Gauss moved.
He burst into a sprint—fast. Power flooded his legs like it couldn't run out; with a light push, his body shot forward.
So light!
Even he was surprised. It felt as if gravity had stopped working on him.
Maybe his intent was too obvious, because several burly Hobgoblins in tidy iron armor roared and charged to cut him off. Aside from their green skin and ugly faces, they scarcely resembled the stunted goblins—more like a different species altogether: barrel-chested, thick-limbed, massively strong…every word for "brawny" fit them.
But agility wasn't their strength.
Gauss bounded in, vaulted, and slipped right through their line.
When they turned to pursue, a searing sting suddenly spread from their armor.
Zzzz!
The plate hugging their skin had become a red-hot potato.
Gauss kept streaking ahead.
By the time he closed on the goblin shaman, it still hadn't processed how he'd slipped past its kin so easily. Its murky pupils blew wide—
Danger!!!
Every hair on its body stood on end; its wrinkled skin prickled, primal instincts screaming at the threat in front of it.
Gauss's figure swelled in its sight. A palpable, crushing pressure washed over it like a tide, nearly knocking it out cold. Lesser dragon's might stacked with the Goblin Butcher aura—at this range, the oppression was something only a goblin could truly feel.
To the shaman right now, Gauss was the most terrifying being it had ever faced. Maybe that was an exaggeration—Gauss wasn't that strong—but the relationship was like cat and mouse, a baked-in bloodline check. Worse, really, because fear of dragons is etched deepest in goblin genes.
Goblins are bottom-tier monsters; dragons are among the highest. Dragons hunt and destroy goblins as easily as humans catch grasshoppers. To goblins, dragons are lords worthy of worship—and walking, irresistible disasters. Dragon claws from the sky, dragonfire erasing a tribe—such tales are countless on this continent.
The shaman's mind went blank. Fear clenched its heart; it could barely breathe.
"Die."
In that flicker of stupefaction, Gauss blinked to its face. His right hand—scaled into a dragon claw—rose high.
The stabbing pain finally shocked the shaman's survival reflex awake; a clear force shield flared instinctively over its body.
But that was all it managed.
Gauss was too fast.
He dropped like a small, humanoid dragon, claw ripping the air, howling straight for its skull. If that strike landed with no protection, even the hardest rock would be pierced like tofu—or wrenched free in a single grab.
At the last instant, the shield snapped complete.
Thud!!
Gauss's claw smashed the shimmering barrier with a dull boom. Sparks and streamers of light spat from the impact. The clash of offense and defense resolved in a blink: the shield warped and buckled around the contact point, then shattered with a bang.
But it had done its job in the one moment that mattered—its master lived.
"Boom!" The shaman was hurled backward by the backlash, scarlet blood gushing from its mouth. Red laced its teeth and gums; the pain made it clutch its staff till its nails nearly dug in, croaking a hoarse, meaningless howl.
As it tumbled, a second shield began to coalesce—and the surrounding elites, roused by its call, charged Gauss in a rage, red light swelling over them until their already huge bodies swelled thicker.
Gauss's gaze never left the flying shaman. He raised his right claw; an upcast Magic Missile swelled in his palm.
Thoom!
The Level 2 Missile, more than half again the normal size, roared free—howling toward the shaman, rings of compressed air rippling down its path—and reached it in a blink.
Crack! The half-formed shield exploded under the impact, shards of glowing facets spinning away.
Thoom! Thoom! Gauss loosed a second, then a third. With no shield left, the missiles tore the air and slammed home on the shaman mid-flight.
The blasts boomed; the upcast power delivered crushing kinetic force. The shaman, never sturdy to begin with, couldn't withstand it. In the first breath of shockwave, skin ripped like paper—then flesh, then bone. Its chest caved visibly; it whistled across the air, smashed the ground—landed at last.
With one breath left, the final missile arrived.
The mangled body couldn't hold together—blew apart into dozens of pieces.
Goblin Shaman Slain ×1
The instant it died, a formless pulse swept the field. All goblins—common and elite—hitched in place; the red frenzy light cloaking them guttered out. With blessings cut, the rank and file faltered; facing that dreadful figure in the melee, they broke—some turning to flee. Gauss's clay constructs gave no quarter, cutting them down.
The elites only grew more furious and lunged for Gauss.
The nearest Two-headed Goblin, sword in one hand and staff in the other, rushed him. As the blade chopped down, the staff flared too. Gauss felt a binding force clamp his body. A heartbeat later, the roiling power and dragon-blood in him tore it off.
Clink!—some spell fizzled.
He brought up his claw to catch the greatsword; sparks skittered off the scales. "Magic Missile!" His left hand—white wand—pressed into the goblin's gut and fired an upcast missile point-blank, even as he let the greatsword's force throw him backward.
This elite wasn't as tough as he'd expected—or maybe it was under-armored. The blast at kissing range blew its lower belly open. Its hand dropped to the wound and found a cool hollow first—then a slick, sickly touch as coils of intestine slid over rough fingers and plopped to the ground.
That sound pulled the curtain; more viscera slipped out in ropes. The two-header fell to its knees, dropped the blade, and frantically tried to stuff the organs back in—uselessly; the harder it pushed, the worse the tears became.
"Kh—kha!"
Blood welled like a spring from its mouth. Perhaps, on the very edge of death, some scrap of thought in that muscle-bound brain regretted picking a fight with the humanoid predator radiating a nemesis's aura.
Gauss didn't spare it a look. Another elite was already on him. Most of their hate was on him now—good. He needed to finish off the front-line Hobgoblins and two-headers fast; without the shaman's buffs and heals, they were headless beasts.
They wanted to grab him, rip him apart, eat him alive—but he was simply too agile, slipping through the trees like an eel. Brute strength without finesse couldn't touch a six-stat fighter.
On paper he was a caster; in truth, even bare of spells he out-fought many martial Pros and these monsters. And when he did layer in spells, kill windows opened—Heat Metal, Burning Hands, Magic Missile…
Mana shockwaves boomed through the night forest. Crimson blood and dark green hides spun through the air.
"Boom!"
His dragon claw, haloed with magic, slammed into a hobgoblin. A flash—a crit. The claw punched through the heavy wooden shield like tofu and hammered the brute into the earth. The impact carved a crater; the hobgoblin burst, reduced to paste in an instant.
Hobgoblin Slain ×1
Gauss blew out a breath and yanked his arm free of the shield and sludge. He stood and scanned the field—no intact goblins near him at all.
All dead.
His chest heaved; even for him, eight elite kills in a row burned stamina. Anyone else at Bronze tier wouldn't have cut down that many elites solo, that fast.
Casting, evading, blocking, striking—every step drained mana and strength. Good thing for the Storage Glands—without that extra energy feed, he'd be empty.
Chewing a mouthful of trail food, he looked toward Shadow's side. The ground had been trembling through his entire fight; the bat rider must have been livid, dropping strike after strike. Judging by the frequency, it hadn't hit her.
Sure enough—there she was, a ways off: pitch-black, as if wrapped in a flowing, shifting gown of darkness. The shadow shroud blended her into the night; only when she moved did a faint outline appear. The wolf riders were gone—likely finished by her trio. Only the bat rider remained—the strongest enemy in this night raid.
Gauss narrowed his eyes. The rider was cautious—never dropping altitude, staying just beyond Magic Missile range. Noticing the lull in Gauss's side, it peeled its attention off the thorny dark figure below and looked the other way—straight into a sight that made its eyes bulge.
All dead?
Its heart kicked. When Gauss first took on that pack of eight elites—the most on the field—it had turned away. And now—eight comrades, erased in that little time?
It swallowed. Couldn't fathom how Gauss had done it. Were they all worthless?
Truthfully, without the mount, even it wouldn't face that many head-on. Under Gauss's cold stare, the rider's anger ebbed—panic rising instead. Some invisible pressure seemed to cross the air and harden around it.
The Goblin Bat Rider felt uneasy.
After a brief hesitation, it slapped the bat's flank. The giant creature shrieked and pumped higher. A moment later it slipped into the clouds and was gone.
"Ran… away?"
Gauss blinked, incredulous. It had arrived all bluster and menace—and turned out spineless? So what if he'd slaughtered its kin—why not try to fight for revenge? Some warrior of the green, that.
Also…
He frowned. If it fled like that, did that mean he was about to become famous among goblins? With higher levels, even goblins gain some cunning. Would more goblins converge to hunt him?
Uh…
That might not be a bad thing.
~~~
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