Chapter 456: No Avengers left behind

"Everyone get ready. The coyotes are coming as well and the snake is nearby looking for an opportunity to take us by surprise." Joshua shouted as he jumped off of Momo with everyone else quickly following his actions as they were already preparing to take on the vultures. "Lilly get all your best beast companions out now. We're going to have to hold out long enough for the mages to start picking off the weaker enemies so that we can focus on taking down the strong ones together. This time around no beast gets away."

"I'm setting up the mental link now so you don't have to shout over all the noise during combat." Natalie said getting nods from everyone as the mages were already starting to channel their mana to use different spells. Amber was the first one to get to work as she rose up some large pillars of earth around the area to make it more difficult for the coyotes to charge right in. They'd have to go in between the pillars or run through them. Either way that would slow them down enough so that the mages and ranged fighters could land several attacks on them at the start of the fight.

Katsumi already ripped a talisman to create several moving small barriers in the sky to block the feathers that the vultures kept sending their way. The vultures didn't seem like they were going to keep their distance for the entire fight this time around, but instead they looked as if they were waiting for the coyotes to attack so that in the chaos Joshua's group wouldn't be able to fully focus on them and try to take them out right away. This plan worked since the mages had to focus on setting up traps to prevent the large amount of coyotes from overrunning their group's defenses.

From what Joshua could see there were fifteen coyotes though none of them seemed to be pack leader level or size. That was a bit of an odd fact, but even without a pack leader the large amount of coyotes was a major threat on its own let alone with the three vultures that were descending towards them and the snake that was waiting nearby to go in for the kill. Joshua made sure to put himself in between the snake and the rest of the group just in case it decided to go on the attack. He had already gotten accustomed to fighting it in their previous encounter so he was the best one to hold it at bay the moment it went in for the attack, but they needed a way to prevent it from escaping this time.

Joshua knew that if the snake tried to get away through the ground there was no way that his group could hunt it down. It was suicide going down the hole it created so they needed away to prevent it from being able to burrow through the ground. "Isabella I'm going to need you and Cinder to work together to freeze the ground. A thick layer of ice in the nearby surroundings would be the best situation for this upcoming fight."

Isabella understood what Joshua was after and immediately started using a spell to help create some clouds that brought snow to the immediate surroundings. That on its own wasn't going to be enough to cover the ground in ice quickly enough so Cinder jumped in and started pouring her icy fog directly into the ground around the surroundings. The ice immediately started to form with the extreme temperatures of her breath that was only empowered with the large pillars of ice she started creating in the surroundings that were of similar height and size to the earth pillars that Amber had made earlier.

At first Joshua was just planning to use this form of environment manipulation to make it impossible for the snake to burrow through the ground and get away, but it had an even greater effect on the other beast that were attacking them. The vultures were having trouble staying up in the air with their feathers starting to freeze from the cold and the heavy snow weighing their bodies down. They weren't like owls that were used to surviving in such environments so they were struggling to deal with the sudden change. Soon enough they would be forced down to the ground and would be much easier to deal with.

The coyotes were having issues as well. When they got close enough to Joshua's group they immediately used their ability to create dirt clouds with their fur to hide their forms for a moment as they tried to enclose a circle around Joshua's group. The moment they charged any closer is when the ice on the ground started messing with their timing as they slid around and weren't able to change directions nearly as well as they were expecting to be able to under the current conditions. Joshua could even tell that the snake was slowing down in its movements as it approached the group do to the current situation.

By the time the coyotes reached the pillars that were erected around the group they were having trouble coordinating their movements as they slipped on the ice and bumped into each other. Running into the pillars only made matters worse bunching them all together and giving the mages plenty of time to bombard them with all sorts of spells. Even flame spells were used since the environment had already been set in stone and there was no way that a fireball on its own was going to be able to create enough heat to effect the massive snow storm that Isabella and Cinder had created. Tank was even increasing the moisture in the surroundings so that the blizzard would grow even stronger with some hail mixed into the snow.

The vultures seemed to have made up their minds as well as they dived down towards the group preparing to attack Joshua and the rest head on. They were already having trouble staying up in the air so they knew that they weren't going to be able to get away and it would be better for them to dive bomb Joshua's group rather than slowly gliding down to the ground and get shot up by all of the range focused members.

The last beast that was busy deciding on what it was going to do finally made its decision as well as it shot out trying to attack the group from behind with its mouth wide open, but Joshua stepped into its path and blocked the attack. It forced Joshua backwards, but he was able to stop the snake's forward progress and keep it from getting close to the backline. Joshua grinned as the main attraction had made its move thinking it best to time its attack with the rest of the beat, but Joshua had prepared for just that.

If the snake had just hung back in the grass for a while longer it would have likely seen all of the coyotes and vultures get dealt with. Under those circumstances the snake would have likely fled only to continue the tense situation of it always waiting for the best time to strike out at them. Now Joshua had it right in front of him and they were back to the same situation as the last time they had fought, but this time Joshua had the edge. He had already seen all of the snake's tricks before and he knew what to avoid and what he could block.

The head of the snake was visible after it tried to attack the group, but it was quickly fading away as it backed away from Joshua. This time around they weren't going to allow it to hide with its invisibility. Natalie fired an arrow at the head of the snake that curved so that it would land right behind its head on its neck. This arrow was shot with a spin and had a special drill tip to it that allowed it to dig through one of the snake's scales before getting stuck there. Natalie grinned at that as a red light started blinking from the tip of the arrow that was still sticking out from the snake.

'That's not a bomb Josh, that's a tracker. Now you know where its head is at for the rest of the fight.' Natalie said before turning back and firing at the closing in vultures. The three giant birds tried to go for the back line in their dive bombs, but they ran into something unexpected. Cinder had laid out a trap just for them as all of the large pillars near Joshua's group had spider webs connecting them causing the vultures to get caught before they could even hit the barrier that Katsumi had put up.

Although the webs weren't strong enough to hold the vultures for very long with their enormous size they didn't need to. Several vines shot from around Titus who was already armored up and started pulling the vultures out from the web and slamming them nearby on the frozen ground. The attacked stunned the vultures and gave Tank the chance to go for their major weakness as he chomped down on one of their necks and snapped it right away. Joshua could already feel the experience coming from that dead bird.

The other two vultures tried to rise up but Tank pinned one of them down while Cinder leaped on the other with her legs covered in ice as if they were giant ice spikes digging into the vultures back. Lilly's beast companions clearly had the vultures handled now that they were grounded and the coyotes were being bombarded with spell after spell as they tried to move through the ice falling one after the other. It was already late in the day and the group was going to set up camp after this fight so they went all out in their attacks.

Any coyotes that were able to make it through the barrage of spells were quickly stopped by the tanks and torn apart by the close ranged fighters. They were already in bad shape so swordsman like Adrian, Mulan, Adam, and Victor had no trouble tearing them apart. It didn't take long for the snake to figure out that it was in a bad situation as Joshua dodged around its dangerous attacks and left any large wounds that he could. The cold environment even helped out by slowing down the snake's regenerative abilities and giving it frost bite whenever Joshua created a big enough injury.

The tracker on the snake's neck made it impossible for it to hide and gave Joshua a target to go after whenever he could. He only had to use his danger sense to avoid its tail which was easier to deal with since it wasn't poisonous or as powerful as the beast's head. When the last vulture died the snake finally wizened up and tried to get away as it created a poisonous smoke screen and tried to dig into the ground. This time around Henry was ready for that as he created a blast of wind with the help of the blizzard that pushed the poisonous cloud away revealing the snake with its head trying to dig through the ice at a much slower pace than it wanted.

Joshua only grinned as he knew there would be no avengers left to ambush them this time around.