At the same moment, the town soldiers are engaging with the intruding goblins. The barracks were caught in a surprise attack, resulting in a major damage to the human army. However, this place is the army fortress where most of the soldiers are stationed. With the advantage in number, the scale shifts from the human being in disadvantage to a stalemate.

“Fire ball.” A human mage cast the spell toward the goblin group.

Several goblins suffer heavy burn as the spell hits them. Before the mage rejoices his attack working, a needle lands on his neck.

In an instant, the mage’s skin turns into purple, spreading from the neck toward his head and whole body. Later on, when people examine the corpse, they will find out that his muscle nerve and brain give a purging smell as if being rotten for several days.

“Careful, goblin assassin. Hurry up locating him. We cannot allow him to roam freely on the battlefield.” A warrior shouts.

A few pew sounds come and the needles head toward the warrior shouting the order. However, the attack fails as the warrior puts up his shield and blocks all the needles.

“Over there! Archers!”

A warrior from afar switches from a sword to a bow, aiming at high speed at the direction of the assassin. In Vahalla, the warrior class comprises a lot of jobs: including swordsman, spearman, heavy armor trooper, and even archers. In other words, all of the jobs not focusing on magic can be grouped in warrior class. As such, a warrior in Vahalla can use a variety of weapons and work with a different job when required.

When the assassin just shows his head out of the cover, the arrow is released, piercing in the middle of the goblin’s forehead.

Readying his arrow again, the archer sets off to his next target, a goblin shaman.

Different from goblin mage, a shaman is efficient in nature magic. They can give their allies some buffs and heals the others. A target of high priority when one discovers.

This shaman is accompanied by a new group of warrior goblins. They form a circle formation and use the shields to cover for their escort. From the center, an incarnation is heard and the currently fighting goblins become more agitated and stronger. Given that many boosting spells have different effects and can stack together, the more spells the shaman can cast, the more dangerous the situation is.

The archer starts focusing. As he hides behind the window and the newly arrived group has not grasped the situation yet, now is the best chance to snipe the enemy. Channeling the mana into the eyes, his far vision becomes clearer than normal many times, that he can see clearly the face of his target 500 meters away. His hands are also enchanted by mana, and through them, it travels through the bow and arrow, turning a normal average bow into a temporary magic weapon. With a release, the arrow turns into a blue ray and pierces the air. creating a loud “whoo” sound along with it.

Making such a noticeable sound while being far away, although the arrow is fast and hard to see, it is easy for the warriors to notice and guard in front of the shaman. The arrow hits straight on the shield with a bang. However, contrary to expectation, the arrow does not bounce off but pierce through the shield and into the head of the guard. And that’s not even the end.

Another arrow comes and passes through the hole on the shield and right at the tail of the previous arrow. The stacked arrows puncture a hole in the goblin’s head and continue its flight path toward its final destination, the shaman’s heart.

Blood spurts out and the shaman collapses as its heart stops breaks apart. Shock and confusion spread among the guards, causing a gap in defense that lets the archer kill two more of them. With the sniping assist, the battle is slowly tilted to the human side.

“Good job, Harold. I know we can count on you.” One solder yells his praise as he beheads the last goblin in the current area.

“Don’t let your guard down, yet. The real thing is still there, without being scratched a single bit.” The captain reminded the other units.

His words dragged their victory mood down as they observe the most terrifying and the most dangerous creatures in this battle, the Earth Snakes. For unknown reason, the Earth Snake stopped moving and thrashing around the area. Instead, they just stood high in the sky, observing the area. This gave the human side some time to reorganize and issue orders. But then, the goblins suddenly appeared and thus, the current condition.

Harold, a level 29 warrior, scans the area for any remaining enemy. Despite his warrior class, Harold is specialized in scouting and archery. His archery skill is very excellent, combining with good scouting and hiding ability, makes him an outstanding assassin, specialized in sniping the enemy from unknown locations and in an unexpected way, giving his nickname “Magic arrow”.

Being a high-level unit, he is assigned a task to go assist the fight on many fronts. He has helped the army retake the barrack and repelled the enemy in several places. However, that is his 2nd priority task. His primary mission is to investigate the goblin’s plan. Being taken by surprise in the last attack from the goblin, it is taken that the goblins will prepare something unexpected and that becomes a reality.

There are many strange points regarding this invasion. First is the enemy force. There is a vast difference between this and the previous invasion. The latter only has two high-level goblin with class, while this time, there are too many high-level goblins with class, rather, all the goblins he has seen have classes, be it warrior, scout, mage or shaman. Their worst equipment is at least about as rank E adventurers, who have basic bearable defense, and the best of them is about C rank. A drastic improvement in troop’s quality.

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The second point is that they can control the Earth Snakes. Defeating one of them can prove to be quite a challenge, not mentioning taming them. He heard that only tamer at the tier of commander can tame such ferocious beast. It is unthinkable that the goblin can tame and control so many Earth Snakes at once. This implies that in the goblin army, there must be a level 40 and above goblin with tamer class, and it is near here. His priorities include locating this being.

And lastly, it is their technology. He has investigated where the goblins came from and the truth shocked him. The compartment on the Earth Snake is very durable and does not hinder the snake while digging underground at all. Based on how elaborate their strategy developed in the previous and this invasion, it is confirmed that there is someone with intelligence behind all of these. According to the adventurers who arrived at the town, a goblin king has appeared and possesses a cultivator inheritance. Such information is not verified yet, but the higher up leans to believe it, because a cultivator inheritance is that powerful and mighty, enough to change how one can perceive the whole race or a country.

After confirming there is no enemy nearby, Harold proceeds to check the corpse of the shaman. Going from battlefield to battlefield, his job is to locate any high ranking goblin and tries to get anything out of them. It is common for the mage or shaman to bring along some parchments or writings, which contain information. Unfortunately, there is none on this one.

At that time, a loud explosion occurs, blowing out the building wall. When everyone turns to the source, a hole made by intense fire melting the brick appears. From there, a creature on fire jumps out, followed by a small black shadow.

“What on earth is that monster?”

*rumble**rumble*

Before he can look clearer at the newly appearing monster, the Earth Snake starts moving and thrashing around, destroying the buildings. Luckily, all the personnel near the monsters were given the order to evacuate already, so there is no need to worry about casualty at the moment. However, the solders all have to brace themselves, as the giant snakes will come at them after the building. They must get their attention before the snakes move the target to the evacuating citizens, and until the reinforcement comes. Little do the soldiers know, outside of the town wall, another army is slowly approaching.

………………..

When the chimera goblin brings its scythe down Makoto’s neck, the blade contacts a layer of transparent ice. The ice is hard and durable, capable of blocking any normal weapon, but before the fire on the blade, it is still cut through as easily as butter. Even so, that blade is successfully stopped by Makoto’s 2nd defense.

From her neck to half of her face. the white soft skin is replaced by multiple grey scales. Those scales are very hard, hard enough to stop the blade from cutting Makoto’s neck further. The goblin is shocked, as it realizes those scales are similar to those from the Earth Snake.

“How dare you!” Lexar suddenly appears and strikes with his claws.

Realizing the danger, the mantis goblin quickly jumps back, distancing from Makoto and Lexar.

“You ok, Makoto?”

“No problem, just a single scratch on the neck. That was close, luckily I absorbed a scale from that giant snake and earned the skill “Harden”. Or else, I would be a headless now. Sorry, but I am counting on you to take care of it. My eyes are not fast enough to catch its movement.” Makoto touches the neck side where the goblin hit. Blood flows out from the gap of her fingers. “Besides, my physical resistance is not enough to block another attack like that. I will become a hindrance for you at this rate, if it keeps targeting me. That’s why I can only focus on defending now. Forgive me for not being able to give you any support.” Saying that, she creates a barrier of ice, then a layer of earth wall enclosing her.

“Don’t worry. I can take care of this myself.” Confirming her safety, Lexar turns to the goblin again.

Both sides glare at each other, wary of their opponents. The goblin realizes that the small cat’s speed is much faster than before, not losing behind his fast speed movement, while the cat wonders how such a monster can move at a speed above 350 agility point.

Seeing the glowing back shell slightly dimming, a thinking comes to Lexar and he uses his full speed to charge at the enemy.

Spark flies as the chimera goblin and a cat exchange clash. With Lexar’s advantage over agility, he manages to hit several times after a few exchange, but they are not serious. The goblin’s high sword skill does not fail it. But after getting the first hit, the goblin has to shift from attacking to guarding, and slowly becomes passive. However, despite defending, the red turtle goblin has to keep moving at high speed, otherwise, it will lose sight of the cat and let it attack its blind point.

Lexar moves in a very unpredictable manner. Like a mosquito suddenly disappearing in one’s eye, his figure can be lost if the red goblin does not move in high speed and focus attention. Dashing, backing, jumping up and down, and circling around. The cat can do all of that in a fraction of second, and his moving pattern is very confusing. Although the goblin has its shield on the back and only needs to focus on the front, the attack still comes from a very tricking angel, bypassing its guarding stance, and injures its flesh body.

As time passes, the red shell becomes dimmer and dimmer, and the goblin can no longer keep the speed above 300 agility point, resulting receiving heavier wounds than before. When both sides stop and glance at each other again, the goblin is drenched in blood. Cuts all over the body, left scythe hand is completely cut off, blades on the other hands are chipped off in different places. The only intact parts are the turtle shell on the black, which now only has obsidian color and its head, which it desperately defends every attempt.

The cat does not have it easy either. His elongated claws are also chipped, the paws are slightly burnt because of contacting the flame blade. But that’s pretty much nothing compared to the other side. Furthermore, Lexar knows how to heal.

“Heal.” A green aura wraps around Lexar’s body, healing his paws and claws. The cat has shown up a trick in his sleeves, and so does the goblin.

The long blade arm retracts, turning into a five-finger hand. That hand puts in the pocket on his belt and takes out a syringe. Without any hesitation, the goblin stabs the syringe on his neck, injecting the fluid inside. The cooled down turtle shell glows in red again, though not as red before. Its eyes become bloodshot, filled with ferocity and violence, losing the craftiness of the goblin.

Lexar dashes at the enemy, going for round 2 between them, but the other side does not intend to comply. It turns its back from the cat, showing the red-hot shell. The shell glows very brightly, turning from red color to dazzling white, illuminating the whole area.

*BOOM*

A blast comes and a hole on the building’s wall appears. The goblin immediately turns back and uses its fastest speed to run out. Its hand holds a small whistle and brings it to the mouth, blowing an inaudible sound. The turtle goblin has made all the effort and attention to come out and blow that whistle, not noticing a black shadow land on its neck.