CHAPTER 34
"Well, this just became significantly more complicated," Grey sighed, his eyes narrowing as he calculated the overwhelming odds of the adversaries positioned in front of him.
"You puny human and wretched dwarf actually possess the gall to infiltrate my inner sanctum to attack me? Now you shall pay for your insolence with your very lives!" the Goblin Lord roared, his laughter echoing against the stone walls.
"Oh!? It can actually communicate in the human tongue? This is certainly a first for me," Grey remarked, his surprise evident as he tilted his head.
After addressing the intruders, the Goblin Lord began barking orders in a guttural, unknown language toward his assembled army.
Upon his command, they all brandished their jagged weapons toward Grey and Randin with lethal intent.
"Exterminate the intruders!" the lord commanded, and the fifty remaining goblin soldiers charged forward in a chaotic, screaming wave.
"Earth magic! Sink!" Grey shouted, thrusting his palms outward.
The vanguard of the charging goblins suddenly found their feet ensnared by the floor; upon closer inspection, they were being pulled into the stone as if they were standing atop treacherous quicksand.
"A mage? And a notably powerful one at that?" the Goblin Lord muttered, his amusement fading as he watched at least twenty of his subordinates disappearing into the shifting ground.
'Sink allows me to submerge my opponents by liquefying the Earth beneath their boots. This is yet another ingenious maneuver taught to me by the author of that ancient spellbook,' Grey thought, a confident smirk playing on his lips.
The remaining thirty goblins, seeing their comrades trapped, leaped over the sinking soldiers to continue their assault with renewed ferocity.
"Wind magic! Wind blade!" Grey shouted once more. In a blur of motion, dozens of invisible, razor-sharp crescents of air whistled through the room, slicing through the trapped goblins and finishing them off before they could even submerge.
Despite the carnage, the surviving thirty monsters were now almost upon the duo.
"I need more time to prepare something big!" Grey said, a hint of panic entering his voice as he began focusing his mana.
"I have your back!" Randin shouted.
He bolted toward the oncoming horde, who immediately responded by unleashing a volley of crackling lightning bolts in his direction.
'I have learned my lesson from our previous encounter, so I will not repeat those mistakes again,' Randin thought.
In a flash of light, a massive, reinforced shield materialized in his grasp, absorbing the brunt of the electrical strikes that had been heading his way.
'It is a good thing I discovered the advanced technique and complex technology required to forge this pendant. It allows me to instantaneously summon any piece of equipment I have previously stored within it.
Although the jewelry around my neck might appear small, it possesses enough dimensional space to hold a vast armory, even if it does have a finite storage capacity,' the dwarf mused as the shield vanished from his hands.
In its place, a long spear appeared, the crystalline tip glowing with a familiar blue luminescence.
"Does this look familiar?" Randin asked with a grimace.
He thrust the weapon forward, and three concentrated lightning bolts shot out in quick succession, striking three goblins directly in the chest.
Immediately, a sword replaced the spear in his hands.
As the lightning stunned the front line, Randin swiftly blocked a heavy strike from one of the survivors and proceeded to deliver a brutal kick to its wrist, snapping the bone instantly.
Raising his blade, he parried a thrust from another attacker and, with a fluid motion, sliced the goblin's head from its shoulders.
He stepped back a few paces to gain some breathing room.
In an instant, a dozen throwing daggers appeared between his fingers; he swung them with deadly accuracy, and each blade found its mark in a goblin's skull, killing them instantly.
This left him with seventeen more soldiers to handle.
However, before he could press his advantage, all seventeen goblins raised their weapons and discharged three lightning bolts each.
Randin found himself staring down at least fifty-one individual strikes of electricity arcing toward him simultaneously.
'Darn it! My standard shield cannot possibly withstand a concentrated barrage of that magnitude. What do I do?' Randin thought frantically.
He equipped his shield anyway, bracing for the impact, but then a familiar, commanding voice rang out from behind him.
"Move!"
Heeding the warning, Randin leaped to the side.
A massive, reinforced Earth wall surged up from the floor exactly where he had been standing, acting as a lightning rod for the incoming bolts.
But the protection was temporary; under the sheer weight of the magical assault, the stone began to fracture and crumble.
But surprisingly, the barrier held out firmly before it finally dissipated into dust.
The goblins were seen about to surge forward again when the entire room began suddenly shaking, with violent currents of wind moving rapidly around the cavern walls.
Confused and startled, everyone looked around frantically.
They were met with the sight of a gargantuan gust of wind high in the air, churning like a concentrated tornado above a red-haired individual who stood with his hands held out toward the ceiling.
"Thank you, Randin, for buying me enough time," Grey said, a determined smile crossing his face.
'If I unleash this, my mana will be depleted completely, and I won't be able to cast any further spells or skills until my core is replenished. But considering the threat, it is definitely worth it right now,' Grey thought.
He glared at the remaining soldiers before his eyes finally rested on the Goblin Lord.
"Wind magic! Aerius Ultra!" he shouted.
He swung his hands forward with all his remaining strength, and the massive, tornado-like vortex was seen heading toward the goblins at a tremendous, whistling speed.
In less than a second, the localized storm crashed into the enemy ranks.
The impact sent the creatures flying across the room, their bodies slamming into the walls with enough force to crack the stone apart.
Some were pulverized by the debris, while others were smothered by the sheer pressure of the wind, suffocating within the heart of the vacuum.
And finally, the seventeen remaining goblins were all killed by a single mage.
Grey stood in the center of the room, heaving and panting in visible pain as his entire mana core had been completely drained of its essence.
"Well, that's it. I have no more energy or mana to rely on," he mumbled.
He unsheathed his sword with a sharp ring and took a low combat stance as he saw the elite goblin squad finally making their moves.
"You fools! You have just slaughtered mere commoners, and I can see the arrogant smiles on your faces.
But I assure you, you will be buried within this mountain today. You cannot defeat even a single member of my elite squad," the Goblin Lord laughed in dark amusement.
"They each possess the raw power of at least five normal goblins put together, and there are twelve of them in my personal guard."
"If they are as strong as you claim, they will still not be enough to give us much trouble," Randin claimed, though he tightened his grip on his blade.
"You silly dwarf! You should have just stayed in whatever dark hole you were hiding in all these years.
Just because you managed to gain the assistance of a single mage, you suddenly feel as if you can take on me or the Otherworlders," the Goblin Lord laughed.
"Otherworlders? You actually know about them?" Grey asked, narrowing his eyes.
Although he was already aware that the Otherworlders had practically transported the goblins to this planet, he asked because he wanted to see if he could pull any actionable information from the Goblin Lord regarding their true identity.
"Ha! Why wouldn't I know about them? After all, they brought us here.
Do not even think of trying to pry any secrets from me about them, because I will say nothing unless you are somehow able to defeat me," the Goblin Lord laughed.
"Fine then," Grey said, shifting his weight and holding his sword in front of him. "I will just have to beat that information out of you then."