God-Tier Extraction Talent: Reincarnated in a Game-like World!

Chapter 677: The Giant Goblin

After the giant goblin appeared, the old altar fell briefly silent. No one was in a hurry to make a move.

The captain stood on the other side, blood still flowing continuously from around his left eye. The power brought by the white mark had not completely faded, but he was no longer looking at Gabriel. Instead, his gaze was fixed firmly on the giant goblin that had just emerged from underground.

“You violated the agreement.”

“Agreement?”

The giant goblin looked down at him as though it had heard something ridiculous.

“All I remember is that you promised us that once the war began, whatever lies beneath the Sacred Tree would belong to us.”

The captain’s expression shifted slightly.

“Who told you that?”

The giant goblin did not answer. The black spear in its hand lightly touched the ground.

Thud.

Dark red patterns lit up. Beside it, the corrupted root, one of the World Tree’s seven primary roots, trembled slightly in response.

It was a tiny movement. But no one missed it. Especially Sophie. She could clearly sense that the instant the spear lit up, the life force within the primary root, which had only just begun recovering, fell into chaos again.

It was not a coincidence. The spear and the corruption here came from the same power. Or at the very least, there was some connection between them.

The captain clearly realized this as well. For the first time, his gaze truly fell on the black spear.

“Who gave you that thing?”

The giant goblin grinned.

“Only asking now?”

The captain said nothing. But his expression had completely darkened.

By now, the situation was actually quite clear. The Holy Church had used the goblins to start a war, using them to tie down the elves on the outskirts of the Sacred Forest. At the same time, they had supplied weapons, mana crystals, and potions through Veylor’s Chain, allowing the war to continue for as long as they needed.

But the promise given to the goblins clearly did not end there. Someone had told them about the old altar. They had even told them that something existed beneath the World Tree’s corrupted primary root. Most importantly, they had given them a weapon capable of interacting with the corrupted roots.

That meant the Holy Church had never known the whole picture from the beginning.

The giant goblin clearly had no intention of explaining further. It turned its head toward the exposed primary root of the World Tree. More precisely, it looked beneath the root.

“Move.”

IThe captain did not move.

“This is not a place you should have come to.”

The smile on the giant goblin’s face slowly disappeared. Behind it, more and more goblins were already gathering inside the underground passage.

The goblins at the front had already climbed close to the opening. They simply had not entered the altar because the giant goblin had not yet given the order.

“Human.”

The giant goblin looked at the captain again.

“You made us fight for two months. Many of my people died. You said that once the elves’ forces were drawn away, the door would open.”

It raised the black spear.

“Now the door is open. And you’re telling me I can’t go inside?”

The captain’s grip on his sword slowly tightened. He did not answer. The giant goblin did not need an answer either.

“Then you can die.”

The moment the words fell, the black spear thrust forward.

Boom!

The captain raised his sword to block. The instant white divinity collided with the dark red power, the old altar, which had only just fallen silent, began shaking once again.

Only this time, Gabriel did not participate. He stood not far away, watching two people who had belonged to the same side moments ago suddenly turn on each other. He did not even have the slightest intention of raising his sword. Since someone was willing to wear down the captain for him, why stop them?

Edgar clearly had the same thought. He merely retreated some distance with the enemies they had already subdued.

Gabriel watched the fight intensely. Naturally, their cooperation had reached its end. What Veylor’s Chain wanted, he still did not completely understand. The Holy Church wanted Sophie, and they also wanted to use the World Tree. The goblins, meanwhile, were clearly here for something beneath the World Tree.

They had only been able to stand together temporarily because they shared a common enemy. Now that the entrance had appeared, who would still care about being allies?

Gabriel could not even be bothered to keep watching them. They all had to die eventually anyway. The only difference was who died first.

…

Sophie was already crouching beside the World Tree’s withered primary root. The remaining three dark red nails were still embedded there. After the chaos just now, none of the black robed men could approach this place anymore. A large number of roots had completely surrounded the area, and only Sophie could move through them without obstruction.

She reached out her hand. But she did not touch the nails. Instead, she placed her palm against the surface of the primary root.

Cold.

That was the first thing she felt. It was clearly a living root of the World Tree, yet touching it felt like touching a stone that had been buried underground for countless years. Only in its deepest depths did a faint trace of warmth remain.

Sophie closed her eyes. The sounds around her began to fade.

The low growls of the goblins. The clash of weapons. The shaking altar. Everything gradually disappeared. In their place came the sound from within the World Tree’s roots.

Thump.

The sound was slow but constant, like a heartbeat.

Sophie’s consciousness followed that faint remnant of life force downward. This time, she did not look toward the goblin army. Instead, she followed the primary root itself deeper underground.

Then she discovered something.

The underground passage had not appeared tonight. It had always been there. It had simply been sealed by the World Tree’s enormous root system.

Those roots had grown together, completely covering the entrance farther below. Because of that, neither humans nor goblins could have forcibly opened it from the outside.

But now, the section sealing the entrance had rotted. And it had not started recently. The corruption had entered this place a long time ago.

The purpose of the seven dark red nails had never been to create a new path. They were meant to stop the World Tree’s corrupted primary root, which had still been resisting the corruption, from sealing the passage.

That was why removing the first nail had affected the ritual. After the third was removed, the ritual had completely failed.

But the area that had already been opened had not closed again. Sophie finally understood.

“It isn’t a door…” she whispered.

Edgar, standing nearby, turned his head.

“What?”

Sophie opened her eyes and explained.

“They didn’t open a door They only made the root unable to keep blocking this place.”

Edgar quickly understood. His expression immediately grew grave.

“So even if we remove the remaining three…”

“The passage below won’t disappear.” Sophie nodded. That was the biggest problem. They had stopped the ritual but they had not actually solved the problem and the goblin army was already inside.

Just then, the primary root beneath her palm suddenly trembled, and Sophie sensed an emotion from it.

Stop them.

The next moment, an extremely blurry image suddenly appeared within her consciousness.

It was somewhere deep underground. There was almost no light. Countless enormous roots intertwined around something she could not clearly see, while the outermost sections had already turned grayish black.

Sophie saw it for only an instant. Then the image disappeared. But she already understood. Whatever the goblins wanted was still down there. And they absolutely could not be allowed to obtain it.

“Edgar.”

“Hmm?”

“We can’t let them go any deeper.”

Edgar looked at her.

“What did you see?”

Sophie shook her head.

“I couldn’t see it clearly.”

She paused.

“But it doesn’t want those goblins going inside.”

There was no need to explain who “it” was. Edgar raised his head and glanced at the branches overhead, which were constantly trembling.

The World Tree.

He did not ask any further questions. Because Sophie suddenly raised her hand. Every nearby root stopped at the same time. The next second, they began changing direction.

The roots that had originally surrounded the black robed men and the remaining three corruption nails slowly moved toward the underground opening, layering over one another around the entrance, clearly attempting to seal it again.

But just as the first thick root approached,

Buzz!

The black spear in the giant goblin’s hand suddenly lit up. Dark red ripples spread outward. The root instantly stiffened. Immediately afterward, grayish black spots began appearing across its surface.

Sophie’s face turned pale. She wanted the root to pull back, and it quickly retreated.

At that moment, the giant goblin turned its head. For the first time, it truly noticed her.

The giant goblin looked at her. Then at the roots responding to her wishes. Its dark red eyes slowly narrowed.