Chapter 106: Tactical Specialty: Goblin Frenzy |
Two successive dull thuds of bodies hitting the ground instantly threw the entire Goblin camp—previously following its patrol routine—into complete chaos.
Shrill screams rose one after another as all the green-skinned monsters grabbed their weapons and scattered like a disturbed hornet’s nest.
Amid this chaos—
from the wide cave at the deepest part of the camp, a thunderous roar suddenly erupted.
A massive shadow stepped out with heavy strides.
This was a mutation completely different from ordinary Goblins.
Not only did it stand upright with a straight back, its height even exceeded that of an average adult human.
Beneath its dark reddish-green skin lay an extremely well-developed muscular body. Two thick fangs jutted out from its lower jaw, exuding a savage aura.
It was even wearing a mismatched set of armor—on its chest was a broken steel breastplate clearly stripped from a human knight, while its lower body was crudely wrapped in thick magical beast fur.
A Hobgoblin.
In the mere dozen seconds after this leader stepped out of the cave, Lance’s short bow never stopped firing.
The bowstring vibrated wildly.
Every hum meant two Goblins attempting to approach the edge of the camp would scream and collapse into pools of blood.
In an extremely short span of time, four Goblins had already been precisely killed.
With a single roar from the Hobgoblin, Lance could clearly feel the morale of the Goblins—previously shrinking under his arrows—rise again.
【Tactical Specialty: Goblin Frenzy】
This was a unique specialty that only Goblins who ruled over a tribe could awaken.
This aura effect allowed all subordinate Goblins to completely ignore fear.
As long as their leader had not fallen, these monsters would never scatter and flee, no matter how heavy their casualties.
Because of this trait, in the Adventurers’ Guild’s tactical guidance, when facing organized Goblin tribes, executing a decapitation strategy often yielded extremely significant results.
Once the leader was killed, the remaining underlings would collapse without a fight.
But the current situation was clearly tricky.
The Goblins here were completely different from the previous camps filled with the old, weak, and injured.
Not only were they wearing pieced-together armor, they even held crude wooden shields and sharp spears.
Trying to forcefully kill that large leader at the back while being protected by over thirty armed Goblins would be extremely difficult.
Lance felt no panic at all.
Facing a group of Goblins charging toward him with shields raised and shrieking wildly—
he pushed off with his legs, moving like a nimble cheetah, rapidly circling the outer perimeter of the camp.
Searching for angles suitable for shooting.
With nearly fourteen points in Agility supporting him, even though moving shots carried heavy penalties, those short-legged Goblins couldn’t even touch the edge of his clothes.
The Hobgoblin looked at the constantly moving human and let out a contemptuous sneer.
It knew that a human’s stamina limit was completely incomparable to that of monsters like them.
Any intelligent monster leader, when facing a powerful individual enemy, would use the most common tactic—send fodder troops to relentlessly exhaust the opponent’s stamina and mana.
Only when the prey was completely exhausted would they personally step in to harvest the spoils.
Unfortunately, it had miscalculated one crucial fact.
Stamina was precisely the one thing Lance currently lacked nothing of.
The Goblins’ assault clearly carried tactical intent.
A few slightly sturdier Goblins even raised broken wooden shields, attempting to flank from both sides and cut off Lance’s retreat.
But they were completely unable to match his speed.
While running, he turned and drew his bow.
The air above the camp was filled with chilling whistling sounds of arrows.
Those Goblins holding wooden shields had no time to adjust their defense before Lance found angles to shoot them down one by one during their charge.
The slaughter continued.
Green blood dyed large patches of land red.
One Goblin after another wailed as they fell at Lance’s feet.
Only when he confirmed that fewer than a dozen Goblins remained capable of fighting—
did the Hobgoblin, which had been supervising from the rear, finally realize something was wrong.
Why was this human completely different from the adventurers it knew?
The prey had been sprinting and jumping through the forest at high intensity while firing dozens of arrows. By all logic, he should have been gasping for breath and unable to even draw his bow anymore.
But why did he not seem tired at all?
Watching the number of its subordinates dwindle, the Hobgoblin could no longer remain still.
It let out a furious roar, gripped its heavy warhammer with both hands, and charged savagely toward Lance.
Lance could even feel the tremors from its heavy footsteps, kicking up fine sand with each step.
He quickly turned his bow and fired two arrows at the charging giant.
Clang! Clang!
The arrows struck the Hobgoblin’s chest with precision.
But after being weakened by the chest armor, the arrowheads only embedded shallowly into its flesh.
Such wounds were like mere scratches to the Hobgoblin, completely unable to halt its charge.
What terrifying Constitution.
Lance made a quick estimation in his mind.
The opponent’s Constitution had definitely reached an astonishing level of around 17 points.
That was a full nine points higher than his current state.
Conventional ranged attacks had completely lost their effectiveness against such a tank-like monster.
“Cecilia!”
Lance decisively abandoned the ineffective shooting and shouted behind him.
The reason he had waited until now to let Cecilia act was because if another adventurer had appeared earlier, the Hobgoblin would not have allowed Lance to freely whittle down its Goblin subordinates.
It would have intervened much sooner.
And if too many Goblins remained while Lance focused on the Hobgoblin, it would pose a massive burden to either Lance or Cecilia.
The next second, as a faint glow of magic lit up among the trees—
First-ring spell 【Magic Missile】.
A brilliant blue energy projectile shot through the air with a long trailing tail.
It deftly curved around a thick oak tree mid-flight, as if it had eyes, and slammed directly into the chest of the charging, unguarded Hobgoblin.
Boom!
A massive surge of magical force erupted instantly.
The Hobgoblin let out a pained roar as its crude chest armor shattered into several fragments.
Its massive body was forcibly halted by the impact, even stumbling backward several steps, leaving deep footprints in the ground.
But Lance immediately saw through it.
Although the attack looked impressive and destroyed the armor, aside from an additional wound on its chest, the Hobgoblin’s combat capability had not suffered any substantial damage.
It still gripped its warhammer tightly, the ferocity in its eyes instead ignited further by pain.
No, this won’t work. Its Constitution is too high.
A spell like Magic Missile, which leaned toward basic single-target damage, simply didn’t have sufficient damage conversion against such a high-defense elite monster—especially before Cecilia had formally advanced her class.
“Cecilia, clear out the remaining Goblins. Leave this big one to me.”
Lance immediately adjusted the battle plan.
He knew clearly that Cecilia’s current Aether Energy Pool was around 120 units.
And casting a full First-ring Magic Missile consumed 8.5 units of mana.
Wasting such valuable mana on this high-health tank would be far too inefficient.
Using the remaining mana to eliminate the lesser enemies was the most rational choice.