The Buried Mine Site had a life of its own. Goblins barked at one another through the tunnels, dragged crystal ore across the lower floors, and stomped along their patrol routes with the sa bitter rhythm they repeated every day. Even underground, the place never truly rested.
One goblin had drawn the worst post of all.
He leaned on his spear with both hands, the butt braced beneath his palms and the crystal tip planted in the ground, using it more like a crutch than a weapon. His eyelids drooped. His mouth hung half-open in a tired sneer.
Every few seconds, his eyes drifted back to the sa spot, as if staring harder might sohow make the job less boring.
That spot was the drop.
Anyone trying to descend from above had only one real option: grab the hanging line and slide down it like a firefighter on a pole. The goblins had prepared for that a long ti ago. Crystal spikes jutted up from the ground beneath it in a jagged cluster, dense enough to tear open flesh, pierce gear, and punish any idiot reckless enough to co down without a plan.
The watchman had been staring at those spikes for so long that even his boredom looked exhausted.
Then the world above him moved.
A huge boulder ca down from the darkness overhead.
It crashed into the crystal trap with brutal force. Shards burst outward. The spikes shattered under the impact, and a hard tremor rolled through the last floor like the mine itself had been kicked awake.
The watchman goblin jolted so hard he nearly lost his grip on his spear.
Before he could snatch up his horn and turn that quake into an alarm, soone slid down the line.
A man in armor worn over newbie clothes rode it cleanly and dropped onto the boulder as if he had practiced the stunt all morning. His boots hit stone. His balance held.
A purple-haired woman clung to his back with both arms, her eyes squeezed shut so hard she looked personally offended by gravity.
She wasn’t the last one down.
A woman with white hair and chicken wings descended next, lighter on the landing. Right after her ca a black-haired woman whose feet touched down with far less noise than they should have.
Her cold eyes didn’t waste a second on the shattered trap or the stunned goblin. They locked straight onto the path to the boss’s throne room.
Exactly where she wanted to go, Martin was already moving.
He had jumped off the boulder the instant he landed and was already rushing that way. He carried an ominous-looking shield in one hand and a blue-glowing warhamr in the other. One side of its head was a broad crystal face built to cave armor in and spread fractures. The other narrowed into a crystal spike ant to bite into the dents and cracks the flat side left behind.
He didn’t even need to use a provoking skill. The mont the armored goblins saw a human charging straight at them, their formation snapped toward him on instinct.
One of them lunged first.
Its crystal spear shot toward Martin’s chest. He didn’t bother raising his shield.
Instead, he shortened his swing at the last possible mont and turned the warhamr just enough for the flat face to et the spear’s crystal tip head-on.
A sharp crack rang through the tunnel.
The crystal edge didn’t chip. It exploded. Glittering blue fragnts burst through the air like shattered glass catching torchlight, and the goblin’s eyes went wide before it could even understand what had happened.
Martin’s warhamr kept going.
The heavy head smashed into the wooden shaft, crushed it down with a sharp snap, and drove straight through what little resistance remained. A heartbeat later, the flat side slamd into the goblin’s stomach with all the weight of Martin’s montum behind it.
The monster left the ground.
It flew over the heads of its own kin, arms and legs flailing, before smashing hard into the rough wall behind them. The body slid down limp, hit the floor, and burst into particles on contact.
For one stunned second, the tunnel went still.
The goblins stared.
Their small, brutal minds could not make sense of what they had just seen. A human had shattered one of their crystal weapons, crushed the wielder, and done it all in a single swing. The shock hit their formation harder than any skill could have.
[Ti: 53:10]
[Emperoar: Haha! I told you I could stun them all without Taunt or Shield Bash! I knew we’d save so much ti this way! Let’s go straight to the boss!]
[NukEncore: I’m still dizzy from that drop!]
[Chaosgraphy: Shut up and follow us.]
[NukEncore: Aaaaaaaaa. I hate bungee jumps, roller coasters, and chicken wings!]
The boss’s double doors lood ahead.
Even from a distance, they felt familiar now, and that only made them uglier. Martin had made it this far more than five tis already. He knew what waited past them. The crystal throne. The smug grin. That disgusting face that always looked like it was laughing at them before the fight had even started.
Not this ti.
Martin reached the doors first and slamd them open with both hands.
The throne room spread out before the party exactly as he rembered it, but returning to it now felt different. They weren’t here to test themselves. They weren’t here to learn.
They had co back with a plan, a weapon, and enough confidence to make the room feel smaller than before.
At the far end, the goblin boss sat on his crystal throne.
[The Dark Blue Goblin Boss (Elite) Lv. 5 HP: 1000/1000 MP: 750/750]
His face twisted the mont he saw them.
"Oh? Humans! Haha—"
"TAUNT!" Martin barked.
He used the skill not only to begin the tango, but also to cut off that sa cliché opening line.
In a blind rush, the boss lurched off his crystal throne and charged at Martin, clear hatred written across his grotesque face after everything Martin had done to him. Martin charged too, closing the gap with Bulwark Rush.
His strength surged.
Bulwark Rush flooded his body with a violent, familiar surge of power. The distance between them vanished fast. Martin lowered his shield, planted one step, then turned his entire body into the swing.
The warhamr carved a blue arc through the air.
A heartbeat later, the spiked edge slamd into the boss’s exposed midsection and punched halfway in. Strength, gravity, montum, and the boss’s own forward charge all stacked together into one brutal impact.
Martin felt the hit all the way through his arms.
This wasn’t a glancing hit. It buried itself with a wet, violent crunch that made the boss’s entire torso jolt around the point of impact. Flesh split. Blood burst out around the embedded spike.
For one savage instant, the goblin boss looked less like a ruler on a throne and more like sothing pinned in place by force alone.
The result was imdiate.
A strangled sound tore out of him. His body folded around the wound, and blood sprayed from his mouth in a hot arc across the crystal floor. The smugness vanished from his face so fast it was almost satisfying to watch.
Shock flashed across his face first, then pain, then a rising fury so intense it made his features twitch.
For the first ti since Martin had t him, the boss looked genuinely rattled.
Chaosgraphy was already there.
She ca out of Martin’s blind-side shadow like she had been waiting for that exact break in the world. The mont Martin ripped the hamr free, fresh blood spilled from the torn hole, and her twin swords flashed into it without hesitation.
The boss jerked so hard his whole upper body twisted.
A sharp grin flashed across her face. She drove both blades deeper, then twisted them with vicious delight, tearing the wound wider and dragging another ragged burst of blood across his stomach before snapping back out of range with clean, disciplined timing.
That timing mattered.
Less than half a second later, an arrow scread through the space she had just vacated and drove into the sa wound. Two fire bolts followed a beat later, tracing the sa line so cleanly it looked rehearsed.
Fla splashed into torn flesh.
Heat crawled greedily into the open wound, searing blood and muscle alike. The sll hit a second later, hot iron and burnt at, and the boss’s roar exploded across the throne room so violently that even the nearby goblins flinched.
The crystal throne room had welcod his smug laughter every other ti.
Now it echoed with pain.
His hands flew to the wound for half a heartbeat, not to protect it, but because the pain forced the reaction out of him. Then his fingers curled into claws, slick with his own blood, and his face twisted into sothing far uglier than arrogance.
[The Dark Blue Goblin Boss (Elite) Lv. 5 HP: 743/1000 MP: 750/750]
[The Dark Blue Goblin Boss (Elite) Lv. 5 HP: 723/1000 MP: 750/750]
[The Dark Blue Goblin Boss (Elite) Lv. 5 HP: 703/1000 MP: 750/750]
"H...HUMANS! KILL THEM ALL!" the Dark Blue Goblin Boss roared.
After all that preparation, they hadn’t co here for a fair fight.
They had co to overwhelm the boss, tear this throne room out of his hands, and claim everything it had to offer.
And the boss would naturally protect his treasure. As he scread, crystal armor plates surged over his body and locked into place, encasing him in his trademark armor.
His presence instantly grew heavier and far more threatening, kicking the battle into phase two.
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