This would not be so easy, however.

The Collector saw as the last moment, before its fist could smash the goblin lord's head into pieces, its greatsword reacted independently of its owner.

The twin tusks at the pommel disintegrated in a flash of blue light, and a shockwave of magical energy sent the Collector skidding backwards as it used its tail to stop itself from flying back into the wall.

A cloud of blue magical energy arose around the goblin, obscuring visuals, but the Collector sensed movement with its sensitive hairs.

Something much larger than the goblin lord leaped to the Collector, and it could sense its dimensions as being almost exactly equal to the goblin golems from before.

The Collector swerved its body back, dodging a blow from another four-armed goblin.

This time, the Collector could see that this four-armed specimen was not a construct of stone. It was composed of flesh, blood and muscle.

Green skin and red eyes like the lord. Long tusks that jutted out from its mouth. A build almost as large as the Collector with comparable, if only slightly inferior muscle mass.

It was dressed only in a ragged tunic and loincloth inscribed with letters of a language the Collector was unfamiliar with, but none of the fabrics possessed any magical energy signatures.

The goblin specimen thus moved only with its own raw physical stats. It looked up at the Collector and then charged, blue magical energy wreathing its movements.

The Collector put up its carapaced arms and blocked a combo of four punches. Each punch echoed out huge booms of impact, imparting small cracks into the carapace.

The Collector lashed out with its tail, sweeping the goblin off its feet before punching straight down, aiming to splatter the specimen's head into the ground.

The goblin specimen reacted with expert agility, kicking out its leg into the ground to send it flying back to dodge the Collector's punch before flipping in the air to right itself on its feet. The Collector halted its punch before it shattered stone and clicked its mandibles as it saw the four-armed goblin specimen make distance, eyeing the Collector.

Though not with any real intelligence.

Tendrils wriggled from the four-armed specimen's back. This was under the goblin lord's control, and presumably like the modified champions, enhanced so that it regenerated infinitely provided the lord possessed enough mana, and by the throne, the lord had plenty of the resource.

Had the Collector not evolved its shock absorbent longchain chitinous sublayer for its carapace, there was no doubt that the goblin specimen's blows would have significantly compromised the structural integrity of the Collector's carapace.

The sub-adaptation reduced those blows to what were moderate bruises, however. Still damage far more notable than any blunt force blows the Collector had taken previously.

The Collector's durability had always been far ahead of its physical stats, allowing it to take risks when it wished to with minimized danger to itself, but never before had it truly required itself to take strong blows.

Perhaps this would be the first time.

The Collector clicked its mandibles in rising desire for battle but stemmed it as it calculated a means to end this battle quickly. Its goal was right there beyond the throne, right in front of it.

No more room for error.

The goblin lord's raspy laughter echoed through the throne room. "That is not all! Come, my twin goblin elites, you who have given up your bodies and entombed yourselves into my blade as my eternal royal guard."

The Collector watched as the cloud of blue magical energy dispersed as another goblin specimen, an elite as the lord called it, leaped into the air, joining the other one's side in facing the Collector.

'Goblin…goblin elites?' said the daemon in palpable panic. 'These…these are legendary monsters. Last recorded being seen maybe…maybe eight hundred years ago?'

'No matter. Age alone does not indicate any evolutionary specialty. I will neutralize these specimens,' said the Collector.

'How will you do it? They…they seem almost as strong as you,' said the daemon.

'Do not concern yourself for me. Focus your mental resources on aiding my movements and Sapia applications,' said the Collector.

The Collector clicked its mandibles as it slithered in circular movement, sizing up the elites as they too sized the Collector up.

A quick calculation.

The stone golems possessed sixty-five percent of the Collector's combat capability.

These elites were stronger for they could properly channel mana through their forms and moved with an efficiency that indicated martial competency.

Each one reached up to eighty five percent of the Collector's combat capability.

Two together would overwhelm the Collector over time, though with the Collector's efficient processing capacity, they would need to engage the Collector in an extended brawl to wear its defenses down.

Yet, the Collector could not engage in a war of attrition. These elites were likely highly regenerative due to the lord's powers. Attempting hit and run tactics was possible, but risky, for the elites were fast enough to catch up to the Collector's higher end speeds.

The lord did not move from his throne, likely requiring its magical energy to sustain these elites.

Outside of this throne room, the lord likely would never even have been able to unleash these formidable specimens. Perhaps a degenerated version of them. But here, in the heart of his domain, he was strongest.

Knowing this information, the Collector formulated a strategy. It made note of the exact coordinates of where it had warped into this room.

Estimated time of arrival for the one remaining lurker under the Collector's control: one minute and twenty seconds.

"Attack, my elites! Bring me their horned daemon heads!" shouted the lord. "I will have them adorn my throne as the first to fall to my war!

The two elites charged at the Collector with extreme speed, their four arms closed in fists ready to pummel the Collector.

The Collector powered mana into its tail and leaped into the air with it, unfurling its wings.

The twin elites skidded to a stop, driving up piles of rock as they halted their formidable momentum before they stared up at the Collector.

Then they reacted. They leaped a dozen meters onto the wall of the throne room, smashing craters with their feet into it as they readied to use the wall as a surface to leap up to the Collector.

The Collector knew they were more than strong and acrobatic enough to reach it. This flight was merely to gain temporary distance.

'Projectiles,' said the Collector, processing its intent to the daemon.

'Got it!'

The Collector and the daemon flashed purple before shards of lightstone crystal from above broke apart.

Six chunks of crystal rotated around the Collector.

'Spin. Then Force Push. If I do not maintain this, you shall in my stead,' said the Collector.

This would be highly mana intensive, but it would expend everything it had to close out this mission.

The daemon closed her eyes as she powered her own formidable magical energy into the Collector.

The lightstone crystals rotated in rapid, shining orbit around the Collector for a single second.

The moment the twin elites leaped off the wall to reach the Collector, the Collector fired the crystals with Force Push assisted by the deamon to the defenseless goblin lord.

>>>

Mana Level: 300%>270%

>>>

The lord's eyes widened. Both elites flipped in mid-air, ceasing their attack on the Collector and immediately redirecting themselves to the lord to protect him.

A second too late.

The six crystals smashed into the lord's direction, but he had managed in the very last nick of time to hide behind his throne, though not fast enough. One of his arms dangled by his side, shredded apart at the elbow by a high-velocity crystal.

The lord growled in pain as he hunched behind the throne. He pointed at an elite. "You, guard me." Then a finger to the other elite. "You, kill them!"

The Collector clicked its mandibles, seeing the lord act as it predicted.

'Maintain a constant barrage. Expend your mana to the very last drop,' said the Collector.

'I'll…I'll do my best,' came the daemon's response with a quick nod.

Another series of six crystals broke off from the ceiling, rotating once to gain speed around the Collector before shooting out to the goblin lord.

The elite guarding it was fast and dexterous enough with its broad body and many limbs to guard against them all, but as long as the Collector kept up this suppressive fire, one of the elites would permanently be out of commission.

The other elite leaped into the wall, then punted off of it to reach the Collector. The Collector's right arm faced the elite as it soared towards it, and the daemon mirrored the Collector's movements with her own smaller arm.

>>>

Mana Level: 270%>250%

>>>

Both arms flashed in a synchronized Force Push. The goblin elite hammered into the ground with a resonating crash, blasting out a humanoid shaped crater around it.

Without even a half-second worth of delay, the elite leaped out from the crater, flipping in the air to right itself on its feet, then leaped back up at the Collector.

The elite felt no pain. Had no free will. And it regenerated all damage, any scars and cuts from the fall smoothing over in an instant.

Meanwhile, projectiles constantly rained down from above to the goblin lord, and the other elite scrambled to keep defending the lord as he hunkered down underneath the elite's larger body, holding his great sword above his head as an extra shield as piles of shattered rock and crystal fell all around him.

'Maintain suppressive fire,' said the Collector to the daemon as it dealt with the elite. It could feel the daemon's assent through their psionic link.

The Collector used Force Push again, but this time, the elite reacted. It performed a maneuver the Collector had not seen before.

By putting magical energy in a blue sheathe around its feet, it created a temporary platform to jump off of, avoiding the linear pushing energy. It twirled in the air, landing on its feet on the ceiling, and then leaped off of that to reach the Collector.

The Collector could easily out-maneuver the elite in the air, however.

It flapped its wings down, avoiding the elite's aerial charge, and then reached out with its hands to grab the elite's legs as it soared above it.

With a flip of its wings and Sapia boosted movement, the Collector rotated rapidly once in the air to generate momentum before slamming the elite straight into the crystal ceiling.