Chapter 77: This One Won’t Be Like The Last.

Chapter 77: Chapter 77: This One Won’t Be Like The Last.

They moved through the gloom with only the sound of soft scrape beneath their footsteps on the black and red soil.

Unlike when they had been with Professor Freya, Xavier had kept Zuzu’s ability active the entire time.

He raised his arm in a signal. Everyone halted and stood quietly.

"I sense movement ahead. It might be more than one beast. Get ready," he said.

The team prepared at once. Allen drew his sword. Benny took out her talisman. Everyone settled into defensive stances, weapons ready. Fiona left her position at the rear and joined Xavier at the front. They advanced slowly. The beasts had not noticed them yet. Crouching low, they hid behind a tree and peered ahead.

A cave opened in front of them. Small, green, ugly creatures sat in a circle at the entrance, devouring the raw flesh of a dead dire wolf.

Goblins. Less than four feet tall, scrawny, with sharp teeth, long ears, and bald heads. Not a single scrap of clothing covered their wrinkled bodies. Their small, tiny finger-like dicks stuck out between their legs. Their mouths were smeared red with blood as they tore into the carcass.

Grrrk... hsssk...

"Xavier, I don’t want to have goblins for dinner," Allen whispered.

Xavier agreed. Dreadhorn meat was tolerable—similar to elk—and dire wolf was fine, but goblins were truly disgusting. They could have turned back right then, yet leaving a goblin camp so close to their own would have been foolish. The creatures might attack while the students slept. This was the best chance to eliminate them.

"Let’s deal with them and find something else to hunt. If we strike first, we can catch them by surprise," Xavier said.

Still hidden behind the trees and low bushes, he quickly formed a plan with his teammates. Once everyone was in position, he gave the signal.

One student launched a fireball straight into the center of the goblin circle. It struck the wolf’s corpse, startling the creatures—but only for a moment.

Skree?! Hsssk!

"Come here, you ugly green fucks!" the student shouted, baiting them.

The goblins screeched at one another in their incomprehensible tongue, picked short swords of bone and fang from the ground, weapons similar to Kaya’s but far inferior, and charged at the student. There were about twenty of them.

Skreee! Hssskree! Graak!

The bait student held his ground. The moment the goblins had moved far enough from the cave, Allen and the other swordsmen burst from the flanks in a pincer attack. They took the goblins completely by surprise, severing several heads in the first seconds.

Skree—! Grrrk!

The remaining goblins immediately sensed the danger and tried to retreat, only to find Benny’s barrier sealing the way back. Fiona dropped from above and slashed throats one after another with ruthless efficiency.

The goblins screamed and shrieked as they died.

Skreeeaaah! Hsssk! Graaaak!

Within moments all twenty lay dead—light green corpses bleeding onto the black soil, their blood spattered across the nearby trees.

Xavier watched from a short distance. Goblins were easy prey, far weaker than anything they had faced so far. He saw no need to intervene. Even twenty of them were no match for his team, especially with Fiona around.

Then Fiona’s ears twitched. She spun toward Benny.

"Look out!" she shouted, already moving.

An arrow shot from the darkness of the cave and punched straight through Benny’s leg.

Aaaah!

She screamed and collapsed. Xavier closed the distance in an instant.

"Where did that come from?"

"There are more of them," Fiona answered, pointing at the cave.

Another arrow streaked toward Xavier. He caught it mid-flight, lightning crackling around his hand.

They had not been there before. Did they come from deeper inside the cave? He had sensed nothing when the team first arrived.

Goblins began pouring out of the darkness—five, ten, fifteen—their numbers swelling until more than five times the original group stood outside the cave, just behind the dire wolf’s corpse.

Skreee! Hssskree! Graak! Skreeeaaah!

Xavier realized the mistake had been his. Twenty goblins could never have survived this deep in the Red Forests alone. Of course there had to be a larger horde. Goblins’ true strength had always been their numbers.

The rest of the team quickly regrouped.

"Are you all right?" Allen asked Benny, concern clear on his face.

"It’s just an arrow. I was careless," she answered.

Allen knelt and slid an arm around her back to support her.

"Go ahead," he told Fiona. He knew she was stronger than him. With a horde right in front of them, it was smarter for him to stay with Benny. Fiona would be far more useful on the front line.

"What’s the plan?" one of the students asked Xavier.

"Get ready and try not to get injured. This one won’t be like the last," he replied. Under his watch no one would take a grave wound, but each of them was still responsible for their own safety.

Xavier and Fiona took the vanguard. Of the remaining students, four were swordsmen and two were spellcasters. The casters stayed behind swordsmen, launching stone bullets and fireballs while occasionally casting Wind Cutter to deal with incoming arrows. The swordsmen dealt with any goblins that slipped past Xavier and Fiona.

Xavier moved like a streak of lightning. His punches shattered goblin skulls one after another. His kicks folded bodies and crushed spines and ribs. Fiona was equally relentless—spinning, clawing, opening throats, becoming an awfully efficient killing machine. For a while their formation held perfectly. They had cut the horde nearly in half when a new shriek erupted from the cave—louder and deeper than any goblin cry they had heard.

SKREEEEEAAARGH—!! GRAAAAKHH!!

The cry changed the remaining goblins at once. They grew more frenzied. Their claws sharpened. Their arrows flew faster. Their short-sword strikes became more precise.

Skreee! Hssskree! Graaaak!

Only one thing could produce such a sudden transformation among goblins with its war cry.

It stepped out of the darkness of the cave. More than three meters tall, with long arms, long legs, broad shoulders, and a body thick with muscle. Its face was even uglier than the rest. In its hands it carried a massive club of black wood.

A goblin chief.

Its bloodthirsty red eyes swept the battlefield and locked onto Xavier and Fiona. It shrieked once more.

SKREEEEE—AAARGH!! GRAAAAKHHH—!!

Xavier studied it for only a moment and knew at once: even though it stood shorter than a dreadhorn, it was far more dangerous.