Overwhelming Firepower

Lucen's battle instincts were screaming at him as he quickly ducked. The flash of a sword came passing by. Lucen was almost sliced in half, but instead, his trench coat was damaged.

Since Lucen let go of the Maxim Gun, the gun disappeared into nothingness, since it was just something created from the skill gun creation.

Lucen unconsciously tried to grab his sword, the Crimson Lord Mk IV that was usually on his back, but he could not feel it, and he cursed under his breath.

He remembered that he had left his sword back in the fortress since it was bulky, making dodging harder if it was on his back as he fought with his gun mage skills.

Lucen then quickly rolled to the side as the Goblin King slashed downward. The ground where the jagged sword hit exploded, and shards of ice and water came flying all over the place.

The gorge amplified the sound into a deafening boom, the shockwave bouncing between the walls.

The Goblin King didn't pause. With a guttural roar, it ripped its blade free and swung sideways.

Lucen jumped upward to dodge the attack. As he did that, he took out the mana potion hidden in his trench coat and drank it.

He could feel mana flowing through him again. Even though he had fixed his mana problem, his stamina could not be restored in the same way.

The cold air burned his throat as he landed, boots skidding across fractured ice. The ground beneath his feet was no longer solid, cracks spiderwebbed outward from every strike of the Goblin King, water hissing as it met the lingering flames from his elemental rounds.

The monster was already upon him. The jagged sword carved the air, its arc trailing mana like a comet's tail.

Lucen hadn't manifested a new gun since he didn't want to waste mana. He was still thinking about what he should do to win against the monster before him. So, for now, he decided to evade the attacks while thinking about what to do next.

"Sir Thalos, I need my sword!"

Lucen shouted as he evaded all the attacks with his heightened agility in combination with his battle instincts. He weaved through each attack, but he was getting nicked every now and then.

Still, it wasn't just Lucen who was getting tired; so was the Goblin King. Even though the Goblin King was a monster whose physical abilities were above the base Lucen, its second form consumes a lot of stamina and mana.

Lucen, who kept on evading each strike, was finally able to understand the Goblin King's attack pattern.

Despite this being real life and not a game, it would seem that patterns in an attack still existed.

The Goblin King's timing, feints, and the way he likes going behind him to do a horizontal slash were now easy to predict.

"How long are you going to keep dodging, like a rat? Are you that afraid of me, child?"

As the Goblin King was talking, Lucen evaded the strike and jumped up to touch the Goblin King's forehead with his palm.

"I was just waiting for this chance!"

Lucen gathered a large amount of mana and used the same move he had used to open the wounded young fire dragon before.

Lucen's mana came out of his body, and a condensed ball of mana exploded right on the Goblin King's face.

Even Lucen was blown away by his attack. His arm was shaking from the power of the explosion. Lucen's regeneration skill and grit skill worked together to heal his body. Lucen's who flew a few meters backward, took out another mana potion and quickly drank it.

The power of that explosion was not as strong as the barrage from the Maxim gun, but it was done at close range and directly at the face of the Goblin King, which Lucen assumed was a weak point.

The smoke cleared, and the tusk on the Goblin King's face broke. The monster reeled back, one golden eye half-shut from the blast, its face blackened and steaming.

The gorge trembled with its roar, a sound that was no longer pure fury, but laced with pain.

Lucen pushed himself up, coughing, his right arm trembling from channeling too much mana at once. No Arquebus, no Peacemakers, no Crimson Lord. Nothing but his fists and the faint glow of mana crawling across his skin.

The Goblin King ripped its blade free of the ice with a shriek of metal and frost, then leveled its golden eyes on him. The monster grinned with its broken tusk, blood drooling down its chin.

This was the first time the Goblin King had the very thought that he could die, but instead of feeling fear, he felt excited.

"You are a strong human. I will take that strength and make it my own. I will take your weapons to make my army greater. I will take everything that is yours."

"Take, take, take, is that all you goblins know to do?"

The Goblin King's jagged grin widened, his cracked tusk dripping with blood. "The second we live, we take our mothers' lives to grow stronger. We take because nothing is given. Everything out there is meant to be taken. Your lives, your love, your kingdoms, the entire world is meant to be taken. Victory or Defeat? There's only the taker and the taken from."

He raised his sword high, mana coiling around the blade until it howled like a storm. The gorge walls groaned, flakes of ice breaking free and tumbling down in avalanches.

"Young Lord!" Lucen heard Sir Thalos's voice behind him. "Catch!" Lucen looked behind him and caught the Crimson Lord Mk IV. He then loaded the Crimson Lord with gunpowder and pulled the trigger, making a roaring sound, making the blade burn crimson.

Lucen then grabbed one of the Iron Spheres on his belt and lit it up using the heat from the blade of the Crimson Lord. Lucen then threw the Iron Sphere at the Gobling King.

The Goblin King sneered and swept his jagged blade across the sphere, certain it was nothing more than human scrap.

The gorge erupted. A blast of smoke and shrapnel roared outward, shards of iron peppering his hide. They could not pierce his skin, but the blinding fog rolled over him, cutting his vision.

That was when the Goblin King saw a crimson light coming down at him. The Goblin King blocked the incoming attack with his jagged sword wrapped in mana.

That was when the Goblin King saw the barrel of Lucen's newly created peacemaker aimed at his eyes. The Goblin King quickly closed his eyes as the bullet was fired. Lucen fired twice in succession, trying to hit both eyes.

With his iron skin, the bullets could not penetrate, but Lucen had expected that. The bullet he fired was an elemental bullet that made ice start to spread in his eyelid. Now the Goblin King could not open his eyes.

The Goblin King roared, the sound rolling through the gorge like thunder. Blindness did not stop him; it only drove him into a frenzy.

His jagged blade carved wild arcs through the open air, each swing blasting out compressed mana that split the frozen ground apart. Sheets of ice cracked and collapsed into the river below, geysers of freezing water erupting skyward.

Lucen darted back, as getting hit by one of the frenzied attacks would hurt quite a bit. The gorge was wide, but every reckless swing of the Goblin King churned the battlefield itself into chaos, fissures opened underfoot, boulders tumbled from the cliffs above, and the ground itself was no longer safe.

Now that he had some distance, and the Goblin King was simply swinging wildly, Lucen stabbed the Crimson Lord onto the ground, let go of the peacemaker, and then created a Gewehr 98.

Lucen imbued the bullet of the Gewehr 98 with the Lightning element, which helped increase its penetrating power. Lucen, using his first mantle aura to enhance his voice, shouted as loud as he could.

"Listen up, you f*cking goblin b*stards! Once I'm done with your king, I'm going to kill you all, so come at me!"

Lucen's shout echoed throughout the entire gorge; the goblins then shifted their attention to Lucen, many of whom directed their killing intent on him.

This was, of course, part of Lucen's plan. Now that almost all the goblins were targeting him, his kill zone skill was in full effect. His agility, dexterity, and accuracy, as well as his chances for a critical hit, were practically a hundred percent now.

With all those factors on his side, Lucen aimed at the area where the heart of the Goblin King was.

Even though that area was protected by his muscles, his iron skin, as well as the bone armor with mana, it was also surprisingly the weakest vital that was protected.

Lucen, who had shot at different areas using the Maxim gun as well as making his mana explode at the Goblin King, noticed that the head was the best-protected vital area. The least protected vital was the chest, making the heart the perfect target.

Lucen's marksmanship skill guided him to the best angle to fire from. Lucen breathed slowly as he squeezed the trigger. The lightning-imbued round screamed out and punched through the steaming air, a single, precise shot that had all the buffs from the Kill Zone skill.

The bullet screamed through the gorge, trailing lightning that lit the mist in jagged arcs. At that moment, for Lucen, the world fell silent.

The growls of goblins, the shouts of soldiers, the firing of arquebuses, Thunderspears, and spells, even the roar of the Goblin King, all of it was drowned out by that single shot.