Deathmatch

In almost the blink of an eye, the Goblin Hero was upon them, slamming down a giant palm the size of a carriage.

“Get out of the way!”

Sensing the danger, Rayne bellowed, throwing himself forward while grabbing Misha and Elliot, the two physically weakest members beside him.

Elliot turned and swung his staff, unleashing a backhanded Wind Blade that struck the massive hand blocking most of his vision. However, it only scraped the skin, and even this minor wound was rapidly healing at a visible rate.

Elliot's heart sank. Though he didn't know exactly how powerful the monster before him was, its healing speed alone made it an opponent their party could never hope to defeat.

It seemed he had no choice but to use that item.

The moment the giant palm slammed down, the air in the passage was compressed, letting out an ear-piercing crack.

The edge of the palm grazed Balen's raised shield. The spare buckler instantly shattered in two, sent flying like a piece of paper. Balen rolled four or five times before crashing against the stone wall with a muffled groan.

Rayne tackled Misha and Elliot into a pile of rubble, using his own back and shoulders to shield them as they hit the ground.

A shockwave laden with loose gravel swept over his back, causing his chainmail to emit a tooth-gritting metallic groan.

Pinned beneath him, Misha let out a soft groan as the staff was knocked from her grip. It rolled twice along the ground, the glow of its crystal dimming significantly.

Gerak was blown off Rayne's back by the blast wave and crashed heavily into a pile of rubble. Landing on his back, the wound on his right leg tore open further. Gritting his teeth in silence, he propped himself up with his left hand and dragged his injured leg toward the edge of the stone wall.

In the distance, Lu Mao had already slipped into a crevice at the edge of the passage just before the giant palm fell. Nevertheless, the rushing air and shockwave still slammed him hard against the stone wall.

The moment his back hit the stone bricks, he clearly felt his newly unlocked Tough Skin passive take effect. An impact that should have knocked the wind out of him only left his chest feeling tight, his bones completely intact.

He rolled out of the crevice, propping himself up with one hand as he looked toward the center of the passage.

With just a single, basic strike, the party had been left completely defenseless.

Lu Mao truly couldn't fathom how they were going to escape this disaster and achieve their future greatness.

Where the giant palm had struck, the stone floor had caved in, leaving a hand-shaped crater over three meters in diameter. Cracks spiderwebbed in every direction from the edges of the imprint, with the longest fissure reaching all the way to the ceiling of the passage.

The Goblin Hero slowly straightened its back and looked down at the scattered figures in the passage, as if staring at a few bugs that had slipped through its fingers.

Elliot was the first to stand.

When Rayne had tackled him, his cheek had scraped against the rubble. A cut now marred his delicate, reserved face, blood trickling down his cheek and into his collar.

But he didn't wipe it away. He didn't even care about his staff lying on the ground. Instead, he pushed himself up with one hand and reached into the inner lining of his robe with the other, pulling out a dark red scroll.

The spindle of the scroll was made of some charred bone. It felt warm to the touch, like a piece of charcoal freshly pulled from a fire.

As he gripped the scroll, the blood seeping from the cuts on his fingers trickled down onto the bone spindle. Instantly, a ring of incredibly fine, dark red runes lit up on its surface, as if the blood had ignited a fuse.

“Buy me some time!”

Elliot retreated rapidly deeper into the passage. He then shouted in a raspy voice, pressing his thumb hard against the wax seal of the scroll—

The moment the wax seal shattered, the scroll burst into a ball of dark red phosphorescent fire between Elliot's fingers.

His voice was overlaid by another, older and deeper voice, both vibrating out of his throat simultaneously. With each syllable, it sounded less and less like a living human:

“O gatekeeper of the banks of the River Styx, silent monarch of the City of the Dead, the words of your humblest servant beg to pierce the eternal silence of death and reach before your throne.”

The wound on his cheekbone stopped bleeding. Instead, the droplets of blood defied gravity, floating upward and gathering into a perfect sphere of blood suspended before his forehead.

Sensing that something was wrong, the Goblin Hero let out a low growl and threw a punch toward the figure dressed in apprentice mage attire.

“O ferryman of the bone-paved path, primal covenant of the extinction of all things, your most loyal servant stands here, yearning for the gaze of death, begging for a condescending glance.”

The droplet of blood burst, burning into an extremely thin red line in the air. It spun around Elliot, tracing layers of overlapping runic paths.

The entire passage seemed to grow slightly deeper. A chilling dread swept over everyone present, and the uncomfortable sensation of being watched from the shadows crept into their minds.

The Goblin Hero, Zhalge, seemed highly wary of this move. Paying absolutely no attention to the tiny figures that had gathered near its feet, it threw a punch toward Elliot. A phantom layer of stone armor suddenly materialized over its fist, eventually condensing into a solid stone gauntlet that surged forward with unstoppable momentum.

“Not on my watch!”

Rayne was the first to lunge forward.

He didn't use his sword—it was too slow.

He threw his entire body sideways, slamming into the hollow behind the Goblin Hero's knee. His shoulder guard collided with the hard, keratinous skin, producing a dull thud.

At the same time, he reversed his longsword, pointing the tip downward, and used his entire body weight to drive the blade into the beast's instep. The tip pierced the keratinous layer, but after sinking two inches into the flesh, it could go no further.

The monster didn't even budge.

Balen grabbed the broken half of the buckler from the ground and swung it from the side, leaping up to smash it against the Goblin Hero's shinbone.

The broken buckler shattered into three more pieces. The dwarf was thrown back by the rebound force, his back crashing against the stone wall as a mist of blood sprayed from his thick beard.

Kneeling in the rubble, Misha raised her staff with both hands, pouring her last remaining magicules along with her life force into the tip of the staff.

A golden barrier as thin as a cicada's wing unfolded in front of the Goblin Hero's fist, angling across its path in an attempt to deflect its trajectory.

The moment the Holy Light Barrier touched the stone fist, it shattered into a flurry of light particles. Misha collapsed backward, the staff rolling from her limp fingers as its crystal went completely dark.

The stone fist was deflected by less than an inch.

The wind of the punch was already upon him.

The rough texture of the stone gauntlet rapidly enlarged in Elliot's vision. The red lines around him were still burning, with the sixth circle of runes only half-drawn.

He saw the fist, but he didn't dodge. Once a necromantic scroll ritual was interrupted, the price was not death, but something far more terrifying.

Furthermore, his teammates needed him. Even if it meant death, he could not stop.

A figure lunged from the side and tackled him.

Gerak.

The beastkin dragged his right leg, which was missing a chunk of flesh, and lunged from the edge of the stone wall.

His left leg could still push off the ground, and his left arm could still exert force. Using only these two remaining limbs, he threw his entire body sideways. His shoulder slammed into Elliot's chest, sending them both flying to the side.

The fist fell.

The stone fist slammed into the spot where Elliot had been standing. The stone floor collapsed with a deafening crash, leaving a crater several feet deep.

A circular shockwave exploded from the point of impact. Rubble, dust, and clotted blood were whipped into a turbid wall of air that swept outward in all directions.

Balen had just pushed himself up against the wall when the shockwave hit him head-on. His feet left the ground as he was sent flying backward, his back slamming into the stone wall once more. His head cracked against the bricks, and his vision went black.

Rayne dropped to one knee and drove his longsword into the ground. The blast ripped a tear in the hem of his chainmail, and the blade plowed a half-foot-long trench through the stone bricks before he finally managed to steady himself.

Misha lay unconscious in the rubble, a bloody scratch on her temple from a flying stone, completely unresponsive.

Gerak landed flat on his back in a pile of rubble two meters away.

He had used every ounce of his strength to shove Elliot out of the way, but the shockwave of the stone fist hitting the ground caught his airborne body, flipping him backward. His head slammed heavily against the sharp edge of a protruding stone brick.

Blood pooled beneath the back of his head, silently spreading through the cracks in the rubble.

The Tracking Mark embedded in his back burst into countless tiny blue particles of light. They flared briefly in midair—like a handful of crushed fireflies—before completely extinguishing.

He coughed. The blood welling up in his throat choked back the words he wanted to say, producing only a muffled, gurgling sound.

His right hand still curled as if grasping his waterskin, but his palm was empty—it had been lost somewhere during the tumble.

His left arm hung limply over the rubble. The beastkin who had once brandished twin daggers in front of the altar to protect Misha would never move again.