Eighteen days had passed in a blur of preparation.
Kieran stood at the command platform, surveying what Thornhaven had become. Eight cannons positioned at strategic points around the defensive perimeter—not just two, but eight thunder-weapons ready to unleash devastation. The mine had produced twelve mana crystals in total, enough to enchant not just weapons but entire sections of the defensive walls with fire magic.
The militia had doubled in size—forty-three trained fighters supported by another thirty volunteers armed with whatever could be enchanted. Lyra and Aldous had worked themselves to exhaustion creating fire-based defensive enchantments on every major structure.
Food stores were secured in underground bunkers. Medical stations were tripled. Evacuation routes were marked. Every civilian knew their role, their shelter, their emergency protocols.
Thornhaven wasn't a village anymore. It was a fortress.
And today, it would be tested against an apocalypse.
[Preparations Complete]
[Cannons: 8]
[Enchanted Weapons: 67]
[Defensive Enchantments: Extensive]
[Militia: 73 fighters]
[Status: As ready as possible]
Through Land View, Kieran sensed them coming.
The corruption tide flowed from the north like a living thing—white frost spreading faster than natural, crystallizing everything it touched. And within that tide, shapes moved. Hundreds of shapes.
"They're here," he said quietly.
The alarm bells began to ring.
The corruption reached Thornhaven's perimeter and stopped, forming a wall of white frost thirty feet high. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in seconds. Breath misted. Metal frosted over.
Then the corruption parted like a curtain.
Through the gap marched an army.
Not forty goblins. Not a war band. An army.
Two hundred winter goblins in perfect formation—twenty ranks of ten, armed and armored in corrupted ice. Behind them, massive corrupted creatures: bears, wolves, elk, all transformed into war beasts. And above them, flying on corrupted ice wings, smaller goblins serving as aerial scouts.
[Enemy Forces: 200 Goblins + 30 War Beasts + 15 Aerial Units]
[Total: 245 Combatants]
[Level Range: 5-12]
"Gods above," Marcus breathed. "That's... that's an actual army."
"That's the support force," Kieran said grimly. "The boss hasn't shown yet."
As if summoned by his words, the corruption wall pulsed with power.
The Goblin Lord emerged.
Seven feet of crystallized destruction, armor that seemed to be part of its body, sword that cut reality itself. The crown of corruption antlers rose from its skull like a mockery of royalty. Violet eyes surveyed Thornhaven with cold, calculating intelligence.
[BOSS ENCOUNTER: GOBLIN LORD]
[Level: 20 - Corruption Sovereign]
[HP: 2,500/2,500]
[Abilities: Sword Mastery (Master), Ice Magic (Master), Corruption Arts Level 1, Tactical Analysis, Superior Regeneration, Army Commander]
[Threat Level: CATASTROPHIC]
[Recommended Strategy: Everything you have]
The Lord raised its sword, and the army roared. The sound was like an avalanche—primal, terrifying, overwhelming.
Then it spoke, its voice carrying across the battlefield with unnatural clarity.
"Fire-commander! I have watched you. Studied you. Learned from my subordinates' failures. You are skilled. Intelligent. Worthy of my personal attention."
Kieran activated Land View fully, processing the enemy positions, calculating firing solutions, coordinating defensive elements.
"Today, you learn the difference between tactics and power. Between coordination and overwhelming force. Today, the Goblin Lord teaches you the true meaning of a Main Event."
The Lord lowered its sword, pointing directly at Kieran.
"Entertain me, fire-commander. Show me if your thunder-weapons can stand against a true apocalypse."
The goblin army charged as one—two hundred warriors moving in perfect coordination. Not the crude assaults from before. Professional military action under the command of a Level 20 tactician.
"ALL CANNONS!" Kieran's voice cut through the roar. "GRAPESHOT PATTERN ALPHA! FIRE ON MY MARK!"
Eight cannons, pre-aimed at calculated convergence points, waited for his command.
"FIRE!"
Thunder multiplied by eight. The battlefield erupted in devastating explosions of wooden shot. Goblins fell by the dozens—the front ranks shredded, formations disrupted.
[Wave 1 Cannon Strike: 47 Goblins killed]
But they kept coming. The gaps closed immediately, ranks reformed, the assault continued without pause.
"ENCHANTED WALL SECTIONS: ACTIVATE!"
Lyra's prepared enchantments flared to life. Entire sections of the defensive walls erupted in flame, creating barriers of fire that the ice-aligned goblins instinctively avoided.
The army split around the fire walls—exactly as Kieran had calculated.
"CANNONS TWO THROUGH FIVE: RELOAD STANDARD SHOT! CANNONS SIX THROUGH EIGHT: MAINTAIN GRAPESHOT! FIRE INDEPENDENTLY AT FORMATION CLUSTERS!"
The cannons began a rolling barrage—some firing every minute with massive single projectiles, others tearing through clustered groups with grapeshot. Thunder became constant, overlapping, a symphony of devastation.
Through Land View, Kieran orchestrated it perfectly. Every cannon timing coordinated. Every shot calculated to maximize damage. The army was being decimated.
[Enemy: 153 remaining]
But it wasn't enough. For every goblin killed, three more kept advancing. The war beasts reached the barricades—corrupted bears smashing through wood, wolves leaping over defenses, elk charging with antlers like battering rams.
"MILITIA: ENGAGE! FIRE WEAPONS PRIORITY ON WAR BEASTS!"
The seventy-three fighters met the assault with enchanted weapons. Fire-touched spears found flesh. Enchanted arrows took beasts in the throat. It was chaos, desperate, but organized chaos.
Garrett's hammer crushed a corrupted bear's skull. Elara's spear took a wolf mid-leap. Finn's arrows dropped aerial scouts from the sky one after another.
But goblins were breaching the inner defenses. Close combat. Blood and ice. Screams and roars.
[Militia: 3 killed, 12 wounded]
[Enemy: 97 remaining]
And through it all, the Goblin Lord watched from distance, observing, learning, waiting.
The army had served its purpose—forced Thornhaven to reveal its full capabilities, exhausted its resources, created chaos.
Now the Lord moved.
It didn't charge. It walked. Casual, unhurried, sword held loosely. Corruption energy swirled around its other hand.
Every cannon that tried to target it found its shot disrupted—ice walls erupting from the ground to block projectiles, corruption warping trajectories. The Lord was too powerful, too skilled to be hit by artillery designed for lesser enemies.
It reached the inner defenses where Kieran coordinated from the command platform.
"EVERYONE BACK!" Kieran commanded. "CLEAR THE KILL ZONE!"
The militia retreated in organized withdrawal. The Lord smiled—a terrible expression on its refined goblin features.
"Smart. You recognize when conventional forces are insufficient." It raised the corruption-wreathed hand. "Allow me to demonstrate what true power means."
Corruption energy lanced out—not as a bolt or projectile, but as pure unmaking. Everything it touched simply ceased to exist. Barricades, defensive walls, enchantments—all dissolved into white frost and scattered particles.
[Corruption Arts: Demonstrated]
[Conventional Defenses: Ineffective]
Aldous and Lyra countered with their strongest spells. Lightning and fire converged on the Lord from two angles.
The Lord's sword moved in a casual arc, cutting through both spells, dispersing the magical energy like smoke.
"Adequate technique. Insufficient power." The Lord pointed at Aldous. "You first."
Corruption energy lanced toward the old mage. Aldous threw up defensive wards—seven layers of protection, everything he had.
The corruption simply ignored them, passed through as if they didn't exist, struck Aldous full in the chest.
The old mage went down with a scream, white corruption spreading from the impact point.
"ALDOUS!" Lyra shouted, running toward him.
"SENNA!" Kieran's command was ice-cold, tactical. "Medical team to Aldous! NOW! Lyra, FALL BACK! You can't fight it directly!"
But the Lord was already moving toward Lyra, sword raised.
Kieran didn't think. He vaulted from the command platform, landing between Lyra and the Lord with his own sword raised—a pathetic defense against overwhelming power.
The Lord paused, tilting its head. "The fire-commander himself. Entering direct combat. Brave. Foolish. I wonder—are you Level 20? Level 15? No... Level 9. A child challenging a god."
"I'm a distraction," Kieran said calmly.
"A dist—"
Twenty enchanted arrows struck the Lord from behind. Finn and a dozen archers, positioned exactly where Kieran's Land View had placed them, firing in perfect coordination.
The arrows punched through gaps in the armor, found joints, embedded in corrupted flesh.
The Lord staggered, more surprised than injured.
Then Garrett's hammer caught it in the side—a two-handed overhead swing that would have shattered a normal enemy. The Lord was driven to one knee.
Elara's spear found the gap under its arm. Helen's axe struck its sword arm. Five militia members converged with coordinated strikes to weak points.
[Coordinated Assault: Effective]
[Goblin Lord: 2,340/2,500 HP]
The Lord roared—not in pain, but in fury at being touched by lesser beings. Corruption energy exploded outward in a wave, throwing attackers back, creating space.
"CLEVER!" it bellowed. "You coordinate. You strike weaknesses. You fight as unit rather than individuals. EXCELLENT!"
The sword began to glow, frost forming in patterns along the blade. The Lord's wounds were already closing—superior regeneration making the damage temporary.
"But can you survive this?"
The Lord drove its sword into the ground.
Ice exploded outward in a perfect circle—hundred-yard radius of corruption-enhanced frozen death. Anyone caught in the blast zone was instantly frozen solid.
[Militia: 7 killed instantly, 15 severely wounded by frostbite]
Kieran had seen it coming through Land View—the build-up of power, the targeting pattern. He'd pulled as many people out of range as possible, but not all. Not enough.
Through Land View, he saw the battlefield carnage. The frozen bodies. The wounded. The dwindling numbers.
[Friendly Forces: 46 remaining combat-effective]
[Enemy: Goblin Lord + 43 goblins]
They were losing. The math was brutal and clear.
[Phase 3: Desperate Measures]
"ALL CANNONS!" Kieran commanded. "CONVERGE FIRE ON LORD! SIMULTANEOUS DISCHARGE!"
The eight cannons, reloaded and aimed, fired as one.
Eight massive projectiles converged on the Goblin Lord from different angles—inescapable saturation fire.
The Lord's sword moved in a complex pattern, too fast to follow. Ice walls erupted, interposing between itself and the projectiles. Six shots were blocked.
Two got through.
Both struck the Lord full in the torso, the force of twin impacts driving it backward, shattering armor plates, exposing the flesh beneath.
[Goblin Lord: 2,120/2,500 HP]
"AGAIN!" Kieran commanded. "RELOAD! FIRE AS READY!"
But the Lord had learned. As cannons prepared second shots, corruption energy lanced out precisely, destroying three cannons before they could fire. Five remaining.
[Cannons: 5 remaining functional]
The Lord charged the command platform—no more testing, no more observation. Direct assault to kill the coordinator.
Kieran's Land View showed him the approach vector, the impossible speed, the 0.3 seconds he had before the sword took his head off.
Not enough time to dodge. Not enough time to counter. Just enough time to accept that this was where it ended—
Lyra appeared between them, her new wand blazing with power she'd never shown before. "ABSOLUTE ZERO!"
The most advanced ice spell in her arsenal—everything she had, every scrap of mana, channeled into one desperate cast.
The spell caught the Lord mid-charge. For one precious second, even a Level 20 entity was frozen in crystallized time.
One second.
Kieran used it.
"CANNONS! POINT BLANK! FIRE EVERYTHING!"
The five remaining cannons, already loaded, adjusted aim to the frozen Lord at near-zero range.
Five shots. Five thunder-claps. Five massive impacts on a target that couldn't dodge.
The Lord shattered from the frozen state and was immediately hammered by overwhelming force. Armor exploded. Corruption energy scattered. The sword flew from its hand.
[Goblin Lord: 1,680/2,500 HP]
[Severely Wounded]
But still alive. Still regenerating. Still functional.
The Lord rose, armor reforming, wounds closing. Its violet eyes fixed on Lyra with cold hatred. "That spell... should not be possible for apprentice mage. You exceeded your limits. Burned years of potential. Foolish."
Lyra collapsed, completely drained. Unconscious before she hit the ground.
The Lord retrieved its sword, regeneration already bringing it back to combat effectiveness.
[Goblin Lord: 1,820/2,500 HP - Regenerating]
"Entertaining," it said, genuine satisfaction in its voice. "You have pushed me further than any force in this region. But this ends now. I tire of games."
The sword began to glow—not with ice, but with pure corruption. The crown of antlers pulsed with power. The Lord was preparing something massive, something that would end the battle completely.
Through Land View, Kieran saw it building—corruption energy gathering for a final devastating technique that would simply unmake everything within a quarter-mile radius.
They had maybe thirty seconds before Thornhaven ceased to exist.
Kieran's mind raced through options with desperate speed. No more cannons effective. No more tricks. No more surprises. The Lord was too powerful, too skilled, regenerating too fast.
They couldn't win through conventional means.
Which meant unconventional was all that remained.
"Everyone," Kieran said into the sudden quiet, his voice carrying through Land View's command network. "When I give the signal, hit it with everything. Every weapon, every spell, every fighter. All at once. Ignore tactics. Ignore positioning. Just overwhelm it with sheer volume."
"That's suicide," Elara protested. "We'll be in each other's way, no coordination—"
"I know. Do it anyway. Trust me."
Through Land View, he positioned every remaining fighter in a perfect sphere around the Lord—every angle of approach, every attack vector, every possible direction.
The Lord finished its charging, corruption energy reaching critical mass.
"Now," Kieran said quietly.
Forty-six fighters charged from all directions simultaneously. Five cannons fired their last shots. Every enchanted weapon struck at once. Fire spells, ice spells, lightning, every scrap of magic converged.
It was chaos. Friendly fire was unavoidable. People got hit by their own allies' attacks. It was tactically insane.
And it worked.
The Lord couldn't block everything from every direction simultaneously. Its sword deflected some attacks. Corruption energy stopped others. Armor absorbed more.
But not all. Not enough.
Fifty attacks from fifty angles. Pure overwhelming force defeating superior skill through sheer numbers.
The Lord staggered, its charged attack disrupted, corruption energy scattering without release. Wounds accumulated faster than regeneration could heal.
[Goblin Lord: 980/2,500 HP]
[Regeneration: Overwhelmed]
"AGAIN!" Kieran commanded.
The survivors attacked again. Fewer of them now—the suicide charge had cost twenty more fighters. But those remaining struck with everything they had.
The Lord's armor shattered completely. The crown of corruption antlers cracked. The sword fell again.
[Goblin Lord: 340/2,500 HP]
[Critical Condition]
The Lord fell to its knees, violet eyes wide with disbelief. "Impossible. I am Level 20. You are nothing. You should not—"
Kieran walked up calmly, picked up a fallen enchanted spear, and drove it through the Lord's chest.
"Level doesn't matter when you're outnumbered, surrounded, and fighting an enemy who knows exactly what you'll do." He twisted the spear. "You called this tactics versus power. You were wrong. This was tactics using power. There's a difference."
The Goblin Lord stared at him, understanding dawning in those terrible violet eyes. "You sacrificed half your force. Twenty dead. Just to create opening. That is... pragmatic. Ruthless. Correct."
"Yes."
"You would have made... good Corruption Sovereign..." The light faded from its eyes. "Fire-commander."
The Lord dissolved into white particles, corruption energy dissipating into nothing.
[GOBLIN LORD: DEFEATED]
[BOSS BATTLE: VICTORY]
[MAIN EVENT: WINTER'S CORRUPTION - ENDED]
Silence fell over the battlefield.
Then the notifications came.
[Level Up! Level Up! Level Up!]
[You are now Level 12 Commander]
[Massive Experience Gained]
[Title Acquired: Boss Slayer]
[Main Event Completion: First Clear]
[Territory Expanded: Corruption Zone Reclaimed]
[Achievement: Against All Odds]
Kieran stood among the dead—his people, his fighters, his responsibility—and felt nothing but cold analytical satisfaction.
They'd won.
At the cost of thirty-three lives.
But they'd won.