The twisting flames and weak starlight were the only light that Santi had to navigate by. The streets had been cleaned to a decent degree, but there was still detritus that he had to be careful to avoid. Warm blood was cooling on his hands, forming a sticky layer as he raced toward the heaviest of the fighting. The boiling rage fueled him and made him reckless.
The barricade was on fire giving a ghastly light in which dozens of figures danced around each other. The small humanoid goblins were dying by the score, but the goblins had the numbers to throw at them. In the distance another horn bellowed, a call to arms as more and more goblins swarmed over the burning barricade.
Closing the distance, Santi realized there were paths in the fire. The goblins had thrown something on the car and pallet formed walls that burned hot but constrained. Santi was going to change that.
Activating Gust as he ran, he aimed at the thickest part of the burning barricade and aimed toward the closest clear zone the goblins were running over. The flames twisted and washed over the pathway. Orange flames consumed red flesh, the scent of cooking meat filling the night air and the agonized screams of the goblins adding to the cacophony of the fight. The mana use was significant, but he had a few more uses before he depleted his core.
A great bellow of rage sounded behind him and Santi turned to look back just in time to see Tank barreling forward. His great club, taped together metal baseball bats, slammed into a goblin and drove it into the concrete. Santi felt a vicious smile stretch his lips as the huge man began to rage across the scattered monsters.
Focusing back on his own fight, he was forced to twist as a spinning dagger flashed before his face. He turned to look at the shadowy form of the goblin who had just nearly killed him. Gratifications surged through him to see the fear in the goblins eyes, the fire giving him enough light to see its terror. He lunged forward, crossing the distance as fast as he could.
Sweeping his blade parallel to the ground at neck height, he was rewarded with the second decapitation of the night. The goblins were too physically weak to stand against his boosted stats, even with whatever drug they were using. He was a fox loosed in a hen house, the goblins dying with every swing of his sword.
He’d never had this level of disparity before and there was a sense of intoxication to it. He was a god of war as he wove among the fighters, every blow delivering death. Santi spun and dove to the ground, his skill giving him the barest hints of a warning. A bone white spear flashed where he was going to be, disappearing into the darkness. A brassy horn blew and the constant stream of goblins seemed to double with scores racing over the barricades.
More and more defenders were rushing to the wall, but the goblin tide seemed endless. Santi scrambled back to his feet and blocked a stabbing dagger, his riposte taking the goblins arm. It screamed as it fell backward but Santi couldn’t finish it as more and more goblins pushed forward.
His saber became a wall of steel as he pushed himself to the fullest extent he could. For a moment it was enough, the bodies formed their own ramparts and blood flowed like a river around his feet. Then another bone white spear flashed at Santi and he was forced to retreat.
A squad of hobs came forward, hidden in the swarming horde of lesser goblins. Their bronze armor glowed red in the fading light of the fires. Each of them held a spear save one who wielded a bronze handaxe that he slashed with maniacal speed. The sores on these one’s face were worse than the original hobs he had fought. Even in the poor lightning Santi could see their dilated pupils. Drugged up beyond any of the other monsters so far.
“Santi, keep backing up!” Tank called out behind him and Santi obeyed. Retreating backward while relying on Air Current to alert him of any tripping hazards, Santi trusted his friends. An arrow buzzed past his shoulder and slammed into one of the hob's eyes. The hob died instantly, going boneless to collapse in a heap of rattling armor. Another arrow hissed by, this one skating around an armored breastplate as the hob twisted at the last moment.
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Chloe appeared at his shoulder with her glowing axe and a fierce scowl. More and more people came to bolster their flagging defense. Santi traded three rapid fire blows with the lead hob. The hob staggered back with its chest ruined, Santi’s saber cutting through the bronze armor as if it wasn’t there. The hob had drew blood though, the wet trickle down Santi’s thigh showing him mortal.
The crash of emotions hit hard. The high he had been riding for a few moments fading away as he realized what he had done. Santi wanted to scream at his past self, he wasn’t a front line fighter! He was a mage, admittedly not one with a lot of good spells at the moment, but still!
He focused as the goblins began to push again. Hobs were hidden in the mass, crouched down and sliding through the lessers to jump and kill the unwary. Twice Santi saw people fall to sudden spear thrusts and the line was forced back and back again. Minutes stretched out and slowly the press began to lessen.
Santi took another Hob’s head with a fast counter attack and realized there was nothing living in front of him. A carpet of dead stretched out in front of them, mainly composed of the red goblins, but there were still plenty of human corpses intermingling. Santi took a moment to look around, realizing he was gasping for air. Chloe and Tank were the closest to him, but he saw Paulie down the line. Nobody else that he recognized though.
“What the fuck was that?” Tank said next to him. His shirt had multiple tears in it and was sodden with blood.
“Raid,” Santi managed to squeeze out between gasps. His lungs were on fire and his limbs were trembling from overexertion. His mana core was in decent shape, having mainly not being used at all. Getting some type of attack spells were high on his list of things to do.
“That was a full blown…” Tank trailed off as a horn sounded again. It was much closer this time, seeming to originate from the other side of the barricade. The heavy blast rattled the air and reverberated through their bodies and Santi felt his heart begin to sink. The increase in potential and mana was impacting the world harder than he thought if the monster nest was already developed enough to have sub-chiefs.
The den would have a chief, similar to a Rift, who would be the key protector of the nest. They would be the one who had taken the natural treasure or ley line or whatever it was that had allowed the nest to grow in strength. They wouldn’t leave the nest, instead building more and more layers of defense around their power base.
A sub-chief would leave the nest though. They would also have the power to rival the nest protector. Not eclipse the guardian, but rival it. Santi had fought plenty of goblins before and their hobs and knew what was about to come up and over that barricade.
“EVERYONE! LEVEL RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!” Santi screamed as he accepted the level ups and quickly threw every spare point he had into stamina and strength. Power surged through him like an electric current as his fatigue faded away to something more distant.
A squad of hobs scurried over the top of the barricade and landed in formation, spears pointing outward to create a wall of steel. The burnt car they had crawled over tilted to the side. A tire blew out in a loud explosion of air and then Santi saw it in the pale light of the moon.
Only six feet tall it was nearly as wide. Stygian armor covered every inch of it, only its yellow eyes visible in the slits of its helmet. A large metal horn dangled off of its hip while on his other hip a long sword sat. There was an inherent sense of power that the boss radiated as its weight settled on the car. More tire popped and the top of the car buckled inward.
The boss didn’t seem to care, moving forward and ripping its way through the metal of the car roof without slowing. Pallets crumbled under it as it continued to lumber forward.
“What is that?” Chloe whispered, her voice shaking from fear. Santi couldn’t blame her. He had killed these before and in great numbers, but that was when he was much higher ranked and with squads of battle hardened warriors. Its ugly yellow gaze locked onto Chloe and it chuffed in delight as it began to walk toward the defensive line, hobs scrambling to keep in front of its shuffling steps.
“Fuck,” Santi whispered to himself as he got ready for what was likely an impossible task.