Risen World

Chapter 411: Centipede Graveyard Dungeon Part 3

The path continued on for a ways before opening up into another bigger area. Joshua wasn't surprised when he could sense the presence of more creatures up ahead but this time things were a bit different. Instead of the centipedes being the ones with the advantage the lizards were outnumbering the centipedes by an overwhelming amount. There were at least thirty lizards taking on only four centipedes.

By the time that Joshua's group had arrived at the scene the centipedes were already greatly damaged after only taking out a few of the lizards. Joshua decided to take advantage of the situation and had Julia and Robin go with the same combo as last time clearing out most of the beast all at once with only a few of the lizards escaping the range of the flames. Joshua and the other close ranged fighters made quick work of the straggling lizards. They were already injured and didn't have any advantage in a straight on fight.

After sweeping the battlefield clean they found another regular treasure chest that had some high quality healing potions in it. Joshua was starting to see the pattern to the dungeon right away. Most of the fights they would come across from that point on were always clashes between the centipedes and the lizards giving them a chance to take both groups by surprise. In each area they would find one treasure chest that they would either find a weapon in, some materials, or potions. They hadn't seen any blue print treasure chest yet so they weren't expecting too much out of the dungeon.

All in all the dungeon was extremely straightforward without many surprises. They did occasionally get caught by surprise by some of the lizards that clung to the ceiling while in camouflage. It was a shame that the lizards attacked them otherwise they could have lived a little longer until they had to fight another group of centipedes or something along those lines. It took a couple of hours for anything new to happen as they made their way through the path and it came in the form of a large door.

Joshua examined the door and noticed that it looked exactly like the door they had taken to get on this particular path in the first place. Joshua knew that they hadn't finished the path yet at this point since they hadn't come across anything that could unlock the large door at the branching point. Marcus checked the door for any traps before urging them on to see what was on the other side. Joshua pushed the doors open and walked through to see what they would have to deal with next. He was surprised to find a relatively well-lit area that was completely different from the rest of the dungeon that they had explored up to that point.

The new room wasn't so much a room, but instead was a giant drop off that allowed them to look down into the abyss. There was nothing else in the room to show what they had to do, so it seemed like they were going to have to scale their way down into the darkness for a while. Luckily the area was more than large enough to have Titus and Cinder help some of the group climb down otherwise it would be annoying trying to protect the mages and support if they got attacked while trying to descend the cliff. The only reason they were able to see so well in the room was because of the large bright crystals that adorned the ceiling, but even those crystal couldn't brighten very far down into the area.

'Well I guess we finally get to try out the night vision goggles. Been meaning to test these things out anyways.' Henry said with a shrug as he looked over the cliff.

'Never really did get to use them all that much. Plus I'd rather not be a giant shining beacon of light for any beast down there if I were to brighten up the place.' Joshua said.

'I doubt we're supposed to go all the way down.' Victor said as he looked over the cliff while everyone was putting on their night vision goggles. 'I can't even get a sense of how far down it goes, but I highly doubt we have to go all the way down. The rest of this dungeon has been too fast pace to suddenly force us to climb down for hours on end.'

Everyone agreed with Victor's point as they glanced over the edge now that they could actually see a bit further down. Even with the goggles there was no sense of a bottom to the drop off in front of them, but they were able to see the side of the cliff well enough to climb down without a problem now. The vision given by the goggles was a bit different to what Joshua was used to with the greyish tint to everything, but it was more than good enough to see hand holds along the wall.

Joshua was the first one to start climbing down since he wanted to be in the front in case any surprises happened. The other two tanks of the group took up the rear to help protect the back end of the group. Climbing down wasn't very difficult sense there were so many hand holds. Lilly and all of the mages and support were on the back of Cinder who stayed in the middle of the group as she climbed down at a slow pace. The giant spider had a good sense of her surroundings so Joshua was sure she'd warn them if anything seemed off. Titus was also climbing down with them, but he climbed lower down next to Joshua so that he could go on the attack the moment any creatures appeared. Their formation was rather simple, but they had already had a test of fighting while scaling a cliff. Joshua just hoped that wouldn't become a normal occurrence in the future.

It didn't take much descending for the group to finally come across their first encounter. Even though they had night vision goggles. There was a group of at least a dozen lizards climbing up the cliff directly towards them. Since they were in a terrain that was advantageous to their opponents Joshua decided to strike first so the lizards wouldn't get a chance to use their advantage in the current situation. He leaped off the cliff and dived down straight towards the closest lizard. All of the lizards seemed to be taken by surprise by this, but the one that was about to get attacked jumped to the side in an attempt to avoid Joshua's strike.

The moment Joshua noticed that he used a small aura blast with a kick to readjust his lunge in mid-air. He slammed his blade directly into the shoulder of the giant lizard as it barely moved its head out of the way just in time. The force of the attack caused the lizard to fall off the cliff and pass by the rest of the lizards behind it. The other lizards scurried out of the way, but had to stop their mad dash towards the rest of the group to avoid getting knocked off the cliff alongside the lizard Joshua had skewered at the end of his blade. When Joshua had fallen down behind the rest of the lizards he pulled out his blade and kicked the lizard away from the cliff while pushing himself towards a handhold. He grabbed on quickly stopping his momentum while he watched the poor lizard fall into the darkness with no way of grabbing on like he had. It was a long fall, so there was no way the poor thing was going to live.

Joshua then turned his attention to the rest of the lizards and quickly started to climb back up to attack them from behind as the rest of the group took them head on. Jayce and Ivan had leaped down the cliff in a similar manner to Joshua to get a better position against the approaching lizards. Jayce quickly put up a shield wall that stopped the lizards from racing straight towards the rest of the group while Ivan slammed his heavy sword directly into the chest of one of the lizards to knock it back into the rest of the group.

With the lizards close enough the rest of the close ranged fighters started to go on the offensive as well. Amy jumped directly onto the back of one of the lizards catching it by surprise. She crippled its spine with a few well aimed blows that got the creature to freeze up and start to fall off the cliff. Adrian on the other hand started cutting a few of the lizards' arms off so they couldn't cling to the wall or move around so efficiently. Although the lizards were well versed in fighting while hanging on the cliff they were still outmatched rather easily do to their lack of abilities. The group made quick work of the lizards before they continued to climb downward, but they were met by more and more of the lizards the further along they went.

Luckily it didn't take very long for them to finally see a sign that they were approaching their target as a light seemed to be shining from the side of the cliff down below. However before they could try to get to said light they had another group of lizards standing in their way. This time around there were two far larger lizards that were climbing behind a dozen of the regular sized ones. The larger lizards were at least twice the size of the other ones, but seemed just as fast when it came to climbing up the cliff.

Joshua used a quick energy slash to halt the progress of all of the incoming lizards. He prepared to dive towards one of the larger lizards to take it out of the picture, but Titus seemed to have the same idea in mind as he leaped from the cliff and fell down towards the two lizards. At his full size Titus was still much larger than the lizards so he had no trouble taking them both on. He slammed into one of them hard causing it to lose its holding and slide downward while Titus grabbed back on to the cliff. He then roared at the other as it tried to leap on to him.

Titus caught the obvious attack by the lizard, but not with his own body. Instead several vines shot out of the side of the cliff and grabbed the lizard out of the air. It struggled trying to break free, but its struggle didn't last long as the vines grew tighter around its neck before everyone could hear a loud snap. The other lizard tried to be more cautious as it attempted to sneak around and attack Titus from the side, but it was hit by the body of its partner as Titus grabbed the dead lizard by the tail and swung it with one arm into the one trying to get in a sneak attack. They could all hear the loud crunching sound as a bone or two must have broken from the blow. The lizard was knocked far off the cliff and fell deep into the darkness below.

Titus let out a triumphant roar and at the same time the rest of the group had made quick work of the other smaller lizards before climbing down to meet up with the giant gorilla. It was time to check out what all these lizards were trying to protect.