Chapter 45: Invisible Goblins

Wang Yu wove through the goblin swarm, his longsword and short axe reaping lives in a frantic harvest, while his barrier effortlessly deflected every blow from the green-skinned runts.

Given the lack of force behind their attacks, the depletion of his barrier remained in a manageable equilibrium with his void energy regeneration, ensuring it would not shatter anytime soon.

Yet, among those present, Wang Yu was arguably the least efficient; though his slaughter was swift, he lagged behind the others.

Eamon the Orc wielded his massive club as if it were a mere one-handed cudgel, and any goblin caught in its wake was left in pieces, never to remain a whole corpse.

Wherever he passed, bones snapped and tendons tore; a single swing sent twisted, mangled goblins flying, leaving a thick trail of green gore upon the earth.

Vena the Elven Ranger held a longbow crafted from vines and floral tendrils, her expression cold as green light flowed through her hands, naturally coalescing into arrows of pale emerald radiance.

She drew the string, and the light-arrows vanished into blurs, piercing the goblin ranks a heartbeat later.

The green light erupted, not only boring a gaping hole through the skull of the target but blooming into tangible, thorny vines that ensnared and crushed the surrounding goblins.

Vena calmly picked off the creatures encroaching on Wang Yu and Eamon, preventing them from being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the horde.

The light-arrows were a technique known as "Nature's Whisper," a signature elven art and the hallmark of a true ranger.

By replacing standard arrows entirely with Nature's Whisper, Vena’s prowess was now on par with a high-ranking specialized ranger among human knights.

Elliott, however, was far more pragmatic; the goblin was encased in heavy iron armor, clutching a short, thick, and clearly expensive ochre-colored staff.

Perched atop the carriage, he waved his staff incessantly, each gesture summoning a massive earthen spike from the ground that either impaled a cluster of goblins or sent them flying to their ruin.

Though his casting interval was long, each strike was devastatingly effective, leaving Wang Yu as the least efficient of the group—save for Avia, who had yet to join the fray—a limitation inherent to the knight class.

Even so, Wang Yu’s kill count was impressive; every swing saw several green runts reduced to corpses.

Before long, he was surrounded by the bodies of the hideous creatures, with dark green blood pooling everywhere.

Despite the relentless slaughter, the goblin numbers showed no sign of thinning, and more continued to shriek as they emerged from the surrounding tall grass.

Counting the corpses around Wang Yu and those slain by his companions, at least a hundred had fallen, yet the tide showed no sign of exhaustion.

Wang Yu kicked away a goblin that had lunged from the crowd and latched onto his calf while he was busy decapitating another.

With a flick of his axe, he cleaved a goblin in two just as it hurled a rusted iron sword at him.

It was an easy fight, far simpler than battling mercenaries; though numerous, these goblins posed little threat, and his barrier hadn't even been worn down by half.

Eamon, however, fared differently; while his magical shield was sturdier than Wang Yu’s, it could not self-repair and had already shattered.

But as an Orc, the claws and bites of common goblins could not even pierce his thick, hardened skin.

The occasional sneak attack from a blade-wielding goblin left only shallow scratches.

The next moment, a sweeping blow from Eamon’s giant club would reduce the offender to a smear of bloody pulp.

Such wounds were nothing to an Orc; they would seal on their own within half an hour.

It was easy enough; no matter how many goblins there were, there had to be a limit, or they could never have hidden in the roadside grass as they had. Before the group’s stamina failed, these goblins would surely be wiped out first.

Yet, Wang Yu’s brow had been furrowed from the start. The number of goblins far exceeded a standard raiding party of a hundred, likely numbering over four hundred.

Such a scale was nearly impossible within the borders of Alastair, and without a leader, a raiding party of this size would have scattered or turned to infighting long ago.

And yet, Wang Yu had not seen a single goblin with even a shred of intelligence.

This anomaly deeply unsettled him. After cleaving a few more lunging goblins into fragments, he turned to the carriage roof and shouted, "Have you seen any special goblins?"

He addressed Vena, whose scouting abilities were the best among them; if she hadn't detected anything beyond his own ripple-sensing range, he certainly wouldn't have either.

Seeing Vena shake her head, Wang Yu felt a strange unease, though he could form no concrete theory.

In such a situation, the best course was to finish the slaughter and adapt to whatever followed.

Settling his mind, he resumed his work, leaving no goblin corpse intact in his wake.

These green-skinned runts were fine against commoners, but not against them. Even if only he and Avia remained, they could easily escape. His greatest doubt now was the origin of this massive horde.

Time slipped by, and Vena’s rate of fire slowed; Nature's Whisper required mana.

The strangling vines that manifested from thin air were shaped by her magic, and the constant barrage had drained more than half of her reserves.

"These goblins aren't strong, but there are so many... where are they coming from?" Vena wondered.

As a ranger accustomed to the forest, she knew the typical density of these camps within the kingdom.

She pulled standard arrows from her quiver to replace the light-arrows, pinning a goblin to the ground as it tried to leap onto Eamon’s back.

She realized now that while Wang Yu’s efficiency was lower than Eamon’s, he didn't need her protection; Eamon, however, was indeed accumulating wounds.

Though her mana was low, her use of Nature's Whisper for wide-area strangulation made the elven ranger—whose specialty was single-target assassination—the one with the highest kill count.

Under their relentless assault, the goblin numbers finally began to dwindle, and the rate at which they poured from the roadside slowed significantly.

The pressure on Wang Yu and Eamon eased, allowing them to push toward the source of the goblins, preventing the runts from harming the carriage horses.

These loathsome creatures attacked not only humans but livestock as well, and many had made a beeline for the horses.

Though many were kicked to death by the sturdy steeds, some unlucky horses had been surrounded and devoured.

Elliott, the money-loving goblin merchant, must have been heartbroken; Eamon and Wang Yu’s counter-push served to stop the losses.

Vena searched more carefully for special goblins, but her "Wind-Whisper" perception detected no abnormal behavior.

Goblin slashers and mages loved to hide among the common rabble.

Many adventurers had fallen to the sneak attacks of these weak but cunning, intelligent goblins, yet Vena found nothing of the sort.

It was bizarre. Vena’s beautiful brows knit together; as an experienced ranger, the absence of a strong enemy made her more anxious than their presence would have.

And as if on cue, she saw Wang Yu suddenly freeze, whip his head around, and roar.

"Look out! Elliott! Vena, watch your backs!" Simultaneously, he hurled his short axe, which tore through the air toward the carriage.

"What?!" Elliott’s scream erupted from his armor, and he spun around, but saw nothing.

Vena turned as well, but her vision was empty. There was no sound, no movement; everything was normal.

Even her Wind-Whisper perception detected no disturbance in the airflow. The master scout saw absolutely nothing!

Had Wang Yu misjudged? The thought barely formed before the axe arrived.

The angle of the throw shouldn't have allowed it to reach its target, but Wang Yu had launched it diagonally toward the carriage roof.

The axe spun violently, struck an invisible barrier, and rebounded at a sharp angle, forced toward its mark.

By modifying his sorcery to create a remote barrier, Wang Yu had forcibly altered the axe's trajectory, ensuring it struck the hidden target instead of the carriage.

The axe moved with blinding speed, and as Vena’s pupils contracted, it paused for a fraction of a second in mid-air before passing through. When it emerged, the blade was coated in green blood!

What was there?! A warning siren screamed in Vena’s mind, yet she still could not perceive a thing.

Her hearing, sight, and even her keen sense of smell told her the space was empty, yet Wang Yu’s axe had struck something invisible!

Her eyes narrowed; invisible did not mean untouchable. Green light flared in her hands—Nature's Whisper: Embrace of Thorns—consuming the last of her mana to manifest a burst of green light between Elliott and herself.

Wang Yu’s warning made it clear the enemy’s target was Elliott, so the invisible foe must be behind him!

Sure enough, as the light erupted into a web of tangible thorns, Vena saw indentations on the surface of the net! Those marks—were there three invisible goblins?

Before she could think, two of the indentations vanished, leaving only one trapped in the net; the others had likely been killed by Wang Yu’s axe.

The moment they vanished, Vena lost their trail again, her bow arm freezing, unsure of where to aim.

Three events unfolded almost at the very same instant.

Wang Yu’s second shout arrived: "Avia, roof, storm wall!"

Before the words had even settled, the wind began to gather atop the carriage.

The moment the gale coalesced, Elliot’s heavy iron armor was pierced by two invisible blades as if it were mere parchment.

Two sudden punctures tore through the goblin’s defenses behind his breastplate, and blood began to spill instantly.

Amidst Elliot’s shrieks, Wenna’s arrow flew true, burying itself into the unseen foe and revealing its position through the impact.

Yet Wenna had only time for one shot; the other invisible assailant, untouched, launched its next strike—this time at the throat.

On the neck guard of Elliot’s armor, a hole formed silently in a heartbeat, the intangible blade slicing through metal far thinner than the chest plate.

If the chest wound meant heavy bleeding, this puncture to the fragile neck armor threatened a severed artery.

But that slight delay was enough for Avia to complete her storm wall, an unbidden tempest erupting on the roof, covering it in a violent updraft.

Even the lithe Wenna was lifted from the ground, leaving only the heavy-armored Elliot unaffected; his sheer weight kept him anchored despite the raging winds.

The invisible enemy attempting to pierce his throat was swept away as well, and the widening of the neck wound ceased instantly.

Elliot was paralyzed with terror, the pain of his bleeding neck setting in, yet the inability to feel the blade that caused it was a truly harrowing sensation.

A longsword carved an arc through the air, slamming into something unseen and pinning it down, falling from the sky along with its victim as the storm wall subsided.

Wang Yu held his throwing stance, squinting toward where the sword had fallen; even now, he could not see the enemy, but his ripple detection sensed three grotesque goblins.

During the skirmish, his ripples had suddenly picked up three goblins moving with eerie stealth, daggers gripped in their hands as they scrambled onto the roof.

Yet Wenna, Elliot, and Emon had ignored them entirely, and when he turned back in confusion, he realized that to his own naked eye, these goblins did not exist at all.

Sensing the danger, he had shouted a warning to Wenna and Elliot—the target of their malice—while hurling his axe to intervene, cleaving the nearest invisible goblin in two.

Wenna’s thorn net had ensnared the other two.

Wang Yu had barely exhaled when the goblins’ mouths gaped wide, as if screaming something he could not hear, though his ripples perceived it clearly.

The two invisible goblins, daggers in hand, passed straight through the thorn net and struck at Elliot.

In the urgency of the moment, Wang Yu recalled Elliot’s weight and called for Avia’s storm wall; the girl was swift, casting instantly—had she been a second slower, Elliot might have been finished.

"What are these things, eek!" Elliot’s belated scream followed, the timid goblin thoroughly shaken.

Looking back, the remaining goblins began to shriek and flee; these fearless little green-skins were actually terrified?

It was for the best; Wang Yu had no time to dally, for he had to uncover the nature of these invisible creatures.

Leaping onto the carriage, he ignored the wailing yet clearly spirited Elliot and rushed to where the invisible foes had been struck, finding Wenna already staring at the ground.

Wang Yu looked down, discovering that the two enemies pinned by the arrow and sword had not yet materialized, remaining both invisible and intangible.

Only the lower half of a goblin, severed at the waist, lay on the roof, green blood splattered everywhere.

Wang Yu looked at the upper torso, still hidden from the naked eye; through his inner vision, the creature was not yet dead.

It clutched a dagger, its lips moving in a rapid, fading chant as its life force ebbed away, the frantic twitching of its mouth slowing.

Then, Wang Yu and Wenna finally caught sight of the torso as it began to manifest.

As the goblin’s chanting slowed, its body appeared as if from thin air, shifting from invisible to translucent, then finally to solid form upon the roof.

Its face was hideous and twisted, a gleaming steel spike driven through the crown of its skull.

A grotesque, mocking grin remained on its face, white foam spraying as it frantically repeated its final words, even as death claimed it.

As it solidified and became visible, its delirious murmurs became audible.

"Great Lord of Night, Mother of Darkness, I praise your name, I wish to dissolve into the night, I wish to become the endless black that exists not in this world, I am your devotee, I beg for your gaze, I long to hear your voice..."