Chapter 33: Twin Oni

"Shit!"

Venn's face turned ashen as his entire body got flung across the field and crashed into one of the grass hut through the door, leaving a big hole in its aftermath.

Dust and debris were scattered all over the place where he crashed and the fissures on the ground showed how devastating the impact was for Venn that suffered the full force of the crash.

Another 130 damage was incurred by Venn, leaving him at a silver of health, but that wasn't the only concerning point for him.

His heart sank when he got the news that his weapon had broken due to its durability reaching zero. As his daggers disintegrated pieces by pieces into digitlised pixels and promptly turned into nothingness, his mood turned even heavier.

Although he knew from experience that their power difference would be huge, he didn't expect that his weapon would break with just a single hit from the goblin.

Buckets of sweats broke out from his body as he thought about the fact that without his newly improved stats gained from [Increased Vitality] and [dragon scale], he wouldn't even survive a single hit.

Fortunately for Venn, his plan had worked for the time being. He managed to widen the distance between him and the altered goblin by using the force resulted from their weapons clashing to push himself away from the cornered spot.

Though there was a slight deviation from his calculation, resulting in him landing into the grass hut, he was able to escape with his life at the moment, giving him valuable extra time to find a solution.

"This quest is seriously impossible!" Venn cursed.

But although he said that with his teeth clenched, he swiftly got back on his feet and immediately consumed the last remaining steam buns he had in his inventory to recover his stamina and health points. 

There was no way in hell he would give up now, not with Rena's life on the line! No matter what, he decided he would be following through with his resolve.

Stuffing his mouth full with steam buns, his eyes burned with determination until he almost choked due to the surprise he got when he was suddenly struck by a blow on his head from behind.

-3

Though the force was small, the position in which he was hit was extremely cunning. If it was real life, it would have hurt a lot.

Venn was so focused on coming up with ways to deal with the goblins outside that he failed to notice that there were someone else behind him hiding inside the grass tent as well.

Turning his head back, he saw a pair of young kids hugging each other on the small wooden bed with one of the two holding onto a long wooden club, presumably used to hit him. Tears were welling up in their eyes as their small bodies shook with fear.

Judging from the single horn growing from their forehead, Venn deduced that they were part of the Oni clan as well. The possible scenario that might have happened would be that they were left behind by the adults when the goblins invaded the village.

"You girls looked alike. Are both of you twins?" Venn tried to strike a conversation with the girls. Apart from their hairstyles, with one being long while the other having a short hair, they looked exactly identical, and thus was the reason why Venn asked them whether they were twins.

However, Venn received nothing as response as the twins seemed to ignore him and averted their gaze away from him due to their wariness.

"..." 

"..."

"..."

With no common topics, Venn turned back towards the man-made hole that he caused in the hut wall to be on alert for any possible attacks and returned back to his thoughts. 

He initially tried to struck a conversation with the twins because he thought that they might be the clue to the breakthrough of his predicament. But, judging from their responses, it was highly unlikely.

Soon, there was another knock on his head at the same spot again.

"..."

Disregarding the two young kids' actions, Venn quickly searched and scanned through any possible ways he could deploy. He couldn't afford to waste any more time to deal with non-essential NPCs.

It was a matter of life and death.

Glancing at the opened panel featuring his monster cores, he paused for awhile to read the dragon skills he had attained from the Dragon Emperor's blood with excitement. But after reading through them, his excitement died down rapidly as he had no way of using the skills yet.

[Dragon Roar Learned (Dragon) (Level 1 Mastery)]

[After channeling for 1.5 seconds, release an intimidating roar that have a high chance of inducing fear and confusion to all creatures within a 500 metres range. When weak creatures are subjected to the fear debuff, they may have a 20% chance of being forced into submission.]

[Cost: 100 stamina points per activation. 10 minutes cooldown]

[Dragon Breath Learned. (Dragon) (Level 1 Mastery)]

[After forming the required hand seals, unleash the true dragon's flame to the surrounding in conical range. Flame released can melt through armor easily. All opponents that got hit by the flame would have their defence rating reduced by up to 60%. Damage dealt equals to 1000 true damage + 50% of the user's attack power.]

[Cost: 150 stamina points per activation. 10 minutes cooldown]

There were eight other skills available to a dragoon such as him, however in the panel, other than the dragon roar and dragon breath, they were all unselectable. Even if he wants a preview of their skill descriptions, he couldn't.

Things were worsening by the seconds for Venn. Taking out the rare Mirasume katana blade from his inventory, and equipping it to his back, he had to make a final stand.

Watching attentively at the opening that he had made, his hand pulled out another object that he cherishes greatly and waited patiently for any movement outside. If worse comes to worse, he would have to make some sacrifice. 

Of course, if he had a choice to avoid fighting with the goblins, he would gladly do so.

However, like before, Heavens had always been harsh on Venn. Soon, the silhouette of the goblin that Venn had been fighting slowly appeared with a sword grasped in his ugly green hand.

Its expression was now crazier than before. And as his figure blocked the only exit of the hut, it revealed a cruel smile.

"Kew Kewew Kewew!"