Chapter 429: Seeing the Mercenaries in Action and the first look at the new Prairie

Climbing down the side of the canyon wasn't nearly as difficult as Joshua and the rest of the group were expecting. They were lucky to avoid any of the trapdoor spiders, but they figured out why that was the case pretty easily. Even if there was a spider nearby it would avoid making its presence known since it didn't want to challenge them since it could sense that several members of their group had already reached level eighty or had gone beyond that point. The spiders weren't dumb enough to risk their lives in such a situation for such a small meal.

The only thing they saw on the way down the canyon side were some of the large rams that were scaling the cliffs as well. The bats were hidden away in their caves while the beetles were probably doing the same in the smaller caves near the bottom of the canyon. With none of the main threats around to attack them their descent became much easier. When they reached the bottom Joshua could tell they were already at a portion of the canyon that was well beyond the dungeon area so they were close to the exit. This time around they'd be able to enter the prairie from the proper location and hopefully wouldn't run into some over powered creature right away.

Even though Joshua didn't plan on wasting too much time in the canyon he did want to stop and see the mercenary group in action against one of the beast in the area. It would give everyone else a better idea of what they could do and would hopefully prevent any big mistakes from happening when they start challenging the much stronger beast in the prairie area. So Joshua kept his eye open for any of the large snakes of the canyon as they made their way towards the exit.

It didn't take very long for them to find one of the massive snakes lazing around sun bathing the day away. A large mound in a portion of its body showed that it had eaten recently and was already full, so if they avoided interacting with it the creature wouldn't mind them at all.

"Alright Vince." Joshua said grabbing the mercenary's attention as he brought the group to a halt. Since they had to leave the horses behind on the prairie to scale down the cliff they were moving on foot from this point forward. The horses wouldn't have any trouble finding their way back to the town especially since they wouldn't come across any beast willing to face them. "I may know what kind of abilities you and your partners have, but most of this group hasn't seen you in action outside of a few illusion tricks here and there."

"I see where this is going. You want us to show off some of our abilities so that we can work better together right?" Vince asked as he started cracking his neck while pulling out his rapier ready to go on the attack.

"Pretty much. That snake over there is a formidable enemy for your group to test yourselves against. Once we reach the prairie will be fighting even stronger opponents so this will be the best opportunity we'll have to see you all fight before things get serious." Joshua explained getting several nods from other members of the group.

"Alright then. Keep your eyes open this will be fairly quick." Vince said with a smile as he led his group closer to the snake. As they approached they suddenly all vanished from view as Vince's illusion over the area started to take form. The place looked pretty much the same except for the fact that the presence of Vince and his companions was hidden from view. Joshua lead the rest of his group back a little further so they wouldn't grab the attention of the snake once the fighting started, but not so far away that they couldn't see what was going on.

The snake lazily laid there completely oblivious to the danger it was in. It didn't actually open its eyes until it felt the trace of a powerful spell hurling its way as it tail shot up and slapped it away. The snake started uncoiling itself a bit as its head rose up to observe its surroundings and figure out what exactly had dared to attack it. The beast was hissing viciously as it stuck out its tongue, but instead of finding an adversary it was met with several more fire balls that were coming from multiple directions.

As Joshua watched the upcoming attacks he was surprised how well Ariel and Vince were working together at the moment. They were using a tactic that hadn't come up during their little skirmish throughout the territory war and he was surprised by the prospects of it. The amount of fireballs were obviously far too many to actually be the amount created by a tier one job. Even Cinder would have trouble forming so many fireballs. The reason there were currently so many fireballs in the air was because over half of them were illusions.

Joshua was certain that the instincts of the snake would let it know that all of the fireballs weren't real, but it would be impossible for the beast to spot out all of the real fireballs as they were sent soaring in its direction. The snake curled up once more to defend itself as several fireballs exploded along its scales. The flames weren't strong enough to create major injuries but several scales had been burnt off creating openings along the creature's body for the others to go after.

It didn't take very long before Mulan appeared right next to one of the wounds as her blade cut deep into the muscle underneath the burnt scales of the snake. The new blade worked well as it cut clean through the snakes weakened defenses and caused a large wound to open up. Before the snake could even retaliate Mulan disappeared into the illusion once more as she repositioned herself to attack once again.

Aurora followed a similar tactic as she appeared near another area that was heavily burnt and sent a barrage of heavy blows that tore through the area with the power of her gauntlets. The damage was once again done quickly before she backed away and disappeared into the illusion as the snake flailed around trying to hit her. One thing Joshua noticed from both Mulan and Aurora was the fact that they were both covered in what looked like a thin barrier which Joshua knew was made by Cinderella. The fact the illusion didn't even let up while she was creating the barriers told Joshua that there was a bit more to Vince's illusions than he initially believed.

The two close range fighters were moving around the creature creating massive injuries all over its bodies. They would go after any spot that had already been injured by Ariel who continued to send barrages of fireballs at the beast to keep it from being able to let its guard down. None of her fire spells were strong enough to do any major damage on their own, but they left major openings for the others to go after.

When the creature looked as if it was running out of gas and on the verge of fleeing the area Vince finally decided to make his presence known. For the entire battle Joshua wasn't able to sense Vince's location at all and he was sure that the snake was in the same boat. When the snake reared its head back after being attacked by Mulan once more its eyes glanced in her direction as it opened its mouth preparing to strike, but the moment its attention was placed on her Vince went in for the strike.

At the start of the battle Joshua had seen that Vince had grabbed his rapier for this fight instead of the edged blade that he was use to using in all of his previous fights. He was a bit surprised by that fact at the time since he expected Vince to focus on using his other weapon since he was so use to using it all the time. Now he could see why Vince had chosen to go for the rapier as his blade struck directly into the large eye of the snake as it elongated and drove all the way deep into the creatures skull. With his edged blade he wouldn't have been able to pull off such an attack so effortlessly, but with his rapier he was able to do so swiftly, as he pulled away and vanished once more while the creature started to thrash around from the large new wound injuring itself even more.

When Vince went on the attack Joshua wasn't able to see Vince until the last moment which would have given him very little time to react and counter if the attack was used on him. In his group Joshua was certain there were very few people that could survive such an attack. Even a tank would die if they had their skull pierced in such a fashion. While Joshua thought of this the fight was coming to an end as the poor snake's death throes started getting less violent. Soon enough Vince put it out of its misery as he pierced its other eye leaving it to die. Vince put the dead snake away into his inventory with a big grin on his face as his illusion faded away and all of his group could be seen once more.

"Well they definitely know how to fight as a group." Laura said after watching the entire exchange. "They could be used to take out specific threats during combat while the rest of us take on bigger groups."

"Seems like the best way to go about it until we all get more use to fighting alongside one another." Henry said with a shrug. They both looked over to Madalyn to see what she was thinking, but the mad snake lover was currently a bit out of it as she continued to look in a certain direction of the canyon. Joshua was sure that Madalyn was feeling the connection with the old snake that he and Lilly had come across a couple weeks ago. If so he could understand why she was a little unfocused.

"Alright I think we've got a good idea of how they can contribute to the group. Let's make out way to the prairie before it can start getting dark." Joshua said as he once again took the lead as the mercenaries rejoined the group. It didn't take long to make their way out of the canyon since they were already near the end of it. Instead of having to climb back up a large cliff the ground seemed to be scaling back upwards so that they could just walk out into the prairie. At this point there were no beast around to get in their way so Joshua knew that they were getting close.

The further they went up the more the rock landscape started to change into more grassy plains. After a few minutes the grass had grown to the point where it was waist high on someone like Joshua making it nearly as tall as some of the shorter members of the group. At this point they entered the Prairie and there was nothing, but grass and hills as far as the eye could see and Joshua was excited to find out more about this new area.