Chapter 86 – That Was Fun
Damion was able to avoid the goblin's dagger by leaning back. The creature had excellent jumping abilities, but because of its short stature it had limited reach. The goblin had to jump and slash towards Damion every time it wanted to attack the upper part of Damion's body, which was its only real target, since if it attacked at Damion's lower body, Damion could just lop its head off. With the goblin jumping around so much and its grey green skin made Damion wonder if goblins were some distant relation to frogs.
After evading several of the goblins jump attacks, Damion had gotten used to its method of attack and decided to stop dodging. When the goblin leapt at him again Damion slashed his sword to cut the creature in half, but somehow, the goblin was able to twist in midair and avoided the blow.
The goblin landed behind Damion and immediately leapt towards him again. However, this time the goblin had barely left the ground when it was blasted by a Lightning Bolt from Matthew. The goblin went to the ground limply, its limbs twitching slightly from the residual energy of the blast.
"They have good reflexes when facing their target, but poor peripheral vision," Matthew shouted to Damion over the noise of the fires and battle.
"Good to know," Damion said as he charged towards the fighting.
Only a few seconds later another goblin targeted Damion, leaping at him from several meters away. Remembering what Matthew had just told him, Damion stepped out of the goblin's path and as it flew past him, Damion slashed the goblin in two with a quick swing of his blade. The goblin's bone shirt armor doing nothing to stop his sword.
Satisfied that his new strategy worked, Damion started moving towards more goblins. As Matthew had said, the goblins had good reflexes, but weak peripheral vision. If a goblin could see his attack, the goblin could dodge it. By dodging the goblin's attack and waiting until the moment it was passing him, Damion was able to strike the goblin without it seeing the blow coming.
Damion was able to dispatch several more goblins before the creatures stopped trying to attack him individually and instead formed a group to square off against him. Unsure how the goblin's would change their tactics when fighting with superior numbers, Damion channeled his mana into the fire attack glyph on his sword and sent out a fire slash towards the four goblins in front of him.
Predictably, the goblins were able to dodge the attack, but Damion figured this would happen when he had started his attack. While the goblins were mid-dodge, Damion charged forward and slashed his sword several times in quick succession and managed to slash three of the four goblins with his sword.
The lucky goblin that was able to dodge landed on the ground but was stabbed in the back by Ethan before it even realized what had happened.
Feeling the exhilaration of success, Damion and Ethan began methodically taking down the goblins. The goblins' tactic of dodging attacks was insufficient in allowing them to fight against coordinated attacks. Especially, not when Matthew and Travis lurked on the edge of battle ready to blast goblins that were not paying attention to them.
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Just as the last goblin was killed and the wood huts fully collapsed from the fires, the door of the stone house burst open. The roof had long since burned away on the stone house, but this goblin had not appeared until now.
When Damion looked this goblin over, he saw it differed from the rest. Its skin was more bluish and instead of crude armor made of bones it wore a simple woven rope and carried in its hands a wooden staff as tall as it was. Damion realized the staff was similar to the one the lich guardian had wielded in the graveyard dungeon and knew this goblin was a mage of some kind.
Before Damion could plan out an attack, Travis launched a Lightning Bolt at the goblin mage. The goblin held its staff in front of its body, catching the Lightning Bolt and then redirecting it towards Damion.
Damion barely had a chance to register what was happening before his instincts made him jump out of the way. The goblin then waved its staff in the air creating a small whirlwind around Damion lifting him off the ground.
Not having anything to grab onto, meant Damion could not free himself from the whirlwind. The goblin mage then stabbed his staff forward and Damion was sent flying off to the edge of the village.
"Damion!" Arica called when she saw Damion flying off and hitting the ground hard.
"I'm fine," Damion said as he stood up and channeled mana into his belt to free himself of the dirt. The shield glyphs in his armor had absorbed the impact so Damion was unharmed.
Ethan was already trading blows with the goblin. His daggers trying to find their way past the goblin's defense, but the goblin mage moved its staff in a blur, deflecting all of Ethan's attacks and landing a blow on Ethan's side that sent him tumbling out of the fight.
Damion charged back towards the fight. As he was closing the distance, Damion saw Travis and Matthew coordinate Lightning Bolts from opposite sides, but the goblin mage was able to reflect both bolts with his staff, forcing the two mages to dodge. Damion channeled mana into his fire attack glyph as he ran and as soon as it was fully charged, Damion shot out his fire pillar attack at the goblin.
The goblin mage planted the butt of its staff in the dirt and held the staff in front of him. When Damion's pillar of fire struck, the goblin mage erected a shield in front of him that split Damion's fire attack in two, allowing the two fire pillars to pass harmlessly to either side of the goblin.
"We have to coordinate," Matthew shouted as he watched Damion's attack get neutralized.
Damion did not wait for anyone else to say anything and rushed to attack the goblin mage head on. Ethan was getting up and Theodore cast a heal spell on him. The dagger wielding knight moved to strike the goblin from behind, but the goblin retreated before Ethan could get into position to launch an attack.
"When I force him to block, you strike," Damion called out.
No one answered him, but he believed his party would get job done.
Damion began channeling his mana into his fire attack glyph and when he was ready to strike again he jumped backwards, away from the goblin mage. The goblin realized what Damion was doing and thrusted its staff forward again to block Damion's pillar of fire.
As the Damion's attack was split in two, Ethan jumped over one wall of fire and drove both of his daggers into the goblin mage's body. One dagger piercing its chest and the other its back.
The goblin's big eyes went wide as Ethan's blades sunk into its flesh. Damion cut off his attack as the goblin mage collapsed to the ground at Ethan's feet.
"That was fun," Ethan said as he wiped the goblin's blood off his blades.