Chapter 97

Morris’ words had barely left his lips when Eugene started barking orders. “Nicholas, I need you to continue relaying any movement coming this way. Rupert, take the other soldiers and form a shield wall. Morris, set up a kill zone by triangulating with the other archers. Adventurers, start preparing for contact from the sides.”The men, already tense from the earlier battles, snapped into action without hesitation. Steel bit into the earth as they formed defensive lines, dragging out pre-prepared barricades from their packs. They wouldn’t stand against a troll’s club, but they could certainly withstand anything a goblin might throw at them.

Shield bearers locked their weapons together, creating a staggered wall of defense. Behind them, archers nocked arrows, scanning the tree line with cold focus.

Near the center, several adventurers unpacked glass vials, which Nick recognized instantly as Ogden’s work.

“I can sense dozens of presences coming this way!” he relayed, forcing to gather as much information as possible.

“Are they goblins?” Eugene asked even as he took his position at the right side of the shield wall, directing a few of the better fighters to mirror him. They would be the ones tasked with taking down the trolls that would precede the Oni.

After a moment, Nick shook his head, “No, I think it’s humans. There might be some behind them, but they are still too far to tell. The ones getting close now are definitely humans, though. And I recognize some of them.”

“Which group are they from?”

“Arthur’s, I believe. But I can’t feel him.” His words were met with a curt nod. Given how powerful the old adventurer was, it was hard to believe he might have fallen, but anything was possible, especially since his men were running like the hounds of hell were at their heels.

It was only another minute before the first figures burst through the undergrowth.

“Arthur’s men!” he confirmed. Relief flickered through the ranks, but it was short-lived. The returning adventurers were soaked in sweat, and their faces taut with exhaustion.

Despite their frantic pace, none of them seemed terrified, though they certainly weren’t happy about the situation. That alone told Nick one crucial thing: Arthur wasn’t dead.

Eugene didn’t waste time directing them away from the direction they expected the enemies to come. “Fall back! Get behind the shields!”

The first adventurers vaulted over the barricades without hesitation, their breath coming in ragged gulps.

One man, panting heavily, managed to choke out a warning. “A hundred goblins—hobgoblins mixed in.” He took another shuddering breath.

“And behind them… trolls. Maybe six. And a Moss Oni.”

Silence.

Nick saw the momentary flicker of hesitation pass through the men.

The goblins were manageable, even in such large numbers. The hobgoblins would pose more of a challenge, but as long as they didn’t wield powerful enchanted blades like the first ones they encountered, they should be fine. The trolls were certainly a problem, as their sheer size and resilience made them formidable battering rams. Nick had seen his father kill one, but that was without the benefit of being linked to the dungeon. Who knew how much stronger these ones would be?

The Moss Oni was likely fatal. Though Nick had never seen the creatures, he had read enough to know any resistance they might put up would likely be futile. His father might be able to escape if he were alone, but any encounter with such a monster could only end in a total wipe out—at least given what he knew. That hope felt naive, but there wasn’t much else he could do.

Eugene’s teeth ground audibly. “Where’s Arthur?”

The adventurer grimaced. “Second Oni.”

Nick’s stomach dropped. . That changed everything.

Eugene cursed. “That means we have to fight alone. Alright, people! Take out anything and everything you have squirreled away for an emergency. This is that emergency. If we want to come out alive, we need to overwhelm the damn thing before it can kill us all.”

The soldiers nodded grimly. There wasn’t much anyone could say to that. Running away hadn’t worked all that well for the other group.

From deep within the twisting trees, the first echoes of screaming filtered through the air.

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The goblins were certainly not subtle. They exploded out of the forest as a churning mass of shrieking bodies, baying for blood and desperate to sink their claws into human flesh. If Nick had any doubt about killing another humanoid, it died a swift death just then.

Nick felt disconnected from it all. Sure, he intellectually understood that he was being overwhelmed by the information he was processing, which made it hard for him to connect emotionally to what was happening, but it didn’t seem like a bad thing at the moment. Fear had its place, but this wasn’t the time to stop thinking.

“Incoming!” he called out, but the men were ready.

The moment the first wave entered the kill zone, the adventurers let loose. Glass vials flew through the air, arcing toward the rushing horde.

A thunderous explosion rocked the clearing.

The closest green bodies disintegrated as the concussive force sent dozens of goblins behind them flying.

Some of them screeched as they were coated in alchemical fire, their skin sloughing off in bubbling chunks. Others didn’t even have the time to realize they were dead before they fell apart.

Nick could taste the burning flesh in the air. He could sense as the pieces of green flesh fell to the ground. How the alchemical fires licked at the air, greedily devouring anything they touched.

The opening salvo had done its job. The first thirty goblins died before they even got close, but Nick didn’t dare feel relieved, because the second wave was right behind them.

And they were not deterred in the slightest by the gruesome end of their companions. That confirmed that these goblins too were under some sort of berserk effect, though it might have been more spread-out, given how quickly they died.

With a flick of his wrist, Nick unleashed a powerful barrage of . The force tore through the ranks, shredding goblins like ragdolls. One of them was hurled backward, crashing into a tree with such force that it splintered the trunk.

Another spun in midair, its head twisting at an unnatural angle before it crumpled.

And still, the goblins kept coming. The frontline clashed with them, as swords met flesh, and shields locked together.

The battlefield erupted into chaos.

The soldiers fought with great skill, moving in sync to form an impenetrable wall and to punish any attempt to push through.

The adventurers, meanwhile, handled the flanks. With how many enemies there were, they could swing their weapons in wide arcs, cutting goblins clean in half without much need for precision.

That was when the first hobgoblin broke through the treeline, shouting and wildly swinging a sword, only for Eugene to intercept it. His sword flared to life, and all it took was one precise slash to cut through flesh and bone, sending the creature’s severed head tumbling to the ground.

More hobgoblins burst from the forest, aiming to overwhelm the flanks, but they faced a well-prepared barrage of alchemical weapons and arrows, which immediately reduced their ranks.

Nick barely had time to process that victory before he sensed that something worse had finally arrived. The earth trembled, and soon after, he felt the roar of the trolls shake the air. He turned just in time to see the tree line shatter.

The first troll charged right through a tree, its massive, brutish form squashing the goblin corpses without a second thought. Its grayish-green skin was thick, and its jagged teeth were bared in a grotesque grin.

Behind it, five more followed, each as big as a house. Despite how dangerous they were, Nick actively decided to tune them out. He couldn’t do much beyond slow them down, and he was much more useful coordinating the defenses rather than ineffectively shooting against them.

The battle raged around him, but Nick forced himself to breathe deeply, tuning out everything but the shifting currents of air and the relentless chaos feeding into his .

It was second nature by now. If he let himself fall into complacency, he would never survive. And right now, survival meant creating a new weapon to fit his need. Then, and only then could he help with the trolls.

Nick flicked his wand, channeling his mana into the invisible pathways he had already learned by heart. The magic flared in his mind, its familiar blue-green glow shifting and pulsing as he tested different configurations. His first attempt was to heavily modify to fit it more in the mold of .

Instead of letting the air explode outward in a chaotic shockwave as had happened before, though, he tried to compress it into a linear path.

A goblin, shrieking in rage, lunged at one of the soldiers, and Nick lashed out, sending the wind slicing forward. The condensed force hit like a battering ram, crushing the goblin’s chest inward and hurling it backward into its allies.

Nick frowned. Too much effort for too little outcome.

The wind dissipated too quickly after impact, making it wasteful. He needed it to maintain momentum, to carve through multiple enemies instead of just one.

He tried again.

This time, he altered the spell mid-cast, shifting the air currents to twist around his target instead of striking it directly. The goblin stumbled as an invisible force wrapped around its limbs, yanking it off balance before slamming it into the dirt.

Nick went through every bit of wind magic he knew, trying to piece them together to give form to what he wanted.

allowed him to control direction. let him use concentrated force. created pure destruction.

But what he needed was refinement. A constant flow of air rather than a single burst of power or a more widespread environmental spell.

His wand pulsed in his grip as he reconstructed the spell formula in his mind, borrowing concepts from aerodynamics—the way wind twisted and tunneled through mountain passes, the way air curved around obstacles, seeking the path of least resistance.

What if he didn’t fight the wind’s natural tendency to spiral? What if he used it?

Nick exhaled sharply, tightening his control. He pulled the mana inward, shaping it like a twisting thread of silk, binding the force into a contained vortex.

Then, he released it.

A goblin howled as the spiraling wind wrapped around its body, lifting it off the ground before violently hurling it into another.

That was better. But he still needed a final component, so Nick shifted his focus, adjusting the spell’s rotational speed.

Instead of just sending the wind forward, he made it cycle back upon itself, creating a continuous jet of force.

The next target he chose was a hobgoblin—stronger than the others, with thicker skin and a crude iron chestplate. A normal wouldn’t be enough to harm it.

Nick narrowed the wind stream, concentrating the spirals into a razor-thin edge.

The attack shot forward, curving at just the right angle to slice through the goblin’s crude armor and punch into the flesh beneath.

The creature shrieked, staggering as ribbons of blood splattered onto the dirt from the new hole in its chest.

Nick’s lips curled.

He had ended up with a high-speed stream of wind, precise enough to carve through flesh, forceful enough to ignore most physical defenses, and versatile enough to be used in different ways.

The System seemed to agree with his assessment, as it chimed in his mind.

New Spell Created:

+12,000 EXP

Nick allowed himself a grin before forcefully turning his attention to the battle raging at the mouth of the clearing. There, he found carnage.