The living goblins either screamed if they were on fire or roared in pain if they were blinded. The entire enemy advance ground to a halt for a few seconds. That wasn’t time that Richter and his allies were going to waste.
As soon as the initial explosions finished, Richter started running, and the sprites began imbuing arrows. The chaos seed ran to the middle of the building right in front of him. He didn’t slow when he got close but instead jumped towards the wall. One foot planted on the wooden planks, and he used it to gain extra altitude. His hands reached up and grabbed the roof, pulling himself up, and he kept running. He barely missed a beat.
Richter ran forward on top of the building while fire ate at the walls on either side. He kept one mental eye on the video feed Alma supplied while he ran. It was going to provide an absolutely spectacular view of the deaths he was about to cause.
The goblins recovered from their partial blindness and blinked, wondering why there were still six points of light that were brighter than the other afterimages in their vision. One or two of the smarter goblins even wondered why the light was blue rather than the red of the fire they had just survived. The shrewdest one had time to think “Oh shit” just before the sprites released their imbued arrows. Richter wondered if the goblins that were still burning were actually thankful when death claimed them.
Two imbued arrows shot down each of the three corridors between the buildings. Not too much charge had been built in the shots over the past five seconds, but it was enough to cause a large boom. Each arrow struck a different goblin. The sprites had chosen targets that were already wounded, and the exploding arrows caved in chests and sheared away the goblins’ faces. Six more goblins died without even coming close to their killers.
It wasn’t only the initial targets that suffered. Four of the sprites were meidons. Dark and Air magic augmented their imbued arrows, causing secondary damage to any enemies nearby. The concussive force released also damaged the surrounding goblins. It was not sufficient to kill the rest, or even maim them, but it was enough to send the goblins reeling again. That was all that Richter needed.
The blasts from the arrows had worsened the structural integrity of the buildings even further, and the roof Richter was running on began to buckle. It didn’t matter, though. He had reached the end of the building. The goblins that hadn’t entered the corridors between the buildings were clustered, fear and uncertainty on their faces. The chaos seed could see fear on their fire-illuminated faces. They were close to breaking, and some were even turning to run away.
Oh no, Richter thought. The time for that has passed. Some of the goblins looked up as he leaped from the roof. Though they did not know it, they were witnessing the unleashed wrath of a chaos seed, for the first and last time.
Richter extended his hand and released the dual casted spell he had stored in his Ring of Spell Storage. It had almost completely depleted his mana pool, but it was worth it. A green disc appeared in the air and a level twenty-two chokespore arachnid jumped through, right into the center of a group of goblins. Three went down under its weight while the others raised weapons to attack, but the spider immediately used its special attack! A cloud of spores appeared in the air, and nine more goblins fell to the ground, struggling to breathe.
The chaos seed had scanned the crowd before he jumped, and his eyes fixed on a particularly large goblin in the back. It wasn’t the goblin’s size that had caught his gaze or the fact that he was one of the grinder station. It was the fact that the green skinned fucker was holding onto the naked body of the dead boy. The child’s jaw hung loose because one cheek had been ripped away. The grinder was holding the boy’s remains the same way a child might hold the leg of a teddy bear as he dragged it through the house. Seeing such a callous disregard for the remains of the murdered boy made the edges of Richter’s vision turn red.
The goblin was too far away to kill immediately, but Richter promised himself that he would find a special end for that particular black-hearted bastard. At the moment, though, there were others within his reach. Sighting on a goblin that stood just in front of where he would land, he screamed bloody murder. Both of his hands were clenched around the hilt of his elementum short sword. The look of horror on the goblin’s face brought a wild joy to Richter’s heart. It felt even better when he swung his green blade down, and the scout was literally split in two. Black blood drenched Richter from his hair to his knees. Only the white of his eyes shone in the firelight while he chose his next victim.
Bare seconds had passed since he had launched off the roof, but it had felt like time stretched as he fell, keeping him in those moments for a frozen eternity. All that had mattered was his will and those who would die because of it. When he landed, though, everything sped back up. For those moments that he fell, even sound seemed to have faded away, but he clearly heard the squealing roars of the goblins around him as he landed. The two halves of his first victim fell to either side and the battle continued!
A fighter to his left rushed forward screaming and swung a mace. If the blow had landed, it would have brained him, but the goblin overreached. Belying the fact that he was a full two feet taller, Richter still ducked under the swing and brought his short sword to bear against his attacker’s leg. The clear green blade swept through the goblin’s knee, freeing limb from body.
The goblin screamed again, this time in disbelief and agony. It dropped to the ground grabbing its own severed limb like a mother would hold her child, but Richter was already moving past. He spun to the left, staying low, and reached out one hand. As his fingers, contorted in a spell form, a green glow appeared. Richter spoke a word of Power.
A dark circle appeared under the feet of a group of goblins running toward him. A moment later, they all collapsed. They each cursed and yelled at one another, blaming their fellows for the fall. One screamed, however, due to his comrade’s sword having cut him by accident.
Richter raised his sword arm and deflected a spear strike. Standing quickly, he deflected the goblin’s next attack, while curses continued to emanate from the ground behind him. Before the scout could attack a third time, a gold light appeared behind him followed immediately by a bolt of lightning. Richter grinned at his familiar as she swooped past.