The goblin leader Glack yanked open the tent flap and rushed out.

Behind him, the old shaman leaned on his staff;

he looked frail but moved with surprising speed to keep up.

Outside the tent, the camp had already become a chaotic mess—thick black smoke billowed and mixed with dust, while the ground was stained with glaring blood and the mutilated bodies of goblins.

Had some unknown creature attacked the camp?

The mass deaths of their kin spread panic through the goblin ranks like a plague.

“Enemy attack! Enemy attack!!” An alert elite goblin screamed hoarsely, trying to rally the disordered tribe.

Before Glack could even make out the situation or give orders, a second terrifying explosion followed.

“BOOM!!!”

This blast erupted even closer to the camp’s interior.

It seemed to have hit a storage area piled with combustibles.

Fueled by the ignition, a massive fireball shot skyward! The scorching blast wave hurled surrounding tents like toys, ripping them apart. Ordinary goblins, unable to dodge, were flung like broken dolls—limbs and entrails scattered everywhere.

Falling rocks crashed down from above, and under the pull of gravity many goblins were crushed on the spot.

A heavy char smell spread through the camp.

“Waaah!!”

“Yarrrr!”

Lighting burning materials in a confined space was horrifyingly effective.

A brutal disaster descended on the goblins with no warning.

The two explosions killed many goblins instantly.

Even some elite goblins were unfortunate enough to perish.

“Everyone freeze!”

The goblin leader Glack roared. At his side, the old shaman swung his staff and a halo of light swept across the goblins.

Something miraculous happened.

Those who had been wailing, clutching their heads and fleeing in terror suddenly calmed as if forcibly sedated, obeying the shaman’s command to stand their ground.

Glack finally had a clear look at the camp’s condition.

His gaze slid over the fallen and torn-apart ordinary goblins without lingering.

Only when he saw several larger elite goblins did a painful expression flash across his face.

Those were the core forces of their expedition.

Ordinary goblins could be replaced by recruiting new ones;

as long as there were enough elites, they could use strong whips and fists to control the foolish wild tribe members.

But the loss of elite goblins could not be made up quickly.

A few nights ago, a night raid had already cost them many elites;

now this explosion made their already thin ranks even worse.

Even Glack felt his vision dim and his head spin, then a surge of rage erupted from his chest.

Tasked by the Blackfang Tribe, he had brought supplies and a mission. If he failed to complete orders from above, such losses were unacceptable.

“Glack, Glack.” The old shaman’s hoarse voice trembled with unprecedented urgency, rousing the leader stunned by anger and loss.

“The camp exit’s been blasted shut! Rubble’s blocked the passage!”

The shaman’s staff pointed toward the camp’s outer side shrouded in smoke and dust—the natural fissure that had served as an entrance and exit to the valley was now completely sealed by fallen rocks and explosions.

Not knowing how much enemy fire there was or where they were hiding, they had to move quickly to a more open outdoor area.

Otherwise this once-hidden refuge would become their grave.

Glack snapped awake, reason overriding rage.

“Kaga!” Glack spun his head, his blood-red eyes fixing on the bat knight who had just staggered up from the ground. “You useless thing! This is your chance to redeem yourself! Can your bat still fly?”

Kaga flinched and hurriedly nodded. Although his mount had been frightened by the explosion and its wings were scraped, it could still fly and had returned beside him.

“Fly out through the vent above right now!” Glack bellowed, pointing at a fissure near the top of the valley used for smoke exhaust.

“See how many enemies are outside! Find out where they’re hiding. Harass them with your throwing spear, draw their attention, buy us time.”

This was the only way to gather external intelligence and mount a counterattack.

The air control and mobility of the bat knight Kaga were critical at this moment.

“B-but, chief, outside might be that guy.” Kaga remembered Gauss’s terror and instinctively felt dread.

Since its last escape, it had lost the courage to face Gauss.

“If you don’t go, you die right now!” Glack roared, his huge hand crushing Kaga’s head. “Now’s when you perform.”

Kaga shivered and dared not speak further;

it scrambled to its bat mount.

Glack then turned sharply to the remaining shaken elite goblins and roared, “What are you waiting for? Order those pups to grab tools and weapons and start digging out the passage!”

Under the shaman’s near-control calming spell, the surviving goblins were quickly organized;

they grabbed shovels and pickaxes and began digging the piled rubble at the exit.

The valley filled with frantic digging and pounding sounds.

Meanwhile, Kaga had mounted his huge bat.

Perhaps Glack’s roar briefly shattered the fear inside him.

He pulled the reins hard;

the bat shrieked and beat its wings, launching toward the fissure at the valley’s top.

The bat deftly wove through the crack—this was the advantage of a bat mount over other flying units;

it could shuttle through narrow caves and canyons.

Kaga sat tightly in the saddle as sunlight poured into the fissure above, growing blinding.

“There’s nothing to fear. He’s just an ordinary human—our food.”

He swallowed phlegm.

Warm sunlight bathed him, giving him warmth and strength.

In that moment, he felt bold again.

We goblins are born raiders—humans are just prey!

He forced Gauss’s cold figure from his mind, trying to reclaim his former hunting ferocity.

Finally, he broke through the darkness of the fissure and burst into the open sky!

Warm sunlight fully enveloped him, returning him to the wide heavens!

In the sun, he recovered his lost courage.

He seemed to have become the spirited sky knight Kaga once more!

But the bat, suddenly transitioning from dark to bright, staggered and hovered for a moment to adjust.

Taking advantage of that pause, Kaga looked down to search for possible enemies.

Suddenly a dazzling flash stabbed his eyes.

He squinted to focus, but the brilliant light rapidly expanded in his frozen vision!

Not right!

It was an ambush!!

From a high slope, a spear-like giant bolt had been fired from a massive ballista exuding deadly intent.

“SHATTER!!!” A dull, powerful boom echoed through the valley.

The black arrowhead gleamed coldly in the sun.

It was closing in at an unbelievable speed!!!

Kaga tried to pull the reins, but it was too late.

The planned attack came too fast.

Even the sequence of bursting out of the fissure, bathing in sunlight, psyching himself up, spotting the enemy, and then freezing in fear—all that seemed long to him but actually happened in the blink of an eye—and the strike still arrived at an almost impossible-to-dodge speed.

There was no time to react.

The next instant he heard the metallic thud of metal into flesh;

warm red blood splashed across his green cheek.

The giant bolt struck the bat mount’s chest precisely;

the immense kinetic force tore through its skin, muscle, organs, and bone, exiting the other side and driving out a spray of hot blood and shattered tissue, pinning it clean through.

“Aaah—!!!”

The bat let out a wail of agony and its wings instantly stopped beating.

Its body was jerked back by the bolt, then began to fall helplessly.

Kaga, in the saddle, was spun by the massive loss of weight and dizziness;

by a survival instinct he jerked the reins upward at the last moment.

The wounded bat flapped frantically in pain, then tumbled like a leaf in autumn into the forest below.

Thud!

Branches cracked along the way;

dust billowed.

After a long while, Kaga, bloodied and with a split head, regained consciousness from the dizzying blow;

blood filled his eye sockets, blurring his vision.

The world had turned blood-red, like a scene from hell.

He braced on his elbows and tried to sit up from the cold bat’s back when a shadow suddenly blocked the sunlight before him.

A black boot pressed down on his chest.

“Puh!”

The goblin spat blood.

He looked up at the boot’s owner and finally recognized that face through the sun and his blurred, bloody vision.

It was a terrifying face—ugly, grim, ferocious—covered with scales that made his soul tremble, as if all light were being devoured by the man standing over him.

This was how Kaga saw Gauss—no different from a demon.

Kaga’s heart felt squeezed by an icy giant hand;

his green face twisted with asphyxia and terror.

He had run away, yet it seemed his fate could not be escaped—he lay beneath him.

“Waaah!”

Kaga flailed his arms in vain, trying to grab something.

But Gauss’s speed was faster;

his calm, untroubled gaze watched the struggling goblin’s every movement.

Crunch!

Both of Kaga’s arms snapped under the forceful stomp, like broken branches.

Then his legs followed.

Amid Kaga’s agonized screams, Gauss drove his shining rapier in;

with a wrist flick he tore at its tongue.

“Ugh... cough cough”

Even so, the goblin bat knight did not die immediately.

The top-tier strength of an elite monster made its life tenacity far greater than expected.

Gauss’s rapier, Windrunner, lifted the bat knight’s leather armor and sliced open its belly, pulling out the last alchemical bomb;

the fuel and a tiny clay spider used as a trigger were stuffed into the goblin’s warm abdomen.

Under the magician’s brief spell, the wound was quickly stitched closed.

Through the process the goblin kept wailing and begging for mercy, but Gauss showed no pity.

A simple reasoning dominated him.

If the poles were reversed, would the goblins spare humans?

Those who died in Lawrence’s Camp must have struggled fiercely before they perished, right?

So for humans, only dead goblins are the best goblins.

Inside the valley camp.

The goblin tribe—unaware of the outside—continued frantically digging.

There had been no further explosions for a long time, and nothing interfered with the excavation of the exit, so leader Glack gradually relaxed his alertness.

“Looks like that useless Kaga did hold off the enemy.”

“As long as...”

As long as he could get out.

No matter whether the enemy was the human named Gauss, he swore he would tear the enemy apart and eat him alive!

Thinking of such heavy losses, uncontrollable rage welled up inside him.

“Bang! Bang!”

Strange impacts came from overhead.

He looked up toward the distant upper slope.

A familiar figure rebounded off fissure stones several times and slammed onto the open ground.

“It’s Kaga!”

His eyes widened.

Kaga had been defeated by the enemy?

Worthless!

Glack and the old shaman walked over to Kaga, just about to ask what had happened outside.

Kaga, still barely breathing below, suddenly convulsed violently, emitting an incomprehensible roar.

The old shaman reached out to grab Glack.

The next instant, dazzling red light blazed from within Kaga’s body.

No good! A bomb!

Glack’s heart stopped.

Intense red light and heat erupted from Kaga’s dying body.

The blaze was so fierce it consumed Kaga’s form and turned him into a blinding humanoid torch!

“No—!” Glack only managed a shocked, enraged roar.

“BOOOOM!!”

The old shaman’s staff was still stuck in the ground and the dark shield he had tried to raise had not formed when the alchemical bomb’s firepower engulfed everything.

Too close!

At such near range the alchemical bomb detonated completely!

The third and most deafening explosion ripped through the valley camp.

The horrific shockwave hurled Kaga’s blood and flesh and metal shards into a spherical spray, wildly radiating outward.

The fragile dark shield the old shaman hastily raised cracked like glass and shattered instantly!

Glack, at the forefront, suffered the worst.

He reacted quickly and retreated while covering his head and face with his arms, but the destructive force still slammed into him.

Scorching heat and sharp fragments embedded in his flesh;

the enormous impact tossed him through the air.

He knocked over several fire pits and stunned goblins in his path before crashing heavily against a rock wall and coming to a stop.

Ugh!

Glack spat a great mouthful of blood;

his chest was a bloody mess and searing pain made him lose consciousness.

Just before blacking out, he recalled Kaga’s terrified face.

A final wave of remorse swept through him.

He still couldn’t understand—if it really was that human named Gauss, how had he so easily discovered this camp?

Humans shouldn’t be able to find it...

Glack’s consciousness cut off and he fell into unconsciousness.

The remaining goblins, having lost their leader, completely collapsed.

They threw down their tools and weapons and ran like headless flies through the smoke-filled, blood-smeared camp, screaming in panic and losing all reason.

Amid the chaos,

burning logs began to fall from the fissures overhead.

High heat, poisonous gas, and black smoke quickly spread through the confined valley camp.

Logs soaked in sticky fuel fell like small meteors onto tents, piles of supplies, and panicked goblins, instantly igniting more fires.

The thick smoke carried a sharp, eye-watering stench—the paralyzing toxins mixed by the pixies—able to erode every goblin’s nerves and stamina as the fumes invaded them.

The entire valley turned into a furnace of despair, heating up and filling with poisonous smoke.

Outside the mountains, Gauss watched the rapidly jumping numbers in front of him;

even his heartbeat involuntarily quickened.

This round paid off!