Read Novel Full Chapter 173: Devastation
Chapter 173: Devastation
Fighting 40 Emergent foes with a weaker and lesser force seemed like a recipe for disaster, but nothing had gone south yet
Salome had taken a few blows and a few more of her quills had been rendered useless, but that was the worst of it.
Before she could jinx it further, Salome thought to herself:
’It’s about time for something to go wrong...’
Salome was beginning another loop after picking off a few more when she noticed five of the Ashen Vilkas, the Emergent Monsters, peeling away from the mob, heading further in.
’Shit... there it is.’
Salome wished she could follow, but that would only make matters worse if she led the main group of invaders to everyone else. She saw it best to trust her allies and focus on distracting this force.
’Reaper, you better make up for your mistakes.’
As if he’d heard her, a mini Mias corporealized and spoke from her shoulder:
"I’ll handle it."
Though Salome wasn’t sure how well Mias would fare when already down to half power, and that power was currently spread thin.
***
Toy looked over at Mias with a sharp expression, before turning to face the end of the corridor they’d positioned in.
’If Mias is here—’ fully formed.
That meant something bad was coming their way...
Something strong.
Toy could hear the distant sounds of a clash echoing through the dungeon.
Soon, a snarling sound overtook the fading clangs.
Five towering dark grey wolves swerved around the bend and appeared before the Legion of Lust.
The beasts’ eyes danced upon the warriors with predatory intensity...
They could sense an easy prey.
Even Toy, an Emergent herself, must have looked like a mere meal as one’s voracious glare shifted to her.
Toy’s [Sixth Sense] was screaming at her to run.
Like a ghost was pulling at her soul and begging her to flee.
A cold dread tickled her nerves. A bead of sweat formed on her head and clung to her hair. Her palms grew hot and sticky as she clutched the dagger tighter.
A metallic smell permeated from the blood clinging to the Monsters’ fur coats.
It was a smell that reminded Toy of the time her intestines had been swiveled around by a knife. It reminded her of the pain. The agony.
It reminded her of the field of her comrades’ corpses she’d had to pluck off the ground, then unceremoniously toss into the ravine to hide their bodies.
Dread. Her soul and body screamed of pure existential dread.
The honest goblin only made one move in the face of this oppressive pressure.
She faced her charging foes and lifted her dagger.
Mias shouted:
"Alpha, now!"
Alpha stepped forward and planted the tower shield, activating the enchantment upon it.
All five Ashen Vilkas lumbered in their charge — staggering around, shaking their snouts.
Mias looked back and yelled at Diana:
"Charge it to your maximum!"
The bottom half of Mias transformed into smoke, and he floated next to Alpha, just behind the tower shield alongside Edith and her entire squad of 15.
Toy herself stayed a little away from that pack; her job was to kill while the others distracted.
The opposite of which they had been doing for the regular Vilkas and the three Naga that had come through.
Mias would typically have taken the same role as Toy, but the fact that he didn’t... ’Means he doesn’t trust they’ll be able to hold out without him.’
Alpha deactivated the shield when she had to raise it to block an attack.
It was as the shriek of metal skittered to her ear that Toy activated [Featherweight] and charged the wolf closest to her.
The wolf snarled as the corners of its lips rose. Glee was consuming it; its prey was coming to it.
Toy jumped toward the ceiling. As she ascended, she looked down upon the scene from above to get a better feel for the battle. She’d also take the time to assess her opponents.
Two of the wolves were assaulting Alpha, but each time they clashed, Edith and her squadron would prod them back with spears.
The wolf Toy had her eyes set on was lagging behind the pack.
The two remaining were going after the archers, completely ignoring Mias as if he weren’t there.
Well, they responded to his attacks, but they never even tried to bite or claw him.
Of course, that meant Mias was able to attack somewhat freely, but the wolves seemed to be giving him a hard time as one would run as the other charged, giving Mias the choice of chase and stop defending the archers or defend the archers and keep him from exercising his full power...
Toy didn’t know exactly how intelligent the Vilkas were, but even mad, they weren’t stupid.
Their actions were not accidental.
Toy’s legs finally touched the ceiling, and she stared into the beady eyes of the isolated wolf.
’This is like my special attack, huh?’
Regaining her weight, Toy kicked off the ceiling and shot headfirst toward the Ashen Vilkas, leading with her dagger as she fell.
Having used this attack a plethora of times, and it failing more than half, it was time Toy did some remodeling to her go-to. Especially now that she was Emergent and her strength had multiplied.
The wolf slung its claw on a collision course with Toy’s throat.
Toy closed her eyes and honed in on [Sixth Sense].
While the ability was always active, it was, in a sense, restrained. It gave her a warning of environmental changes and their causes, guiding her decision-making — as well as boosting her instincts.
But the opponent had to begin their movement before she could react.
However, when she closed her eyes and truly honed on using her Trait, the level at which she could process amplified.
Instead of feeling the slight change in windflow created by the twitch of a muscle, she could sense the muscle’s order to be moved before it received it itself.
Focusing, Toy could feel the slight unhinging of the wolf’s maw and its palm opening.
It’s not like she was reading its Aether, but instead something much more basic.
She could read a faint electrical pulse from the brain, rippling through its nerves a fraction of a second before the muscles obeyed.
Toy didn’t entirely understand what she perceived or why it allowed her to predict a movement, but she could nonetheless.
As the Vilkas’s claws began to spread apart and inch toward Toy’s neck, Toy recalled her outstretched dagger.
Activating [Featherweight], Toy moved her hand in a savage flash and gripped onto the extended claw and redirected her descent, flipping around the backside of its outstretched claw.
Toy could sense jitters of surprise in the creature as she slid down its arm and onto its back.
Clinging onto its fur, Toy regained her weight, staggering the beast. Holding herself still by clutching a clump of fur, Toy began stabbing at the wolf’s neck.
The tip of her blade failed to thread through the corded muscle.
’Tough!’
Yet, before the beast could properly fling her off, Toy unleashed a flurry of stabs all aimed at its throat.
While maybe her stabs didn’t do much damage...
’I doubt the bastard likes it.’
It was clear even the Emergent Monster itself knew of its peril as it struggled to reach its back due to the shape of its skeleton and firm back muscles.
In a fit of desperation, the wolf threw itself to the ground in an attempt to crush the goblin, forcing her to finally disengage.
Toy jumped off and landed a little way away.
She opened her eyes to watch as the disgruntled beast tottered up, a deep red staining its coat around its neck.
The beast lumbered forward slowly, a weird look in its eyes.
As if scared of nothing, but scared of nothing.
Casting a glance at the rest of the scene, Toy expected to see a glorious triumph as it usually went.
After all, if Toy was winning her battle, how could another be losing theirs?
’No...’
Though there was a clear fault in logic, as even if Toy was weak and saw herself as such, she was actually the weakest of the strong.
She was still a Champion.
Toy watched as Warrior Forty-Seven had her arm ripped off, followed by another clamping its jaws around her head.
Up on the ledges, one of the wolves was currently being impaled by Mias, but the other was freely mutilating any Archer it could get its hand on.
Archers Thirty, Thirty-One, Twenty-Five, dead.
Toy was trying to grasp the full situation, but her [Sixth Sense] began to get muddled and crowded as a tide of blood spilled and covered the battlefield.
Alpha was still holding onto the shield, even managing to activate its enchantment once again, but what was the point in a shield when what it meant to protect had been lost?
All of Edith’s squad had been wiped out, leaving only Edith and Alpha to fend off the two crimson-stained Ashen Vilkas.
Though it didn’t look as if Edith would be alive much longer, seeing as she was missing both her left eye and left arm, both currently being chewed on.
Toy was soon forced out of her daze when the lurching beast caught up with her and gave a wild snarl as it brought down its claw upon her.