As they all had anticipated the shaman had a barrier cast around him, the pale blue barrier rippled heavily as Reign's lightning bullet hit it together with Wolf's wooden spear that broke on impact and launched a salvo of big splinters everywhere, hitting the surrounding hobgoblins and slightly wounding some.
It was the two attacks from Shadow and Beast that broke through it, Shadow's daggers strengthened by the Shadow Blades hit the barrier a total of 10 times, managing to turn it almost illusionary until Beast's wooden arrow pierced through it, its trajectory deviation from the intended path as the barrier was strong enough to shift in mid-flight.
The arrow takes a big chunk out of the shaman's shoulder as it passes by and hits a hobgoblin that was wielding a broadsword in the leg. The arrow shines with a green light as it immediately explodes, blowing the leg off and launching an incredible amount of wooden needles that were much faster and stronger compared to Wolf's wooden spear skill, the amount was higher as well.
The needles manage to hit almost all opponents and an unfortunate goblin even got hit in the eye, the needle managed to pierce straight through it and into its brain, killing it immediately. The battle had just started and 2 enemies were already dead, still, the party was not that happy as the shaman was only wounded and was a big uncertainty on the battlefield.
The wolves managed to hit the timing perfectly as their howls could be heard right at the beginning of the attack, jumping out from a nearby alley they managed to draw the attention of a couple of enemies while Reign and the others had already closed in on the others.
Reign's plan was to immediately use his lighting stab together with his lighting charge to quickly take care of the shaman, that however would take him in the middle of the hobgoblins group, and as some were still close to the shaman that was not a good idea if he wanted to live.
The shaman screams in pain as he waves his staff around, leaving a trail of dark mana in the air. Once he was finished he points the staff straight at the group and a magical black spear made from mana was launched at them, the spear was about 2 meters long and had a diameter of 30cm, the black mana that seeped outside of it was incredibly menacing and made everyone pressured.
Tank jumped straight in front of it of course and used his mana shield to defend against it, the huge shield gets pushed back a bit but manages to do its job and block the attack. Reign immediately decides that the risk had to be taken, the shaman's attack came fast and nobody wanted to take their chances on any stronger spells or debuffs. Coated in lighting he takes a stance and zooms past the hobgoblins at the front before he stabs straight towards the shaman's chest.
Somehow the shaman was able to predict his movement, even though his speed was far above its own. The wooden staff was put right in front of the sword's path in an attempt to stop it, but, the sword in Reign's hand was not an ordinary one, its durability and sharpness were miles above any weapon the hobgoblins had seen and it cut straight through the staff, plunging deep inside the shaman's chest.
"Ack… tca…aghh…" The shaman looks straight at Reign's eyes, as if he was burning his image in his mind, he tries saying something but ends up only muttering some things while spewing blood out of his mouth. In a couple of moments, he was dead. Reign immediately takes his sword out, the staff still dangling from it, and uses his lightning charge to go back as the hobgoblins around him had recovered from the shock of seeing him come in the middle of them and kill the shaman.
The two closest to him immediately attack, while the archers switch their targets to him and release their bowstrings right away. Reign bolted out of the group before they could encircle him, but not unscathed, his back had a long cut across it while an arrow was stuck in his shoulder, a gift from the hobgoblin that wielded a short bow. Before he could rest however the staff started glowing, there was a purple mana crystal on top of it and it was giving off an incredibly bright light.
Reign and the others immediately figure out that something was wrong and he throws it towards the goblins while Tank uses his mana shield again to defend them against any possible attacks. Their actions prove to be incredibly helpful as the staff explodes in a violent fashion, it seemed that Reign somehow managed to do something to it when he pierced it through. The mana shield flickers a bit as the strength of the explosion was huge, not to mention that the staff was right in front of them when it exploded, even the hobgoblins that were further away got hurt with some goblins dying.
As the explosion ends and the dust settles everyone could see a big crater in front of them, it was about 2m deep and its diameter was a full 5 meters, Reign felt cold sweat run down his back as he thought of what could have happened had he not thrown the staff away. His thoughts were interrupted though as an arrow hits the still active mana shield, the hobgoblins had started attacking them now.
"Let's go!" Wolf shouts as flames start burning on his sword, with a big leap he goes over to the hobgoblins while everyone else follows after him, Reign was of course not an exception, the wounds he had gotten were not that serious and treatment would have to wait until the end of the battle.
Wolf attacks one of the shield-wielding hobgoblins right away by jumping high into the air. His sword was getting heavier and heavier and the flames had disappeared, in their absence, the sword, however, had turned bright red and was emitting a lot of heat.
[ Melting Slash ]
Description: By using the power of flames the player is able to heat up his weapon to an incredible degree and allow it to have an unparalleled advantage when fighting an opponent. Weapons and armors of lower quality and even thick skin and fur will provide no challenge when cutting through them. Be warned however that the player's own weapon could start melting if the heat is high enough, the better quality the weapon is the more it can withstand.
Wolf's weapon was created by using a fang of a dragon as a base, amongst B ranked weapons it was at the top when it came to heat resistance and its melting point. That allowed Wolf to heat it up to an incredible degree and as he was falling down he slashes straight at the hobgoblin that already had his shield up in the air.
There was no sound of the sword and shield colliding, Wolf's greatsword was actually able to cut straight through the shield and divide it into two, of course alongside that the hobgoblins were also cut, the greatsword had managed to cut straight between the shoulder and the neck, and only stopped midway in the stomach.
There was no blood from the corpse of the hobgoblin as the high heat had cauterized the wound and stopped any blood from coming out. The hobgoblin's face was scrunched up in seriousness as it had not even crossed his mind that a sword could cut straight through his giant shield and kill him like that.
Beast had taken it upon himself to kill the archers, the short bow wielder was a trickier opponent than he thought however as the hobgoblins were going around everywhere while shooting arrows straight at him.
The longbow user was easier, his attacks were more powerful for sure but the length of his bow didn't allow him for much movement during the attack as he needed to use most of his strength to draw it.
Some of the hobgoblins and goblins they were fighting at had skills, something everyone learned the hard way. The longbow-wielding hobgoblin shot at Beast again, only that this time the aim was way off, Beast was able to notice that immediately. The arrow was launched at the side and it actually managed to swerve directions and go straight towards Beast. Without his small green shield, he would have probably been in a big danger, but the shield was solid and managed to take the full front of the arrow without any problems.
Reign was using his sword and was fighting the katana-wielding hobgoblin who was quite skilled and fast during combat, of course, it didn't help that some of the surrounding hobgoblins would use any chance they had to attack him.
The katana hobgoblin was locked into a bitter struggle however as none of his attacks seemed to create any problems during the fight, he had actually even used his compact punch once at the sword and almost destroyed it.
The fight went on as nobody was giving an inch of ground to the enemy. Tank was impatiently waiting for Beast to kill the archers so that he could go and join Reign and the others in the fight, even Greenie was there and he just felt incredibly bored while standing straight and looking after Beast while the others were fighting.