Roger pulled out the teleportation amulet that had been gathering dust in his inventory for nearly two months and attempted to activate its spell.
The magical fluctuations of the teleportation spell rippled out from the amulet, scanning the collapsed debris ahead, only to bounce right back as if striking an invisible wall.
Invalid.
The teleportation amulet could only transport the user to an unoccupied space, and the sheer thickness of the debris clearly exceeded its range.
Irene raised her longsword, the white glow of Life Energy enveloping the blade. She swung downward, her strike slamming into the debris with a resounding boom.
She drew back her sword, adjusting her breathing as she prepared for a second strike.
While Irene continued to hack at the debris, Roger opened the system shop, searching for any skill or item that could help them escape.
But heavy footsteps echoing from deep within the cave cut his search short.
“Save your strength for now,” Roger quickly warned Irene.
Accompanying the heavy footsteps, a goblin slowly entered the range of his Scout's Eye.
This goblin was easily twice the size of a standard elite warrior, its height nearly reaching the shoulder of an adult human male. Its entire body was an unnatural, dark purple hue, with numerous bone spurs protruding from beneath its skin.
Its eyes glowed with an eerie dark purple light. In its right hand, it held a long bone staff, while its left arm had withered into a tentacle-like appendage. Embedded where its heart should be was a purple crystal the size of a fist.
“What on earth is that...” Roger muttered under his breath, activating Weakness Detection.
Life Energy surged into his eyes, outlining the monster's silhouette in his field of vision.
There was only a single red dot: the purple crystal in its chest.
“Isn't that just begging to be hit?” Roger couldn't help but complain.
The moment the monster came into view, Irene lunged forward, her blade thrusting straight for the glowing crystal on its chest.
The bone staff swept toward her with a speed completely unbefitting the monster's massive frame. At the very last second, Irene shifted her stance, bringing her straight sword up to parry.
The moment the staff slammed into her sword, a force far exceeding her expectations surged through the blade and rattled her entire body.
She was sent flying sideways by the impact, her back slamming into the cave wall and knocking loose a shower of gravel. She let out a muffled groan, but her hand remained tightly clenched around the hilt of her sword.
The goblin's head turned slightly, its hollow eye sockets locking onto Roger. Slamming its staff against the ground, it kicked off with its legs and charged straight at him.
Roger activated Windwalk and slid to the left, letting the goblin's charge rush past his side.
The goblin's momentum didn't slow. Its staff smashed into the spot where the two of them had been standing a moment ago, shattering the stone and gouging out a basin-sized crater in the ground.
The shockwave rippled through the narrow passage, shaking loose several more rocks from the cave walls.
As the goblin turned, Roger drew his Windwood Bow to its limit. Charging an Empowered Shot, he released an arrow wrapped in a pale green gale, aiming directly for the chest crystal.
When the arrowhead was mere centimeters from the crystal, the creature's tentacle-like appendage whipped out, snapping the shaft in two.
With his shot blocked, Roger used Windwalk to reposition, keeping himself out of the staff's reach while continuing to rain down attacks.
Irene flanked from the right, slashing at the back of its knee. Her blade bounced off its hardened hide, leaving a shallow cut less than half an inch deep.
For a monster of this size, such a wound was barely a scratch.
Taking advantage of the brief distraction, Roger opened up some distance, pulled out his last two bottles of accelerant, and popped the corks. The red liquid streamed out, immediately followed by a fireball.
The fireball and accelerant detonated on the goblin's chest, instantly enveloping its entire upper body in flames.
The goblin let out a low growl. Turning its head amidst the fire, its hollow eyes locked onto Roger once more as it continued its advance.
Its skin was barely singed by the flames, and the purple crystal continued to pulse at a steady rhythm. With every flash, the fire clinging to its body was pushed back a few inches.
Roger caught this detail and quickly adjusted his tactics.
The crystal was constantly supplying it with energy. As long as it remained active, the creature's defense and regeneration would never falter.
“Buy me a few seconds!” he shouted to Irene.
Irene responded with action. She dashed between the goblin and Roger, meeting the monster with a flurry of sword strikes. Life Energy erupted from her body, the white glow on her blade shining twice as bright as before.
She focused all her attacks on the swinging staff, striking the exact same spot with every clash, using the recoil to disrupt and slow down the monster's rhythm.
Behind her, Roger opened the system shop and quickly filtered for suitable items.
The stats of two different arrows appeared in his holographic vision.
One was an arrow with spiral runes wrapped around its shaft, a triangular-pyramid tip, and a red crystal embedded in its fletching.
The other was an ice-blue arrow, slightly longer than a normal arrow, completely translucent, with a faint blue-white light flowing within.
Roger quickly skimmed the descriptions. The former utilized high-explosive flames that caused a secondary blast inside the target, making it perfect for heavily armored or high-defense foes.
The latter released extreme cold magic upon impact to freeze the surrounding area, drastically reducing the target's movement and attack speed while applying a frost embrittlement effect.
One was burst damage, while the other was hard crowd control. Roger made his decision in under two seconds and pressed the purchase button.
“Points -600. Balance: 7,400.”
The two distinct arrows materialized in his hand. He first notched the ice-blue magic arrow onto his Windwood Bow. The magical pathways on the bow's limbs resonated with the arrow's frost, weaving the pale green gale and the blue-white chill together at the arrowhead.
The goblin's head snapped toward Roger, the dark purple glow in its hollow sockets flickering violently. Sweeping its staff to force Irene back, it charged at Roger once more.
The bone staff was raised high, the purple crystal on its chest bursting with an even more blinding light.
Roger stood his ground, drawing the bowstring to its limit. With a sharp twang, the frost arrow tore through the air, leaving a trail of blue-white light. It zipped beneath the swinging bone staff and struck the purple crystal dead center.
A sound like cracking ice echoed from the point of impact. Blue-white ice crystals spread rapidly, covering the entire surface of the crystal before radiating outward along the seam where it met the skin.
The goblin slowed down abruptly, its legs coated in spreading frost. Every step it took felt as though it were wading through a thick swamp.
The speed of its descending staff was also drastically reduced, allowing Roger to easily dodge the strike with a simple sidestep.
He then notched the other arrow, aimed at the purple crystal, charged an Empowered Shot, and released.
An explosion erupted on the goblin's chest, sending a wave of heat washing over him.
Yet, when the smoke cleared, the goblin remained standing. It staggered back a few steps, leaning heavily on its bone staff to keep its balance. The purple crystal was now flashing several times faster than before.
Suddenly, the goblin slammed its staff into the ground, and the jaws of the beast skull atop it snapped open.
Purple mist began to seep from the surrounding corpses, flowing continuously into the skull's mouth before traveling down the staff and into the crystal on the goblin's chest.
As the mist was absorbed, the cracks on the crystal's surface began to mend.
The moment the creature began absorbing the purple mist, Roger notched another arrow. Wrapped in a white gale, the arrow flew true, embedding itself deep into the fissures of the crystal.
Its absorption interrupted by the strike, the goblin let out a raspy roar. It yanked the staff from the ground and held it high overhead with both hands.
A dark purple light began to gather within the beast skull's eye sockets, accompanied by a sharp, piercing shriek.
Sensing danger, Roger used Windwalk to open up some distance. Irene also leaped to the side, rolling along the ground to take cover behind a pile of rubble.
Just as they dodged, two thick, dark purple beams erupted from the skull's mouth, sweeping right past where they had stood a split second ago. The ground was melted into a charred trench, the molten rock bubbling along the edges.
As soon as the beams faded, Irene scrambled up from behind the rubble and flanked from a new angle. Roger also raised his hand, preparing to cast Chain Lightning during the goblin's post-ultimate vulnerability window.
However, a ring of dark purple shockwave exploded outward with the goblin at its center. Loose rocks on the ground were swept away, and chunks of stone peeled off the cave walls.
Both of them were sent flying by the invisible force. Roger's back slammed into the cave wall, his Iron Wall shield shattering instantly upon impact. His head cracked against the stone, making his vision swim.
Irene drove her sword into the ground to anchor herself, but the sheer force of the shockwave still pushed her sliding back several paces.
The goblin stiffened momentarily after releasing the shockwave, but within a few seconds, it stood tall once more, the crystal on its chest resuming its steady pulse.
Locking onto their positions again, the goblin began its next advance.
Roger stared at the staff in the goblin's hand, his mind racing.
Then, he shouted to Irene:
“I have a plan! Help me grab that bone staff!”
Rate on N.U.
