Chapter 64

Chapter 64

Chapter 64

Senna had never been so scared in her life.

Her world had been flipped upside down, with the land that the tribe had known for generations being mix-and-matched with new landscapes and sceneries overnight. The new creatures and dangerous monsters now appearing out of nowhere... appearing from ambient mana in what the Elysium System had called the world of ‘Panu.’ These creatures had already killed many of her kin already, with numerous people mysteriously going missing. Her tribe was just one of many nomadic elf groups in the area though, and they’d sent messengers to the other surrounding tribes to see who was still around... and who’d been taken to some other part of this new world.

In the meantime, she and her hunting party had been one of many to scout the surrounding area. It’d only been two days since the great migration, the apocalypse, and merging of her world with two others, and their safety was their first priority. After discovering a human city within the nearby valley and having seen the chaos ongoing there, they retreated and tried to inform the elder council... only to be intercepted by goblins of all things.

Goblins were native to her own home world, and they’d been a plague upon her people since as long as she could remember. She’d grown up hating the little green devils. Often taking prisoners as slaves or meat, goblin raiding parties were not to be scoffed at. Though their individual strengths were weaker than an elf’s, they made up for it in sheer numbers and could spawn infinitely like rats.

A lesson that their hunt leader had learned the hard way, having fallen into what Senna had considered an obvious bait and trap while bringing the rest of the party with him. They should have never chased... She’d tried to dissuade him from taking the bait, but she was low in the tribal hierarchy... and she was a woman. That alone made her opinion worth less to her peers in the eyes of the elder council.

Because of it, because of prejudice and arrogance, they were all going to die here.

“Ethel!” She screamed and began to sob, trying to stab at one of the goblins that was violently beating her with a small club just as another goblin latched onto her ankle, sinking in its sharp teeth and claws as she screamed. Blood stained her silver hair as it leaked from a head wound and matted it against her face, partially her in one eye. “ETHEL HELP ME! PLEASE!”

*CRACK*

The young woman felt her clavicle snap as the goblin’s club was brought back down with a jerk. She screamed again, horror filling her as pain radiated up her body. She kicked and flailed, desperation filling her as she began to hyperventilate, only for the goblins pinning her down to laugh at her misfortune with jeers and snarls. She felt the teeth of the goblin on her ankle sink deeper through muscle and into bone, and she felt the goblin with the club slam it into her scrambling arms as she tried to get away. Bones shattered, and the pain was unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

“Please let me go!!!” Senna went rigid with a squeal of agony as her wrist snapped. “PLEASE!!!”

Her words trailed off, her chest heaved with every violent sob, and she watched the bloodlust in the goblin’s eyes under the forest canopy as it raised the club for a final time.

“Elf go die die!” It snickered – right before a crimson blur of motion abruptly slammed into the creature standing over her.

The goblin’s chest rippled and exploded within the time of a single second, a torrent of red magic tearing through the small humanoid with a brief torrent of bloody wisps and a savagery that caught its peers by surprise. What remained of the goblin went slowly limp after that, dropping to the ground as its eyes went cold – the club going with it to thud into the dirt next to Senna’s bloodied face.

She blinked twice, shock overriding her other emotions and senses as she tried to adjust to what had just happened. Had that really been blood magic just now? She’d seen it used once before when their tribe had expelled a man for meddling in the forbidden magics of the Unholy Foundational Pillar, but they’d been banished many years ago... No one in her village knew anything but nature magic from the Fae pillar.

So what had just happened?

The man frowned slightly and gave her a firm, reassuring squeeze – then withdrew his hand from her shoulder and stood back up. “You’ll be ok. I promise, we’ll get you out of here.”

***

The elf just looked back, dumbfounded, and Riven seriously began to doubt that she understood him. He could have sworn he heard them speaking the same language that’d been incorporated into his mind ever since the transition, but maybe he’d been wrong...

A guttural barking voice called out to him from the line of goblins as they stood at the ready, warily taking an assessment of the newcomers for any weaknesses amidst the cries of the elf they’d sawed a hand off of – and the croaking, labored breathing of the broken man on the ground. “Why vampire here?”

The fact that Riven and Athela had killed two of their number already and the goblins remained almost frozen in fear and hadn’t retaliated was an obvious give away to who held the cards in this standoff.

Riven snorted in disgust, snapping his fingers out in front of him to briefly sparked with a crimson ribbon that quickly dissipated into thin air. His time in Negrada over the past month had jaded him. These goblins may be the same level of the ones he’d fought earlier, but the quality of their power was on a completely different scale. To see such relatively weak monsters in front of him when compared to the things he’d been killing back in the modified tutorial dungeon... it gave him no room for second guesses at what he was about to do.

“Bleed.”

His hand shot into motion as a wave of crimson blades bloomed around him in the air, rapidly closing the distance between him and the little green men. Shredding the first and blowing off the leg of the second, Riven drew his staff up off the ground as it crackled with black lightning that ripped through another goblin and tore him into paste.

*BOOM*

The trio of blasts sent the goblins shrieking and scattering, only to cry out when Athela blurred forward and ripped into another to cleave off the goblin’s head with fingers-turned-claws, – then she did it again, blurring forward and impaling a goblin’s skull with one of her arachnoid legs all while cackling loudly as she did it. Her perfect set of human white teeth had abruptly turned into a lipless snarl of a piranha, with rows of razor sharp fangs underneath her red eyes that’d each grown to twice their normal size. The beautiful features of the woman look-alike had turned into truly a monster, and her feminine muscles tensed while her six arachnid limbs turned rigid at their tips to produce spears of black, sharp, needle-like appendages.

“SHRREEEEEEE!!!!” Athela blurred forward with a screech of relish. Like a whirlwind of crazed rage, she ripped through another two goblins that’d been hiding in the bushes - ones Riven hadn’t even seen or taken note of as he’d been caught up in what was happening in front of him. It was something he’d have to work on because he knew if he’d paid attention, he’d have noticed their heartbeats.

Limbs and heads flew skywards in sprays of blood, and the demoness hooted with laughter while simultaneously flipping head over heels in a cartwheel to rip entirely through a small tree with her claws - along with yet another hidden goblin that’d been hunkering down behind it.

The rest of the goblins screamed and scattered.

Riven walked over with a malice to the sneer underneath his mask, whipping his staff around while grinning into a groaning goblin’s eyes as it clutched at the bleeding stump of what remained of its leg. “Say goodbye.”

The once-innocent man plunged the butt of his staff into the terrified goblin’s chest, ramming it into the shrieking creature’s body that sent an explosion of shadows down into the fallen creature. The blunt force impact of the on-hit shadow magic shattered the goblin’s ribcage, jaw and pelvis in one go - quickly sending the pathetically weak and broken creature into shock.

Licking his lips and letting his body slide down to the ground, his lips peeled back to expose his fangs. His hunger gnawed at him, and he felt a need - nay, a compulsion to drain the small body of all the lifeblood it had. His hand shot forward, quickly latching onto the dying goblin’s neck... and he began to squeeze.