Yet reality mocked him.
Narg wasn’t flailing, wasn’t scrambling.
He was dictating the pace of the fight, bending it to his rhythm. His expression barely changed, calm and collected, every movent deliberate.
And that realization twisted like a blade in his gut.
How?
How was this possible?
This goblin had been nothing more than one of Eli’s lackeys.
He wasn’t supposed to be this formidable.
He wasn’t supposed to be this skilled.
And yet here he was, turning aside every assault, holding his ground with the confidence of a chosen.
Amon’s grip on his staff tightened.
How was this goblin so good?
Narg was no ordinary goblin, that much was clear, but even then, the gap in his performance was difficult to reconcile.
His perception bordered on frightening, a constant awareness that let him move before danger truly arrived. Yet it wasn’t just instinct. It was the way he carried himself, the way he shaped his magic with the calm precision of a seasoned hand. Every spell he cast, every barrier he ford, ca with a regal control that spoke of discipline rather than desperation.
By comparison, Amon felt clumsy, almost brutish, a wielder of borrowed power who could only mimic mastery through artifacts rather than cultivate it from within.
His own magic was powerful, yes, but crude.
He flung his dark lightning with brute force, splurging mana without restraint, relying on the talisman to force his power into shape.
He wasn’t manipulating the spell, he was rely activating it.
There was no finesse, no authority over its true nature.
It was as though he were operating a machine, pressing a button and watching it function, while Narg wielded his magic as if it were part of his own body, a limb responding naturally to intent.
The difference gnawed at him.
Sure, Amon was pressing harder, overwhelming Narg with bursts of raw power and forcing him to remain on the defensive, but control was not on his side. Narg’s precision, his economy of movent, was steadily tilting the duel away from brute force and into a contest of endurance.
And in such a battle, Amon knew he was at a disadvantage.
Every reckless cast drained him more quickly than he liked to admit. The talismans let him channel devastating magic, but they bled mana at an alarming rate. If this continued, he would run dry long before the goblin standing calmly before him. And when that happened, when the fuel ran out, he would be finished.
He could not allow that. Not with the others still holding the line. Not with Eli still unaccounted for. He had to end this quickly, before the tide turned further against him.
A flicker of desperation crossed his eyes as he shifted his stance, raising the staff with both hands. With a guttural snarl, he unleashed a flurry of dark bolts, sending them screaming across the field in rapid succession.
Crack, crack, crack!
As expected, Narg’s disks spun into place, intercepting the projectiles with their steady rhythm. Sparks sizzled, smoke hissed into the air, and one after another was caught on shimring barriers. It looked, for a mont, like more of the sa, predictable, asured, controlled.
But then one bolt veered.
Instead of lancing straight toward Narg, it dipped, spearing into the ground with the force of a thrown javelin.
Thud!
The earth cracked, and a heartbeat later, it detonated in a violent eruption.
BOOM!
Soil and rock blasted upward in a storm of shards.
Narg’s disks caught the rest of the barrage, intercepting them in precise rhythm. Sparks hissed, smoke blossod, and for every impact there was a perfect counter.
When the last bolt fizzled out, he shifted his focus back to Amon, only to find the shaman obscured.
The blast had thrown up a thick cloud of dust and ash, swallowing Amon’s silhouette completely.
Narg’s brow furrowed, his eyes narrowing. He understood imdiately. The strike into the ground had not been a mistake, but a deliberate move to blind him, to break the rhythm of their exchange. Amon had realized he was being read like a book, his every attack countered before it landed. Cloaking himself in smoke was the only way to shake that grip.
It was a clever tactic, Narg admitted, but not enough to unsettle him.
He trusted in his instincts to catch danger and react on reflex to whatever ca his way. That was the gift his chief had granted him, the skill that had saved his life more than once.
[Danger Sense].
But what ca next was unlike anything he expected.
The ground beneath him split with a sharp crack, and from the ruptured soil surged what looked like thick, gnarled vines. They coiled upward with unnatural speed, snaking around his ankle before he had ti to fully register the threat.
Narg’s eyes widened as the first tendril yanked hard, dragging his leg out from under him. He swung his staff instinctively, trying to burn them away with a burst of fla, but the vines moved faster, jerking him violently into the air.
His body whipped upward before being slamd down with bone-jarring force. THUD!
The impact rattled through his bones, but he did not let go of his staff.
The vines heaved, raising him upward once more before slamming him down like a hamr striking an anvil. Gritting his teeth, he forced mana into his disks mid-fall, the hexagonal shields snapping into formation around him in a desperate halo of light.
And the impact shook the earth, dust exploding outward.
But the barrier absorbed the brunt of the force.
What should have shattered bone and ended him instead beca a punishing crash—painful, jarring, yet survivable.
Narg recovered instantly, his staff flaring, and then a bolt of fire ripped outward, searing the vines that clung to him.
Smoke rose from the charred coils, the air filling with the stench of burning wood and sothing fouler still.
And for a heartbeat, Narg thought he was free.
But then...
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