Fortunately for Logan, the goblins were relatively weak aside from Hobgoblins who were only slightly stronger than the average human. Their magic wasn't much better. Stronger than orc magic to be sure but about on par with dwarves who aren't exactly known for their spell casting. Each group had one thing that set them apart from the others and gave them an edge. For orcs it was their strength, for kobold their spell crafting, for elves their extended lifespan, for dwarves their cunning, but for goblins it was merely their ability to reproduce and mature rapidly. It is for this reason that goblins more than any other race are said to spread like a disease across the land. The goblin army that now marched into his territory was certainly a testament to how fast they reproduced as no other race could afford to commit that many troops to what is essentially an exploratory strike. The really giant spiders along with the ice wolves and electric rat swarms held the line for a while. The really giant spiders were literally biting goblins in half letting their insides fertilize the ground beneath them. Ice wolves would freeze goblins solid and then smash the ice like the worlds grossest party trick. Watching bits of goblin thaw and then start to melt made him glad he can't get sick anymore. The lightning rat horde shot lightning so intense it popped their heads like a zit. The fear gophers worked surprisingly well. In some cases, causing a full-on panicked retreat. It seems goblins lack any willpower. Even so the sanctuary was beginning to get overwhelmed. Not wanting to lose ground he sent in the dire wolves and the giant spiders. They tore into the enemy flesh ripping out whatever organs they could reach. At some point hobgoblins joined the fight and while the sanctuary troops could still deal with them the tide of battle had shifted once again. In response he sent in the really big spiders and normal wolves to reinforce his front lines. They weren't particularly strong, but they kept the enemy from focusing their attacks on his weaker creatures. Of course, they weren't exactly push overs either and managed to rip through their share of goblin flesh. In the case of the really big spider any goblins that weren't killed by the initial attack were poisoned and died soon after anyway. Things were starting to go his way once again when the goblin shamans entered the battle. Their spells were very effective against the few giant and really giant spider that remained. Despite this he still didn't want to reveal everything he had since he was sure this wouldn't be the last he saw of them. Keeping with the theme of what he has already sent he sent in both the large and medium dire rat swarms.
Just as things were starting to get interesting though the goblins stopped coming. "Was that it" he wondered. Asking Cid about it he found out that the massive army he just faced was what the goblins considered a scouting party. Goblins, Cid explained, usually win by overwhelming their enemies with sheer numbers. Logan did some quick math and realized that if that was a scouting party and it was already the second largest battle he'd ever fought, the true attack would be on a scale he hasn't yet faced. He didn't like to 'panic buy' but in this case he allowed himself to make an exception buying upgrades for the spider, wolf, and chicken spawner of all things. Why his panicked brain went to the chicken spawner, he had no idea. What he got was a general spawn rate increase. Always welcome, especially now when facing an enemy that could match or even exceed him in numbers. The wolf spawner produced another two headed wolf. This one had dark red fur and ... lava magic somehow. Going by his experience with the ice wolf he guessed that this new wolf possessed both fire and earth magic which combined to produce lava magic. The only one that he regretted buying was the spider spawner upgrade and that was just because of the sheer size of what he got. At 8 meters in diameter, it took up a massive amount of room and didn't really fit very many places. This was the main reason he'd avoided getting another spider spawner upgrade. For now, the spawner with the fewest upgrades was the boar spawner. He wondered if he should buy the next level of boar spawner, but he was kind of hesitant as just like with the spiders the boars seemed to just keep getting bigger.
He made sure that the residents knew they might get called on to defend the sanctuary if the goblins attacked again pretty soon. He still didn't like the idea of putting them in harms way but he had to admit that this time he might actually need their help. They are of course happy to assist their sanctuary. Sadly, there wasn't much he could do to prepare aside from building more walls. He didn't really want to turn the city into a giant maze of walls though. He could build traps, but they were completely ineffective last time. He also didn't want to constantly worry about one of his residents triggering the trap. In the end he decided to just wait and see, not the greatest strategy but until his mana built up enough to be usable it was the only one available to him.
The residents haven't exactly been idle either. Knowing that as big as the sanctuary was in order for an enemy to get to the central stone wall it meant that the sanctuaries forces had been defeated, they focused on defending the starting area. They would focus on using the gates as choke points while the mages lobbed spells over the wall. They even put things around the wall for mages to stand on in order to see over the wall. The human army was equipped and ready. Logan had no doubt that if it came to it they could hold off an attack, at least for a while. He made sure to have Cid assign the expected mothers to guard the core knowing that if the enemy made it that far all hope was lost. On top of that he had Lulu and her partner practice fighting in the relatively cramped hallways. This training would benefit not only them but also the people they used to train.
Meanwhile after several hours he finally has enough mana to upgrade the boar spawner. What he gets is 500kg of raw power. This feral boar was much more agile than a creature that massive had any right to be. it's reinforced neck and thick skull made it a living battering ram. Its skin wasn't as dense as the armored pigs, but it was still appropriately thick given its size. He would have preferred a spawn rate increase if he was being honest, but he couldn't just keep buying upgrades. Well actually he could but that wasn't a great long-term strategy. Instead, he decided to go back to expanding. This would grant him more visibility and eventually lead to a new spawner. He wasn't sure where the goblin camp was but believed that he had at least a week to prepare. He also knew that a new spawner was exponentially more valuable than a few upgrades on existing spawners.
Realizing he should probably know where the goblin camp is, so they knew how long they had to prepare before another attack, he sent out his recon team. This time however he made sure they understood to be extra careful and not let themselves get surrounded. He was reasonably confident that they wouldn't run into a goblin horde coming this way, but you never know.
Nothing within the sanctuary required his direct attention so he basically just spent his time waiting and buying expansions when he could. Three more expansions later he had six whole buildings and a large chunk of two other mansions. Still no new spawners though. The good news is that there was nobody left at the beginner level. Even the intermediate classes were starting to empty, at least they will be now that there are no more beginners coming in. On top of that the mages were starting to master combo spells of all kinds. Allyson was even handing out healing potions as fast as she could get them made. She wanted desperately to experiment some more and see if she could come up with a more powerful potion but even a weak healing potion is better than nothing.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
After the next expansion he Had Cid tell everyone to stand down and relax for now. Sure, they could be attacked any minute and they needed to be prepared. but that wasn't any different than any other day. Being in a state of heightened alert constantly wasn't good either. He didn't want the stress to kill them before anything else had a chance to. He was confident the scouts would give plenty of advanced warning even if they somehow made it past the recon team. Besides which optimistically assuming the recon team is still fine it would probably be over a week before they faced another goblin attack.
Just as he said that though one of the scouts reported that they spotted the recon team. As the first member made it back inside his territory he turns to Cid and gave his report. Apparently, the goblins are only about a day behind them as far as they could tell. "It figures" he thought. "As soon as I tell everyone to lower their guard we get attacked." The Spiders, wolves, and rats hadn't fully recovered their numbers, but he still sent all the monstrous spiders, really giant spiders, ice wolves, lava wolves and electric rats he had to the front line. The front lines being about nine meters inside his territory so that he could see what he was dealing with and adjust his strategy accordingly. The monstrous spider was able to seriously injure or even kill some goblins by just stepping on them. Any that made it past the monstrous spiders would get bitten in half by the really giant spiders. The lava wolves and ice wolves sprayed lava and freezing breath respectively into the enemy ranks. Melting the skin off some goblins and freezing others. Electric rats didn't have quit the same impact that they had last time. Not having had time to form the large swarms again meant that their electric attack wasn't nearly as strong although it did manage to kill a few. Leaving giant burn marks wherever it hit them. Things were going well so far but if the scouting party was anything to go by things were just getting started. Luckily Cid's assessment proved accurate. Goblins where physically the smallest and weakest of the races relying entirely on their ability to replicate at a rate that would make rabbits jealous. Still at some point they did begin to overrun the front lines. Logan already had an answer for this and sent in the feral boars along with the armored boars. The feral boars tore through the enemy lines squishing some and sending others flying. The armored boars on the other hand acted like a tank soaking up as many attacks as they could, their dense hide providing lots of protection. Along with this he also had the fear gophers do their thing adding an extra layer of chaos to the enemy lines. Naturally what was left of his other forces already there used the distraction to push them back to where the front line was originally. He supplemented their numbers with the giant spiders and dire rat swarms. The way dire rat swarms could leave a corpse looking as if it had been through a meat grinder both amazed and disqusted him. Finally, though the hobgoblins entered his territory, and it was time to get serious. Deciding that this was the perfect opportunity he sent in the wasps. While they were distracting the enemy and slowing them down, he also sent in the dire wolves. They didn't have any magic like the other wolves, but they did have sharp teeth and claws and weren't shy about making sure all the sanctuaries enemies knew that. The wasps were doing a great job of making sure they didn't gather any momentum as the feral boars continued to send bodies flying and the armored boars kept pushing them back while continuing to soak up damage. Despite all this the goblins kept coming and eventually started to push through. It took a long time but eventually even the armored and feral boars began to die. In the case of the armored boars, it was more like death by a thousand cuts than any one decisive blow. The feral boars it seems suffered a similar fate with wounds slowly getting deeper and deeper until they eventually started to damage internal organs. His army had already taken out over a hundred goblins, but they just kept coming. At this point even the dire wolves were starting to dwindle in number. Seeing this he sent in the normal wolves. This time though he also sent in the Lesser wolves. They hadn't participated in the scouting attack a week ago or any attack really, so their numbers were pretty high. The normal wolves were ferocious, but the lesser wolves were like a blender with teeth. To Logan they looked more like an Alaskan Klee kai with their aggression amped up to eleven. This halted the enemy advance but wasn't enough to push them back. Soon enough goblin shaman entered the fight. He was all too happy to send his vampire snakes to greet them. He also sent in some of the giant snakes to take some of the attention away from the vampire snakes which were more camouflaged. The goblins for their part just kept coming now with a mix of normal goblins, hobgoblins, and goblin shamans. He even sent in the big snakes and his normal snakes to help curb the tide. This had minimal success with most of his heavy hitters having already been takin out. As a final attempt to push them back he sent in his razor tusks as well as his telekinetic snakes. The razor tusks put their tusks to good use slicing and dicing goblins and leaving a trail of intestines behind them. Knowing he wouldn't be able to hold them there much longer he sent some of his fire mantises up to the gates to take full advantage of the natural choke points along with air mantises to back them up. Fear gophers were still doing their thing while staying back far enough to not get targeted directly for now. The goblin shamans were too busy dealing with the wasps and the vampire snakes. The telekinetic snakes were likewise causing chaos by using their powers to grab a foot here or a hand there causing the goblins attention to falter for a second which is lethal on the battlefield as they soon found out. Even so the goblin line once again started to advance. The fire and air mantises were ready though. They took turns melting the flesh from their bones and using razor wind to slice and dice them. He had the normal rat swarms gather just inside the northern most gate for when they eventually broke through. Goliath mantises were gathered just past the rat swarms. He had stronger units, but he wanted to save something for in case one of the other races attacked soon if he could. he was able to hold them at the northern most gate for a while but eventually one or two started making it through. the rat swarms made sure they didn't make it too far, but they still managed to kill a mantis or two each time and that slowly added up. Worse yet the goblin horde showed no sign of letting up any time soon. If he were fighting any other race with these numbers, his core would have been shattered by now. At some point they made it through the northern most gate and were fighting the rat swarms in earnest now. The few goblin shamans that were left inside his border were proving very effective against the rat swarms, but the rat swarms had been through this so many times by now that they instinctively targeted any enemy casting magic. This halted their advance once more as for the first time it was the goblins who faced superior numbers since they could only fit troops through the gate so fast. That kind of advantage wasn't sustainable long term though and soon enough the number of rat swarms began to dwindle. This caused the goliath mantises to get involved. Along the street just past the next gate he assembled his really big spider swarms and big spider swarms. Slowly the goblins fought their way towards the next gate. As they reached the gate though they got a little surprise as their faces melted off. Logan was no fool he knew better than to put all his eggs in one basket and so had his fire and air mantises station themselves at multiple gates. He also had the dire gophers and the super dino chickens go around the edge of his territory to attack the goblin horde from both sides. Fearing that wouldn't be enough he also had the normal boars join them in their surprise attack. The tactic worked as the goblins were forced to divide their attention taking some of the pressure off his front-line units. Seeing how well that was working he sent his dino chickens and normal spider swarms to reinforce the flanking attacks. Despite this the goblins at the front still managed to make it through the second gate. The really big spiders and big spiders would do their best to make sure they didn't make it any further though. Without any shaman left the back rows had a hard time killing the normal spiders due to their size and the speed at which they moved. Eventually though the flanking attacks began to dissolve allowing the goblins to once again focus on the front lines.