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Seeing that the hobgoblin shaman was still in the middle of its “power up”, I dashed forward to kill it before it finished whatever it was doing, I have seen enough anime and cartoons to know never let the bad guy finish their transformation.

The moment I moved forward, was the same time a goblin corpse was flying straight at me, but I was ready, I swung my sword, splitting the airborne goblin corpse… only to find a clawed hand coming towards my face, and with my sword in the downward position after cutting the flying goblin, the only thing I could do was tilt my head to the side and rolled forward as the clawed hand passed me.

After recovering from my roll, I quickly got up and turned around in a ready stance to see the now buff hobgoblin shaman looking at me over its shoulder with a feral grin. It then brought it's still outstretched to its own face and looked as a drop of blood was dangling off its pinky claw, and as I took in the rest of its body, I realized that the hand it was looking at was not the blood-drenched one it used to rip the heart out of the goblin.

That was when I felt and heard something dripping on my leather gloves. While keeping my eyes on the buff hobgoblin shaman, I reached up to my chin and found blood, then my body started to realize that my cheek was cut, and when I reached up to touch it, with a stinging sensation I realized that the cut was rather wide, but now was not the time to worry about that, I was just thankful the cut was not above my eyes or else I would be blinded by blood.

As the hobgoblin shaman and I stared down each other, the hobgoblin shaman leisurely turned its body to face me while baring that fang-filled grin, and then I noticed its eyeballs move to the side for a second before focusing back on me.

That put me on edge more than I already was, right before I heard a squeak of effort from behind me as I turned to see the remaining goblin throw its sacrificed kin’s club at me.

The club was easily batted away, but it gave the hobgoblin shaman an opening to charge me, and it was only now that my sight was not impeded by a flying goblin corpse that I became aware of actually how fast the hobgoblin shaman was as I dodged a swipe aimed at my head again.

After a few more dodges and perries with my sword, I estimate its strength and speed to be roughly ¾ that of an untrained aura user, in other words… still manageable… barely.

After avoiding another three strikes, I think I got the hang of its pace and pattern, so it was my turn to go on the offensive.

As it once again tried to claw my face off, I ducked under its strike to end up behind it and then opened out a few paces between us so I could get out of being sandwiched between the goblin and hobgoblin shaman.

I then brought my sword back in a back stance and waited for the hobgoblin shaman to attack, and I did not need to wait long.

Not two seconds after getting into my stance, the hobgoblin shaman charged at me claws first, and at the last moment, I slid to the side and brought my sword in an upward swing toward its arms.

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Immediately after the clash, I was once again facing the goblin, and I could tell something was not right. First of which was the feeling I got when I took a swing at the hobgoblin shaman’s arms. Now don't get me wrong, I am by no means an expert in the feeling of cutting into flesh and bone, but after slaying some goblins, I could tell that there was something unnatural when my sword bit into the arms of the hobgoblin shaman, it felt like I was cutting into dense rubber before hobgoblin shaman went out of my range, yanking my blade out of its flesh.

As I looked at the hobgoblin shaman, its back turned to me, it slowly put down its arms and I saw the damage I had done and I was surprised… at how little damage I had actually done. Sure the underside of its forearms had long gashes across, but they did not look deep.

I am pretty sure my sword is sharp, I performed maintenance on it after my first goblin killing exercise and even had a sharpness augmentation cast on my blade, so what the fuck is going on?

The goblin then brought its arms up and looked at the damage I had done to it and started angry heaving until it let out a roar, released a burst of mana, and its hands lit on fire. Then it turned to me and charged.

***

The moment the hobgoblin shaman sacrificed the goblin, the assistant instructors manifested their auras and mages started chanting, but Instructor Greyham pulsed his own arua in their direction to get their attention and gave them the signal to stand down but keep ready.

“But Sir, if we let this continue, they could all get killed, especially the Ironcrest boy!” the assistant instructor said to Greyham in a hushed tone to avoid spooking the children in the stands.

But Greyham shook his head and said, “Keep watching, notice the confidence in his movement, he is not outmatched yet.”

When the assistant instructor looked back, he barely caught it. In the blink of an eye, a dead goblin was sent flying, got cut in half, the hobgoblin shaman charged, and the two combatants were now past each other.

From there the fight continued, and the assistant instructor became more and more impressed with Luke Ironcrest. Despite being limited by mere rules that nobody would fault him for breaking in this situation, he kept up and even managed to perform a counterattack on the hobgoblin shaman.

Until now, all was well. Then the hobgoblin shaman released another burst of mana, and its hands caught on fire.

“This… may be bad. I will go down and make sure nothing goes wrong.” Grayham said as he stepped forward, and as he did, the assistant instructor felt a sense of nothingness from where Greyham was as he witnessed Greyham perform a high-level aura technique he had only heard of but never seen before.

Aura Suppression. It was a stealth aura technique that blended the user into the surroundings, making them hard to detect.

Intellectually, the assistant instructor knew Greyham was in front of him, and his eyes could technically see him, but now, when looking at Greyham, it was like looking at one of many identical trees in a forest, he felt that if he took his eyes off Greyham for even a moment, he would not be able to find him again.

“I hope you are right, Sir.”

***

I might just be fucked. I have just spent the past few seconds concentrating on purely dodging.

Why, You might ask? Why could I not counter or perry it like last time? Well, it is because this green motherfucker is all of a sudden manifesting firey claws a foot away from its hands, and they are big claws too.

But I quickly learned that I should not be concentrating on the manifested fiery claws, I should be concentrating on the hands those fiery claws are following. And as I concentrate on the hobgoblin shaman’s hands, I notice something.

Why are its hands burning?