The goblin army was currently marching through a valley. The waves of goblins seemed endless. Many creatures avoided the goblin army if they didn't want to get killed.

After this valley, a city called Tiluso would be before the goblin army. While the goblin army was marching, there would be human mages ambushing them.

The defeat of the battle at the goblins home ground brought fear and hopelessness to the humans. The humans tried their best to whittle down the goblin army before it could reach the city of Tiluso. From high above the valley on a mountainside an archer name Kail spoke with a mage beside him.

"We aren't reducing their numbers very well with all their mages healing and protecting them. We need a better plan to whittle down their number."

The mage thought for a moment and looked around the mountain. He then Looked down at the valley which had a river flowing through it. He thought of anything that could slow down the goblin advancement and he had an idea.

"There is a hydra in this valley somewhere. We should find it and set it awake."

Kail became happy at the mage idea. "Great idea, now where can we find this hydra."

"The hydra should be in the river slumbering. Hmmm, I don't have a way to find the hydra location nor know where it is. We can only hope the goblin army accidentally wakes it up."

Kail nods with dissapointment at his answer. The two moved on the mountainside following the goblin army while shooting down arrows or spells sometimes. After more hours of following the goblin army and attacking them, they saw a disturbance in the river. Kail looked at the mage and became excited.

"Can it be?"

The mage smiled. "It probably is."

In the goblin army, the goblins at the front stopped as something was slowly rising from the water. In front of them, they saw the head of a snake popped out and then more heads popped out. Soon nine heads popped out. It was a river hydra at mid-rank 2. A monstrosity that can send kingdoms falling. The head of the hydra was all black and its eyes were blue with snake fangs and a forked tongue.

The goblins quickly attacked. Arrows, spells, and spears flew towards the heads and neck of the hydra. They all bounced off its scales. The hydra saw the goblin army and sensed danger. Taking a deep breath it conjured fire through its mouth.

The fire blew in waves and the goblin mages stepped up, they blocked the fires with a water barrier. The hydra kept blowing fire from all it's heads and the goblins were quickly running out of mana.

The goblins soldiers, fighters, champion, hob, and other melee weapon users went towards the side where the fire wasn't blowing and attacked the hydra while reinforcing their attacks with mana.

The hydra felt every melee attack as if a bunch of fingers were flicked hard at it continuously. Its body was still in the river and it decided to get out. Its body moved out of the river and its front legs slammed on the ground.

The melee goblins all got out of the range of its front legs so it didn't manage to kill any of them. Still blowing fire from its mouth it soon got its whole body out of the water.

Standing at 20 meters tall with black scales all over its body except under, with two front legs with claws, two back legs with claws, and a thick giant tail with spike all over it, the hydra hissed and screeched.

Deciding to no longer use fire against the water barrier, it instead blew out a black mist. The mist ate away at goblins fleshes when it touched them. The goblins that couldn't take the damage quickly backed away.

Seeing that it had not managed to kill a single goblin, the hydra was enraged. Taking a deep breath, it unleashed a loud screech with all nine heads. The screech stunned every goblin within 130 meters.

The goblins couldn't move and the hydra quickly reinforced its body with mana. It then charged forward into the goblin army while breathing fire everywhere. The goblin mages at the back who weren't hit by the screech effect quickly came to aid their comrades. Unfortunately, they were a tad bit late and the hydra had already bulldozed over many goblins, leaving just corpses.

Commands were quickly screamed out in the surroundings and many ballistas were brought forth. Reinforced with mana, the ballistas fired at the rampaging Hydra. The ballista bolts flew and pierced through the Hydra’s mana barrier and into it's body. The hydra screeched loudly in pain.

Feeling its life threatened, it reinforced more mana into its body and stood up on its hind leg. The goblins saw it was about to stomp and quickly backed away. They couldn't go far enough in time and the hydra stomped down with both its front legs.

From the stomp, a mini earthquake was formed, sending goblins flying into the air. Seeing that many of the goblins were pushed away, the hydra tried to run up the mountainside to get away from the goblin army.

The goblins commanders quickly saw it trying to flee and ordered more ballista bolts to be fired. The ballista bolts flew and landed all over the hydra body with some landing into its leg. Feeling its body extremely harmed, the hydra tried to use its head to pull the bolts out of its legs.

When it tried to do so, it felt extreme pain since the balista bolts were barbed and couldn't be taken out without taking a huge chunk of flesh off. Seeing that it couldn't run and would have to fight, the hydra became desperate and screeched a sound filled with mana.

The goblins thought that was its last stand until from out of the river a baby hydra came out and tore through a bunch of goblins. From the river, more baby hydras came out and started attacking goblins. They spit flame and black mist everywhere.

The baby hydras were around 2 meters tall and looked like a mini version of their mother. An adult hydra could lay thousands of eggs once after mating. This may make it seem like hydras would overrun everything, but the survival rate for baby hydras was far lower than one would think. There were predators everywhere in the world that feasted on baby hydras.

The mother hydra saw its offspring's attacking so it went to work quickly by pulling the ballista bolts out of its body. The baby hydra’s were tough for the goblins and more came out of the river. Each baby hydras were around low or mid-rank 1. The goblins commanders gave orders out quickly and the goblins started fighting back the baby hydras.

After a while, the mother hydra was done pulling the ballista bolts out of its body. It tried to decide between helping its offspring and running but it saw that its offspring were winning so it charged in roaring.

The goblins were too busy fighting the baby hydras to make a coordinated attack against the mother hydra so many were bulldozed through and crushed. Slowly, the goblins were being pushed back and they were losing. The goblin commanders saw things were slowly shifting so they ordered more ballistas to come forth.

The humans on the mountainside, who had been watching the battle for a while, decided to go in and support the hydras. The human mages came down and started healing and buffing the mother hydra. The mother hydra did not sense threats from the humans so it ordered its babies to not attack the humans.

With the hydras as meat shields, the human mages started raining down fireballs everywhere. With this, the goblins started getting pushed back harder while dying quicker. Seeing this, the humans thought they might be able to repel back the entire goblin army.

That thought was soon dissipated as a goblin 3 meters tall with a red Mohawk, from out of nowhere, came charging towards the human mages and started impaling them with spears. It was Stake and he was here to take care of enemy mages.

Seeing Stake coming to their assistance, the goblins cheered and fought back harder against the hydra. The mother hydra saw Stake attacking its allies and fired a fireball towards Stake. Stake easily dodged the fireball and more fireballs came towards him which he also easily dodge.

The mother hydra turned three of its heads towards Stake and kept firing fireballs. As the mother hydra kept walking and blowing fire on the goblins, a path soon opened in front of her with ballistas. The ballistas didn't fire first and the goblin mages instead fired first.

Fireballs came flying towards the mother hydra and the human mages created a water barrier in front of her. The fireballs didn't hit the barrier though and instead hit the ground, this created dust that covered vision. With its heat vision, the mother hydra saw something huge charging towards her.

The human mages around her screamed while reinforcing the front of her with a mana barrier. The huge thing slammed on the mana barrier, breaking it, and slammed into the mother hydra. The one that slammed into the mother hydra was none other than the goblin emperor, who was now 15 meters tall after solidifying his rank after becoming low rank 2.

The goblin emperor was no longer fat and his body rippled with muscle. On his head, two black horns were grown. In his hand was a large grey club 10 meters long with spikes all over it. The club was made with mana steel and its hardness and durability were pretty strong.

The goblin emperor brought his club reinforced with 80% of his mana up. He then slammed it down after reinforcing his body with the mana he had left. The force of the club broke many of the hydra's heads which tried to bite the club in order to push it back.

One slam was all it took to bring the already exhausted hydras to a halt. After that, more slam came down and the hydra soon die. Seeing the mother hydra dead, the goblins were able to refocus and take out the baby hydra's.

The goblin emperor punched his fist into the hydra chest and took out its mana core. He ate it and felt his mana reach high rank 2 while his body slowly grew stronger to adapt to it. He needed food to sustain his body trying to catch up to the mana so he ate the hydra raw.

Thinking back to when he fought the low rank 2 human, the goblin emperor thought about how he was able to break through to low rank 2. He felt that the breakthrough was natural and made him far stronger than if he had just eaten another peak rank 1 core. The body of the low rank 2 human tasted great and helped his evolution greatly.