Just as she'd been ordered, Goblin had been watching over Arianna's fight. Fingers blocking one eye, she communed with a monster she had just summoned—the previous one having been obliterated for getting too close to the battle. By the time the new observer arrived at the scene, the fallout from the last attack was receding.
Goblin kept a safe distance as she watched Arianna prepare to finish off Cleon. The tyrant had managed to survive her previous assault, but she could tell from the outset that it was over for him. Arianna was about to end nearly a thousand years of Cleon's tyranny over the lands of men. But just as she was about to deliver the final blow, it happened. Someone interfered.
An Ancestral Tree appeared out of nowhere, likely through some teleportation skill or ability. Worse still, as suddenly as they had arrived, they disappeared, abducting Arianna and leaving Cleon behind.
"What the hell!" Goblin exclaimed.
"What happened?" asked the girl standing beside her, clueless. But Goblin didn’t answer. In that moment, she didn’t even hear her voice.
It was Goblin's nature to react with immediate force. She had been trying to battle that instinct, knowing it often brought her more trouble than it was worth. However, at the sight of Arianna vanishing, her whole being screamed for action—and she listened.
Taking a sprinting stance, long avian wings sprouted from her back as she prepared to hurl herself toward the spot where Arianna had disappeared. But a voice within her stopped her—a voice belonging to someone Arianna had instructed her to keep hidden. It was better for the world to believe that this mysterious serpentine monster had no connection to her. By exploiting this secrecy, she had managed to get rid of the Elven Monarch. She wanted White's existence to remain as mysterious as possible.
In that very moment, just like Frank was and all her other bonded creatures, White was one with her. That fellow Dungeon Master told her not to act rashly. Naturally, Goblin took offense. How could White expect her to just stand down? But as the voice in the corner of her psyche clarified that it wasn’t about standing down and reminded her of what Arianna expected of her, Goblin realized the truth.
Taking a deep breath, Goblin took a couple of seconds to collect her thoughts. Once composed, she glanced at the restrained kings—all six trapped inside her Solith Tree, unable to escape the prison she manifested. The Kings had thought Arianna was drawing her resources from the fleet, and they had come to cripple her forces. Little did they know, the fleet consisted only of her subjects and Aquaflora's—in other words, Argyrian and Aurian elves. Not only was their assessment wrong, but it had also led to their current predicament.
Wordlessly, Goblin pointed at them. They noticed her—or at least, the one she hoped would notice her did. Then, with that same finger, she pointed to where Arianna had been just moments before.
The next instant, Goblin activated her Assimilation skill, undergoing a process that manifested another version of herself—her male self. She hated doing this; it felt like splitting herself, because that’s exactly what it was. But since she needed someone to take command of the fleet, she had no choice. Without exchanging words—they both knew what was expected of each other—"she" then turned to the girl standing beside her: Aquaflora, who looked completely confused. She reached out to her.
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"Wha—?"
"Something happened to Ma'am. We must move. Fast."
Wasting no time, Goblin took flight, heading to the spot where Arianna had been before she was taken. But there was nothing—Arianna was gone, and so was Cleon. Yet Goblin knew Cleon hadn’t been taken; the old bastard had used the chaos to escape. He was still within sight.
Pointing at Cleon, Goblin ordered Aquaflora, "With your sigil, bring him here."
She hesitated for a moment but quickly understood. Manifesting her ancestral tree—encompassing over ten kilometers in diameter—she proceeded to shrink it, transforming it into a prison rather than a barrier. The tree contracted until it reached about a hundred meters in diameter, enclosing the escaping Cleon and bringing him to them.
Atop his little platform, "I take it you two are her new little dogs," Cleon seethed bitterly.
"I've heard about you," he said, clearly addressing Aquaflora. Then, looking at Goblin, he added, "I don't know about this one."
Just as Goblin had seen through her observer, Arianna had left Cleon in rough shape. But the bastard was still alive. He even looked better than he had a minute before, when Arianna was about to finish him off—surely the work of some auto-recovery skill. He had to go. He had to die. That was the whole point.
"Here to finish the job?" Cleon sneered, clearly mocking them for targeting a miserable old man like him.
"I would have the pleasure of a lifetime tearing you apart," Goblin declared coldly. "But ultimately, I am an elf and a monarch. It is not my duty to finish you off, mongrel."
With that, Goblin withdrew from the Lunith Tree's domain along with Aquaflora. Three men rushed past them at full speed, entering the domain. They made it past Aquaflora's sigil confine just as they had made it past Goblin's—because she had allowed them.
Despite the clear disappointment etched across his face at the sight of King Lance, King Floren, and King Dorian, Cleon met their betrayal with an unsettling serenity. "What did that witch promise you to turn your backs on me?"
Though his words were directed at all three kings, Goblin noticed that Cleon’s gaze lingered particularly on King Lance and King Dorian.
"What did she promise you that I haven’t already given you?"
"An era of freedom, renewal… but mostly, an era without you," King Dorian answered firmly.
"An era without me, huh?" Cleon chuckled. Then he burst into maniacal laughter, the sound echoing across the battlefield.
As Goblin watched the old emperor’s mental breakdown, something caught the corner of her eye. They had appeared again, inside their pathetic excuse for an ancestral tree. They had teleported back to the same spot they had vanished from. Just like earlier, there were three of them—but the most worrying part was that Arianna was not among them.
Noticing her absence, Goblin's anger flared. Springing into action, she manifested her ancestral tree, expanding it large enough to reach them. It effortlessly destroyed their ersatz sigil, entrapping two of them within her domain.
Yes—two, not three.
While she had acted impulsively, Goblin understood that dealing with someone capable of teleportation required isolating them from those who couldn’t teleport. Otherwise, they would just escape together. So that’s what she did.
Her sigil manifested as a barrier and slammed hard against the one she identified as the teleportation user, blasting him into the distance.
Taking advantage of the momentary confusion, Goblin manifested avian claws and crashed onto one of the remaining abductors. Her claws buried deep into the man’s skin.
"WHERE IS SHE?!" Goblin roared.