Chapter 417: Centipede Graveyard Dungeon Part 9

Joshua couldn't take his eyes off the large fire in the center of the room that was now giving off an eerie light that bathed everything around it in a blood red tinge. Once all of the blood had finished being burned away by the fire a giant door seemed to be cut out of the wall at the back of the room. Beforehand there hadn't been any signs of another exit in the room outside of diving into the massive pit of fire, but killing the sub-boss seemed to trigger a new path for the group to take. Even so the eerie blood red fire didn't stop giving off a bad feeling to Joshua and he knew it had to have something to do with the boss fight that they'd be coming up against soon enough.

The experience that Joshua and the rest of the group had gained from taking down the sub-boss was still a lot, in Joshua's case it was enough to get him close to level eighty. He was surprised by this fact since it meant that the sub-boss still gave off a large amount of experience even though it was such an easy fight. That couldn't bode well for the upcoming battle. Joshua just put away the remaining body of the sub-boss into his inventory since it could be useful as materials later on for the alliance.

"This doesn't seem right." Adrian said out loud since there was no threat to them around. "We've come across some easier fights in the past but that was ridiculous."

"It was as if the dungeon was putting the poor thing up for slaughter. It's too bad that its mind seemed to have long since been broken. All of its screams and roars were nothing more than anger and rage. I couldn't sense any intelligence coming from the beast." Lilly said getting even more confused looks from the rest of the group. At this point coming across beast that were nothing more than…well beast was a rarity. Especially when it came to boss level creatures.

"We'll know what's up once we go through those doors. I can feel a powerful presence on the other side of them." Joshua said as they all could see the giant stone door that looked like it was coated in blood from the red lighting of the room stood even taller than the giant lizard that they had just killed. "Are you all ready to go figure out what this dungeon is up to?"

"I'm ready to figure this out so I won't have to deal with it again in the future. All of the tension is getting on my nerves." Henry said after he had recovered most of his mana at this point. All of the mages seemed well rested after the short conversation since the last fight had been dealt with so quickly. Joshua nodded in reply before taking the lead as the group headed over to the doors. This time around when Joshua started to push them open he had to struggle a little bit to push them open at first. It felt as if he was pushing two giant boulders aside just to get the doors to budge, but with his aura he had them creaking open within seconds.

The new path that clearly lead to the boss up ahead was more than big enough for all of Lilly's larger pets to walk down so she didn't have to put them back in her soul realm as they moved down the path. Joshua had a good feeling that all of Lilly's partners were going to be needed for this upcoming battle. The size of the lizard was one thing, but the presence he was feeling waiting for them up ahead was at least at the same scale as the guardian of the dungeon had been and he had a good feeling that it was much stronger.

As they started walking down the new path Joshua noticed the torches going down the hall were lit up in a crimson red in the same fashion as the fire from the first room had been. He didn't know how the fire from before would affect the upcoming boss, but all of the changes to the surroundings seemed to hint to a big change coming from the boss that will put it in an entirely different league from all of the other creatures they had faced up to this point. The pillars looked similar to the ones they had seen all throughout the dungeon up to this point except much bigger since the pathway was on a larger scale.

In the end it didn't take them very long to reach the end of the path where it suddenly widened out to nearly twice the size where another door was laid out before them. The door slid open on its own the moment the group approached allowing them into what couldn't be mistaken for anything but a boss room. The space was far larger than any other portion of the dungeon and was just a large wide open room with pillars spread throughout it. All of the torches in the room were still giving off the eerie blood like color which told Joshua that whatever happened with the pillar of flame in the last room was having an effect here.

Another noticeable thing about the room was the large amount of lizard bones spread all throughout the space. There were several bones from the smaller lizards that they had fought all throughout the dungeon in piles stacked up on the floor. Those bones only caught Joshua's attention for a moment before he noticed far larger bones that seemed to be from lizards of a similar scale to the sub-boss they had just killed. These bones were in two large piles that were separated from the rest.

Outside of those facts the room didn't seem to have anything else special about it, but Joshua could sense the presence of the boss coming from up above. He and the rest of the group turned their attention to the ceiling which was so high up and away from the torch light near the floor that they couldn't see most of it, but Joshua knew the creature they were about to face was hiding within the darkness. He could feel its aura and killing intent pouring from above and at the moment they were all just waiting to see what move the creature would make.

That's when two glowing flames appeared in the shadows up above. These flames were a crimson red but they also seemed too focused and controlled. They didn't waver around needlessly and looked like two giant fireballs from everyone's perspective. Soon a trail of fire seemed to move down from the flames as the new source of light was able to let them see the first glimpse of the boss. The head of the creature was enormous and the two fireballs were only able to illuminate that portion of the boss at the moment. Joshua knew right away that the creature was a centipede, but its size was on the same scale as the guardian they had fought outside of the dungeon.

The two fireballs were actually connected to the long antenna like feelers that swayed back and forth above the head of the centipede that looked much more threatening than any other creature that they had seen lately. It had massive pincers in front of its mouth that were prepared to tear into anyone that dared to go against it. The pincers even seemed to faintly glow as they gave off steam showing that they'd have no problem searing their way through most materials. From this alone Joshua could already tell that this creature had some sort of control over fire that could be difficult to deal with.

As the giant centipede started to lower its head from the ceiling streaks of glowing red started to outline its body. The centipede had been wrapped around the tops of all of the pillars in the room and it was currently uncoiling itself as it lowered its body to the ground. Its legs were as large and sharp as any of the other centipedes but there was a distinct difference that gave this centipede an edge over the rest of its species. Its body was made in a way to where its legs were in the center of its body instead of underneath it. This allowed the centipede to bend its legs back and forth so that they could appear on either side of its body at any time.

Joshua could see how advantageous this was for the creature right away by how it was easily able to untangle its body and glide down from the ceiling within seconds. The giant creature let out a loud shriek just as Joshua finished observing it. It was at level eighty with five stars, but he knew it would be even more powerful considering the fact that it was boss class monster. As the giant beast charged down from up above Tank got in front of everyone taking the beast head on. He had to move his head out of the way of the pincers that clanked off of his shell, but even if they couldn't break his shell right away they did leave a decent scratch on it.

The power of the collision sent Tank skidding backward, but eventually he was able to stop the momentum. The centipede then opened its mouth preparing to bath Tank's head in a wave of flames, but Jayce got up on Tank's head and formed a shield wall to hold off the fire. Titus slammed into the creature's side to knock it away from Tank, but it's simply shifted its attention to him. Cinder turned into her ice form and started sending several spears of ice over to try to damage the boss, but it responded in kind with fireballs that destroyed any spears that got close. Joshua and Ivan had to cut down any of the remaining fireballs before they could impact the rest of the group.

The way the boss was able to easily hold its own up against all three of Lilly's beast companions was a sign that the fight wasn't going to be an easy one. "Julia you might have to focus on destroying any of the fireballs that come in the direction of the support group. I highly doubt any of your fire spells will do any real damage to this creature, if anything they might empower it." Joshua said as he got ready to join the fighting.

"We need to figure out its weak point quickly." Aito said as he started firing off rounds at different spots along the creature's body. Katsumi followed his example and started aiming at any joints or gaps in the exoskeleton that she could find.

"I think we might just have to make some weak points on our own." Robin said while charging a powerful spell preparing to try to blast an opening for the others to use. Her lightning strike cracked a portion of exoskeleton, but the size of the creature made it nothing more than a mosquito bite in its eyes. Just from these small encounters Joshua could see that they were in for a drawn out battle, but things only got more challenging once plumes of crimson fire started to appear all along the boss's body. It was up to something and the familiar flames didn't sit well with Joshua.