CHAPTER 223
They shuffled their positions. Tom moved to the front and prepared himself. “What should I expect?”
“Beyond this bend, the tunnel widens. Then you have five metres to run and about a half metre drop to the floor.”
“Is there anything else I need to be aware of?”
“I didn’t spot any elites if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Tom nodded at that response. He was not concerned as such but he wanted to ensure he was prepared and that meant asking questions. With a deep breath, he moved forward, went around the corner and sure enough the characteristics of the passage changed. The height increased significantly, and the floor shifted from dirt over sandstone to a hard granite like substance that had a worn polished feel from lots of bare feet.
His first step echoed down the corridor and he took off at a run, knowing that his element of surprise was lost. He burst into the cavern, leaping down a slight ledge. His spear was at the ready and he instinctively, at the last moment adjusted his leap to target the closest goblin.
The creature, some sort of servant, dropped the bones it was holding and tried to run. It never stood a chance. His spear punched straight through its chest and Tom spun the weapon immediately and the screaming body slipped off the weapon and flew behind him to slam into the wall. He wanted to get some quick kills before they swarmed him. Unfortunately, there were no more of them near him, so instead of launching a barrage of attacks he took a moment to assess the battle ground.
The cavern itself was large and stretched almost fifty metres from end to end, which was a significant space and substantial enough to remind him of the underground. That was three bus lengths. The ceiling varied from just over two metres high where Thor would be unable to swing the weapon over his head to other spots that were closer to three, and he would have an almost uninhibited movement range. There was a river flowing along the left side, which explained the relative lack of smell. The presence of running water meant that instinctively the goblins would shit there as opposed to their usual tendency to defecate where they slept, ate, or wherever was convenient.
Tom studied his footing. This was a natural cave. Sporadic stalagmites reaching from knee high to waist were spread over the floor with the density increasing the closer he got to the right wall. There was no furniture to be seen as the occupants were goblins. There was however lots of gnawed bones with most of them piled up in set spots. Overall, Tom was more than satisfied with the conditions. He could move freely and if he paid attention, he could assure that his feet were kept on solid ground.
It was against his instincts, but as he entered a room, Tom started yelling petty insults at the monsters. They wouldn’t understand, but they would hear the noise and probably perceive the intent. The more of them that focused on him the better.
Initially, he couldn’t see the thirty that Everlyn had promised and then they began to stand from where they must have been sleeping on the far side of the cavern hidden by the bones and stalagmites. In moments numbers ballooned beyond thirty and the vast majority were warrior classed.
Within five seconds of entering, over forty and maybe fifty goblins, including four hobs, were arrayed against him. Tom did not feel at all threatened. Even the hobs did not concern him. They exceeded him in vitality and strength, but Tom could tell at a glance that he was faster. Plus, they were likely to be unskilled and dodge would vastly out strip any ability they possessed. He had however fought goblins before and while the standard hobs were not a threat that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be other skill users. With a practised eye, he searched for specialised versions.
Tom’s eyes were immediately caught by goblins moving to the walls that were carrying bows. He expertly examined each of them and sighed in relief. They were the basic version of archers. They wouldn’t possess any dangerous skills, so he could ignore them. Thankfully, there were no magic users to focus on.
His mental clock had him down to ten seconds remaining. Forty enemies were a lot, and he needed to move fast to ensure they were focused on him. Catching the attention of only twenty of them was not good enough, as he did not want that many to charge the others. He had to taunt the majority of the monsters gathered.
While some goblins were charging at him, most of them were behaving in their usual fashion. They were migrating to surround the hobs. He assessed the situation. With a single thought, he directed the lesser lightning elemental that he had active to attack the stray goblins. It shot off to harass them and its job was not to kill anything only shock them so that they would want to come after him and not his companions. Tom hoped the goblins were smart enough to understand that he was the source of their pain and not the elemental itself, which was too small and fast for the dumb beasts to target.
Mentally, he planned out several scenarios. He needed to get close to two major groups and unleash his taunt skill. Tom calculated the angles and the likely response of the different goblin groups. Speed was critical and so, unfortunately for him, was the requirement to reach the centre of each mob. Black dodge reducing damage or not Tom knew it was going to be painful.
Tom veered sharply to the right with Lightning Feet igniting under his feet. Sparks went everywhere and propelled him forward. Straight toward the heart of the largest forming pack. More than one goblin saw him coming, but they were too slow. He didn’t leap over them or do anything outrageous like that. Instead, he lowered his shoulder, triggered his momentum boost, and struck like a wrecking ball.
Without the magical aid of the pants, he would have hit hard. With it, the goblins he hit were blown away like bowling pins. He came to a halt right in front of an astonished hob.
Tom smiled and then activated Lightning Enrage. More sparks exploded outwards, but these were far more sinister than the ones that had sped him up. They struck goblins and dug into them to cause agonising pain that no person or monster could ignore.
The hobs muscle’s for a moment locked as the taunt worms of electricity wriggled inside it. Tom took advantage of that to leap at the creature that was almost as tall as him. He rotated in midair, bent his knees, and then kicked off with all his power. It was like doing a tumble turn at the pool but with no water and with his strength being three times normal.
He launched himself toward the second group. This was an extravagant flashy leap and exactly the type of manoeuvre he sought to avoid. He was flying above the goblins. Even distracted by the enrage spell, or possibly because of it, they saw him. Weapons came up, Tom flying was a sitting duck. He curled to shift his legs into a position to protect him. A teleport took him ten centimetres straight up and forced the first two blows to miss.
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Teleportless the next wave of attacks would land. Tom had known he would get hurt trying this, but it was the fastest choice. Going over the monsters in a straight line toward his destination would save seconds over the alternatives. Options such as retreat along the path that he had forced open to get in, or to fight his way out would delay him too long. Four or five seconds would mean he wouldn’t taunt enough of the creatures and the others might get overwhelmed.
Tom needed to ensure the second group was taunted before Everlyn made it through the doors.
His instincts went off, warning him about the incoming damage. Tom assessed it and decided to tank the blow. It hit. A club strike that knocked him to the side. It hurt even through his pants.
Time was slowed to the maximum extent possible, and he parried a thrusting spear with his hand. He had no choice. His new threshold benefit had informed him in no uncertain terms that if he allowed it to strike, it would skewer him like a huntsman tricking a charging boar to kill itself on his weapon. The other incoming attacks were different. He ignored them.
A sword first deflected off his pants, then penetrated an inch into his side. He healed the kidney and redirected blood away from the gash rather than wasting mana to close it properly. Gravity took control. He fell and was cushioned by the goblin whose spear he had deflected. He felt its bones break under his weight. Multiple goblins lunged at him.
Tom could have dodged but that would waste time and he needed to get clear of the area before more goblins swarmed him. The attacks that he was ignoring struck home and caused pain to lance down his back. He forged ahead and the barbed spear tore out a small chunk of flesh as he pulled away from it.
He winced and then ducked under a heavy axe that went flying over his head. That must have been the hob. A number of bladed weapons thumped into him, but only a well-fashioned knife hit blade first and actually cut him.
It was another wound to deal with, but when he had chosen this method of taunting the room, he had understood that he was going to get hurt. It had been a forgone conclusion. Lightning feet propelled himself forward.
This time, he didn’t attempt to plough through the goblins. Instead, he engaged and let them fold around him as they all simultaneously tried to approach. Daggers out, he pushed deeper. He accumulated cuts because there were so many of them. Lightning Enrage exploded from him when they were at their most dense.
At this point, over thirty of the monsters had been directly taunted, and most of the others in the room had been tagged by the lightning elemental. He sent additional instructions to the friendly creature, ordering it to go after any goblin that turned its attention away from him.
Weapons were flying at him from all directions, and he settled into his standard battle approach.
He aggressively mitigated the incoming damage.
The new threshold benefit, combined with his active Spark domain and Earth Sense collectively gave him a supernatural awareness of all objects trying to brain him. He knew when attacks were coming. Sometimes they were even from monsters that he was not actively tracking but the two skills worked with the threshold benefit to fill in his blind spot with information.
Teleports kept extracting him from the worst trouble as he fought grimly against the monsters.
As was often the case, a dozen small cuts, were opened up over his back and arms. A better set of armour would be nice, but unless it was tier three, it wouldn’t last long, so he put any thoughts for acquiring some out of his mind.
Tom used his daggers in close. He had been excellent with them in the tutorial and decided that would be his next purchase after a healing spell upgrade.
Ten goblins, including two hobs, abruptly broke away and charged at the rest of his team. They were reinforcements which had arrived mid-battle and he hadn’t had a chance to tag them.
Tom wanted to go help, but there were too many monsters near him.
He kept fighting, capturing glimpses of the hectic battle the others were facing.
The team of fighters did not demonstrate any flashy skills, but they were effective in their actions. Everlyn was continually firing while moving while Thor, Toni, Rahmat and Harry worked on the front line to protect the other four. One by one they cut down the monsters attacking them and Tom relaxed and went back to forcing the rest to focus exclusively on him.
The final hob fell to Harry’s spear through its brain and then his team once more spread out to attack the goblins on the outside of the mob of furious blades targeting Tom.
His fate was building up enough that he was no longer in any danger, and he was considering getting his spear out. Then, with a roar, another wave burst into the cavern. He intercepted them, dragging the mass of goblins in his wake. Tom’s lightning elemental was already over there. Diving in to land shocks on the monsters and causing them to fall and trip the goblins behind them. The delay caused was vital because try as he might to move fast with over twenty goblins trying to cut, bash and spike him he was unable to reach anything approaching a sprint. The elemental did its job. Unfortunately, it was not strong enough to go off on its own and kill scores of the creatures. Its power reserves were limited and it might be able to take out four or five but then it would be spent. It was better to use it in this way, sparingly and have it held in reserve in case something went wrong.
There were ten new goblins… all it could do was delay them, and that was more than enough.
He met the new arrivals, then stalled for two seconds to allow the goblins he had initially been fighting to swarm around him. It was all about maximising efficiency from his taunting skill. They were like a flock of seagulls descending on some thrown chips. They were everywhere, and he was their meal.
Lightning Enrage sparked out of him and the crackling electricity tore into them. Each spark did no overt damage apart from a moment of paralysation but they did their job. Those hate-filled eyes were exclusively focused upon him.
They were more grunts and yells from another exit. Two hobs and closer to twenty goblins emerged. He was closer this time.
He struggled, fought, surged forward and then burst free of his current crowd. Mana, stored in his crystal let him cast the spell again. Once more, over forty of the creatures were attempting to kill him. He brought the furious pack over to his companions and away from the other entrances. They started whittling down the numbers as the little green cowards tried desperately to land a blow.
They failed.
He was too fast.
Too lucky.
The fate built up around him to overwhelming for them to ever pin him to a single spot. In a normal battle, there would have been situations where he would have got hit no matter which direction he moved such was their numbers. With fate helping, there were collisions between goblin within the mass of creatures trying to kill him. That would create an opening and he would slip through the gaps untouched despite the fervent efforts of all of them working in tandem.
The only challenge was to keep them all taunted particularly the new arrivals.
Tom’s daggers were finding opportunities to land killing blows and then suddenly he was left with just two hobs still standing against him with the other hundred or so goblins that had descended upon them dead.
He switched to his spear, but before he could use it, the others were there. The two last monsters fell to multiple attacks and a hammer that carved in one of their heads.
Tom stood still and glanced around at the number of dead goblins.
Over a hundred had died.
A good haul, to say the least. He thought to himself. Satisfied, he stepped into the system room to check the outcome.
Experience awarded in battle: 15,102
The words were written on the screen. It was a little disappointing in a way but he guessed it was a full level. With standard rules of diminishing returns, another twenty fights like this and he would be halfway to catching Phil. Beyond that, they would need to find a different enemy to advance against.
However, that wasn’t his plan. He had already decided on what he was going to spend his experience on. First a ranged heal, then the dagger’s skill and after that he would consider leveling once more.