Chapter 118. Deeper In, the Fleeting Goblin King
Before long, the force reached the Secret Realm Entrance.
Duke Marcus quickly stepped before William and bowed. “Your Highness, the five legions are fully assembled and standing by. They can enter at any ti.”
William swept his gaze over the gathered soldiers. Their formation was orderly, their armor gleaming, and their military bearing was indeed impressive, so he nodded and gave the order in a deep voice, “Move out.”
The Gold Legion crossed the boundary of the secret realm first, the golden torrent like a sharp blade splitting open the drifting mist.
The two Knight Orders followed close behind, their silver armor flashing with a cold sheen in the dim light.
William rode Darwin forward, the giant dragon’s body stirring up a foul wind as he steadily stepped into the secret realm.
The mont he entered, William imdiately sensed sothing was wrong.
The mana in the air was in utter chaos, at tis violent like a raging sea, at tis sluggish like a swamp, yet at the sa ti abnormally abundant, as though this space had been forcibly stuffed with an excessive amount of magical energy.
“Advance at full speed. Target the center of the basin,” William called out.
The Gold Legion and the Knight Orders imdiately quickened their pace, and the crisp sounds of weapons being drawn rose one after another.
The low-level goblins in the forest were alard and rushed out screaming, only to be easily cut down by the Gold Legion soldiers in the front ranks. Flesh and blood splattered across the rotting leaves, and soon a bloody path was carved out.
“Duke Marcus,” William said over his shoulder, “take your n and guard the rear. Clear out the remaining low-level goblins along the way and make sure our retreat path stays open.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” Marcus accepted the order and imdiately commanded the five legions to spread out and sweep through the dense woods on both sides.
Though the low-level goblins were nurous, they were utterly incapable of putting up a fight. They were quickly driven back again and again, their screams echoing through the forest.
William no longer lingered and urged Darwin to move faster.
The deeper they went, the thicker the evil aura in the air beca. That ghostly chanting also grew clearer, as though countless eyes were peering at them from the darkness, enough to make one’s scalp go numb.
The soldiers of the Gold Legion held their breath, Dou Qi coursing across their bodies and forming a faint halo of light that resisted the chaotic mana around them.
They knew that the real hard battle lay in the basin ahead.
Darwin suddenly let out a low growl and stopped. He sniffed the air, then looked toward the dense forest on the left.
Following his gaze, William saw the shadows of several pale figures flicker through the trees.
They were those White-Skinned Goblins with Sky-Rank Combat Power. They had already discovered the intruders.
Darwin’s Dragon Breath erupted like blazing fire, sweeping forward with destructive force.
After several shrill screams, the White-Skinned Goblins that had charged out were instantly burned into charcoal. Black ash drifted through the air.
Darwin threw back his head excitedly and let out an earth-shaking dragon roar. Then, carrying William on his back, he spread his wings and flew toward the basin.
The Gold Legion and the Knight Orders followed close behind. The soldiers swung their swords down on the goblins leaping out from the forest, and the crisp sounds of blades striking bone rang out without end.
They were like a giant sharpened axe, crushing their way forward and slaughtering every enemy that blocked their path.
William had Darwin focus on hunting down the White-Skinned Goblins with Sky-Rank Combat Power. Whenever they encountered clusters of enemies, Dragon Breath would fall like heavenly wrath, clearing the way for the troops behind them.
After advancing in this stop-and-go fashion for an entire day, the force finally reached the basin deep within the secret realm.
The sight before them was startling. The basin was completely clean. The soldiers’ corpses ntioned in the earlier reports had all vanished, as though they had been deliberately cleared away.
And at the center of the basin, those White-Skinned Goblins were in the midst of a frenzied slaughter among themselves.
They hacked at their own kind with crude weapons, spraying green and pale blood everywhere. Yet not a single drop was wasted. Instead, it flowed through hidden grooves in the ground and continuously gathered toward the raised platform at the center of the basin.
Standing atop that raised platform was an especially enormous goblin leader. Its skin glowed with an eerie dark-purple hue, and its eyes burned with scarlet light.
The blood that flowed together followed the runes beneath its feet and poured endlessly into its body. With every bit of blood it absorbed, its aura grew stronger, and even the surrounding air twisted and trembled under the pressure of that evil power.
William pulled Darwin to a halt, his brows tightly furrowed.
This was no re slaughter among themselves. It was clearly a ritual, a Sacrificial Ritual carried out with the blood and lives of their own kind.
Those White-Skinned Goblins looked mad, but in truth they were following so strange set of rules, concentrating all their power into their leader.
“Prepare for battle,” William ordered in a low voice, his tone cold as ice. “We cannot let it complete the sacrifice.”
The soldiers of the Gold Legion tightened their grips on their weapons. Dou Qi surged through their bodies, and golden light illuminated their grim faces.
The goblin leader at the center of the basin seed to sense the intruders. It slowly raised its head, its scarlet gaze sweeping across William and his group, and a cruel curve lifted at the corner of its mouth.
“You ca too late, gah gah gah.”
The goblin leader let out a piercing, crazed laugh as the dark-purple aura around it surged.
“I am already the Goblin King, a Goblin King with the power of a Legend. All of you will die here.”
William was briefly stunned. Such a large-scale sacrifice, and it was only for advancing to Legend?
He had thought the creature was trying to break into an even higher domain. It had genuinely startled him for a mont.
It seed this goblin tribe’s vision was limited to this much after all.
“Darwin, deal with it,” William said flatly, as though he were speaking of sothing trivial.
Darwin had long since lost his patience. With an excited roar, his enormous body shot downward like a cannonball, and Dragon Breath wrapped in blazing flas blasted straight at the Goblin King.
Though the Goblin King had already advanced to Legend, it still looked miserable in the face of a legendary dragon’s pressure. It barely managed to wave the Bone Staff in its hand to defend itself, but Darwin’s breath blasted it backward again and again, instantly scorching patches of its dark-purple skin black.
“Gold Legion, eliminate the remaining goblins,” William ordered loudly.
The golden torrent imdiately spread out. The soldiers moved like precise harvesting machines, slaughtering all of the White-Skinned Goblins in the basin that were still killing one another.
The dull sounds of blades sinking into flesh mixed with the goblins’ screams, then quickly fell silent.
“Knight Orders, collect the young. Use Slumber Potions on them and take them all away.”
William added, “Also, inform Marcus to lead his n in a full cleansing of the entire secret realm. Not a single goblin is to be left alive. Search every hidden cave thoroughly, especially those concealed tunnels and dens.”
The knights carried out the order, carefully gathering the goblin young, who were trembling in fear. After administering the potions, they loaded them into specially made cages.
These young goblins would make excellent material for training troops.
At the center of the basin, Darwin’s battle with the Goblin King was already nearing its end.
With a single mont of carelessness, the Goblin King was struck by Darwin’s claw, which shattered the Bone Staff outright. A mont later, Darwin bit through its neck.
Dark-purple blood sprayed outward, but it could no longer flow into that strange Rune Array.
Darwin spat over and over. “Its blood stinks. It tastes awful.”
William landed on the ground and looked at the Goblin King’s corpse, but his expression still did not ease.
A formation capable of evolving goblins from lowly cannon fodder into a Legend was no simple thing.
He bent down and picked up a clump of earth stained with dark-purple blood. A chill, sinister sensation ran through his fingertips.
“Record the Rune Array here, as well as all remaining energy traces, and take them back to the Royal Capital for the Archmages to study,” William said to the black-robed young man behind him.
The black-robed young man bowed in acknowledgnt, imdiately took out a parchnt scroll, and began sketching the rune patterns.
User Comments
0 comments from readers