As I thought, I had previously felt using Magic Perception that there was a group of Mana Beasts in front of me. It appears to be a group of goblins.

"Shit, not now! This was never expected." My thoughts echoed inside my skull as I watched the group of goblins from a hundred meters away.

These creatures are famous for their ability to steal and cause chaos. They have tendencies toward fraud and deceit, and goblins eat humans, especially the flesh of children. They even rape adventurers' women and sometimes men.

I did not expect to encounter such a dangerous enemy. It is true that a goblin is a weak creature, but its presence in a group increases its danger level from one silver star to one and a half stars.

If they were a group of seven to ten Goblins, the danger level increased a lot. If there was one alone, the situation would be much different.

I was ready to change my course.

It is rational to avoid a group of savage beasts consisting of at least twenty individuals, that is what I could assess with magical perception.

But wait, there are twenty-six of them, and they're not all Goblins! I could feel it. There are six human corpses lying on the ground among these goblins.

“Well, I guess they're novice adventurers. But how could these goblins defeat them? Even if there were twenty of them, they couldn't defeat a legion of six adventurers. The injuries shouldn't be enough to wipe them all out. This is brutal.”

It seemed logical to me to forget about rescuing them, since they were all now undoubtedly dead. This was normal in the vestibule. Some of us would die and our bodies would become part of the caverns of the vestibule, or we would live to forget all the suffering.

I took the first five steps forward without looking back, but my conscience was brutally eating away at me. “Is it right that I go and leave their bodies like this?” I wondered internally. I knew very well that after a short while, their bodies would be brutally torn apart by those barbaric goblins.

I followed my steps, but hesitation hindered my path. I know very well that fighting them will be in vain, as their number is increasing over time. I had to complete my destination.

And a hundred meters away

It was one of those bodies lying on the ground. He was bleeding profusely from his chest, and his eyes were crying blood. He was shocked by the sight of his dead friends in front of him.

He tried to get up, but failed. His right hand and left leg were broken, to the point that the bones were sticking out, revealing white mixed with blood red and some throbbing tissue.

He tried to say something, but his blood-soaked throat made his words difficult to pronounce.

“Kaylor...Kaylor...Kayler...Wor,” he called to his friend as he crawled on his stomach, his hazel-brown eyes mingling with the blood dripping from his forehead, as he struggled to get closer.

But that warm feeling, like a hot ember on your back... Yes, it's the feeling of a sharp dagger penetrating your back. This is what happened to him; The perpetrator was one of the goblins who brutally thrust his dagger back into the young adventurer's back.

He tried to crawl hard to escape, but he did not succeed. His strength was fading, and his friends were now dead in front of him. In his eyes, this was the end of everything.

He felt extremely angry as he stuttered the words: “You bastard, I will kill you, you son of a bitch.”

His words were not directed at the goblin or anyone close to him, but rather at that blurry image of someone wielding a huge ax and cold-bloodedly chopping down their friends along with his comrades.

This was an image from his memories of an earlier time when they were fighting a group of cave robbers. Apparently, they were the ones who killed his friends and looted all their belongings, leaving them in this miserable state.

He was breathing his last as he lay quietly, looking at the blood that crept across the floor and mixed with the crystal rocks covering the walls and grass in a pool of dark blood.

In a hoarse, almost inaudible voice, he shouted his last words: “Please, someone... please... someone... help.”

The goblin approached him, intending to plunge his dagger again into his back and finish the matter, but suddenly he was interrupted by a huge ice fragment, which pierced his body from the waist and threw him on the ground, a lifeless body, among the rest of the shocked goblins.

Fortunately, she intervened in time after using a lower-level ice spell. I noticed how their eyes glowed with anger when they saw their dead comrade. Well, that's what I had to do.

It wasn't long before the other goblins started moving, as seven of them took off at great speed while carrying their improvised weapons. Although they were small in size and short in stature, their speed was remarkable, but their movements were inconsistent, leaving obvious gaps in their defenses.

I took advantage of those gaps and fired a small, limited-effective flame grenade at one of them. The bomb hit him precisely, and flames exploded around him, causing his body to evaporate and turn into charred ash.

The rest escaped the fireball, and began to launch a counterattack. One of them jumped from behind me, trying to thrust his dagger into my neck, but his attempt failed.

He thought he could slaughter a skeleton, but I threw him to the ground forcefully and stabbed him hard in the stomach with the sharp edge of my stick.

Large amounts of blood flowed from him before he died, but there were still many enemies. Damn it, if this continues, the end will be brutal.

A new group of goblins savagely charged towards me, ready to launch a new attack.

I didn't have much time, so I resorted to shooting a bunch of ice crystals that I had taken the time to fine-tune inside my head. She focused on the Germana used to finish the spell and directed it towards them with effective concentration.

The icy shards gruesomely tore the goblins' limbs apart, while a red cloud of blood formed in my field of vision.

"Seven! You took out seven of them with one hit. This is bad, there are still a lot of them."

While I was distracted, one of them attacked me with his sharp teeth, biting my right wrist. I could only hear his powerful roar and the sound of the bones in my hands breaking and grinding.

I saw those cracks starting to appear in my hands. If I don't act quickly, my hand might get ripped off.

I looked around with expectant eyes, searching for what might help me. This wand of mine, which I carry in my left hand, is only useful for casting close-up spells, and its length does not help at all.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a blurry gleam. It was a sword that belonged to the corpse of one of the adventurers. It seemed that it had fallen from him when he was killed. Without thinking much, I dropped the staff on the ground and grabbed the sword by the hilt, feeling the weight of it.

Without wasting any more time, I quickly swung at the neck of the goblin, who was squeezing my wrist with his teeth, and cut his neck. His body fell to the ground, spewing out a lot of blood while the rest of his head stuck to my wrist.

I ripped his head off, seeing his eyes pulsing with death, I threw his head away and looked at the rest of the goblins who were looking at me with expectant, ferocious eyes.

I picked up the sword, focused a portion of my mana on it, and cast a heavy weight relief spell. It is a talisman used as a boost for swordsmen who fight close-quarters, helping them lighten their body weight and increase their agility when attacking. I cast a spell on the sword so that it would become lighter for me.

Although swordsmanship is not central to the team or my status, my senior teammate Graith Goll taught me basic swordsmanship skills during my time on the team. This has been difficult for me in the past, but at this moment I thank him because he insisted on training me on the basics.

I felt mana flowing through my arms, transferring to the sword, which began to glow with a faint light. The sword became lighter in my hand, as if gravity itself had abandoned it. It was as if I were holding a feather instead of a weapon.

Two swings of the sword were enough to easily cut and tear apart four goblins. With every wave, their blood splattered tragically on me. My body was moving on autopilot, fueled by rage and determination.

Nine goblins were dropped, their blood mixing with the adventurers' blood in the middle of the dirt, creating a pool of reddish-black blood. I angrily cut and tore through all the goblins, and my breath depended on me. There are a few left, only four I think. I saw a sense of fear forming in their eyes, and hesitation beginning to overwhelm them as they advanced toward me. They should really understand that they lost to me, this skeleton, so it was best for the rest of them to withdraw.

But, as is known, the goblin is a spiteful being that will not leave you unless he takes his revenge on you and enjoys your death.

Three of them approached me, pointing their improvised weapons at me.

I was breathing hard, anger boiling inside me.

Goblin corpses were falling around me, but I didn't feel comfortable. My eyes were searching for more enemies, and when I saw the fear in the eyes of the remaining goblins, I felt a strange sense of revenge.

All I can say is that they are stupid. I gave them a chance, but they didn't listen, they were blinded by anger.

The fire god Perivar is the name of an ancient sword style learned by the people of the North two thousand years ago.

It is said that the fire god Perivar himself gave the Knight of the Spotless Sun his treasured sword, the Flame of the Holy Sun, as a gift after he wiped out the dead Phoenix of Heaven two thousand years ago.

The knight created his own distinct sword style that the Norsemen now use as one of their main types of sword arts, and named it Perivar after the fire god Perivar.

Several different techniques emerged from this sword style, including the symbolic Winter Flower, which features a bright crimson flame that blooms in the air with each swing like a flower.

This was the only technique I knew to use out of all the Perivar Sword techniques.

I gathered mana in the palms of my hands that held the sword tightly, and I gathered a mass of mana in my feet to give me a boost of strength and movement in place of the muscles I had lost. Finally, I coated the sword in a thin layer of mana, and took off like a missile as I targeted the goblins one by one.

She approached the first with just one step, and pierced his neck with the sword emitting a powerful molten flame. With another move, she split another Goblin into two equal halves.

Two left. I said as I quickly turned towards them, I saw the fear filling their eyes and their bodies trembling. I stuck the sword into one of them's chest and quickly pierced his heart, and I didn't even realize it.

Then it stopped rushing, blood spurting out from the goblins' bodies.

They did not know what happened to them or when they were pierced with a sword and torn apart. They fell dead to the ground, and eternal darkness would swallow them up forever.

I stood looking around, all I could see were the corpses of goblins lying on the ground, their blood and entrails scattered everywhere. The smell of iron mixed with dirt filled the air, and the sounds of death whispered in my ears.

I think I overcame them after suffering. There was silence for a few seconds, until I was interrupted by the sound of a sharp object hitting the ground. I quickly turned around to see the last Goblin standing on his feet among the corpses of his fallen comrades.

He felt an enormous fear creeping into his soul. He was frozen in place, looking at me with hesitant eyes. Our gazes met, his eyes glowing with fear and doubt meeting the dark sockets of mine.

I looked away from him as a sign that I didn't care about him, sending him an implicit signal to run away if he could. This was reprehensible, but it reflects my desire to avoid further unnecessary violence.

He stood there for a moment, hesitating between staying and running away. Finally, he took a step back and then another, before running away, leaving the battlefield stained with blood and corpses behind him.

I was breathing hard after killing the last remaining goblins. The sword in my hand was dripping with blood, and the rays of scorching light sneaking from the crystals reflected a dull luster on the metal.

I looked around, trying to take in the scene. Torn bodies, flowing blood, and the smell of death filling the air. The place was silent, except for the sound of my heavy breathing. I did not know how I could still breathe when I was a skeleton with no heart, no lungs, or any vital organ in my body except the bones.

I set out to search human corpses. I found a few weapons, adventurer's bags, and some coins. But this was not what I was looking for. I was looking for something that could explain the cause of the adventurers' severe injuries, because it seemed that they did not reach this state because they met the goblins.

There was something else that was before the goblins that caused them these fatal injuries.

While I was looking, a faint voice caught my attention. I looked to find one of the adventurers I thought was dead. He was moving with difficulty, trying to raise his hand as if asking for help.

I approached him quickly.

His condition was very bad, with deep wounds covering his body and his face terribly swollen. I looked into his eyes, they were a mixture of pain and hope.

“He tried to speak, but he could not. His energy ran out and his strength failed. He looked at me with eyes devoid of life, like a painting whose colors had been wet with lukewarm water.

I tried to talk to him, but since I turned into a skeleton, I lost my ability to speak. I no longer have vocal cords to speak to him. All I could do was hold his hand as he took his last breaths, those breaths that were completely heavy and dry, exhaling and inhaling with a raspy sound.

When I started examining his features, fragments of my memories began to prick me in my head like sharp needles.

This adventurer's logo was very familiar, as if I had seen it earlier. But where? I looked at his dead face and wondered: Is this possible? It can't be real. I stepped back, memories of his face passing through my head like the twinkling of stars, memories where I didn't know whether to cry or scream, because in the end I wasn't able to do either. 'Unable to scream, express, or even shed a single tear', I repeated those words in my head as an annoying tune over and over again as I remembered the features of this adventurer in complete silence.

I stood hesitantly, looking at the bodies of his comrades scattered on the ground. I did the right thing I had to do.

I made six pits using an Earth-class spell, the pits were the size of each one. I put them in it one by one until I was done.

I wanted to pray that their souls would rest in peace, but I was not a saint or even knew one way to pray. So, after being frozen in place for a long time, I cast a spell on all their corpses and burned them in stinging silence as I stared into the middle of the raging fire.

I made sure their bodies were burned until their skeletons emerged.

This was the best I could do, because burying them in the vestibule without burning their bodies was a grave mistake, for after time carnivorous monsters might dig up their graves and begin to devour their flesh. So it was better to burn them.

After I was sure that the flames had consumed the bodies to the bone, I began to fill the pit with dirt to the brim, and then said a little prayer over them for the repose of their souls.

“With your profound knowledge, guide them to eternal light, and pour out your inexhaustible grace upon them, may your mercy be their refuge and your peace their refuge.”

This hymn was always on Helen's lips when bidding farewell to companions we had lost during our travels.

I learned it from her as I learned the rest of the magic spells. As a former cultivator of the Ivana Vaughn cult, Helen was the heart of our group, with her charismatic charm and unique ability.

After I finished praying for them, I stood up and prepared to leave the vestibule, full of determination.

He turned to the other side as I headed towards my destination, saying, "Ronin... I will avenge you."

I said as I finally moved forward, leaving their bodies behind me as I became part of the depths of the vestibule.

****

Currently outside the vestibule.

Where the setting sun casts its golden colors on the green trees and the cool breeze descends like a gentle blanket.

This woman stood while reciting her prayers in front of the huge gate of the vestibule, praying for someone.

“With your profound knowledge, guide them to eternal light, and pour out your inexhaustible grace upon them, may your mercy be their refuge and your peace their refuge.”

“Rest in peace, Aaron,” she said, a tear rolling down her cheek red with sadness and her eyelids swollen.

The breeze was playing with her golden blonde hair.

Helen stood up from the ground after unclasping her clasped hands and holding out her magic wand, which was engraved with noni symbols with wonderful magic.

"Let's go now, Helen!" Someone shouted from afar, while the rest of the group waited. They all seemed ready to leave.

“Okay, I'm coming,” she said in a calm, soft voice.

End of chapter.