Adamant Blood

Mark reached forward, into the canyon, down the main paths, and to the sides. The trees practically woke up at Mark's touch, though only a few of them were monstrous, with actual vectors. All of them were magical, though, and that meant something that Mark had never thought of before this moment. As they connected to him, to each other, and to the world they all glowed even brighter than before.

And then Mark switched his Union to one of decay and renewal, giving the plants to the far sides of the path adamant strength, while foisting off all of their weaknesses into the plants down the main path, directly ahead. It was like ringing a dinner bell for the plants.

The effect was like the blighting Mark had done to the grasslands, but weirder, because some of the plants burst into flames, burning their neighbors and spreading seeds, while others died and then mushrooms sprouted from the decaying wood, that then spread on the wind to other trees and burrowed inside. Some trees simply grew up and around the weaker ones, devouring them from the inside.

The forest boiled with activity, the lands in front of Mark decaying down in acts of violent death while the plants to the side grew taller and stronger, their roots reaching everywhere, carrying Mark's Union with them.

Mark watched as crossbow traps fired in the trees, scattering bolts into the air like arterial spray as the crossbows themselves tumbled off of decaying branches. It was like setting off a chain of firecrackers, and also the forest was exploding with action at the same time.

Four minutes later, a good 50 meter wide path opened up on the other side of the crater wall. It was layered with dead, desiccated trees and otherwise, while the sides of the path became primeval forests. Barba was frightened to see those big trees, her eyes caught on one silver-leaf willow tree in particular. The willow's long branches were plucking at the ground, at the trees near it, grabbing what it could and ripping it apart with almost gentle touches. The tree didn't look like it was actively killing everything that was nearby. But that's what it was doing. Ripping and tearing almost gracefully, and then curling around the debris and bringing it up into its canopy, for whatever reason. Probably for eating.

Mark was pretty sure it was not a monster, for it had no vector, but that didn't stop it from stimulus-response-ing all of its surroundings, eating everything it touched.

Mark looked at Barba. "Should I be worried?"

Barba responded, "That's a Lashing Willow. If you touch a branch improperly it will pull you apart. It's an exceedingly valuable tree for making bows." And then she looked to the right, further down the path, at another flaming tree. "That Flare Pine is much better than the one on the crater wall."

Mark almost expected her to say more, but she went silent. She refocused on the hunt for goblins.

Mark refocused, too.

And then he reached out into the world, questing for the bastard goblins in the tunnels underfoot, in their tunnels under the crater wall, and further in, at the colony to the right, beyond the wall. Mark's brief respite from killing them did not go unnoticed. Mark's reprieve had been like a ripple sent out amongst the hive mind goblins, and then among all the rest, a message that got spread far and fast, along with the most overriding message, of course. They saw vulnerability, thinking that Mark couldn't do more than this, that he had to be done, that he was ripe for the biting.

Fresh meat was here, if only they could grab it.

So, of course, they rallied.

They watched Mark from some lightself goblin far ahead, by the treeline, and some hive mind goblin with that one, which did not want to be there, but he was there anyway. From that point of sight, they saw Mark and his team preparing to come in.

They were preparing to surround, as soon as Mark and his people stepped into the trap.

The field ahead was big, though.

Mark breathed deep, and then he reconnected to the goblins. He started killing the weaker ones, not really focused on anything in particular, because he knew he would have to save his strength for the real fight. Some goblins watched as their brothers died and they did not care, because they were fine.

For now.

Goblins followed a rather predictable order of events when they saw prey. Smart goblins, like these, might vary a little, but they would generally do normal things, which meant that as long as Mark, Isoko, Barba, Aaron, and Samson, were out in the open, the goblins would try to hunt them. Endlessly. The goblins would not stop coming until they were routed, and at that point they would scatter and start biting anything they could to replenish their numbers. Since some of these goblins were strong, they would not rout easily.

Other teams were on standby for when they ran, though.

… And that was enough prepping, yup.

Mark had gotten the lay of the land and he transformed the land to be more conducive to him and his team, killing the weaker goblins within the nearest 300 meters. There were thousands of them, and Mark was killing ten of the weakest ones every second. He left the hive mind goblins alone when he felt them, so that they continued to communicate with their brothers and draw out more and more goblins from all over the canyons, but he'd turn up the power to kill hundreds per second when they started to show, for real, when Mark and his crew got into position.

Mark said, "Go time."

And then Mark floated through the crater opening, where black tar marred the stone like dripping blood, and his people followed behind.

The goblins reacted immediately, their hunger spiking, the vectors deep in the walls under the mulched ground all rippling in time to the messages that their spotters relayed. Some of them tried to surround, to head back into the crater wall tunnels Mark had emptied, even before Mark and his people had fully entered the dragonoid canyon. Mark focused on killing those ones the most. He wasn't about to be surrounded—

And then Mark was inside of the dragonoid canyon, and briefly found himself in awe of the sight before him. It was colorful. It smelled like a home away from home. Muggy, like a day in the Floridas in the summer. Outside, winter was a day away, the blue ice auroras encroaching on the sky overhead, but here, it was high summer. Birds tweeted. Bugs buzzed. The plants glowed strange colors, and the mulch underfoot was dead right now, but Mark felt questing vectors from plants encroaching on that mulch, and Mark knew this 50 meter wide hallway would be closed within a week.

Not any animal-shaped vectors, though, which was weird…

Unless the goblins ate them all?

Mark got his head back in the game. He floated forward, killing goblins far out of sight, as he told his people, "The strong ones are approaching. We're running in, away from the walls, to an empty area up ahead. They have sniper nests high on the crater wall to the right. Move."

Mark dashed ahead, flowing on astral limbs with adamantium claws across the mulched path.

His team flowed in with him, all of them moving in their own different ways.

Something pinged on Mark's back, but it deflected on his armor. Something broke against an ephemeral shield that Samson held up. Barba dodged an arrow, and Aaron was never in danger of getting hit at all. The arrows broke against Isoko, not doing anything at all to any part of her.

Isoko was easily standing on top of the mulch, her Platinum Body fully active and helping her move as though there wasn't a meter of debris covering the actual ground. Barba simply didn't fall into the debris field, her feet easily alighting on the most secure broken logs and otherwise, her path set. Aaron flickered from spot to spot, keeping pace with the team. When he dropped out of his Lightspeed he was already partially stuck in the debris, but only up to his calves. Samson had some sort of enchanted footwear that made him simply not care about the solidity of the ground underfoot. Those three had a lot of trinkets, of course.

Mark wore his spellbreaker and his smaller trinkets, and only the spellbreaker would be of any real use today. Isoko was the one laden with a backpack full of the supplies that House Sacredcut had offered for Mark and Isoko for the goblin hunt, but Aaron had the bag full of supplies for himself, Barba, and Samson.

All of those supplies would hopefully go unused.

Mark killed the goblins up by the wall, and the arrows stopped. He felt the goblins try to surround them, deep underground, but they weren't headed this way quite yet. They recognized that Mark and them were moving fast, deep into the valley, and they didn't know where they were going to stop. Spotter goblins were relaying their positions through mind goblins to the horde underfoot, and Mark left those spotter goblins alone. For now.

They reached the end of the tunnel in the forest that Mark had created, so Mark extended the tunnel, focusing on decay and renewal, and the forest collapsed in front of him while blooming big to the sides.

"Where's a good spot to fight, Barba?"

Barba pointed up to the right, saying, "150 meters, unless the goblins have infested it. That's the sunning rock for the lizard, and the lizard is way up there on prominence rock, staying away."

Mark steered his Union to the right and collapsed the trees ahead of them, leading the way to the battleground. The forest fell like a house of explosive cards, and rose to the sides like multicolored thunder clouds, ready to burst. The noise was incredible. Crash! Crrchkchckchkck! It was the sound of a thousand small bombs going off. Mark was pretty sure he even saw mana crystals exploding out of the cracks of some trees.

He definitely saw some glittering piles of stones in the debris field underfoot—

The edge of the forest fell away and revealed an expanse of black-coated flat rocks, forming a wide shelf on the southern-ish side of the kilometers-wide crater. It was actually a small cliff, and at the bottom of the cliff was a pool of black tar. It was a good spot to fight. The available area was about 130 meters across, in a rough circular pattern.

But it was absolutely festooned with goblin vectors, hiding under the mound. Mark had felt those, though. Barba had not. But now that he was looking at the area, and Eliot's drones were far overhead, Mark watched as his visor updated with what he was seeing.

The entire area was red with goblins, but it had not been physically changed at all.

Barba's vector faltered a little, probably because her visor updated, too.

The sunning rock was the center point of a whole tunnel system.

This was perfect.

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Mark said, "The stage is set. We've ruined most of their traps. Eliot can fire oils and goop down at the snipers at the far edge of the canyon over there, but most of the ridge is hidden from this angle. They can't snipe us. Right here is where we make our stand against the tide." Mark temporarily removed his lower faceplate, temporarily exposing his mouth. And then he breathed in stillness, and exhaled a roar, "Bite me!"

The words rolled across the land like the roll of distant thunder, and Mark knew, based on the surprise and then viciousness of the goblin horde, that they heard him. Through the mind goblins, all of them heard him.

And then Mark breathed in calm while he exhaled rage, horniness, and all of the other bad-for-battle emotions. The goblins got all of the downsides, and his team got all of the upsides, as Mark clicked his lower faceplate back into his mask.

What had been a rather organized situation below the sunning rock turned into a violent upheaval and churning need to bite the meat at the gate. Goblins poured out from under the blackened cliff, right above the tar pool. They popped out of holes hidden in the sunning rock itself. They threw off dirt-covered bark, exposing tunnels everywhere, and they boiled out into the sun.

They roared; crazed.

Mark roared back; calm.

His team was solid, and Isoko had purified the ground of debris, so they were on solid ground, too.

Mark and his team were one side of a war and the goblins were the other. His Union shattered outward, sending a vein decay that practically popped some of the greenies, but some of the greenies were made of sterner stuff. And yet, even the stronger ones died, too. It just took a few more beats of Mark's heart.

… And Mark knew he could have pushed harder, killing every single one that showed and the thousand below ground, but he wanted them up and out of the ground before he killed them. So he kept the killing at a reasonable level.

The goblins screamed for blood.

They died choking on their own.

The goblin horde began mostly 150 meters away, and most of them never reached more than 130 meters away—

The mind goblins organized the battle at the behest of someone far away, outside of Mark's reach, but still within his ability to sense that unknown vector, because a bunch of other vectors suddenly aligned in that direction. Underground, the ripples of the mind goblins spread out, and some of the horde diverted around, through the ground. But it was slow going, vectors crawling along at a walking pace, like slow missiles passing underground, trailing hundreds of other vectors behind them. It was some burrowing goblins. Not the Stone Shaper goblin, not moving at those slow speeds, but the Stone Shaper was still under there, somewhere.

Mark softly said, "We got stronger ones coming up behind us. Burrowing goblins."

Barba, Aaron, and Samson all tensed—

"Attend," Isoko said, quietly, in their coms, but there was no way the goblins weren't listening in and formulating responses. She pointed here and there, saying, "Slow moving. Probably not the Stone Shaper."

Samson said, "I need a target so I can—"

"Incoming sky," Mark said, almost as soon as he felt whatever it was up there.

It was a quick vector, almost on them, 20 meters away by the time Mark fully said the word 'sky', and aimed right at Barba's head.

Mark flicked blades of adamantium into the thing's path, like a net of wires.

Impact. Splash. Gore.

What had been a vector became a bunch of blood and body parts, splattered all across Barba, Isoko, and a little bit of Aaron. A dull grey light held in the air in front of Samson, covered in goblin mess only briefly, before slicking off onto the ground. Bright red feathers were among the mess.

Isoko cleaned them up with some purity.

Mark kept killing the raging horde.

Barba watched the goblins die in front of her and the vanishing gore underfoot. She said, "The bird dragonoid is gone. We should expect…" She was unsure. "10 more bird goblins. Hard to know. The bird dragonoid was the smallest of them. Might be speedster levels of flight."

Eliot said, "I'm tracking them now that I see them. They're roosting far behind you, at the entrance to the crater."

Mark broke off his attack to reach all the way back, to where the real threat laid in wait.

Black lightning flowed, connecting to the bird goblins, downing them with a vengeance. They were tough, but Mark was fully using the horde all around him to kill those 9 up on the ridge. And then he went back to killing the ones up ahead, but all of them, goblins and humans alike, had seen him zap backward. After a brief moment of confusion amongst the mind goblins about their plans, their plans changed and the burrowing goblins stayed down underground.

Eliot spoke up, "Confirmation of bird goblins dead."

The knights tensed and something like quiet awe happened. Barba wasn't sure about how she felt. Maybe a little safe, or something similar.

Eliot sounded more secure, too, as he said, "I have the map available for estimated goblin counts and locations, now. Who wants it?"

"Busy," Mark said.

Barba said, "Here," as Aaron also said, "Me."

Aaron added, "I need the full map, too, so I can view it in lightform. I can't take updates from you when I'm in that form."

"Understood," Eliot said, "Compiling the map and sending it to your visors and to your phone, Aaron."

Goblins still rushed in from twenty different tunnels, trying to drown Mark and them with power. Mark could only focus on the horde now, using the ones in back against the ones in front.

While Aaron looked at the readouts, Mark and Isoko focused on the piles of corpses that were starting to block the holes, slowing the kills. Isoko and Mark were already in a Union, so words weren't necessary, but since they were working with others it was a good idea to speak words sometimes, when they could.

Isoko asked, "Purity purge?"

"Yes," Mark said.

Isoko might not have been able to help with the killing, but for this, Isoko could help directly, and she did. Mark and Isoko breathed and beat in unison, and threaded into the world with purity and impurity, touching upon the warm corpses and the blood and shit, erasing the dead goblin horde, making way for all the rest of them to come out into the open. It was like uncorking a blocked sewer.

Greenskins poured out from the cleared holes in the ground, chittering, roaring, clawing forward.

Mark killed them, black lightning dancing across their bodies, bursting them in small ways. They stumbled and flopped, slapping the stone with insensate bodies, and then they died, creating fresh piles of corpses at 70 meters out from Mark and his team.

Mark paced himself to match the disgorging of the fodder, prepared to face whatever trick came next.

Goblin fights always started off with fodder sent to die, to maybe get lucky, but those bird goblins had been a hidden strike, planned to attack in the middle of the fodder rush. The goblins underfoot, burrowing around and stopping, waiting, were another trick preparing to strike when Mark and his team were more vulnerable.

And this was just the first canyon of goblins.

As Aaron flickered and came back to normal time, and his vector transformed from something solid to something resigned and worried, Mark knew that this would not be a fast day at all. And sure enough, Aaron said as much.

"The dragonoid canyons have been depopulated," Aaron said, "It's all goblins now. Big buildup of goblins in the southern canyon that wasn't there an hour ago. Tens of thousands."

Mark and Isoko had realized some of that, so they both nodded. Barba and Samson's emotions did a similar transition to worried and resigned, just like Aaron had done.

Mark hadn't known that the canyons were depopulated when he stepped foot inside the craters, but he knew it now. Except for small birds and the largest of the dragonoids, everything else had been turned to goblins. That's where all of these fresh goblins were coming from.

But there weren't infinite goblins.

Isoko spoke where Mark could not, saying, "That simply means that the end to this day is 5 canyons down the road."

Mark nodded.

The goblins screamed as they charged.

And then they all died, frothing at the mouths, before they got within 60 meters.

Barba took potshots at targets that stood up from the rest, or that made it past the rest, her bullets slamming into foreheads and chests, and dropping goblins before they got the chance to do anything at all. Samson and Aaron waited for the battle to be joined. Isoko helped Mark with Union. Tension filled the air as Mark kept up the killing.