Joshua, Amy, and Lilly were all impressed by the team work they saw Adrian"s group work together with. From what Joshua could tell Adrian wasn"t really a tank for the group, but more of dueler if anything. He took on a creature one on one and created openings for Aito to kill the beast. He was able to crack the armor enough that Aito"s attacks would break straight through and do ma.s.sive damage. Joshua also got a pretty good idea of Henry"s role in things. For the most part Henry just casted a few spells at the start, but they seemed to be a good part of the reason Adrian was having such an easy time with the creature.The yellow shields that floated around his body not only protected him, but also stunned an enemy for a split moment if they hit the shield. Of course the attack would probably still go through if it had hit Adrian directly which was why he slightly redirected it before hand, but even if he did manage to get hit then the scorpion would have still been stunned for a moment and that would have given Adrian the chance to recover. It was an interesting enchantment that could be used both offensively and defensively depending on the situation. The other enchantment that Henry had casted on both Adrian and Aito was an enchantment that boosted the power of their attacks. It was far more straightforward than the others, but it basically added an effect on their attacks which Joshua noticed when Adrian"s swords started to glow red when he attacked or when Aito"s shots ricocheted with a power far greater than expected.
From what Joshua could tell Henry"s enchantments weren"t straight up stats boost like the ones from Lilly"s pets, but were instead abilities that granted a certain function that were empowered under certain circ.u.mstances. Joshua was certain he hadn"t seen all of what Henry could do, but it was definitely an interesting concept that could go a long ways with his style of fighting. Of course Henry new a few offensive abilities in case he ever had to fight on his own, but he was at his strongest when he was supporting others.
"That was amazing! I can"t believe how easy they took out that scorpion. It was level fifty seven and all so I thought it would be more challenging than that." Amy said with looks of wonder. It was then that Joshua realized he hadn"t exactly observed the scorpion before the fight had started so he wasn"t exactly sure how strong it was. From the presence he could feel from it through his aura though he"d say it was at around the same strength of the sub-boss from the prairie dog dungeon and this was just a random wild beast in the area. That made him realize how much more challenging the upcoming dungeon was going to be.
"They worked well together, Adrian made openings for Aito, while Henry empowered the both of them. I can see how efficient it is, but I can also see how it would be hard for them to fight this way when taking on larger groups or more challenging foes." Joshua said as he watched Adrian throw the beast into his inventory as they made their way back over.
"How"s that? They seemed to be able to handle themselves well if you ask me." Lilly said as she got off the back of Cinder. The large Spider seemed to want to charge at the scorpion since its aura seemed threatening, but she stayed still after Lilly calmed her down. This was probably the first time that Cinder had felt threatened outside of a boss fight so it would be interesting to see how Lilly"s pets handled things going forward. They would be at a disadvantage against the higher level beast they"d be fighting from now on, but they were all still special so they"d be extremely useful. When there level started to catch up things would become a whole lot easier for everybody.
"Against one opponent their tactics would work, but if they were surrounded or against a more intelligent beast then things would be hard. No matter if Adrian is strong he"s still not a tank and he doesn"t have any abilities to grab the attention of multiple foes. He"d have to attack each enemy and keep their attention the entire time while Aito would have to deal all the damage. That type of strategy wouldn"t last for long." Joshua said as the two girls started to understand what he was getting at.
"Joshua"s right." Henry said as the three of them came over and joined in on the conversation. "Fights become tedious and long against multiple opponents since Aito has to take them down one by one on his own most of the time while Adrian is stuck fighting defensively. My enchantments help in that regard, but they can only do so much. His high reflexes allow him to be extremely evasive when fighting, but that can only go so far."
"Yeah, plus you got to remember I can only attack the target that Adrian is focusing on otherwise I"ll drag the attention of the beast over to me. Sometimes that happens anyways when we fight smarter creatures and that makes the fights become too chaotic." Aito explained getting a nod from everyone.
"That"s where Joshua comes in. He can hold the line and grab all of the enemies" attention with his abilities. He won"t be ignored like Adrian is half the time if things go wrong." Henry said with a smile. "Besides I"ve got some enchantments that don"t really fit Adrian"s style that would work far better on a tank."
"Well then you guys got a decent idea of how we fight, so do you think you"re all ready to try this out together?" Adrian said with a big grin as he looked towards another group of three scorpions headed their way. "You take the lead this time Josh, I finally get to focus on damage so don"t let me down man." Joshua just smiled at his antics for a moment before taking the scale blade off his back and letting his aura shroud flow around him. He instantly felt his strength surge and then he felt three more surges of strength as Lilly had both Jade and the dog she named Light jump into his shadow. This was the first time he had Light fighting alongside him so it would be interesting to see how his abilities worked out. The last boost in strength came from Flutter as she floated just behind Lilly as her boost ability powered up everyone in the group. This was a more physical oriented group so Flutter was boosting everyone"s physical stats.
Lilly got on the back of Cinder ready to attack from a distance. The scorpions were quite large as they were all at least three stories tall making them only a little smaller than Cinder at her full-size, but they were far more bulky and of a higher level so having her take one head on probably wasn"t a good idea at the moment. Joshua observed the three scorpions and realized their levels fluctuated between fifty-six and fifty-seven with a two or three star rating for their potential. The one at the front was the strongest being a little bigger and more intimidating than the other two, so Joshua prepared to take its charge head on. He knew the creature would probably be stronger than him if he took it on straight up even with all the stats boost considering its size and the huge level difference, but with his aura hardening taking effect when the creature was preparing to charge at him he wanted to test how well he could fill the role of a tank at the moment.
When the creatures got close enough Joshua let out a heroic shout that attracted them all to him then he charged forward. He could feel a couple of more enhancements surround his body and could see a yellow and green glow enclose around him. He was certain it was Henry doing something and was looking forward to seeing what tricks his old friend had up his sleeve. The moment before he clashed with the enormous scorpion. He placed his scale blade in front of himself to block the large scorpion"s claws from slamming into him. The impact of the blow barely made him budge at all as he caused the large creature to stop in its tracks. Joshua"s rock steady ability was taking effect and was making it so that he could hold his ground far easier than normal with the size difference.
Even under those conditions Joshua was still pushed back a bit, but the large scorpion was frozen from the paralysis of Henry"s spell effect. The other two scorpions tried to rush around to attack Joshua as well, but before they could he charged his scale blade with aura and sent out a large energy slash combined with an aura blast to smash into all three scorpions. Since the attack was more spread out than usual it didn"t do much damage to them and only knocked them backwards and stopped their charge, but that was exactly what Joshua wanted. He didn"t want to get swarmed so he kept them away with that tactic. He then swung his scale blade down with all of his strength into the large scorpion that was in front of him. The blow did even more damage than Joshua was expecting with the new enchantment that Nathan had put on it and the force of the blow was enough to drastically crack the exoskeleton of the large scorpion that was backing away in pain.
The other two scorpions tried to lunge in to redirect Joshua"s attention, but they seemed to forget that Joshua wasn"t the only enemy they had to deal with. A heavy blast came from behind Joshua and smashed into the face of the scorpion where all the cracks had formed. The blow completely destroyed the rest of the scorpion"s protections leaving its insides exposed and allowing Cinder to send a large fireball into the screaming scorpion as it slowly burnt alive. Aito made sure to put it down for good with a couple more quick shots to its exposed body and Joshua could feel another surge of strength feel his body as the creature died.
The scene enraged the other two scorpions as they tried kill Joshua with their stingers, but two light shields were projected from his body thanks to Light and they greatly slowed down the pace of the frighteningly fast stinger attacks. That gave Joshua more than enough time to react as he dodged them both and smashed his heavy blade into the tail portion nearly cutting them off. Unlike Adrian Joshua relied on power in his swings and that showed with the fact that his attack nearly cut off the stingers altogether, but Adrian definitely wasn"t a slouch. He rushed into one of the angered scorpions and started slashing off its legs while it was busy screaming in pain from Joshua"s actions.
On the other side Amy rushed to the flank of the other smaller scorpion and used the ability of her soul beast to ignore the exoskeleton altogether and started smashing her fist into its side. From the blood that was splashing out of the creatures mouth Joshua could see that Amy was dealing some real damage to its insides before she jumped away as the creature started to flail around in pain for a moment. Before the two beast could start to go after Adrian or Amy Joshua charged forward, cleaved into one of them with his scale blade while tails poured out of his shadow with drills on the end of them and tore into a large crack on the other scorpion. His attack got their attention back on him right away, but both creatures looked like they were on the verge of collapse after everyone"s attacks.
It came as no surprise to Joshua when a rail bullet came from behind him and penetrated through an opening on one of the scorpions causing a small explosion from the inside of it. The creature slumped over and died soon after. Before the last scorpion could even react Cinder had leapt above it and smashed down from above tearing into all of the cracks on its body with her legs. The creature tried to use its greater strength to break free, but it was losing blood fast and couldn"t put up much of a struggle. After a few moments the scorpion stopped moving all together and pa.s.sed on from its injuries. With that their first fight as a group was a success.