The four collapsed onto the ground, breathing heavily.
Ron looked up, sweat mixing with dirt on his scaled skin.
He expected Elius to scold them.
To tell them they were sloppy.
To say they weren't ready.
But when he looked…
Elius was floating again—this time sitting atop one of his swords.
He hovered a few feet off the ground, arms crossed, his robe gently swaying in the dungeon's faint breeze.
He didn't speak.
Didn't move.
Didn't even look at them directly.
He was calm. Cold. Distant.
Ron stared in confusion.
"...Sorry," he said, lowering his head. "I… we thought we were ready."
Elius didn't respond.
He only nodded once.
No judgment.
No words.
Just a quiet, reserved acknowledgment.
The four were shocked. Buy still…
Shiro stood, blood running down his arm, and bowed slightly. "Forgive me. I failed to protect Klee on time."
Lina, still panting, looked at her hands. "I wasn't… fast enough."
"I ran out of juice…" Klee whispered, voice trembling. "I'm sorry, Elius…"
Again, Elius nodded to each of them. Not coldly. But not warmly either. Like a teacher watching students fail and succeed at the same time.
It was almost worse than scolding.
Ron scratched the back of his head. "Let's go back to four…"
Elius blinked slowly, then raised a hand.
With a snap of his fingers, his swords screamed across the air.
Another goblin group—farther down the hall—was decimated before it could react. Arms severed. Heads flying. Blood spraying across the cave walls.
But again—four were left alive.
The rest were dead.
Elius hovered above them, lowering gently to the ground, the sword under him dissolving into qi.
The four stared at the remaining goblins.
They felt a little more confident.
The pain from earlier still pulsed in their bones, but they believed they could manage.
They stepped forward—battle-worn but steadier.
The goblins howled, and the second fight began.
But this time—it was different.
The goblins were even fiercer.
Their movements were less savage and more disciplined.
One of them used a chain to bind Ron's leg mid-lunge.
Another parried Shiro's clone and stabbed it in the neck before ducking behind cover.
One hurled a javelin at Klee that forced Lina to phase into its path and absorb the hit, screaming as the weapon passed through her semi-tangible body.
It was chaos.
The goblins surrounded them faster.
They had formations.
They had tactics.
One of them even spoke in a garbled language, barking commands.
Klee was knocked off her feet and nearly trampled. Shiro dove in and grabbed her, barely shielding her from a crude blade.
Lina flickered behind a goblin and slammed her ghostly fist into its chest, only for another goblin to blindside her with a rock.
Ron was bleeding from his jaw.
He bit down on a goblin's arm and flung it into a wall, but three others were already closing in.
It wasn't just hard.
It was survival.
It was a trial.
They were cracking.
And then—just when Shiro's leg gave out and Klee had no more strength left to heal—a massive, earth-shaking ROAR bellowed from deep within the cave.
The sound thundered through the air like an avalanche.
The goblins froze mid-fight.
So did the four.
Elius opened his eyes—slowly. His gaze turned toward the black corridors ahead.
The roar echoed again.
Louder.
Closer.
Something massive was coming.
The shaking began subtly—like a distant breath rolling through the earth.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
Small stones rolled along the cracked ground. And then it intensified.
RMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMBBBB
Ron blinked, looking down at his clawed feet as they lost balance. "What the hell…"
Shiro narrowed his eyes, body tense, reaching for a smoke bomb. "Something's coming."
Klee backed closer to the others, her glowing green aura flickering. "I feel something... massive... I can't heal this... I can't…"
Lina looked toward Elius, half-expecting some form of reassurance.
But Elius didn't move.
Still floating slightly above the ground, his legs crossed and his robe fluttering in the subtle energy drafts of the dungeon, he remained still. Cold. Silent. A statue carved from stillness and power.
The trembling deepened.
From deep within the tunnel ahead, shadows began to twitch. Not single silhouettes, but countless tiny, twitching forms. And then—
The sound came.
Not one voice. Not two.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Screeching, chittering, murmuring.
Tiny voices like nails on stone. Like claws dragging over bones. They whispered, howled, muttered in a language that bled madness. The screeching rose like a tide—layered and sharp, growing louder, angrier, more alive.
"Those aren't just goblins," Lina murmured, eyes wide. "There's too many…"
The ground cracked.
The cave walls wept dust.
The pressure in the air turned heavy—like gravity had doubled in weight.
A shadow began to form at the far end of the tunnel.
A figure too wide for the passage.
The ceiling groaned as it bent around its form.
Then—a sound.
SSSHINK—CRACK!
The four goblins still alive before them dropped.
Instantly.
Four clean, precise incisions—across their throats, hearts, temples, and necks.
Their heads rolled.
Their bodies collapsed.
The four turned their heads in unison—eyes falling on Elius.
He hadn't moved a muscle.
But five of his flying swords were already back around him, blood steaming on their cold surfaces.
He hadn't even looked at the goblins.
Just erased them.
As if they were irrelevant.
The silence lasted one heartbeat.
Then—BOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!
The back wall of the cave split open like a cracked egg.
Debris flew.
Dust clouded the air.
The tremor became a quake. And through the settling fog, they saw it.
A figure.
A monster.
A goblin.
But no ordinary goblin.
It was massive.
Easily four meters tall. Muscles like boulders strapped to a skeleton far too thick to be human.
Its skin wasn't just green—it was blackened in certain parts, veined with pulsing red lines that glowed like magma. Its eyes were burning coals.
Its mouth was lined with jagged tusks. Iron plates were nailed into its shoulders like armor—crude, rusted, and yet terrifyingly effective.
It carried a club.
No—a slab of metal.
Twisted from some ancient war, shaped into a weapon longer than Ron was tall.
But it wasn't just the massive goblin that made their spines freeze.
It was what followed behind it.
An army.
Hundreds—maybe more.
Goblins of all sizes and types. Some carried spears. Others wielded bows.
Some were half-naked, smeared in war paint.
Others wore stitched armor.
They snarled and banged weapons together, screaming curses in their twisted tongue.
The air suffocated.
The massive goblin said nothing.
It didn't roar.
It didn't charge.
It simply looked at them.
A stare so deep, so devoid of humanity, it carved through flesh and bone like a knife.
Its head tilted slightly.
The horde behind it howled as if given permission.
Then they charged.
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
The cave immediately exploded with their movement.
The goblin horde surged forward like a tsunami of flesh and fury.
Claws slashed stone.
Feet stomped bone.
They came from every direction—like ants across a corpse.
They shrieked and jumped and twisted, a tide of shrieking hatred.
Klee screamed.
Ron stepped forward, already shifting into his full raptor form, eyes wild.
Shiro vanished into smoke, dragging Lina to cover.
And Elius… raised one finger.
The swords flew.
WHHHHRRRRRRHHHHHHHMMMMM!
Five of them.
Slicing across the cave like bolts of divine wrath.
Each blade moved with terrifying precision.
One cleaved through ten goblins in a single pass—torsos erupting, heads flying.
Another tore through a wall, ricocheting and stabbing three goblins in the heart.
A third darted through the air like a serpent, severing legs and hands.
Each sword painted the cave red.
Screams erupted.
The goblins faltered.
Some turned to flee—tripping over one another, clawing backward.
But the swords didn't stop.
They tore the ranks apart—one slash at a time.
Ron leapt in to finish off any that made it through.
Shiro's clones zipped in and out of the chaos, stabbing what the swords missed.
Klee's healing pulses became waves—keeping them standing, pushing them on.
Lina's ghost form zipped between goblins, sowing confusion, breaking ranks.
But the primary force—
Was Elius.
He floated forward slowly—one sword beneath him, four behind.
The trail of corpses left in his wake was monstrous.
The horde began to scream in fear.
Some goblins turned tail and fled toward the giant for protection.
But even they weren't spared.
The swords caught them mid-flight.
Blood rained.
Organs splashed the stone.
The horde broke.
Terrified goblins scattered like rats.
They screamed, huddled, some throwing down their weapons and covering their faces.
It was no longer a battle.
It was a massacre.
And yet…
The giant goblin remained.
Unmoving.
It watched the carnage with still, burning eyes.
Unshaken.
Unmoved.
Its expression remained blank—as if this slaughter meant nothing.
Elius raised his hand again.
All five swords turned and aimed.
At the giant.
There was no warning.
No buildup.
SHINK—WHOOOOM!
All five swords screamed forward.
The air warped around them from the force.
They collided with the giant's chest.
Not one.
Not two.
All five—each one capable of killing elite monsters—struck flesh.
And stuck.
Thunk. Thunk. THUNK!
The swords didn't go through.
They embedded halfway into the massive goblin's chest, its arms, its shoulders—each blade quivering violently from impact, but failing to pierce through completely.
The giant didn't scream.
It didn't move.
It just tilted its head again, looking down at the swords sticking out of its body—like an adult looking at insects trying to burrow into skin.
Its eyes rose again.
And this time—they looked directly at Elius.