Chapter 405: Watch Your Step it's a long Fall

After a couple of days of planning and designing they had a basic structure for the wall and moat around the town. The actual inside of the town was something they could work on later on. For now the primary focus was the town defenses along with the underground structures that they would need to set up before putting together any of the buildings. With everything planned out Joshua was able to turn his attention to something else that needed to be dealt with. He was now focused on the small mountain range that loomed over the town.

Joshua wasn't sure what was on the other side of the mountains, but that didn't truly matter all that much. The mountains were both a problem and a solution at the same time. While they did put the town in a position where there were more beast nearby that wasn't a situation that was uncommon. Even a nearby forest could be just as threatening as a mountain range when it came to beast and with the explosion of nature throughout the planets evolution, Joshua was certain there wasn't a single town that didn't have some sort of beast filled territory nearby.

The mountains didn't seem large enough to have extremely powerful beast living within it, and it was highly unlikely that there would be any major flying enemies as well since Joshua hadn't seen any flying near the tops of the mountains. James Town actually had far more dangerous territories nearby than this new large town that they were going to build. The benefits to having such a mountain range around were probably far greater than the downsides. The most obvious benefit was the fact that the mountains offered a lot of materials that could be useful for developing said town in the future.

The one benefit that Joshua was most focused on was the fact that the mountain range separated the town from another territory behind it. This meant that if there were a beast tide they wouldn't have to be worried about getting surrounded from all angles just as long as they maintained the amount of beast on the mountains. This was also a good way of leveling up members of the guild without throwing them into new dangerous dungeons.

After all of the designs had been set in place and the architects were ready to get to work on the first stages Joshua gathered up the main members of his guild and started the expedition to claiming the mountain territory. He knew that he needed to reach level eighty soon so that the entire alliance could explore the other side of the prairie. While having other members at level eighty was important, the whole expedition wouldn't work if Joshua wasn't level eighty. They needed his heroic shout to be effective against beast that are at level ninety. Luckily they wouldn't have to deal with that in this mountain range, but it was still at the back of Joshua's mind.

The first thing Joshua noticed when he reached the mountainside along with the rest of his guild members was the fact that this side of the mountain range was extremely steep. It wasn't going to be like marching up a large hill, but instead was going to take some actual mountain climbing to get up and over from this side. Although all the stats they had gained made it much easier for them to climb without a problem, there were still several members in the group that would have a hard time with climbing up the side of a mountain for a large period of time, and there were even more that wouldn't be able to fight if they came across a beast that tried to attack them on the way up. There were some ledges here and there to help them out, but for the most part it was going to be a long climb.

"Cinder and Titus can carry most of us up that need solid footing to fight." Lilly offered as she could tell what was on Joshua's mind.

"That's fine. All mages and long ranged fighters should have no problem going up with Cinder or Titus. The rest of us can climb ourselves and help fight off any beast that make an appearance. If you're going up on one of Lilly's beast companions then be on the lookout for any caves or hidden locations that could be the entrance to a dungeon." Joshua explained getting nods from everyone in return.

In the end Joshua, Amy, Adrian, Ivan, Victor, Natsumi, Jayce, Marcus, and Allen were the ones climbing up personally. Everyone else were either on Cinder's back or Titus's shoulders. For Joshua climbing the cliff was no problem at all. With his aura he could easily dig his hands into the rock and create foot holds. He climbed at the front of the group making sure to create paths for the others to follow. Amy was doing something similar nearby since she could easily pierce through the rock with her hands as well.

With their high physical abilities the group was able to scale the side of the mountain really quickly. By the time they got half way up the mountain Joshua was starting to realize that the mountain range might be a little bit bigger than he was expecting. When he pulled himself on to a nearby ledge and looked down he could see that the group had gotten fairly far up in only half an hour of climbing. They hadn't come across any beast up to this point, but that wasn't surprising considering the fact that they were going up a cliff. There were very few aggressive beast that would make such an area their home, but that didn't mean there weren't any.

While waiting for the others to catch up to him Joshua sent out an aura pulse to check out their surroundings to see if there were any enemies in the area. With the large range of his aura pulse he was easily able to spot out a group of three large lizard like creatures stealthily climbing down from above their group as silently as possible. The creatures weren't all that big size wise since they were around the size of a bus which was small in comparison to a lot of the beast that Joshua's group had been coming across lately. Cinder alone towered over all three of the beast let alone Titus who could easily pick one up in one hand.

The creatures were a bit different in comparison to some of the other lizard like beast that Joshua had come across in the past. The most obvious thing was the fact that they weren't coming at them in huge packs. These lizards seemed more powerful and relied more on stealth than anything else. If it weren't for Joshua's aura pulse he would have no idea that they were being targeted at the moment. Although he couldn't see the creatures yet, the fact that they could so swiftly climb across the cliff side of the mountain without a care shows that their claws had to be fairly powerful to latch on so well.

Joshua turned on the party chat so that he could talk to everyone in the group without having to yell over the wind. "We've got three enemies heading our way. They seem to be lizards of some kind from what I can sense with my aura. Be ready for combat." After alerting everyone Joshua climbed further up giving the ledge to someone that would need it more than himself. He had no problem leaping along the cliff with his large scale blade since his scarf would prevent falling from being a problem.

When Joshua got in a position where he was in front of the rest of the group he waited while clinging on to the cliff with one hand while using the other to hold his scale blade in preparation for the upcoming fight. Eventually the three lizards came within sight, but it was still hard to see them because of how well their skin blended into the rocks along the cliff. The moment Joshua saw them he immediately noticed the two biggest threats the lizards posed in a fight. Their claws were extremely sharp with how easily they sliced through the rock as if they were running through dirt instead. Their tails were like long whips but with a sharpened end to them, it was hard to keep track of the tails from how quickly they swayed and how thin they got towards the end.

The direction the lizards were coming from was at an angle where they would go around Cinder and Titus avoiding them completely as they tried to get a shot at the smaller prey. It was clear to Joshua right away how opportunistic these lizards were. They were expecting to outright avoid the bigger enemies and steal away the small ones with their quick movements. They didn't even realize the fact that Cinder was more than fast enough to react to them while clinging to the cliff. Joshua decided to observe these foolish creatures and saw that they were only of decent strength at level seventy-seven with three stars by their name. They weren't weak, but they weren't the strongest creatures in the area.

Joshua turned to look at Lilly for a moment, when she seemed to not care about taming the lizards he decided to deal with them quickly before they could cause anyone to accidently slip off the cliff side. Joshua used an aura blast from his feet to launch himself through the air. When he got close enough he blinked directly in front of the closest lizard catching it by surprise. It reared back as it tried to swipe at him with its claws, but Joshua barreled into its chest with his scale blade. He was surprised how sturdy the scales were on the lizard since it took a lot of effort to pierce through them.

The force of the collision knocked Joshua and the lizard off the cliff as they started plummeting. The lizard was flailing in panic, but Joshua slammed his scale blade into its neck killing it for good before using his scarf to float in the air and head back towards the cliff with the force from another aura blast. When Joshua looked up he could see Amy slamming her fist into the sides of one of the lizards while Adrian cut one of its eyes out. The last lizard was getting bombarded by fireballs and bolts of lightning. Joshua quickly climbed back up to join in on the rest of the action, but by the time he got back one of the lizards was falling past him. It had several bruises all over its body and had one of its arms slashed off. Its tail whipped towards Joshua as it passed by in one last attempt to hit someone, but he simply cut it off with his scale blade as it plummeted below.

When a large crashing sound came from below and a surge of experience filled him Joshua knew that the lizard was dead. The last lizard was still trying to struggle as it started to back away from the group when it realized it was outnumbered and in a bad situation. When it looked like Aito was about to shoot it down and put it out of its misery a loud rumbling sound came from the cliff making everyone in the group tense. Joshua rushed to get back to the group before anything bad could happen.