Goblin Dependency Chapter 647 - 325: Dong Shu and Aspen (Part 2)

"The number of goblins is too large. If we keep getting surrounded like this, both of us will die here."

"We must find an opportunity to break through!"

"In a while, listen to my command..."

With the fastest speed and the most concise language, Aspen explained his plan to his companion behind him.

Dong Shu was extrely tense, but still maintained the basic qualities of a Hunter.

Even though his heart was almost ready to leap out of his chest, he firmly rembered every word coming from his ear.

"Get ready..."

An almost growling shout exploded from behind him.

"Three, two, one!"

Whizzing—

It was the familiar tremor of a fully drawn bowstring rebounding, and the sharp whirring of an arrow slicing through the air.

"Scree!"

A phantom flickered through the air.

The spinning arrow left an empty trail in the rain and mist.

With extre precision, the wooden arrow pierced into the skull of the goblin nearest to Aspen’s front side.

With what seed to be full force, the strong impact nailed the skinny green-skinned goblin directly to the ground, taking down several other goblins around it.

And at the sa ti the bowstring echoed, Dong Shu, following the explained plan, suddenly turned and sprinted toward the direction the arrow had flown.

Clenching his teeth, he did not aim deliberately at vital spots, but swung the sword randomly, warding off goblins attempting to close in on him.

At the sa mont, Aspen, who had shot that arrow, also retreated swiftly.

The two of them moved one after another, quickly widening the distance between them.

Making the twenty or so goblins who had originally surrounded them separate like raindrops, turning into fragnted groups, losing their previously solid circular formation.

The plan seed to have mostly succeeded.

But just as Dong Shu was about to turn back, as planned, to continue disrupting the goblins’ formation, creating a breakout opportunity for the team still surrounded by large numbers of goblins.

That second arrow shot landed on the goblin beside him.

Suddenly realizing sothing, the youth’s pupils shrank, gazing sharply at the struggling figure of Aspen drawing his bow amidst the goblin encirclent.

"Go!"

The resolute roar flooded into Dong Shu’s skull in an instant.

Yes, this was Aspen’s plan.

Using himself as bait, creating an escape opportunity for the young man traveling with him.

He never thought of himself as having noble qualities.

Even with a sliver of hope, Aspen would fight with all his might.

Yet now, facing nearly thirty goblins was beyond his capability to handle.

And the grotesque wound on his right leg significantly hindered his mobility, making it impossible to muster the explosive force needed for a breakthrough.

Thus, the situation beca clear.

Staying and fighting might take so goblins down with him, but both would die here;

If they both fled, his leg injury ant he couldn’t run fast, and Dong Shu likely lacked the experience to survive such peril, likely ending up dead as well.

For Aspen, already in a near-death scenario, using his sacrifice to ensure a teammate’s survival was the best outco he could imagine.

"Don’t mind , run towards the village."

"Don’t look back!!"

With an almost commanding tone, Aspen roared unbothered by the surrounding green-skinned goblins waving clubs and drooling as they charged at him.

While staggering back, one arrow after another shot towards the goblins besieging his teammates further away, helping to relieve the siege.

His mind a chaotic ss.

mories of tis spent with this elder brother flashed before his eyes, stirring a strong impulse in Dong Shu’s heart to rush back into the goblin encirclent to aid him.

But in the next mont, amidst the crisis, an inexplicably calm coldness rose in his heart, sohow reconnecting his scattered thoughts, leading him to make the most correct decision in his life.

Turning sharply, his eyes pierced through the void, firmly gazing at Aspen’s distant face, seemingly etching it into his mory.

Then imdiately, he turned, swung his longsword to fend off goblins ahead, simultaneously sprinting in the direction away from his teammate.

He absolutely could not disappoint Aspen’s expectations!

At this mont, on the outer edge of Mist Forest, facing the goblins’ assault, both Hunters made the most correct decision given the circumstances.

And if the situation continued to develop, the final outco seed aligned with their hopes, sacrificing one Hunter to ensure the survival of another.

However, often, when faced with imnse dangers, people tend to overlook those small avoidable mistakes.

It was just a fist-sized, commonplace stone.

It might co from a battle that took place hundreds of years ago; or perhaps from last year when an adventurer passing through this area unwittingly unearthed it while setting up camp.

Its origin isn’t important; even its appearance isn’t worth noting, not even the clumsiest goblin would care about such a common, inconspicuous stone.

It simply lies there quietly.

Embedded in the soil, a half-angle exposed and covered by fallen leaves.

Then it hit the hurriedly lifted leather boot.

Completely extinguished the fugitive’s hope for survival.

"Gah..."

The toes left the ground.

The sudden resistance from beneath the foot, combined with the explosive force of the legs hitting the ground while running, caused Dong Shu, who completely lost his body balance, to almost fly forward due to inertia.

In that mont, he could even imagine the look of despair in Aspen’s eyes behind him.

"Bang!"

Tumbled to the ground, landing awkwardly.

The intense pain from below his body beca insignificant amidst the surging, boiling blood, and he instinctively turned over his body.

He hadn’t had ti to get up, with the sword in his hand barely raised halfway.

The goblins around him, which had initially hesitated due to the sharpness of his blade, now pounced like wolves slling blood.

The fastest-reacting one had already leaped high into the air.

Two branch-like thin arms clutched a wooden stick tightly, as mud and dust scattered between its black-brown toenails.

The fierce lightning burst forth from the somber sky above.

Ti seed to freeze at that mont.

Dong Shu could even see the goblin’s festering boil right in the center of its chest, the saliva-covered pointed tongue between its jagged rotten teeth, and even the outlines of muscles undulating under its paper-thin skin.

He instinctively wanted to raise his longsword to block the attack descending from above.

But found that the body’s reaction was not as swift as his mind.

There simply wasn’t ti!

Even lifting the blade at his fastest speed, by the ti the sword reached a suitable position, the wooden stick would have already struck his skull.

Despair surged up.

The surrounding world seed to be muted.

The roar from Aspen far away, the noise of rain hitting the leaves and ground, the excited screeches of the goblins... all suddenly vanished.

Only his own breathing and heartbeat remained.

The goblin, jumping from the ground, reached its peak and descended under the influence of gravity, while the iron nail embedded in the wooden stick glead coldly in the rain.

Dong Shu, half-sitting on the ground, seed to already feel the phantom pain of the wooden stick striking his head.

And at that very mont.

"Sizzle."

It was a faint sound, yet in this seemingly deathly still world, it was especially clear.

Like a paper window innocently poked open in childhood curiosity, like the rabbit fur he accidentally cut through a few days ago.

The goblin’s face still bore that frenzied expression, but sothing seed to be pushing out from its neck.

The fragile skin was stretched to its limit by the sharp object within, finally pierced with a slight "puff" sound and a few splatters of blood, as if poked through like paper.

Revealing the sharply pointed, gray sword tip.

It continued forward.

Until a small part of the sword erged from the goblin’s neck and finally halted.

Buzz—

Ti, inexplicably slowed, suddenly resud its normal flow.

He flipped his wrist, spinning the blade around.

Without deliberately aiming for an angle, relying purely on the matchless sharpness of the blade and the goblin’s montum descending from the air.

He gently pulled up the sword hilt.

"Slash."

From neck to skullcap, set against the red and white mingling fluid, half of the goblin’s head was severed by the blade.

Rumble—

The belated thunder bood in the air.

Dong Shu, lying awkwardly on the ground, instinctively looked up.

Through the narrow gap left by the goblin’s split flesh, he made eye contact with a pair of fierce, cold, pitch-black eyes.

In the next second, cold rain mixed with the warm, filthy blood swept over his face.