"I'm here to take your life."
The Godslayer Sword in Ethan's hand swung out in an instant.
He had no interest in wasting words with a goblin. Who knew what kind of trump card it might have?
If he could strike first, he would never die from talking too much.
Whoosh!
Ethan used the Strange Sword Style with a single slash.
But the Prophet Goblin seemed to have seen it coming. With a flash, it directly dodged Ethan's backstab.
That surprised Ethan a little.
This move of his... pretending to attack from the front while actually striking from behind had never failed before.
'This goblin is really this powerful? It actually dodged my sneak attack?'
"Although I don't know how you sneaked in here, since you've made your move, hehe...", the Prophet Goblin sneered, "Then you're definitely going to die."
"???"
However...
Before Ethan had even reacted, the Shadow Guard had already moved first, sending a Shadow Slash sweeping toward his rear.
Slash!
Ethan turned around and only then saw that a section of Bloodsucking Vine had somehow quietly crept up behind him.
Now it had been cut into two by the Shadow Guard, and the severed vine was still writhing on the ground.
It looked just like a living creature.
"Hahaha..."
The Prophet Goblin threw back its head and laughed, "So you're relying on a Shadow Guard to stay alive!"
"But it's useless. There are thousands upon thousands of these Bloodsucking Vines. You can stop one, but can you stop thousands upon thousands of them?"
The moment the Prophet Goblin finished speaking, countless Bloodsucking Vines surged forward like countless venomous snakes crawling out of a snake pit, sweeping toward Ethan at high speed.
At this moment, if it were an ordinary person facing this scene, they would probably be filled with helpless despair.
But Ethan merely smiled coldly.
"It's just a Bloodsucking Vine. That's all? And you think you can trap me?"
Ethan switched the Godslayer Sword for the Starry Sky Staff, then cast a spell toward a certain direction.
"Level 3 - Space Gate!"
Immediately after, he aimed at the gigantic statue in the center of the hall and used another move.
"Black Tiger Steals the Heart!"
Swish! Swish! Swish!
The next second, a brown seed the size of a baby's fist appeared in Ethan's hand.
That's right.
It was the Bloodsucking Vine's ultimate weakness, the Bloodsucking Vine Seed nurtured inside the core of its main trunk.
After Ethan took its heart, all of the Bloodsucking Vine's vines shook violently at the same time, making rustling sounds.
The Prophet Goblin stared blankly at the Bloodsucking Vine, in which it had placed such high hopes, and shouted, "Th-This... how is this possible!"
"We disguised the Bloodsucking Vine's main trunk perfectly. How did you find it?"
"That's impossible!!"
"Could it be that you're a prophet too?"
The Prophet Goblin's green face had turned bluish-green from shock.
But Ethan merely tilted his head and looked at the seed in his hand, which radiated an enormous wood element, and smiled.
"Not really. I can just see through this kind of self-deceiving disguise of yours."
That's right.
The moment Ethan entered the Hall of Worship, he had already seen the Bloodsucking Vine's main trunk hidden inside the gigantic statue in the center of the hall.
The goblins seemed terrified that someone would discover the plant's only weakness, so they had built an enormous goblin deity statue around its massive main trunk, using stone.
They had even painted the entire stone statue gold, while using black paint on the nearly twenty-meter-tall statue to create shadow effects.
In other words, when you looked up from below, all you would see was a solitary stone statue.
The roots and stem above the statue were much thinner than the giant stone statue, and since they had been painted black, they were easy to overlook.
It could be called a visual blind spot.
This kind of self-deceiving trick might fool other people, but it couldn't fool Ethan's prompts.
Because... the instant he entered the Hall of Worship, he saw the huge red exclamation mark on the statue.
[Bloodsucking Vine Main Trunk: The Bloodsucking Vine's main trunk is hidden behind the stone statue. Half a meter below ground level, it is nurturing a precious seed.]
[P.S.: Once the Bloodsucking Vine Seed is removed, the Bloodsucking Vine will immediately wither and die. If the seed is allowed to mature for another twenty years, it will naturally ripen and be expelled on its own. Only then can the seed be taken without harming the Bloodsucking Vine.]
'Heh!'
Ethan naturally wasn't going to wait twenty years before digging out the Bloodsucking Vine's heart.
Besides... right now, it was dangerous for him, so how could he possibly treat it gently?
Crash!
Boom!
In an instant, the Bloodsucking Vine rapidly withered, then quickly drooped down from the roof.
Its main trunk was no exception.
After losing its life seed, the Bloodsucking Vine also died rapidly. Then it began to collapse with a loud crash, even smashing open the stone statue's outer shell as it died and emerged from inside.
"His Majesty's beloved Bloodsucking Vine!"
The Prophet Goblin's face instantly turned blue. After all, it was already green enough and couldn't get any greener.
But Ethan could see the pain and panic in its eyes. Seeing the Prophet Goblin so distressed, he continued to kick it while it was down.
"You don't have to worry about your so-called Majesty settling the score with you because of this. Your Majesty is already dead too!"