CHAPTER 102

Tom studied the mass of goblins to the north. They had obviously been set up and waiting for the dome to expand because they marched forward in orderly lines. Mentally, he whistled. There had to be over two hundred attacking in that single clump. He glanced to the west and saw a similar battle group. That meant they were probably raiding from all four sides. That put the enemy at over eight hundred.

Tom hoped that the humans’ high skill levels would be decisive because on a simple ranking system they were fighting foes as strong as them and were outnumbered fifteen to one.

The geography was funnelling them into a narrow area. Tom watched as they condensed into a tightly packed group the size of a backyard swimming pool. Calculations went off in his head. They were two long throws away which put them right at the optimal range for his meteorites and they were as concentrated as they were going to get.

With a flick of his mind, one of his five missiles shot away from him, travelling in a straight line towards a group of goblins. It grew larger and hotter as it screamed forward with the threat of imminent hellish violence physically growing with every metre it travelled. The goblins, the monsters Tom corrected mentally, did not even notice the approaching menace. They continued oblivious to the danger. It was a stark reminder that this version of goblins was a manifestation and lacked the basic survival instinct that would be present in any creature that survived in the wilds.

Tom had aimed for the very front of the battle squad and when the meteorite reached them, it was approximately two metres across and a thousand plus degrees.

It struck at pace, digging into the ground in a massive explosion of dust and molten lava spewing out.

BOOM!

The sound wave was shocking and the group of goblins to the west looked across and witnessed the destruction. They froze in stunned disbelief. Monsters were not supposed to react like that, but they could all see the goblins who were approaching from the west, stopped their march that was almost a charge and instead turned to watch to see what had happened to their companions to the north.

The cloud of molten rock and dust settled and out of the clump he had targeted only three goblins were left standing.

Silence deadened.

It was incredible. Better than imagined. In his mind, he recaptured the moment of the collision. That flash of red as the molten ball of stone had shattered, the tumbling rag-dolled bodies, the… It was glorious.

More.

More power than he had envisaged.

Meteorite!

That was the optimal word. The spell delivered what its title promised. It was not a cheap watered down imitation of the concept instead it captured the violence and raw rage of a previously free rock, being seized by a planet… and the consequences where not even a two tonne solid heart could contain the outpouring of anger that accompanied the betrayal.

Boom!

Decisive, brutal, beautiful, and he had four more!

It was…

Inspirational. There was something about the unleashed force, the unstructured violence that buoyed the heart that a more refined strike could not equal.

“Leave some for me. Bubs.” Everlyn pulled back an arrow, tilted towards the goblins and fired.

Three arrows were released in seconds each of them targeting the monsters that had survived Tom’s strike. They were each hit with an arrow through their chest.

Tom was impressed. “I assume you have some sort of tracking spell to hit accurately from this distance?”

Everlyn looked at her weapon in mock confusion. “It’s not like they were dodging.”

“You know I used a bow in the tutorial. I’m not completely uneducated in these things.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Everlyn glanced away from him. A small smile on her face.

The northern goblins were destroyed. The west goblins had all stopped when they saw the destruction Tom had unleashed. One that was slightly bigger than the others turned to face them. It lifted its hands up like it was giving a speech.

Everlyn’s bow came up, the string was pulled back to her cheek.

Crack.

The arrow arced out, and the big goblin was not even looking in their direction. The projectile glowed with strange chaotic energies as it reached its zenith. It then plunged towards the goblin, gaining unnatural speed as it did so.

Tom thought it might have registered a moment of surprise as some type of danger sense initiated. It attempted to turn to face the arrow and dodge. But magic glowed on the arcing shaft and while its trajectory did not appear to change, the goblin somehow ran into the deadly attack. It went straight through its eye.

Momentum pushed it forward another step before it fell and toppled over dead.

The northern group being crushed and then their leader being slain mid-motivational speech collectively broke something within the goblins. They all turned and charged towards a wall. Small faces screwed up in hating fury. Their eyes went bloodshot and any form of intelligence thought vanished from their features as they screamed and sprinted forward while waving rusty weapons with their loin cloths flapping in the wind.

They were not goblins like in computer games, a series of cookie cutter animations. They were like what they had been in the DEUS trials. All of them were different. Some ears were more pointed than others. One had a nose large enough that it could be mistaken as a beak. Their faces often had dirt or worse caked on and every individual had unique combinations of scarring and open cuts. Goblins were not particularly sedate monsters. They fought amongst themselves continuously. Rarely were those fights to the death, but just as infrequently did the spontaneous melee end without a severe injury. Or at least what would have been a dangerous wound back on earth? Now that same bite would heal in a couple of days, but that meant that every goblin had multiple wounds because they had fought once or twice, maybe even three times per day. It was just how goblins were and that was reflected in the goblins that the GODS had brought here to fight them.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

A group of about fifty accidentally funnelled themselves into a miniature valley.

The meteorite shot from his whirling defences. These were only seventy-five metres away, and his missile did not grow anywhere near as big. It only reached a metre and a half before it impacted. This time, instead of digging into the ground it must have hit bedrock because it skipped and went through them like a bowling ball.

Of the fifty over thirty died instantly, and there were cheers along the wall. Next to him Everlyn was busily firing. Tom was amazed by how quickly the arrows were leaving her bow, but then again he shouldn’t have been because from his calculations her rewards should have been better than his and he had created a tier three golem out of it and the meteorite spell of which three more strikes remained spinning around him.

Other mages and archers started firing their weapons at the charging creatures.

Casually, Tom switched a pebble to his throwing hands.

Goblins were weak to head shots and even after his skill had slowed his throw down, he was left with sufficient force to kill one. He pulled back his hand and activated his new skill. His arm moved slowly, but the stone he threw curved beautifully to crash into the forehead of the target. The skull crumpled, and it fell.

A second, third and then fourth rock was thrown in quick succession. They were notably slower through the air than what he had done in the tutorial, but they hit where he aimed and took down their enemy, which was all he needed. He didn’t need to reduce their heads to a pink mist. Killing them was sufficient and after each throw the goblin fell and identification confirmed that they were dead.

Another four rocks materialised out of soul storage and Tom stopped when he realised that this part of the fight was over. The fighters from the north face had like him rotated to defend the west and the concentrated fire power had torn the weak goblins apart. Tom turned and started jogging towards the south.

He glanced back at Everlyn. “You coming?”

Crack.

Another arrow slammed home and took out a charging goblin. While they were routed, there were still a few dozen racing toward the door.

“I’ll stay and repel these.” She answered. Tom peered back at the scattering forces and agreed with her assessment. Without her fire support, some of those goblins could reach the wall and then would probably have ended up as free experience when they tried to climb it, but it was better not to risk it. Especially the optics of the enemy reaching the walls. If they achieved an overwhelming victory the less battle mad amongst them might not be so eager to turn and flee.

It was pandemonium on the wall as everyone repositioned to where they could be used best. It made it difficult to run along the top of it. Some fighters were moving in the same direction as him. Others, ranged magic users were preparing their spells and launching them and holding their position. Toni was swinging her arms as energetically as the wind in the cyclone she was creating moved. He tried to go around, but there was no space. Almost by instinct, Remote Earth Manipulation helped create a foothold over what had been the edge of the wall that let him slide past the blockage.

He reached the south-west corner and assessed the battlefield. Fighting in a team was weird. Rather than mindlessly throwing himself against the hostile masses he had to continually check and confirm what his allies were up to and then pick where best to reinsert himself to do the most for the collective. The battlefield was spread out below him.

The defenders here had not had the convenience of his meteorite to break formations and wipe out large chunks of the enemy. It hadn’t stopped them from dominating. While he could still help, Tom suspected his presence was not actually needed. This battle too was won even if most of the human participants probably didn’t feel that way yet.

His golem had clearly been the key.

It felt like around half the monsters had targeted his golem. They had swarmed the stone construct and then been utterly outclassed by the tier three monstrosity. An elongated ice bolt had skewered five goblins. The Earth Shard ability had been adapted like how the elemental had practiced to become a deadly weapon. Spikes had torn goblins apart and based on a cursory examination of angles the attacks had been manifested away from the golem’s body. Unless Tom missed his guess it had corrupted the ability further to make it manifest through the earth and probably quadrupled the destructive capacity of the spell by short circuiting the need to create its own matter. The creativity of the elemental when using its chosen element was clear from the left-over shards of rock. Some, only slightly thicker that his little finger had been responsible for almost half the kills. Those had been clinically directed to slide between joints in the armour and into vital supports like the eyes, neck and under the armpits. A heavy-set goblin champion, meanwhile, which had been dressed in full plate armour had been struck by a shard wider than a spear. The thick metal had been punched through like it was paper.

The remaining half, excluding those killed by the ice shards, had been slaughtered courtesy of blunt force trauma. Entire skulls had been shattered like a dropped egg as the golem had repeatedly zig zagged across the battlefield.

Casually, Tom raised a hand. Balanced the stone and focused on the throw. He deliberately slowed it down to enhance his accuracy. He could sense his new skill clicking into action and his arm made microscopic adjustments. The Skill synergized with the Spell he was planning on using and the slight arc he had been about to introduce was reduced to nothing.

Throw Rock.

The tier one stone left his hand and flashed through the air in a satisfying straight line to strike the exposed temple of a goblin with feathers behind its ear. It fell like a puppet with its strings cut and smacked tonelessly to the ground right next to its target, the wall that Tom stood on.

Blood leaked out of the fist-sized hole in its head. Against creatures this weak, his new Skill was perfect because he did not require overwhelming speed to kill them and even for the tougher opponents a direct hit to a vulnerable area was superior to a faster throw that would strike uselessly off a monster’s shoulder.

Tom looked for targets and realised that the battle was effectively won. He created a lightning ball in one hand. With a flick of will, he sent it towards a group of archers who had appeared to survive by not being dangerous enough to get anyone else’s attention.

The explosive ball hit and electricity, fire and concussive force tossed his targets away from the impact point. Lightning sparked across them for a few seconds before it faded and then two of the three got up.

Tom frowned. He had only sunk five mana into the lightning ball, but a small part of him had been hoping the high tier spell would pack more punch than that.

Another rock appeared in his hand.

An arrow took the closest of the two archers that had stood.

Tom weighed the throw to take out the last of them. His Spell and Skill interacted weighing what he needed to do. Desire for speed versus accuracy wrestled in him and he settled on the latter. The throw would be perfect and even with Throw Rock accelerating the stone when it left his hand it would travel only slightly faster than what he could throw naturally. Which meant gravity was a consideration and air resistance. He aimed marginally high and made sure he imparted spin to stabilise the flight.

It spun through the air. Deceptively slowly. The archer continued its step forward to raise its bow to fire another futile arrow toward their defence.

There was a crunching sound as the stone slammed into its nose. The goblin looked up at the sky. The bow dropped from limp fingers forgotten. Both hands were raised to its broken face. Blood boiled out anyway.

Tom was experienced enough to recognise a mortal wound.

He turned away from it and assessed the battlefield. He had been unneeded here, as the defenders were already switching to clean-up duties. Tom glanced down at the first goblin he had slayed against the wall of their fortification. Not completely unneeded. That singular sneaky goblin may have completed its task before it was noticed and that would have been… bad?

Not that any here would acknowledge his contribution. Which, when he thought about it, was probably a good thing.

They had won and the defenders would feel empowered having succeeded without the aid of his growing legend.

Michael moved to the edge of the wall to assess the battlefield. The healer nodded happily and then looked directly down at the golem and then toward Tom. He gave a big thumbs up.

His golem had done well and Tom couldn’t wait to see how he could improve it over the coming months. For now, against these goblins, it had more than repaid Michael’s faith and resource allocation – and in the future, as he upgraded its components, that investment would pay off further.

Spells continued to fly to slam into the goblins that were still moving. Executing defeated enemies was the best description of the remaining action. There was no uninjured opposition left.