Chapter 374: Floral Dungeon Part 10

The moment the core of the sub-boss shattered the rest of its body including all of the vines started to wither quickly. Within seconds the entire thing looked like a giant dried out husk that started to fall apart and turn into dust. With nothing holding them up anymore both Joshua and Amy fell down and landed carefully at the bottom of the crater just outside of where the giant plant had emerged from. They looked around the surrounding area as they watched all of the left over vines crumble apart. The only plants that were still thriving in the area were the ones that Titus had created.

All of the webs that were around the place that Cinder had created suddenly burst into flames and burned away as Cinder started to ignite the fire around her body to help clear out the area. The two giant beast started to make their way over to the portion of the crater where Joshua and Amy were now staring at the massive cloud of dust. When Joshua looked up at the edge of the crater he could see the rest of the guild members that were fighting from a distance making their way into the crater to join up with them.

With everything settled both Joshua and Amy turned back to watch the dust slowly disappear so that they could see what would happen next. It didn't take long for the wind to blow it away and at the center of the crater where the plant had emerged from there was now a rather large platform that seemed big enough for a group to stand on. "What do you think this thing is for?" Adrian asked as he walked over with Victor and Natsumi since they were already in the crater and it didn't take very long for them to reach their position.

"Looks like some kind of platform to me. Maybe it will take us up to the sphere." Joshua said as he pointed up. The sphere still had the multicolored light shining down in their direction and from what Joshua could see it looked like it was directly above the platform and not just the crater itself. "We'll wait for the others before we test it out. Don't want to end up being dragged ahead and possibly into another fight with just us."

It didn't take very long for the rest of the group to make their way over. As they all looked at the giant platform before Henry decided to speak up. "Well are you guys ready to check it out or should we get some rest beforehand?" It was getting fairly late in the day and they had completed what seemed like most of the dungeon at this point. They still had five days before the territory war so they had plenty of time to clear the dungeon. Although the sphere hanging above them was large it wasn't as big as the portion of the dungeon they had explored so far so he was fairly sure it wouldn't take more than a couple of days to finish. Taking down the boss had taken a bit longer than they expected and it was half way through the day at this point. Clearing the vines out and making it towards the main plant was tiring to an extent.

"We should get some rest while we can. We've got plenty of time so there is no need to rush things and get ourselves in trouble. We can set up camp near the entrance to the dungeon so that we can react to anything that happens overnight." Joshua said getting nods of agreement from everyone. They made their way out of the crater and back towards the entrance of the dungeon to set up camp. Although before they had to depend on the lights from the glowing plants in the forest at night to see, things had changed with the giant, multicolored light looming over the area from the sphere hanging in the sky. It wasn't too bright, but it lit up the area enough to where they could see their entire surroundings.

Through the night they discussed how the fight went and different areas they could improve on if they were ever put into a similar situation where they weren't able to use elemental attacks in combat. For Joshua it wasn't much of a drawback, but for the mages and Natsumi it was a major hindrance. It took them a long time to destroy the barrier protecting the flower even when launching so many spells since they didn't have any powerful neutral spells. Even so they had some creative ways of getting their attacks to hit the barrier in the first place. Aito however had no problem bombarding the barrier from a distance with explosive rounds to help the mages finally break it down.

After a good night of sleep and a quick breakfast everyone geared up before heading back into the crater towards the platform. Joshua inspected it a bit more now that it was daytime and easy to see all of the details of the platform, but he wasn't able to make too much out of it. There seemed to be small circular structures on it, but outside of that the only thing special about it was the slightly silver sheen it gave off that made it stand out from the rest of the crater.

"Well how about we hop on and see what happens. I don't see anything else around that could activate it." Adrian said with a shrug.

"We go on as a group. Don't want to get split up after all." Henry said in return as everyone agreed before getting on the platform together. At the moment all of Lilly's beast companions were still in her soul realm so they had more than enough room to spare for them all to get on. When everyone had finished climbing on to the platform they only had to wait for a few seconds before it shook and a humming sound started to come from it. At first Joshua thought the thing was going to rise up into the air and take them all up to the giant sphere hovering over them, but things didn't quite go the way he was expecting.

Instead of the platform moving the bright light coming from above started to grow more intense while the platform started to glow with the same colors in response. All of the glyphs on the platform started glowing the same four colors as the light coming from above. The humming started to grow as both lights grew stronger and a large beam of light shined down to the platform encompassing the entire group. The sudden brightness caused Joshua to close his eyes so that he wouldn't become blinded while adjusting to the light.

While Joshua had his eyes closed he could suddenly feel a certain weightlessness that took him by surprise. He could feel himself drifting up into the air at a slow pace at first, so he opened his eyes to see that his feet were no longer on the platform and that he was already hovering a good ten feet above it. Everyone else in the group were also hovering up in the air with surprised looks on their faces before they were carried higher up and started moving faster as their bodies headed towards the sphere in the sky.

After all of the things Joshua had seen change when the system became a part of their world this was the most science fiction over the top crap that he had come across. He felt like he was being beamed up to a space ship or something. Maybe being captured by aliens would be a more accurate analogy. After the whole system thing coming into being and learning about the fact that there were several other groups of intelligent life out there, even in their own universe, Joshua wouldn't be surprised if the stories of aliens abducting people were real after all.

All of those silly thoughts ran through his mind as he was being pulled towards the giant sphere at a pace that would get them all there within minutes. Having his eyes adjust to the bright light Joshua was able to use his aura to enhance his vision a bit so that he could get a better look at what they were being pulled towards. From what he could tell the beam was taking them into a large cavern in the sphere that was similar to the ones that the waterfalls had been coming from before they were closed off. Joshua couldn't see exactly what was inside of the cavern, but the closer he got to the sphere the more he could feel a powerful presence inside of it. Something that was on another level from the Elemental Floral Guardian that they had just taken down.

Soon enough the group had reached the cavern and were starting to be taken inside of the giant sphere. Joshua looked back down at the part of the dungeon that they had already explored and noticed how unusually quiet things were outside of the light humming that was coming from the light beam that was pulling them towards the sphere. He knew that animals were what made up a lot of the noises in a forest, but without the waterfalls the dungeon had gone eerily quiet. From up in the air Joshua couldn't make out the difference between the corrupted plants and the regular ones, but he knew they hadn't destroyed whatever was corrupting all of the plants in the dungeon yet, so there were still tons of enemies out there.

As they entered the giant sphere the entrance to the cavern started to close behind them, but the orientation of what was up and down inside the sphere had flipped. Joshua noticed this fact before he crashed head first into what at first he thought was the ceiling of the place, but was instead the floor. So he and everyone else quickly flipped their bodies around and landed gently on what looked like another large platform that was similar to the one they had taken to get brought up in the first place.

With one loud slam the entrance to the cavern had finished closing trapping all of them inside of the giant sphere. At first everything was dark and made it hard for Joshua to look around and inspect what was going on in the new area, but soon things were lit up by the plants in the area as the flowers glowed brightly as if they were trying to light the way forward for them. The room they were currently in was nothing more than a giant open space with the platform in the center and several flowers and vines that surrounded it along the floor and walls. After the ceiling had closed in the vines quickly stretched over it as if the dungeon itself was telling them there was no turning back.

"Well that was an interesting from of transportation." Henry said with a smile. If it wasn't a serious situation at the moment Joshua was certain that he'd be geeking out over what just happened.

"Need to get some cool teleportation beams in the hub city in some places it would help get around all of the traffic." Adrian said getting a smile out of some people in the group. With that short lived conversation they all turned their attention to the only way forward that was laid out for them. There was only one exit to the large room and it was a rather large tunnel at the end of it that had several flowers lined up around as if pointing it out so they would know it was the way for them to go. Joshua looked back at the rest of the group to see if they were ready to go before taking the lead and walking towards the tunnel.