corrupted tendrils along with several thorns that were curved so that they could latch in and tear away at the flower's enemies. Outside of the beautiful top of the flower everything else that had forced its way out of the ground looked like something out of a horror movie where the plants came to life and started killing people. Its roots were a dark blood like red color and the tendrils all along the roots and the vine tended to pulse regularly giving the whole body of the flower a skin crawling feeling when looking at it.

Joshua and the rest of the group had stepped back far enough to where they weren't near the crater anymore so the massive plant couldn't attack them from a distance, but the large vines had risen up all around the crater to defend the flower from any long range attacks. "Well I wasn't expecting that." Henry said with a surprised look at the monstrosity that had appeared out of nowhere.

"I don't think any of us were." Ivan responded with Victor nodding in agreement. "I've seen some creepy monsters in my few years as an explorer, but I've never imagined a plant turning into such a monstrosity."

"Well that monstrosity seems to be what's in our way from getting to the next part of the dungeon." Aito said while pointing to the sphere in the sky. The light glow still pointed directly above where the giant plant was located which was a sign that they would have to clear it out if they wanted to see what to do next to get through the dungeon. "We won't know if there's something hidden in the crater that we need to get, or if another portal will appear until we take this monster out."

Joshua nodded before looking back down from the sky and towards the monster. He observed it to see what he could find out about it from the system. He wasn't surprised when he saw that it was level seventy-nine with five stars next to its name. This alone told him that the creature was considered a sub-boss in the dungeon. It went by the name of elemental Floral Guardian which was a bit of a clue to what it was capable of. Outside of that Joshua didn't know much else about it.

From observing it they could all tell that the creature was quite powerful. Its main body was fairly slow moving, but the vines were the exact opposite. Even with their massive size the vines were able to shoot out of the ground at massive speeds that showed just how difficult it would be to get all the way to the core of the plant. Joshua could see that it kept its core in the center of the massive flower at the top of it so since it was a core based monster he was certain all of the parts of its body could easily regenerate with little effort.

"Well let's test a few things before we go charging in without a clue." Joshua said getting a nod from everyone else. "Julia can you send a fireball over towards the main portion of the plant without hitting the vines. Actually send two over. The first one should be large and slow moving while the second should be smaller, but far faster. That should give us a good idea of how this creature will react to long range attacks."

Julia nodded before stepping forward up to where Joshua was so that she'd be within her range and then channeled a spell to create a large obvious fireball that she sent soaring over the edge of the crater in an attempt to encompass a larger portion of the plant when it landed. However the fire ball never made it there. Two of the vines near the edge of the crater that helped form the barricade around the massive plant shot up high into the air where the fireball was and slammed into it. The resulting explosion was massive, but nowhere near the core of the plant.

When the smoke cleared the only damage they could see to the plant were the damaged vines that had gotten in the way of the fireball. That damage quickly healed itself within seconds proving to the entire group that dealing with the vines was just a waste of time if they really wanted to kill the plant. "All right now we know large slow moving ranged attacks are pointless. Kind of a shame considering the plant can't technically move out of the way." Julia said with a frown.

"We might be able to get around that by hitting it from above where the vines will have a harder time getting in the way of our attacks." Robin said while pointing towards the area directly above the large flower. "There aren't any vines there and it would take to long for the vines around the edge of the crater to rush back and protect the plant from above."

"Before we jump to that conclusion let's check and see how it handles a smaller faster attack." Joshua jumped in. He agreed with Robin's point of view, but the name of the flower was giving him a bad feeling about hitting it with any powerful elemental based attacks. He wanted to see what would happen if they hit it with a smaller elemental attack before they started throwing lightning strikes at it from above.

Julia nodded before channeling another spell and sending a much smaller fireball that moved too fast for the vines to react. It sped right between two of the massive vines and headed directly for the giant flower avoiding any other part of the plant. Just when it seemed the fireball was going to slam into the flower a clear barrier shined for a brief moment as the fireball crashed into it. The flower was safe from the attack, but that wasn't all that the barrier did. The flames from the explosion were absorbed by it and they could all see it being channeled into the red leaf that was on the flower causing it to glow for a moment.

The glow traveled out of the leaf disappearing into the massive plant. They didn't see it again until they saw it rush up one of the vines before at the tip of the vine a fireball was conjured and sent directly towards their group. The size and power of the fireball was twice as big as the one that Julia had sent in the first place. Joshua quickly cut the massive fireball with an energy slash before turning to look towards Robin. "That's why we don't start firing off the big guns right away."