Chapter 557: Territory War ends and Recruit Training is finished |
Even though the leader of the Rampage Guild had been taken down the invaders still tried to keep up the fight for a time. Some of the mercenaries grouped up to take on the territory guardian, but in the end they didn't have the same power as Joshua that was necessary to actually reach the core of the beast. Trying to slowly whittle down such a creature was not a real possibility and that became clear once the amount of invaders became less than the amount of defenders.
The territory guardian was also intelligent to a degree that the metallic guardians weren't. The metallic guardians just lined up in a row in the case of the lizards to attack the front line while the centipedes just jumped into the back and attacked in any direction. The territory guardian was far more selective as it went after whoever it sensed was the strongest of the invaders. The sub-heads attacked large groups since even if they were destroyed they would just regenerate within minutes. They focused on destroying as many defenders as possible. The main head however lurked in the darkness and would attack whoever it singled out as a threat to the other guardians. That's why it took out the leader of the Rampage Guild right away.
About an hour after the fighting had started it was clearly coming to an end. The blinding fog that the territory guardian had created began to fade away as the sound of fighting was now small in comparison to the beginning of the fight. When it cleared out completely Joshua could see that there were only a little over a hundred invaders left and still more than half of the robotic army and beast squadrons. Three metallic guardians had been taken out with one of them being the centipede, but the territory guardian looked perfectly fine as all of its small wounds were healing back quickly. By this point all of the invaders that were left were weaker and only staying alive because they were huddled together and the main head of the territory guardian hadn't targeted them.
Joshua smiled as he saw Kyle amongst the group looking terrified and completely shocked by his current situation. It didn't take long before the territory guardian focused in on them as one of the snake heads shot down and swallowed Kyle and a few others whole. The territory war came to an end on that note and all of the towns defenses went back to their original positions.
"Well that was good to see. Don't think I'll be rushing to protect the town next time around if this is how strong our defenses are." Adrian said while stretching. "Unless a group comes around with some sort specialty invading force I don't think we'll have to worry about things around here."
"Plus if things go bad we can just show up later on during the territory war." Aito said with a shrug. "As long as we don't pass the limit of ten thousand participants then we can show up at any time."
Everyone agreed and felt that the town defenses were well off and far better than expected. This time around Kyle didn't rely on a guild that wasn't good at territory wars and actually got one that specialized in it along with well-paid mercenaries. Joshua chuckled at the thought of how much money Kyle had to have wasted to set this all up only for it to blow up in his face so quickly. Even though things had gone perfectly Joshua new that there were still some things that could improve the town's defenses. In the future he hoped to find a blue print for some other wall mounted weaponry so that they'd have something more powerful than turrets.
Watching how the turrets were easily blocked by shield walls or how the ants could just overwhelm them through numbers, if it weren't for the other defenses, showed that they could be improved. It would also be nice to find some better ammo in large amounts, but Joshua had another month at the earliest before he'd have to even worry about someone trying to attack James Town again. The only threat at the moment would be from wild beast and seeing as how the current defenses could hold off a giant ant tide Joshua doubted anything outside of a stray guardian class beast would be able to be a threat to James Town.
With the match over most of the guild members went back to what they were doing before all of this came up in the first place leaving Joshua with the original group he had been with. "Well that was an interesting little distraction and it was a more than long enough break for you two before we do the final training dungeon." Joshua said with a smile as Thomas and Celia looked at him in shock.
"The canyon dungeon is definitely the hardest dungeon we could bring you guys to at the moment, but it's not the final dungeon I had in mind." Joshua said while he started walking further into town with the two recruits following behind him along with Amy and Lily.
"Oh you're going to take them to the town dungeon then?" Amy asked getting a nod in return from Joshua. "Neat, it's something all our recruits go through at some point."
"What's so special about this dungeon if you don't mind me asking?" Celia questioned as they started closing in on the police department of the town where the dungeon was located.
"First off the difficulty of the dungeon can be changed to anything going up to the current level of the town. In that regard it can currently go up to level eighty-five, but we'll make it so that the boss at the end of the dungeon is level eighty." Joshua explained before entering the building. "This time around Lily, Amy, and I are all just going to watch for the most part. It's up to you two to clear the place. When you do this training will be finished and you will gain a skill for clearing the dungeon for the first time. A win-win in my opinion."
The two of them nodded just as they reached the entrance to the dungeon and Joshua stepped aside so that Celia could take the lead. The moment they entered the dungeon Thomas brought out both Tails and Nuts as he stayed a little bit behind Celia while the rest of the group followed further behind. Joshua made sure to restrain his aura to the point where beast wouldn't notice him otherwise they'd likely target him first if given the opportunity. The dungeon was filled with a combination of the scythe tailed cat beast that were a far more basic version of what Jade had been, along with the shadow beast that could travel through the shadows and take people by surprise.
Joshua didn't warn the pair about what they might come across so that things would be a bit more challenging, but he knew that there weren't any traps in the dungeon to get in the way. All in all it would just come down to defeating the bosses and scouting out the paths. Celia was perfect for both with her ability to sense danger. She would never be caught off guard do to this and Joshua noticed that her sense of danger had fairly decent range as she avoided going down paths that seemed unnecessarily dangerous to her. Joshua sensed down those paths himself with his aura and found that each of those paths had large amounts of beast that were prepared to mount an ambush. Of course there were a couple of treasure chest at the end of some of those paths, but it was far too dangerous for just two people to handle on their own and Celia made the wise decision of trusting her senses.
Whenever they ran into fights that were unavoidable the two worked extremely well together and Joshua was able to see them in roles that they wouldn't have to fill in the main group. Celia filled the role of a main tank where she grabbed all of the attention of any beast they came across and focused entirely on blocking or evading their attacks while keeping them focused on her. She would strike out with an attack occasionally but that was mostly when countering after getting a good opening.
Thomas however was filling the role of damage dealer between the two. He had Tails destroying any of the shadow beast with his flames rather easily once they tried to attack Celia while Nuts empowered the power of Tails' attacks. Overall the two new recruits worked extremely well together as they cleared their way through the dungeon. When they came across the shadow beast sub boss they were able to blaze their way through the fight as Thomas used bestial fusion to empower Tails and make it so that his flames were more wide spread and able to destroy the roaming shadow beast while damaging the sub boss. Celia finished it off with a powerful strike once it was locked down and they moved on.
The final boss was actually an easier fight for the two. The fact that it couldn't turn intangible and dive into shadows none stop allowed Celia to lock it in place while Thomas used bestial fusion to empower Tails. It took a while, but the clash between the two beasts eventually ended in Tails victory with the help of Celia. When the fight came to an end both Thomas and Celia were level seventy-five with Thomas being close to leveling up again. It was in that moment when the two were about to gain their rewards for clearing the dungeon Tails started glow brightly as flames surrounded him. It seemed like the beast companion was going through an evolution phase..
