Chapter 173: Ceaseless Battle (5)

The successful first shot put him in motion. The second arrow was already in his bow, pulling it to the maximum stretch as the mana was at work coating the arrow.

Unlike his fireball, his arrow didn’t give away his position. They didn’t even know an arrow was coming for them. He didn’t need to move away from his position after his first shot.

Whish!

The second arrow flew through and hit the second Elite Kobold Fighter in the head. The arrow was so fast that the elite kobolds could not react even if they heard it. The second elite kobold fell, and this time, Red changed his position.

He moved two trees to the right, climbing up one more branch. The third arrow also hit one of the elite kobolds in the head. He saw the Elite Kobold Fighters approaching the jungle. They didn’t see him, but they had no choice but to look for him in the jungle.

That was when he fired the fourth shot, killing the fourth Elite Kobold Archer. The last Elite Kobold Archer pointed in his direction and managed to figure out the general direction he was in.

The ten Elite Kobold Fighters rushed toward the tree where he was, and that was when Red made a different move. When the ten Elite Kobold Fighters got closer, he used a fireball with seven-time mana, 210 mana. He didn’t even let the fire stay a second longer in his palm. As soon as it formed, he shot the fireball.

The ten Elite Kobold Fighters panicked as the fire came for them. They tried to run from the fireball, but that was too late. The fireball hit the Elite Kobold Fighter in the middle and exploded.

The violent explosion engulfed the ten Elite Kobold Fighters. Three of them were thrown by the shock wave while burned by the fire, and then another two kobolds ran out of the explosion under fire. Their screams echoed along with the explosion.

The last Elite Kobold Archer had his arrow pointed at where Red was, but he was long gone. Before the fireball exploded, Red had left for a new position. That confused the last Elite Kobold Archer, who looked around for its target. The explosion lit up the area, but that was pointless because the target vanished.

It tried to look for its target, but then an arrow pierced its head. An arrow came from behind and killed it. Red didn’t use his mana to coat the arrow for the last shot. The distance was too close; he didn’t need mana to increase his arrow speed within such a distance.

On top of that, he needed to reserve his mana. He used almost six hundred mana within a little over a minute. He needed to reserve some to finish off the battle.

Red put the bow on his back and took out the sword from his pouch. He rushed toward the Elite Kobold Fighters who ran around in fire. They were still alive under fire, and he finished them with his sword, piercing their head or severing their heads.

He was quick with his actions because he was aware that the fireball early might attract the attention of the kobolds in the front. He quickly retreated back to the jungle after killing the last five surviving Elite Kobold Fighters.

He did so without looking at the frontline. The retreat was a safety measure in case the kobolds sent some of the elites to the back. To his relief, they totally focused on breaching the village. As he predicted, the Elite Kobold Fighters were jumping over the wall.

The Elite Kobold Archers remained outside the village, shooting from a distance. But he succeeded in reducing the number of Elite Kobold Archers. Twenty-one Elite Kobold Archers remained, and Red put the sword back into the pouch and pulled his bow.

The distance between him and the Elite Kobold Archers was farther than his comfortable range, but he was reminded that coating his arrow with mana would help him. The first shot proved it when his arrow reached the kobold in the front.

He pulled 50 mana and coated the arrow, using more mana than a normal fireball that consumed 30 mana. The darkness truly tested his vision in the night. He released the first shot, and he didn’t need to worry about not reaching the target, as the arrow pierced the kobold’s back.

The problem was with his aim accuracy. He tried to hit the head, but that didn’t hit the head. He followed with the second shot, and the same; he couldn’t hit the head at that distance.

Red managed to shoot a mana-coated arrow within thirty seconds; only four shots hit the head. That was 500 mana, and he felt it was not cost-effective if he didn’t kill them in one shot. Thirty seconds later, he jumped off the tree.

The fireball was no longer on cooldown, and he planned to get closer. Instead of using 210 mana, he used 180 mana this time. When he deemed the distance was close enough, Red used the fireball.

As the fireball lit the area, that attracted the elite kobolds’ attention. They turned around, but the fireball was already in front of him.

That was why he tried to get closer to them before firing the fireball, giving them no chance to dodge. The fire swallowed the archers; some of them were thrown while on fire.

Red already took his sword out of his pouch, and then he used Burst Leap. He covered the remaining distance between him and the explosion with one leap.

Then he rushed to finish the Elite Kobold Archers that were still breathing. He pierced the last surviving Elite Kobold Archer, then he looked up. The battle at the village intensified as half of the Elite Kobold Fighters were already inside the village.

The Chief and the three Goblin Champions had already stepped in. He saw an arrow on the Chief’s shoulder, and the other three Goblin Champions also got hit by arrows. However, that looked like superficial wounds, as they still could move in such a crazed manner.

Red was back on his bow as his sword vanished into his Storage Pouch. He could no longer cast the fireball as it might burn the wall as well as his allies.

He thought of fighting with his sword, considering the thrill he got from close combat, but there were still more than forty Elite Kobold Fighters outside. Despite the thrill and excitement, he was not going to make a suicidal move by throwing his body against forty Elite Kobold Fighters.

His Infernal Berserk was no longer on cooldown, but it would be a pity to use it now. He wanted to keep the skill for an emergency situation. This was still far from being an emergency situation. In fact, the battle was in their favor after he wiped out the Elite Kobold Archers.

What happened next was predictable. The winner had been decided the moment the kobold army lost their Elite Kobold Archers. The four Goblin Champions were too much for the Elite Kobold Fighter without the additional firepower from the Elite Kobold Archer.

On top of that, Red was sniping them from behind one by one. What mattered now was to reduce their casualties, and the battle ended half an hour later with goblins coming out on top.

Red was standing right outside the village with his swords. The kobold’s blood dripped from his sword as he went through with it once he finished all the Elite Kobold Fighters outside. He checked the bodies of the Elite Kobold Fighters outside the village. Those were all his kills; he counted them up: twenty-one Elite Kobold Fighters.

Then he glanced to the back where he killed the Elite Kobold Archers. The fire was no longer blazing fiercely as before, but it was still burning some of the bodies. He mentally counted his kills, and he believed he killed more than fifty elite kobolds, excluding the twenty-one elite kobolds near the wall.

Of course, there were still the normal kobolds that he killed with his swords. But he would not take the loot from those bodies, planning to give it to the goblins if there were any goblins that survived.

Red pulled crude leather from his waist and started to exchange his kills for loot. He was quick with his actions, making sure he finished looting the twenty-one bodies near the wall as quickly as possible, then he moved away to where his remaining loot was.

He didn’t forget to count how many he killed while getting his loot. He killed eighty-four elite kobolds in total, and that meant it was the biggest harvest he might have gotten in his life. He thought he would not be able to surpass the harvest he got when he fought the kobolds alongside the slithering beast, and here he was with loot from eighty-four elite kobolds. It meant all the cores in his crude leather were mediocre-quality cores.