Chapter 26: Finale (2)

The second wave of goblins came even before the first wave was cleared. Due to my perfect coordination with them, there was yet to be an orc casualty, but I knew this wouldn’t last for long. War without death on both sides isn’t a war; it’s a massacre. This situation sure as hell wasn’t a massacre. Goblins were strong in the first place, and with the aid of this mysterious Goblin Lord, they became a force that not even an orc tribe of seven hundred members could take lightly.

Although most of the credit goes to that Goblin Lord, a goblin’s natural rate of growth was also somewhat responsible. The common trope back on earth was that goblins were weakest, nasty, and often treated as cannon fodders for the main characters to get stronger. However, after coming to this world I understood how laughable that notion was.

Goblins are the weakest!? Perhaps the infant or juvenile ones are, but adult goblins could already go toe to toe against adult orcs. Of course, I couldn’t be sure as the only monsters I met after coming to this world were goblins, Imp, orcs and that grotesque one who killed me. According to Logier, the higher the level of the dungeon, the more powerful the monsters residing in it are. Taking them into account, goblins occupied the first floor, meaning they are the weakest of the bunch. Then the second floor belonged to orcs who were stronger than goblins. Then what about the third floor? Fourth floor? I didn’t even know how many floors were there in the dungeon at the time.

Logier also didn’t know, he only saw staircases going up but didn’t know who occupied the area. He never dared to go there. There was a rumor circulating throughout the orc clans that the floor above them was occupied by the lizardmen, but there was no concrete evidence.

Piii!!

Goblins sounded the horn again. Having already seen this many times I knew what this was for. It was a signal for the goblin stronghold, which meant, they were asking for reinforcements. I could see how advanced these green shits are in comparison to orcs. If not for my involvement, the orc tribe would have already fallen to the schemes and chemicals of that Goblin Lord. And let’s not forget about the Goblin General mentioned by Gyuk.

Not even a minute passed, and the goblins returned with their reinforcement. However, this troop was different compared to the previous one. There was a mixture of melee goblins who held mace-like weapons, and to the back, thin goblins with thick poles that shouldn’t be anything else than pipes for blow darts. They were spread in a fan-shaped formation, with strong goblins at the front and thin ones at the middle and again strong ones to the back.

After a rough calculation, I discovered the number of goblins with poles didn’t exceed 50. An idea formed in my head at that moment. Chances that they were equipped with that purple dart were very low, after all, that thing didn’t distinguish between friend and foe. If they carelessly use it, forget about orcs, even their own troops would be wiped out.

Before today, I would have thought these goblins would do exactly that, a suicidal mission. But, now I knew they won’t dare. In fact, the Goblin Lord won’t allow it to happen. For whatever reason he needs a huge number of goblins, how could he allow them to perish in this idiotic way?

Looking at the rapidly advancing goblins, I narrowed my eyes and gradually got close to them from the sidelines. Cast Illusion’s effective range had increased to 40 meters. As long as they were within my range, I could even mass cast it, then kill them all in the illusion realm and turn them to vegetables. Without something to aid me, it was a little difficult to know the exact distance; however, during the last few casts of my skills, I discovered a very interesting thing.

The skill, Infrared Vision, which would normally remain activated all around the time, had a hidden function. It can be activated like any other skills and when it does, I can see more than just heat around me. I can see magic… to be more precise, I can see the flow of magic around me. When I use skills, be it Nightmare Manifest, Cast Illusion or even Nightmare Seed, a thin thread of magic originates from my body and connects with the target. When it successfully connects, the skill takes effect.

Second, I can control the direction of these threads with the help of my hands. In conclusion, my hands act as the medium through which the skill was cast. Anyway, by observing the threads I can know whether my skill affected my target or not. With this, there was no deceiving me anymore.

When I activated Infrared Vision, the redness of the world around me intensified. The orcs and goblins, they became just reddish-black outlines, while tiny small red dots were visible on the left or right side of their bodies. I already knew what these tiny red dots were; those are but the hearts of these monsters. Then I cast the Cast Illusion skill by pointing my index finger towards them.

In a blink of an eye, 50 MP was depleted, making me feel lightheaded. Although it’s only half of my full, when so much was gone in a moment, it would have some adverse effect. After getting over the nausea, I observed the strings connecting with each and every thin goblin. A few strong goblins at the back also got affected by it.

Next step, I killed all the thin goblins inside the illusion realm. When I did so, all the thin goblins fell down to the ground with a dead look on their eyes. Their bodies were alive but their brains are not. However, a surprise came in the form of the two strong goblins. They didn’t fall down like thin goblins, in fact, aside from a dizzy look and bleeding eyes nose and ears, I saw no difference between them and other healthy goblins.

I threw this discovery to the back of my mind to think about the reason later. Right now, clearing up the goblins took priority. When the mass of goblins fell down, Logier took it as the signal and launched an attack on the remaining goblins.

The tactics of this fan-shaped formation were as such, when the goblin in the front will engage with the orcs, the thin ones in the middle will use their blow darts to attack the orcs. When orcs were poisoned, the goblins will finish the job and kill them all in one fell swoop. As for the group at the far back, they were meant to protect the middle group with poison darts and replace the front liners when a death occurs.

Who could have known that I will throw a wrench in this plan by directly dealing with the middle group? Due to that the formation crumbled to bits and the whole setup lost its value. However, the goblins didn’t care, to be more precise, they were incapable of caring. They might have grown stronger physically, but they had to pay the price of their intelligence growth for it. In other words, the Goblin Lord’s potion used up all the potential of mental growth to enhance physical growth.

The goblins, having no fear of death and not enough intelligence to understand a simple concept like advance and retreat, followed through the orders given to them by their leader. They inadvertently marched towards their deaths waiting for them at the hands of the orcs.

Now there is a dividing line that separates the goblins from orcs, and it’s the reason why goblins are placed below the ranks of orcs despite some having a similar physical strength to orcs. Meanwhile, the current goblins inside the dungeon couldn’t be termed as average goblins as all of them were enhanced to such a degree by the Goblin Lord. Real adult goblins were just a little bit shorter than orcs and their strength was somewhat weaker than a juvenile orc, forget about adult orcs.

However, the existence of Goblin Lord surmounted the strength gap and made adult goblins match equally with adult orcs. But, there was another gap that the Goblin Lord couldn’t fill and that gap was precisely made by nature itself. Goblins, until they reach the adult stage will not have any skills. After reaching the adult stage, they will only awaken one skill and most of the time it was something supportive.

On the other hand, orcs already have a skill since their birth. Throughout their growth period, they will awaken four more skills before reaching the adult stage. What could one skill possible do against five, moreover when at least two of the five already became a high-leveled skill? Despite all the strength, they still, ultimately fell to the rampaging orcs.

Perhaps the Goblin General never expected his plan to fail like this, he didn’t prepare for a countermeasure. Therefore, when the orcs nearly finished off all the goblins and advanced towards the direction where the goblin tribe existed, the same dreadful purple gas started to permeate through the trees, halting our advance. In the face of a gas that was no different from death itself; we had no other way but to retreat. In the meantime, I had a few orcs capture some goblins alive for a few experiments of mine.

With this, the battle concluded for now. All total we only fought for half an hour and yet the damages sustained by goblins were severe. Although a few orcs were grievously wounded, none died yet. Although I was sure this wouldn’t last for long.

“What do you need them for?” asked Logier looking at the three bound goblins.

“An experiment,” I answered before pointing my index finger towards them.

You have used Nightmare Seed on the target. The seed has been planted to the heart of the target.

-2 MP

Time remaining until the seed blooms: 4:45:12

Remaining Nightmare seed: 1/3

You have used Nightmare Seed on the target. The seed has been planted to the heart of the target.

-2 MP

Time remaining until the seed blooms: 4:45:12

Remaining Nightmare seed: 0/3

After I planted the nightmare seed, I waited patiently for it to bloom. From this, I wanted to check two things. One, the limited conscious transferability, two, the 30% stat absorption by sacrificing the tree inside the target. I have yet to see these two abilities in function.

This time the orcs didn’t retreat from where they came. After defeating the goblins, they formed a perimeter a few distances away from where the battle took place and prepared to take rest and recuperate. The battlefield was still surrounded by the purple gas, as such, it had become a no-go zone for the time being.

Since it was the only way to the goblin habitat, we had no other option than to wait patiently until the purple smog disperses. However seeing as how the goblins are adding bodies every so often, I could guess it wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

With nothing better to do, I asked for a few orcs to guard me as I knocked myself out with a few liberal use of Nightmare Manifest and Metamorph. By repeatedly drying the MP pool and allowing it replenish on its own had this passive effect of increasing the max MP. I am not sure if this was a widely used procedure to increase max magic or not but I did it every so often to reap the benefits.

A few hours later when I woke up, five hours had already passed and the Nightmare seed had blossomed to a Nightmare Tree inside them, taking root on their heart, soul and even something obscure like memories. Looking at the three bodies that ceased struggling since a long time ago, I activated the link formed with them.

As soon as I did so, instead of appearing in the purple cloudy area I was familiar with, I appeared in a dark place with only the goblin I activated the link with. It was standing before me, with its junk exposed and a blank look devoid of any emotions.

I didn’t bother with asking any question or altering its memories, I directly jumped to the other functions of the Nightmare Tree.