The Team immediately gets in position, all drawing their weapons and readying their Mana. The Gobhorn looks at them and starts smiling as he points his hand towards the group whale still sitting.

The goblins screeches, picking up wooden clubs, before rushing the group. Two of them target V as she forms a shield, while Armando and Lin are clashing weapons with them.

Silver stays close to Sarah as she concentrates her Mana.

“Blessing of strength.”

As she says that, she shoots energy from her hands to the party members. This boost gives Armando and Lin the strength to win their clashes and push back the monsters while V manages to keep them at bay.

The Gobhorn snarls, and the goblins take a step back before rushing ahead again. Everyone gets their goblin back, but one of them manages to get past the line and runs towards Sarah.

The frontline wants to do something about it, but the goblins are giving them some difficulties. The goblin is now mere centemiters from Sarah. She readies herself, taking out a small mass but—

BAM

The goblin is sent flying as Silver hits it with a powerful side kick.

The goblin falls heavily on the ground before getting back up, disoriented. But he can’t get his senses back before Silver nails it with a jumping knee kick. As he lands, he immediately jumps back close to Sarah, playing defence. The goblin difficultly gets back up; it’s face battered.

A laugh resonates. The whole Team turns towards the Gobhorn that finally decided to stand up. It was easily standing at over 2.30 m. He hunches forward a bit before rushing at insane speed.

In less than a second, it’s in front of Silver and, not wasting its momentum, nails him with a powerful punch, sending him flying backwards a few meters before the monster follows him.

The group watches in shock, but they can’t be deconcentrated for too long; the goblins are still here and attacking.

“Come back to us, Sarah.” yells Armando while his daggers chip a bit of the wood of the creatures club.

She does so, looking back at Silver’s position. “I hope he’ll be okay.”

***

Silver manages to land on his feet, having blocked the attack. He winces as his arms start to sting from the power of the attack, but he can’t concentrate on that for the moment.

Less than a second after landing, the monster is here and lunges again at Silver. This time he manages to narrowly avoid it, but the strength of the attack is still enough to scratch him.

He takes a few steps back, touching his forehead. The monster managed to draw blood without even touching him; a full , unguarded attack would probably render him uncuncious. An E rank would have no chance against it.

The monster starts to sway, hunched forward. It then launches another devastating punch, but this time Silver could react. As he turns, evading the hit, the top of his foot violently strikes the monster’s face, sending it backward a bit.

The momentum is now in his favor, and Silver has no intention to let it go back. He lunges at the monster, planting his right fist in the beast’s stomach, then follows it with an uppercut with the left.

The monster reels back, but Silver isn’t letting the opportunity go: he hits a powerful liver shot; highly effective against humans, probably also against monsters ?

Perfect, he has it now ! Silver for another straight, but the monster sidesteps and hits him in the stomach with the blade of it’s hand. The impact sends Silver flying backward, puking blood on the way.

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He falls on his knees, trying to will himself back up. Now the monster is fully smiling, showing it’s sharp, razor-blade like teeth. Strangely, it seems to be enjoying the fight.

Silver gets back on his feet and concentrates as much mana as possible on his fists and lower legs. Once again the monster lunges forward, this time being caught by the point of Silver’s foot in it’s stomach.

But Silver doesn’t retreat his foot; he concentrates as much Mana as possible, approaches a little more, then pushes his foot as much as possible in the creature’s belly with the strength of a second kick.

The monster falls to it’s knees, the wind taken out of it, but Silver doesn’t stop. He circles the monster's belly with his arms and, with superhuman strength, manages to pull it off the ground. As he lifts it, Silver grits it’s teeth, feeling his veins popping out, the gash on his forehead sputing blood.

He lifts it to his face, his grip changing; he now has his hands against the monster’s belly, his arms circling it’s legs. As he lets out a scream, he plants the monster in the ground, also falling in the move.

The sound of the impact is powerful and frightening. Silver can barely get back up, the attack taking all he still had. He lifts his head, puking blood, as he sees the monster also lifting it’s head, looking at him.

“Fuck” was all Silver could say.

***

In the meantime, the rest of the group is stuck in a stalemate against the goblins, even if the monsters started to lose terrain; they are more beaten up than the humans, thanks in big part to Sarah’s healing, but she was starting to fatigue.

A loud sound makes Armando look at Silver as he sees him slamming the beast on the ground. He sighs in relief; at least he’s not dead yet. But right now Armando has to concentrate on his fight.

The goblins try to circle the group, but they turn accordingly, trying to each keep the goblin that have been fighting in front of them.

“We need a breakthrough.” says Lin.

“But how ?” asks Armando.

“This one.” suggests Sarah as she points stoward the goblin that Silver had attacked at the beginning. “It’s the one whose been hurt most; if we concentrate on it, we can reduce their numbers by one.”

It would swing the momentum in their favor big time if they managed to have the numbers advantage.

“The faster we deal with them, the faster we can help Silver with the big bastard.” says V as she steadies herself.

Her ability solidifies her Mana and allows her to model it as she pleases—not a sophisticated power but extremely versatile.

“Lin, it’s showtime.” announces Armando.

In the second following, Lin launches forward, his flaming sword in hand. His ability allows him to imbue elements in items—fire being the most effective against the majority of low rank monsters.

He ends up in front of his goblin before pivoting fast and slashing the weakest goblin. The monsters are taken aback by the attack. As they try to attack, V blocks two of them while the last one is met by Sarah’s mass in the head.

Both Lin and Armando are now facing the feeble goblin and are ruthlessly slicing into its flesh at breakneck speed. Finally, Lin executes it with a powerful flaming stab, making flames erupt from the monster as it hits the ground, lifeless.

The rest of the goblins try to attack back, but with the swing in momentum and morale, the humans win is almost certain.

The creatures step back, but the Team is on the offence, charging them relentlessly. One of the monsters starts to panic and turns it’s back on the humans—grave mistake.

Almost immediately, the back of its knee is hit by a golden spike launched by V. Before it can even comprehend what’s happening Lin lands heavily on the goblin’s back before stabbing the back of it’s head multiple times to end it.

Another one launches at Sarah but is met by Armando’s daggers on its side. As the monster reels in pain, it sees Sarah casting a buff on herself before spinning on herself and hitting the goblin with extreme speed and strength on the side of the head, exploding it with a disgusting sound.

The final one is a bit more smart, garbbing a downed Dungeonaut’s head, seemingly taking it hostage. A sound strategy, but out of seemingly nowhere, the goblin is hit by a powerful blade of wind, cutting through it’s arm. As it starts to panic, Armando appears out of nowhere and dropkicks the monster before cutting it’s throat.

As they start to calm down, they realize that they won. Who would have thought ? But before they can celebrate, they still have a final problem to take care of.

“Sarah, Lin, take care of the Dungeonauts. V, with me, we have to help Silver.” yells Armando as he starts to rush towards the site of the one-on-one, followed shortly by V.

They are both starting to get exhausted, but they have to help Silver if he’s not dead yet.