Chapter 135: Un-dead
The moment Ezekiel fell, I didn’t waste a heartbeat.
I triggered [Leap], space folding around me, and reappeared beside Thok. My gut tightened at the sight before me—I had been right. We were under attack.
There was no time to take in the full scope of what had happened. My eyes caught the only thing that mattered: the enemy’s weapon raised high, about to cleave down on Zarah.
Instinct overrode thought. I warped again, reappearing in front of her just as the strike came down.
CLANG!
The impact rang out like steel on stone, sparks snapping at the edge of my vision.
But I barely felt it.
At most, there was only a faint pressure—hardly more than a shove against my chest.
[Fractured Shield] had absorbed the force, the barrier shimmering faintly before settling back into place.
I finally looked my attacker in the eye.
A goblin—but not the one I remembered. His skin had warped into patches of raw, feral red, a haze of mist coiling off him like smoke from a forge. His face twisted into a savage snarl, lips peeled back to show teeth that looked more beast than man.
"Amon...?"
The name left me before I could stop it. But this wasn’t the shaman I had cut down before. This thing in front of me was something else entirely, as if the goblin I once defeated had been dragged back from the grave and remade into a demon stripped of its sanity. My gaze caught the pendant at his neck, glowing faintly, pulsing with the same unnatural light that bled into his skin.
He pressed the edge of his blood-forged axe harder against me, but the weapon met nothing. My displacing barrier hummed faintly, dispersing the blow as though it were little more than wind brushing past me.
I ignored him.
Instead, my eyes swept across the battlefield, tracing the battered shapes of my clan. Dribb lay bloodied and barely conscious, his shield shattered. Thok was doubled over, breathing raggedly, daggers still in his hands but arms shaking with exhaustion. Gobbo and Zonk bore wounds that left them struggling just to stand, their faces pale, their weapons heavy in their grips.
And then my gaze found Narg.
He was sprawled on the ground, chest rising in shallow, uneven gasps. Flogga knelt over him, hands trembling as she poured vial after vial of potion against his lips, smearing herbs and blood alike across his skin in a desperate attempt to keep him tethered to life.
I shut my eyes for a moment, dragging in a breath through clenched teeth, and let out a long, regretful sigh.
Seriously... why did this always happen when I wasn’t here?
First it was when I had been caught up in a daily quest.
And now, again, when I had stepped away to face Drugar’s Chosen.
What kind of rotten luck was this?
Okay, maybe luck was on my side this time
As compared to the last time I’d been absent, none of them had fallen. They were bloodied, broken, and barely standing—but alive.
I let out a slow breath of relief, tension bleeding from my shoulders for the briefest of moments.
That relief hardened into resolve.
Now it was my turn to make their persecutor pay.
My gaze locked on Amon, and he must have felt it. His head snapped toward me, his red aura bristling, as though he could sense the weight of my intent. His body shifted, ready to move, to strike before I could—
But he was too slow.
With a sharp twist of my wrist, Gravefang carved through the air, its edge tearing space itself as it cut. In an instant, Amon’s hand was gone, severed clean at the wrist. Blood sprayed in an arc, hot and bright against the dirt.
He stumbled backward, snarling in shock, clutching the ruined stump.
I did the opposite—I pressed forward. My steps were measured, deliberate, ensuring the wound bled freely, that he had no chance to recover or let his cursed aura seal the injury.
Gravefang whistled as I swung again.
Amon reacted on instinct, throwing his other arm up to block.
But all he managed to lose was more.
More limbs.
One after another, Gravefang carved through him with mechanical precision, my motions relentless and cold. His arms came away in pieces, his legs shredded into ruin, the sound of rending flesh and snapping bone echoing with every strike.
What was left of him—little more than a limbless torso wrapped in a haze of red—collapsed forward. Before he could even hit the ground, I swung once more. The blade tore clean through his throat, blood erupting in a violent spray.
I followed with a sharp kick, driving his broken body backward, sending it skidding across the dirt like refuse.
The silence that followed was thick, broken only by the ragged breaths of my goblins. I turned toward Zarah and the three who had been huddled behind me, their eyes wide, their bodies tense from the fight.
"Are you alright?" My voice cut through the stillness, quieter than the battle but carrying more weight.
Zarah’s hands still trembled faintly on her bow, but she looked me over and gave a small nod. Her armor was scuffed, her cheek cut, but she had escaped with only minor injuries. Relief flickered in her eyes, but it didn’t last.
Her gaze slid past me, toward the shaman lying broken in the dirt.
"But Narg," she said softly, her voice tight.
"Right."
Narg. He was the one in the worst shape. The troll was mangled too, but my shaman came first.
Without wasting another second, I summoned the shop interface, my hand flicking through the familiar menu. A vial of glowing liquid materialized in my grip—a healing potion. I had to get it into him before his breath stopped for good.
I dropped to my knee beside him, tilting his head back, when the air shifted.
A shadow loomed.
My instincts screamed an instant before the impact came. A heavy blow crashed into me, the force launching me clean off the ground. The world spun as I was thrown through dust and grit.
"The hell..."