They were on the verge of breaking. The endless wave of shrieking goblins pressed in from all sides. It was a suffocating tide of crude clubs and snarling faces.
Eric's shield arm was bleeding freely, Jin's leg was slowing him down, and Erica's breath came in ragged gasps, her mana dangerously low.
For every goblin they struck down, two more seemed to take its place. They couldn't win by wearing them down.
But Dante never planned to fight fair.
A cold, clear thought washed over him. He couldn't fight them himself, but he didn't need to. He had an army waiting to be born. He just needed the materials.
"Erica! Masha!" he roared over the chaos, his voice cutting through their desperate struggle. "Focus your fire on the area directly in front of Jin! Don't spread it out! Give me a pile of corpses!"
They looked at him, their eyes wide with confusion and panic, but they trusted him. It was a massive risk. Concentrating their attacks meant leaving their sides dangerously open.
"Jin! Eric! Hold that line for ten seconds, no matter what! Talia, plug any gaps!"
They responded instantly. Jin and Eric braced themselves, becoming a wall of steel and resolve. Erica gathered the last of her strength and unleashed a torrent of fire.
It wasn't a controlled fireball, but a roaring wave of flame that washed over the goblins charging the center.
At the same time, Masha slammed her hands on the ground, and a forest of jagged ice spikes erupted in the same area, stabbing those that survived the fire.
For a few horrifying seconds, their defenses buckled. Goblins surged past the kill zone, and Talia became a blur, her rapier darting out to meet them.
Her Kinetic Eye allowed her to stop the most immediate threats. But the plan worked. In front of Jin and Eric lay a smoldering, frozen pile of at least a dozen goblin bodies.
That was all he needed.
"Now!" Dante yelled, stepping forward. He stretched out his hand, and for the first time, he didn't just watch the battle he joined it.
He reached for his power, not with his mind, but with his soul. A cold, black energy, like liquid shadow, coiled in his chest. It felt hungry.
He pushed that energy out, pouring it into the pile of the dead.
The air grew frigid. The ground beneath the corpses darkened as if stained by ink. Then, with a series of sickening sounds, the dead goblins began to move.
Snap. Crack.
Their heads jerked up, their broken limbs dragging them to their feet. Their eyes, once black and beady, now glowed with a dead, violet light. They were no longer goblins; they were his puppets.
The living goblins froze. Their screeching faded, replaced by whimpers of terror and confusion. They stared as their fallen brothers, now moved by his dark will, turned to face them.
"Kill them," Dante commanded, the words echoing with a power that was not his own.
His new undead army surged forward.
They felt no pain, no fear. A goblin swung its club, shattering the arm of one of the puppets, but the undead creature simply kept coming, tearing at its former ally with its remaining hand.
They were terrifyingly effective.
The battle turned in an instant. It was no longer ten of them against a horde. It was a chaotic war between the living and the dead, with his team as the killers.
"Now we attack!" he yelled. "Press the advantage!"
Re-energized by the sudden shift, the team launched a fierce counterattack. Jin fought alongside one of the undead, using the mindless puppet as a shield to block a blow before spinning out to gut another goblin.
Erica, laughing with grim satisfaction, could now unleash her fire more recklessly, blasting parts of the battlefield without fear of hitting her allies. His puppets were disposable.
Masha froze a group of goblins solid, and one of the undead minions simply charged forward, shattering their frozen forms like glass.
Talia danced through the chaos, her blade finding the throat of every goblin distracted by the horrifying sight of their reanimated family.
The goblins, horrified by this dark magic and overwhelmed by the combined attack, finally broke. Their courage shattered. They dropped their weapons and fled in every direction.
"No survivors," Dante commanded, his voice cold. "Hunt them down."
What followed was a slaughter. His undead puppets, who felt no exhaustion, ran down the fleeing goblins while his team picked off any that were left.
Within minutes, the grove was silent, save for the crackling of lingering flames and the ragged breathing of the team. The ground was littered with bodies.
As Dante released his hold on them, his dozen undead puppets collapsed, once again becoming lifeless heaps of flesh. The cost was small, a slight drain on his own energy, but the reward was huge.
As the adrenaline faded, they stood among the dead. They were wounded and exhausted, but they had won.
From every dead goblin, a wisp of pure energy began to rise, filling the air with a faint, shimmering haze. There were nearly forty of them.
"The Goddess told us how to get stronger," Dante said, his voice echoing in the quiet grove. "This is our reward. Absorb it. All of it."
One by one, they focused, drawing in the energy of the dead.
The feeling was incredible. It was a warm, powerful rush that flooded their bodies. It refilled their lost energy, sealed their minor cuts and bruises, and made their powers stronger.
It felt like drinking from a fountain of pure life after wandering through a desert.
They stood there for a long time, letting the power settle within them. They had faced their first true test and emerged not just as survivors, but as stronger predators.
This was their first harvest, and Dante knew it would not be their last.