308 Chapter 254: One Smart Ape

When fighting the monkeys Joshua realized how clever they were. The way they fought was all about tricking their opponents into making mistakes. They would put him on edge with a flurry of punches and try to take him off guard with their scorpion tail to go for the kill. It was a smart strategy, but had the obvious weakness of the fact that it became somewhat predictable and could be used against them. In Joshua's case he was able to leave small opening so that the monkeys would try to stab him when he was already expecting it. This allowed him to counter and gravely injure them.

The fact that there were a bunch of other people constantly bombarding the two monkeys with spells and attacks as well made things go much faster as well. Although the creature did become stronger when it absorbed its dead partner, it was still somewhat predictable in its movements. In the end the monkey would have been far harder to deal with if it was fighting alongside the orangutan or gorilla, since it would be able to go in and out of combat and cause trouble whenever given the chance.

When it came to the upcoming fight Joshua knew that things would be more challenging. There were a couple of reason for this that came to mind from the first time Joshua had first seen the large ape. The orangutan wasn't just clever like the monkeys in a prankster sort of sense, but was instead intelligent. It seemed to be doing most of the talking during the meeting with the gorilla and monkeys. It was a planner and could probably use that to its advantage going into the fight. Joshua also had no idea what kind of tricks the orangutan could have up its sleeve.

'Well looks like we won't be able to take this one by surprise.' Madalyn said with a frown as they all stood on a nearby building and watched the giant ape that was silently looking towards them. The massive building that it had been using as its bed was cleared out already. In fact all of the buildings that were close to the orangutan had been torn down as if it was telling them that it had set up the battlefield in the way it wanted.

'I think we're the ones that are going to be taken by surprise.' Joshua responded back through the mental link. 'Be prepared for anything, we're going to have to get closer for any of the ranged fighters attacks to be accurate outside of Aito and Natalie.'

The group nodded as they all started to get down from the building to get closer to the ape. The creature had put them at a big disadvantage by taking out all of the buildings that were immediately around it. They wouldn't be able to use their grappling hooks to the best of their abilities under the current circumstances. It wouldn't even budge from its spot until they got closer as it continued to watch them move in its direction.

'Lilly you should probably go ahead and bring out Cinder for this fight alongside your other smaller pets. I think we'll need her to take this guy down.' Joshua said getting a nod from her in return. The next moment a large spider appeared that was around the same size as the orangutan. It was a bit taller, but Cinder's body had more mass than it in comparison. Even so none of them knew if the ape had any tricks up its sleeve so Joshua decided to be the first one to charge forward.

With his approach the orangutan started to focus in on him as it got out of it's crouched over position rising to its full height of nearly six stories. It had four arms just like the monkeys, but they were much longer giving the creature a much longer reach which could be problematic. It also had its scorpion tail that seemed much more threatening than anything else as it hovered over the beast head aiming directly for Joshua. The orangutan reared up as it used one set of arms to pound its chest threateningly while it bared its teeth. The sight was intimidating, but Joshua kept rushing towards the beast.

The orangutan noticed that its intimidation wasn't having any effect so it went back to its calm appearance as it crouched forward preparing to strike at Joshua the moment that he got close enough. When Joshua thought it was about to strike out towards him, he was surprised when one of its arms instead dug into the remains of the school building and started to pull upwards.

The sudden action caused Joshua to come to a halt to make sure that he wasn't diving into some sort of trap. Within moments he could see what the creature was up to as it started to rip out all sorts of piping and wiring from underneath the ground. By pulling on the cords it started to rip them out from beneath the street that Joshua was standing on. He had to jump out of the way to keep his footing as cars were sent into the air by the sudden action of the orangutan. The wires destroyed a large portion of the street while knocking all sorts of concrete and vehicles out of the way. Dust was sent flying into the air making it hard for Joshua to view his surroundings.

Realizing that he wasn't going to be able to rely on his sight to see his enemy for a moment, Joshua closed his eyes to keep the dust from irritating them. He started to rely on his hearing for anything out of the ordinary. Once he heard a whooshing sound he immediately dunked as one of the orangutan's long arms tried to grab hold of him. He knew that avoiding the first attempt wasn't going to be enough, so he started to back away hoping to get closer to the rest of the group and bring the giant ape along with him. If he could get within their range of being able to attack the beast then things might just get off to a good start for this unpredictable battle.

While moving away Joshua had to avoid a few more grabs from sound alone as the rustling of the hair on the orangutan's arms gave it away. At one point he felt a sense of danger coming from straight ahead and used his aura to leap further away as the scorpion tail pierced the place he was standing in. At this point he was at the edge of the dust and was close enough to the rest of the group to actually make them out through the haze and dirt cloud. He leaped back out of range of the orangutan's last swipe attempt, but after he got out of the dust he noticed that the arm that was swinging towards him was the least of his worries.

When Joshua turned to the side he could see a large street lamp pole being swung directly towards him. The pole looked as if it had been ripped out of the ground with some of its wiring still hanging from its base. It was currently in one of the hands of the sub-boss that Joshua was initially trying to dodge, but with the extended reach of the pole he wasn't going to be able to get out of the way in time.

Joshua immediately started to use aura hardening and positioned his scale blade to block the pole. Even though he had prepared himself at the last moment the force of the blow was enough to send him sailing away. He crashed into a nearby car nearly crushing it as he kept up his hardening. It was a painful experience, but for the most part he was able to avoid any real injuries.

As Joshua pulled himself out of the beaten up car he kept his eyes on the dust cloud that started to fade away allowing everyone to see the massive orangutan's figure once more. The creature was still holding the pole in one of its hands as it glared over towards Joshua. It was preparing to strike out again when a bombardment of spells started flying at it from the direction that Joshua had been leading it towards. Although the ape was able to land a good hit on Joshua it was still brought close enough to the rest of the group just like Joshua planned.

Joshua wanted to see how much damage a basic barrage of spells would do to the large creature before he could try to come up with a way to take the sub-boss down. The large orangutan instantly turned towards the fireballs and ice spears that were coming its direction and did something that Joshua wasn't expecting. It picked up a large piece of the street that had been torn up when it pulled on the wiring, and chunked into the path of all the spells. The fireballs exploded when clashing into the ruble while most of the other spells were knocked off course. With one swift move the orangutan had avoided any sort of damage as it started to turn its attention towards the others.

When it noticed Aito with his gun and Natalie with her bow it covered its eyes with one of its hands so that their attacks wouldn't be able to destroy its weak point. The creature was smart to cover up its weakness while the pair were firing at it. Aito's piercing round were able to dig deep into the creatures muscles, but it was too large and well defended for them to do any real damage without charging up. Natalie's arrows on the other hand were batted away by the orangutan that refused to allow any of the arrows to get near its head. All of her arrows that were either poisoned or had an explosive strapped to them were knocked aside harmlessly.

The orangutan continued to stride slowly towards the group even with them continuously sending spells in its direction. It would use a combination of the pole in its hands to bat aside some of the more solid attacks such as stone spears or large icicles, but whenever a fireball came close it would grab a rock up from the ground and throw it to cause the explosion to occur before it could get anywhere close to the large creature. Joshua pulled himself out of the ruined car before rushing over towards the orangutan once more. He couldn't allow it to get to close to all of the ranged fighters if they wanted to be able to take control of the fight.

Joshua blocked the path of the large creature who started to glare down at him as if the annoying fly had come back. It swung the pole towards Joshua once more, but this time Joshua met it head on. He covered his scale blade in aura and cut the pole in half before sending an energy slash directly towards the arm that was closest. The strike left a long cut on the creatures arm, but it didn't go very deep and it was healing rather fast. The giant orangutan seemed to smile at this before Joshua got a sense of foreboding. That's when he heard a strange screeching sound coming from a nearby building and he was forced to jump back to avoid a spear of lightning that came flying by. The orangutan wasn't alone.