The second Kael clocked that little green midget above her, she swung upward in a clean horizontal slash and snapped the branch it was perched on clean off.
—Who the hell is scared of goblins? —Any barked, breathing heavy while clutching his shoulder, still leaking from that damn thirty-centimeter arrow.
—No clue. But if I were you, I'd start swinging —Dio shot back, then casually said "Monsters" out loud, and a pack of Velociraptors burst out of his back like it was just another Tuesday.
—Yeah, fine, Dio's got a point. This pain's messing with my head… Okay. PLAGA —Any muttered, triggering that divergent flow.
And just like that, the fight kicked off.
Anyael rushed forward. He'd already ripped the arrow out of his shoulder, and the wound was closing up fast. The shock was fading. Or maybe he just didn't care anymore. Same thing.
He scanned the field.
Kael was the first one he spotted. She'd already dropped about twelve of those things with Marea and was now tearing through the biggest cluster with Azote, blades flashing like she was pruning weeds.
Dio was handling a different breed. Bigger goblins. Heavy armor. Bulkier. Basically super goblins.
So Any did what he did best. Focused on his lane.
This wasn't a chess match. It was brute force season. Which meant he could let his brain enjoy its favorite hobby, doing absolutely nothing, while his body handled business.
He spotted a goblin gripping a knife about the size of a phone.
Yeah. Time to hunt.
He lunged.
His fingers hardened, turning hyper-dense, almost claw-like. One clean motion. Throat gone.
—One down.
He was already moving before the body hit the ground.
The goblin standing next to the freshly deceased? Same fate.
—Two down.
The slaughter rolled on for about two and a half minutes straight. No pause. No speeches. Just bodies dropping.
By the time Any pushed through to the main cluster, he saw the robed goblins, the "mages" looking types charging something up. Archers repositioning. The armored brutes Dio had been clashing with earlier.
And then he saw it.
That's when he understood why this zone was called Nightmare.
What used to be dense forest with a few open clearings had twisted itself into a full-blown fortress. Walls. Towers. Bastion energy. Like every bad dream decided to manifest at once.
This bootleg little castle, as Any mentally labeled it, gave the green bastards an absurd advantage. It was like a bunch of street punks trying to storm medieval royalty in their own fortress. That kind of messed up.
Yeah. This was bad.
So they regrouped.
Because despite appearances, they weren't idiots.
They huddled while arrows rained down around them.
—Okay, here's the plan… I think —Kael said, not fully convinced herself—. First, Dio's our tank. Yeah, you're the meat shield. With that weird card deck thing, you block long-range attacks and flood the field with Velociraptors to keep them distracted. If it was just arrows, I'd handle it solo. But those robed little dudes? I'm calling it, they're mages. And seriously, who's scared of wizard goblins? —she laughed a little unhinged, easing the tension just enough.
—As for me, I'll focus on intercepting arrows and pulling aggro from the melee ones with Dio's dinos. And you, Any? You're finally gonna use that grass sword of yours. That's what it's there for.
As she said that, Any stared at the slim green bracelet on his left wrist like he had completely forgotten it even existed.
—and you're gonna infiltrate. Cut them down from the inside.
—Alright team, any questions? No? Cool —Kael said, already moving, fully ignoring the raised hands from both Dio and Anyael.
—Yeah, sure. Let's get to work —Dio muttered, slightly annoyed.
Meanwhile, inside his own head, Any thought:
"Wow. My favorite activity. Thinking.
Man… kill me."