“The monster has been slain, yes indeed!” The goblins shouted in triumph, while others continued to pointlessly stab the already dead blue-rose corpse. “Three cheers to commander Symvoulos! Cheers! Cheers! Chee—”

Symvoulos wasn’t convinced, and kept his future-sight active. He noticed a shift in the pile in the secondary vision, and witnessed one of the goblins getting attacked a few seconds in the future. “Get ready! More beasts are coming!”

Most of the goblins stood at attention, preparing for battle. But a few of the more corrupted, voice-driven goblins wouldn’t stop stabbing the plant’s corpse over and over, ignoring Symvoulos’s warnings. When the fruit-filled beasts charged out from the corpse pile, they could not be saved in time.

Symvoulos continued to command the goblin army, but didn’t need his future vision to command his ranks to fight what was essentially a bunch of normal beasts that took a few more stabs to keep down. Instead, he pondered.

Something here doesn’t make sense. How did this monster get here? Blue roses don’t typically get up and walk around, sneaking into our encampment, and I’m pretty sure even the dumbest of my kind wouldn’t throw a still living monster into the beast processing pile. Could it have been a humanoid; A blue mage in monster form? If that were the case, this would be a terrible place to launch an assault. Unless, of course, their only goal was to cause as much chaos as possible, at the cost of their own life. But that seems shortsighted. Who would throw away their own life like that?

Symvoulos eventually came to the conclusion of the worst case scenario: an immortal blue mage. He then directed his future-sight at the blue-rose corpse, concentrating his future sight towards a single creature, and expending the majority of his mana on it. The second vision sped ahead of the present, going from seconds to minutes, until suddenly the blue-rose changed form to a Scolopendra.

“Epidexios! Mana-shackle the Blue Rose corpse.”

Epidexios immediately complied, taking out a shackle from his backpack and chaining it around the corpse. To Symvoulos’s surprise, the future image barely changed.

What gives? Symvoulos thought. Why can they still transform without mana? They shouldn’t be able to draw more mana in from outside when they have it on, and the shackles have more than enough time to drain its mana before it transforms…

No matter, we’ll have to kill this immortal the old fashion way.

When most of the beast’s numbers had dwindled, mostly due to Fotia’s insistence on burning the corpse pile to inedible cinders, Symvoulos gave his next orders. “We need to take this blue-rose corpse outside the city to somewhere more defendable. Take it to the pits, and prepare as many traps as we can. Vlepon, find a mind-aligned and bring them to the pits.”

Vlepon closed their eyes and responded “No can do. Our last mind-aligned was killed by the Ferre Iram.”

“Vorfahr’s hairy balls!” Symvoulos gritted his teeth. It would be some time before another mind aligned came along, and they were rather vital to goblin society as the few who could help with the voice. “A soul-aligned then. Are they still around?”

Vlepon closed his eyes again, and confirmed “I’ll bring them to the pits, as ordered.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

The voice slowly receded as I returned to my subspace, prompting me to stop and think for a moment. Those goblins were putting up way too much of a fight. Alone, they were among the weakest creatures I’d fought. Together, they were still rather mediocre. But that particular group was a strong, cohesive unit. They fought like they knew what I was doing before I did. How do I fight a group that can counter my actions to that degree? Can I just avoid them, and pick them off one-by-one when they’re not prepared? Hold on, if they can predict my actions, do they know I’m going to come back?

I opened a portal, and peered out to confirm my suspicions. The army of goblins still surrounded me, and were apparently already done with the “presents” I’d left behind. They’d even carried me into some kind of pit, lined with metal and enchanted traps, and were waiting on me to resurrect.

This seems like a worst-case scenario. What even are my options?

I only know the portal and space-bolt spells, and I doubt either of them will help here.

My plant forms seem basically useless here. I can’t reach out of this pit to attack.

My Spiderilla and Oleum Rubeta forms could get out of the pit and fight, but I doubt they could do both before being pelted down with a barrage of spells and arrows.

My slime forms could resist most physical attacks, but the spells would get me.

Perhaps I could cause enough infighting to escape if I still had the Ferre Iram’s form, but alas, it’s already gone.

I could try taking one of the goblin’s forms. No, they wouldn’t even hesitate to strike me down, even if they saw one of their own kind. Goblins have a reputation for being rather cruel, even towards each other.

Dolosus Lupus form? The wolf-maker could confuse them for a short time. Or maybe not. Who’s to say they don’t have a way of attacking the whole pit with spells in an instant?

What about the bipedal Dolosus Lupus? I’m almost certain it could wipe out the whole goblin encampment with its strength, but… I already know I don’t have a chance at resisting that level of voice. Not to mention the fact that I don’t have nearly enough mana reserves to fight in its form for any major amount of time. I can get by using D rank forms only due to my reserve of mana crystals, but I doubt I have enough maximum mana to power its form for even the few seconds it would take to escape.

Regardless of what I do, it seems getting out of the pit has to be my first action.

Perhaps I could use one of my scolopendra’s forms to dig through the pit? Its form isn’t quite built for long-distance tunneling, unlike the petra vermis, but it can get some digging done. Since I have a D-rank form, it could even dig through metal, if it has enough time to. But how can I buy enough time?

* * *

“Psychis, you’ve made it. Good.” Symvoulos said to the approaching goblin.

“Yes, indeed.” Psychis replied. “Now, where is this human who has been causing us such trouble?”

“Down in the pit. Please deal with them as soon as you can. We can’t afford for them to get away.”

“I understand, but… I don’t sense any soul in the pit.”

“You don’t sense any soul?” Symvoulos raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t, commander Symvoulos. I believe it is dead already.”

“I can see it getting up in my time-vision. I’m certain that thing down there is still alive.”

“Be that as it may, I don’t sense anything. Perhaps it has some way of hiding it. Could it be soul-aligned?”

“That would be rather unfortunate. We’d have to find a way to seal it more permanently, if that turns out to be the case. Do we have any iron we can spare for —” The image in Symvoulos’s future vision shifted again. Symvoulos’s actions and plans often changed the future, especially when his future-sight was this focused on a single creature.

The new vision was still in scolopendra form, immediately having split into a hundred pieces, but it was… Swimming through the air? Digging?

Symvoulos de-concentrated his future-sight, spreading it out to focus on the whole pit, rather than solely on the blue mage. This way would only give him seconds to react, rather than minutes, but the creature’s actions might make more sense to him this way.

What he saw was the pit instantly filling up with dirt and stone. Far, far too much to deal with at the same time as the creature. But more importantly, it proved it was impossible for the humanoid to be soul aligned. In fact, it suggested that the creature had to be…

Symvoulos raised his voice, shouting an order to everyone within earshot. “Escape while you still can. There’s nothing we can do.”

Looks of confusion spread across the other goblins. Symvoulos couldn’t blame them. Up until a moment ago, he was quite confident they could deal with the invader. Technically, he could. What he can’t deal with is the consequences. For whatever reasons, Master has aimed his little project at the village.

“Retreat. Abandon the village while you still have your lives.” Symvoulos stated, casually running away as the pit suddenly filled with labyrinth-stone and dirt.

“We don’t need that coward!” Epidexios shouted. “We’ll kill this thing without him! Psychis, break it!”

“I still can’t sense any soul! You’re on your own, here.” Psychic said, turning back towards the village. “I’ll get hold of hob-king, hold it off until then!”

The ground rumbled beneath them as a whirr of bone suddenly pulled one of the goblins under.

“Zootrofi! I’ll avenge you!” Fotia shouted as she sent a blast of flames down into the hole the goblin was dragged down to.

“Wait, I’m still ali—” Zootrofi screamed as Fotia sent fire down the hole.

Symvoulos gritted his teeth as he ran. He had no love for his kind, as he was sure they had no love for him, but Master should have warned him before uprooting him.

Master Symvoulos best have a reason for this.