Risen World

Chapter 141: An Animalistic Haze Boss

Joshua turned his attention towards the direction where he could feel the presence of the boss and started making his way over. They had decided to keep Cinder and Tank in their small forms for the moment since they wanted the haze boss to be arrogant for as long as possible. If it started to attack them head on without bringing in its swarm then that was all the better for them. The zombies would take at least five minutes to get to the center of town even if they sprinted over and the haze creatures would take even longer. Besides if Joshua knew anything he knew that boss haze creatures were arrogant and when push came to shove they preferred to use their own minions to heal or strengthen themselves through the haze rather than use them to attack.

In the end if all things went according to plan then they would have more than enough time to take the boss down before it could get a large amount of help. Even if some of the zombies could make it over, Lilly was currently synchronized to Tank and was creating a large amount of bubble traps to hinder the progress of anything or anyone that tried to rush in this direction. Cinder was helping out by creating several web traps all over the place in a similar fashion. Even Flutter was setting some poison traps along the way with her poison gas to hinder them even more.

Now that everything was set Joshua allowed his aura to flow out in full as they entered near the center of town and they could see a rather large building that looked like a town hall, but instead of a normal three story building that was supposed to be spread in the shape of a pristine school they were met with what looked like a half ruined building with the roof completely torn apart with what seemed to be a large back sticking out of it. By its shape Joshua could immediately tell the creature that they were going up against walked on four legs instead of two like the last haze boss he had come across. It wasn't sitting on its thrown, but was instead laying in it with a lazy aura about it.

The moment they came close enough the figure started to move as more rocks and other pieces of the once town hall started falling apart. It slowly began to stand on its four legs and when it finished stretching out to its full height it stood at nearly five stories tall as it glared down at them with an amused smile on its face. From what Joshua could see he was sure that the thing looked like a rather large feline, not quite a cat, but not quite a larger species either. In the end it looked like a mid-sized feline since it didn't have the bulk of a tiger or lion, yet it wasn't quite as skinny as the smaller sized cats. What really made it different from the common beast and set it aside as a haze monster though was its tail. Unlike most cats that had a tail simply for balance the tail on this creature had what looked like a long metal blade fused to the end that made it look somewhat like scythe if anything. It was definitely different and seemed fairly deadly.

Of course the creature still had the deadly claws of other beast of its type, but by how easily it was flicking its tail around at a speed that it looked like a blur Joshua knew that it was the main threat of this boss. Joshua observed the boss and saw five stars next to its level of forty and its name. It was simply called Boss Class Abomination which showed the system probably didn't give haze creatures specific names outside of their class, but that didn't matter all that much in the end. Joshua immediately turned on his aura hardening ability to prepare for any of the creatures deadly attacks. He was going to take things more defensive at first and Lilly followed his lead by staying synchronized to Tank to keep her defense as high as possible. Flutter was already using her boost ability when Joshua noticed the haze boss was making its first move.

The large creature let out a large roar that sent out some kind of weird energy from its body that poured into the surroundings. The moment it happened Joshua could feel his body try to tense up, but his will was high enough to shrug off the effects of most of the stuff. Sadly it wasn't the same for the rest of the group. They all froze up at the wave of killing intent from the higher level creature except for Tank, but he was still in his small form. In that moment the large creature grinned as he swiped his bladed tail towards Lilly since she and Cinder were frozen in place. Joshua immediately blinked into the path of the attack since he knew he wasn't going to be able to move fast enough regularly. He blocked the strike, but the force of the blow sent him skidding back even in his aura hardened state. He retaliated with a quick energy slash to the shoulder of the large creature since it was twisted after trying to attack them. The slash tore through its skin but only reached its muscle since the distance was too large.

Joshua immediately followed up with a heroic shout to break Lilly and Cinder out of their current situation and then watched as the large creature angrily glared at him for daring to injure it. Even so the visible cut healed right before their eyes and Joshua frowned at that. It was similar to the last haze boss he fought and he knew that he'd have to get close if he wanted to do any real damage to it, but this time he wasn't alone and now he knew the creatures trump card. It was still only level forty so it wouldn't have all that many special abilities, but from what he could tell it had a roar that had an extreme killing intent behind it beyond normal measures if it could cause Cinder to freeze up. Luckily Joshua had a skill to get around that. Another ability was its high regeneration just like all haze boss class monsters.

The two skills he wasn't sure about at the moment he had an idea of what it could possibly be. First he was certain that it probably had some sort of enrage skill that made it more powerful when it was in danger of dying. He imagined the last skill probably had something to do with its scythe like tail. The force he took on while blocking it was fairly powerful, but he was sure it wasn't strong enough to make the amazing cut he had seen earlier in the buildings and street. That tail had something else that the boss had yet to use.

'Alright I've got an idea of what it can do. Cinder you stay the same size and move around with Lilly for now. Try to bombard it with constant attacks so it can't heal up all that quickly and stay at a distance.' Joshua explained getting a nod from her and Lilly. He planned for them to constantly damage it and hold off its regeneration while he did massive damage to it. "Tank, you can grow to full size now and take it head on. Watch out for that tail, it's the only thing it has that can gravely hurt you. You won't die even if you get hit, but don't be too risky. Just try to keep its attention on you for the most part."

"Sure, this fight seems like it will be fun." Tank simply replied with a booming voice before leaping off of Lilly and Cinder. He started to grow to his full size shocking the haze boss and agitating it even more.

"Alright if any of those zombies or haze creatures come to try to help out feel free to go take care of them Lilly, I'm sure Cinder will have no problem frying tem alive." Joshua said with a big grin before charging toward the boss which had already leapt at Tank in its anger. It tried to swipe at Tanks head but, Tank simply kept his neck tucked in causing the blows to simply glance of his shell. He then bashed into the creature and sent it crashing over several buildings. Before it could get up and out of the dangerous situation for it, Tank bit into one of its legs ripping off a large amount of muscle while Cinder started to send several fire balls towards it. The following explosions caused it to roar in pain before it kicked Tank back and swiped its scythe like blade towards him. Tank smartly backed up and pulled his head into his shell as the attack once again glanced off his shell, but a long scratch was left on it.

The scratch was already starting to fade before Tank even came back out of his shell proving that the damage done wasn't going to be enough to matter. Thins angered the boss as its tail started to glow red and it shot it toward Tank again though this time he was aiming for one of his legs. Before it could make contact Joshua smashed his scale blade into the wound on the creature's leg causing the tail to jolt out of place and slash across Tanks shell instead. This time the cut was deep and would have probably cut half into Tanks leg if given the chance.

Before it could try to rear up for another attack Joshua used an aura blast from his scale blade that was imbedded deep into its open wound before tearing it to the side and ripping the leg off. The creature howled in pain before leaping back and turning towards Joshua. Several more fireballs came slamming into its side causing it to catch fire while Tank shot a torrent of water directly into its face sending it falling backwards. The fireballs seemed far more powerful than usual so Joshua assumed Lilly probably used her empower ability on it this time around and that's why it caused so much damage.

The creature got up once again, but this time its body seemed to be bulging in size and giving off a bunch of steam which immediately told Joshua it was going into an enraged state. He knew that although this was a bad situation in most cases it was also a chance for them to take advantage of it going berserk. The large beast ran towards Joshua as fast as possible, but that was exactly what Joshua was expecting. When it slashed its tail directly toward him glowing a vibrant red it expected to kill him, but instead of feeling it pass through flesh and bone all it felt was it move through nothing even though it looked like it had torn its enemy in half.

At the same time Joshua was smiling as he stood on Tanks back and leapt towards the head of the creature. The thing the creature had attacked was actually an illusion created by Flutter and it was just enough to put the creature in a bad position as it wasn't thinking clearly. Joshua slashed his scale blade across one of its large eyes and tore it apart with a follow up echo strike. He could already see the leg growing back under its berserk state so he planned on handicapping its eye and making his next attack easier. The creature screamed in pain before shaking Joshua off.

In its rage its red tail was slashing towards Tank once again, but this time Joshua blinked in front of it and activated his aura shield blocking the powerful attack. Now with its tail stretched out right in front of Tank this gave the turtle the opportunity to do what he does best. He chomped down onto the exposed tail and ripped it and the scythe off all together with his large Jaw. This caused the boss to whale as its berserk state was starting to fade. It came out of it with more injuries then it had gone into it with and now its greatest asset was torn off leaving Joshua with the perfect opportunity to go for the kill. He burst forward with full power towards the torn out eye and dived right in. He immediately started tearing through the skull of the massive creature and used a combination of aura blast and energy slashes to blast apart its head and made his way to the large stone that was the core of the creature. He immediately smashed his scale blade into it over and over again until it fell apart and the creature let out its last shout.

By the time he made his way out of its head it had already fallen over onto the ground and its body was slowly disintegrating. He could feel his body grow stronger as he gained another level and he smiled at their success.