Chapter 142: The Final Destination!
A tense silence swallowed the air, thick enough to choke on. Melissa's blood-shot eyes locked on Rae like she was about to skin him alive and wear him as boots.
Rae just stared back. He thought about pulling that pathetic puppy-dog look he used before, wag his tail, tilt his head, maybe get her to soften up.
But no. Not here. Not now. He wasn't about to crawl on his knees like some whipped mutt.
"Then what. Kill them all, make a scene, alert the king. King finds out, king comes. King slaughters madame and me. And all these poor humans go down with us."
Rae's voice was steady, almost too steady for someone who was supposed to be the dumb goblin sidekick. His caveman grunt-speak was peeling off like a cracked mask.
'Yeah, yeah, speech patterns. Who the hell cares. When death's licking your asshole from behind, grammar is the last thing on your mind.'
It had slipped before—Alice noticed it once, Lyra almost caught it when he spoke too clean—but nobody gave a damn when adrenaline was high and heads were about to roll.
Melissa's eyes twitched. A flicker. For a moment she looked like she might rip his throat out anyway, just to see if it would help her think better.
But then she shut her eyes, hard, and dragged in a long, shaking breath, her chest rising like she was swallowing fire.
"You are right. We go to the king first. Then we deal with them."
Her voice was calmer, but the rage still dripped off it, hot and sticky.
She spun on her heel sharply, cloak flaring, her blood-shot eyes sweeping the room one last time.
The cries, the moans, the tortured wailing—it was like a choir of damned souls clawing at her ears, each note scratching deeper into her bones.
She clenched her jaw and marched forward, boots striking the stone like she was hammering nails into the floor.
At the far end, a heavy wooden door squatted there, thick iron bars slapped across it like a chastity belt nobody had the key for.
And in front of it—two brutes. Big bastards. Goblins, yeah, but these ones had eaten enough meat and steroids to be mistaken for orcs.
Their arms were thicker than Rae's torso, tusks dripping with spit, eyes dull and lazy but still full of muscle-backed menace.
Obviously Rae trailed right behind her, like a puppy tied to her invisible leash. Without her cloak he was fucked. No slipping, no sneaking, no hiding.
If Melissa ditched him now, he was basically a green skidmark waiting to happen. The mission would be toast, burnt to a crisp, and he knew it.
Melissa didn't slow down. Didn't crouch, didn't peek, didn't even think about patterns or timing like Rae was praying for.
No. She just strolled up to the goddamn door like she owned the place. And then—just like that—she raised her hand and knocked. Knocked. On the enemy's door.
'What the actual fuck. This woman's gonna be the death of me. Who the hell knocks on Satan's asshole before climbing in.'
"Hmmm… somebody's knocking."
One of the big goblins scratched his belly, eyes flicking up. His voice was thick and dumb, like gravy pouring out of a clogged pipe.
"Ahh, it must be that idiot Peach again. Wants another ore or some shit. Fucking hell. Every five minutes he's whining at the door. Might as well just leave the damn thing open. What's the point of locking it if we gotta open it every single minute."
The second goblin rolled his eyes so hard Rae swore he heard a creak.
He shook his head slowly, like he was already tired of this job, tired of life, tired of breathing air that had to share space with idiots.
Rae quickly figured out these goblins were different.
Unlike the usual drooling, screaming maniacs that loved to bite off their own fingers for fun, these two were calm. Very calm. Too calm. It was unsettling.
They even had that same thick body frame as the old Goblin King, like younger brothers who hadn't hit their full ugly puberty yet.
Smaller, sure, but still built like someone had stuffed steroids into a sack of rotten meat.
The first goblin scratched his balls lazily, shrugged his head, and slapped his palm on the door.
A weird shimmer burst out of his hand, glowing blue, spreading across the wood like some magical condom wrapping it up tight.
Then the lock just melted away and the door creaked open wide.
Both of them groaned in unison like it was a chore.
"I swear, I am gonna shove an ore straight up Peach's ass if he knocks once more today… hold on… hmmm… where's that bastard gone."
The goblin leaned into the doorway, peering inside with his fat green nose twitching.
The room beyond was quiet, too quiet, nothing but the stink of rot and the lovely view of human bones scattered around like cheap decorations.
A ribcage here, a cracked skull there, even a leg gnawed down to the marrow. It was like a buffet after the fun part was already over.
"That's strange. Did he just run away after hearing your threat. Ha ha ha. That must be it."
The second goblin smacked his thigh and laughed.
"Well, if that's the case, then I guess we don't gotta be pissed anymore. Ha ha ha…"
And that was that. No Peach. No ores. Just their dumb asses standing there and chuckling. They had no clue at all.
Not even the faintest idea that two bodies had already slipped right past their fat shadows, brushing through the doorframe while they were busy talking shit.
Melissa's cloak fluttered once as she dragged Rae inside, and then the door closed shut again behind them with a dull heavy thud.
'Fuck me. I can't believe that actually worked. She knocked, they opened, and now we're inside. This woman is a lunatic. A sexy lunatic. But still a lunatic.'
Obviously Melissa was boiling again. Rage dripping from her like sweat. Her eyes twitched at every pile of bones.
This room wasn't about sound like the last one, no screams, no begging, no blood splatters echoing.
This one was pure visual torture. Skeletons cracked in half, spines twisted, skulls split wide open as if somebody had tried to carve a pumpkin and gave up halfway.
It was a graveyard decorated by a psychopath with no taste.
Melissa closed her eyes, sucking in a breath through her teeth, her fingers twitching on her bowstring like she was dying to fire an arrow straight into the nearest green cock.
She walked straight to the other side of the chamber, her boots crunching bones, and stopped in front of the next heavy door.
Again the goblins came, fat heads bobbing, scratching their armpits, and again they slapped the blue glow on the wood.
They groaned like workers on their third shift, muttering about Peach, the invisible punching bag of their daily lives.
And like clockwork, the same mistake. They opened the door, expecting that dumb bastard Peach. Nobody there.
Melissa and Rae slid inside like thieves in a cheap play. The door shut behind them, leaving the two idiots clueless yet again.
'Poor Peach. We're using him like a free ticket and I don't even know his face.'
Rae sighed inwardly, almost bowing his head, like he was at some funeral nobody bothered to attend. A silent prayer to the unknown goblin martyr.
Then the next room unfolded before them, and Rae nearly tripped on his own damn feet.
The air was hot. Not warm, not cozy. Hot, like walking into a blacksmith's asshole. The walls glowed faintly red with runes carved into stone, pulsing like heartbeats.
The floor was littered with chains, some broken, some still wet with blood. And in the middle of it all, cages stacked like honeycombs, iron bars bent in strange shapes.
Inside, half-naked women with bruised skin and wild eyes stared back, their breaths ragged.
Some clutched each other, some clawed at the bars, some just lay limp like their souls had already taken the last train out.
Melissa's nails dug into her palm.
Her voice was ice.
"They… they caged them."
Rae's throat went dry.
'Fuck. If she snaps now, the whole place will burn.'
Rae once again grabbed her hands, squeezing them tight, like telling her without words that she couldn't blow her load of rage right now. Not yet.
If she snapped here, they were both meat paste. She shivered but listened, sucking in a deep breath, her chest heaving against his arm.
Rae tried not to think about that soft press, because the last thing he needed right now was a hard-on while surrounded by goblins and death.
They climbed through more rooms, slipping down cracked stairways, moving like shadows that shouldn't exist.
With each step, the air grew hotter, thicker, like walking deeper into the belly of some beast that was still alive.
The blood-red runes on the walls kept getting darker, veins spreading wider across the stone, twitching with light that pulsed too fast, too hard, like a diseased heart about to burst.
Rae felt his skin prickle, the hairs on his neck rising as if invisible fingers were brushing over him.
'This shit is alive. These walls are fucking breathing.'
His stomach turned, a low nausea crawling in his guts.
Melissa's knuckles were white from gripping her bow so hard, like she wanted to rip the very air apart. But she kept it bottled in. For now.
They didn't stop until the path led them down one last stretch of stairs, opening into a cavernous hall.
Rae froze. Melissa froze.
It was all coming to an end right now...