NOVEL NEXT Chapter 95: Rune stone!
He clenched his fist, feeling a faint burn of power ripple through his veins.
"I'll take it."
The Goblin General had been stronger, sure. But Ethan hadn't even broken a sweat. There wasn't a single injury on him. Just blood that wasn't his.
He turned, raising his hand toward the sky.
Kaeryx descended in a smooth spiral, landing with a thunderous gust that sent ash and leaves scattering around the battlefield. The dragon lowered its head, golden eyes locking with his rider's.
Ethan climbed onto his back in one fluid motion, wiping his blade clean along his coat as he moved.
"Let's keep going," he muttered.
Kaeryx beat his wings, and they shot back into the sky like a comet of black and wind.
There were still goblins to be killed.
And Ethan was going to find every single one of them.
As he vanished into the skies atop Kaeryx's back, his silhouette quickly becoming a speck against the gloomy clouds, silence returned to the clearing—until footsteps echoed faintly from the distance.
The guild party arrived moments later.
And what they saw froze them in place.
Elira Dawnshield was the first to speak—though her voice was barely above a whisper, heavy with disbelief and frustration.
"There's no way… we'll be left with even one kill, right?"
Her voice trembled at the end.
The ground was littered with corpses. Goblin blood soaked the earth, still warm. Some of the bodies were cut clean through, others had their necks twisted at impossible angles. There was no chaos here—no struggle, no back-and-forth.
Only one-sided devastation.
Velmorrin Quen crouched beside a fallen goblin, examining the death wound. His brows furrowed as his fingers traced the clean slash mark on the neck. Still faintly warm.
"...This was recent," he muttered. "He's moving too fast. Clearing before we even get close."
Behind him, Garron Flintblade let out a low, frustrated growl, gripping his axe tightly. "This is ridiculous. We've been walking through nothing but corpses for the past hour. At this rate—what's the damn point of us being here?"
Sylphie said nothing. Her lips were pressed in a tight line, but her eyes flicked across the battlefield, taking in every detail. The scattered goblin weapons, the silent corpses, the lack of a single wound on Ethan's trail—it was all too clean.
Too efficient.
Rynel Vaen stood at the front, his jaw clenched so tightly his teeth ached. He didn't speak. He couldn't. Every few steps, they came across another field just like this one. Each time they thought they might finally engage in combat, they arrived just in time to find the aftermath. Again and again.
They had entered the dungeon expecting a routine raid, maybe a bit of competition. But now… it felt like they were just spectators in someone else's conquest.
And it ate at them.
At their pride.
At their dignity.
Elira's staff trembled slightly in her grip. "What are we even doing here?" she muttered. "Just… picking up scraps?"
Velmorrin didn't answer. No one did.
Because the truth hung in the air like a curse they couldn't escape: Ethan Grimveil—this low-background nobody they had scoffed at—was dismantling the dungeon alone, right under their noses.
And they were powerless to stop it.
Each step they took only served to reinforce it. Every field of bodies they passed was a quiet reminder.
He was faster. Stronger. More decisive.
And he wasn't even trying to show off.
He was just... doing it.
Rynel's hands curled into fists.
"We move faster," he growled. "No more walking. Formation or not—we run."
"But—" Elira started.
"If we don't," Rynel said, his voice low, eyes dark with frustration, "there won't be anything left for us."
With that, he gave a short whistle, calling his black panther mount forward and leapt onto its back, surging ahead.
The others followed, running through the blood-soaked trail of a one-man slaughter.
But deep down, they already knew.
They were chasing shadows.
And Ethan? Ethan was already beyond their reach.
*****
Ethan stood atop the bloodied remains of the latest goblin pack, flicking a smear of green from his blade. Behind him, Kaeryx lowered his head silently, wings tucked in, tail curling idly against the ground.
Another General down.
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
[You've killed a Goblin General]
[Goblin Generals Killed: 2 / 7]
[Goblin King: Yet to be killed]
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
Without a word, Ethan leapt onto Kaeryx's back, gripping the scaled ridge of the dragon's neck. The moment he was seated, Kaeryx launched into the sky with a thunderous beat of his wings, sending dust and blood-stained leaves scattering beneath.
They soared high above the treetops, Ethan's sharp gaze sweeping across the mist-veiled landscape below.
There.
A flicker—mana signatures clustered near a ridge in the northwest quadrant of the dungeon.
"Descend."
Kaeryx didn't need more. He dove like a silent meteor, wings cutting through the wind, until Ethan leapt off mid-air, landing in the heart of a confused goblin group.
Panic erupted—but only for a moment.
A clean slice took the first two.
A spin, and three more dropped before they could react.
The General barked commands, raising a crude mace wreathed in jagged flame. It rushed forward, fierce and brutal—but Ethan didn't retreat. He caught the strike with one hand, crushed the mace's shaft, and drove his fist into the general's chest, shattering bone.
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
[You've killed a Goblin General]
[Goblin Generals Killed: 3 / 7]
[Goblin King: Yet to be killed]
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
Kaeryx landed beside the smoldering remains just as Ethan turned back, expression still calm, unshaken.
"Next."
Moments later, they were back in the air.
From above, the battlefield looked almost serene—no screams, no resistance, only the still aftermath of carnage left in Ethan's wake.
Each goblin group he approached seemed unaware until it was too late. The fourth fell beneath a burst of speed and a downward cleave that broke their ranks before they could form a defense.
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
[You've killed a Goblin General]
[Goblin Generals Killed: 4 / 7]
[Goblin King: Yet to be killed]
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
Kaeryx moved from ridge to ridge, hill to hill, wings slicing through air heavy with the stench of blood and mana. And each time, Ethan descended like judgment itself.
The fifth general tried to form a circle formation, barking orders with practiced command. It didn't matter. Ethan broke their shield wall with raw power, cutting through them as if their defense didn't exist.
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
[You've killed a Goblin General]
[Goblin Generals Killed: 5 / 7]
[Goblin King: Yet to be killed]
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
The sixth used elevation, setting up archers and spike traps across a narrow cliff pass. Ethan didn't care. He jumped in from above, avoiding the ground entirely. Arrows clattered uselessly against his mana barrier before he blitzed through the formation.
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
[You've killed a Goblin General]
[Goblin Generals Killed: 6 / 7]
[Goblin King: Yet to be killed]
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
By now, the dungeon reeked of goblin blood. Ethan stood atop a ruin overlooking a scorched battlefield, Kaeryx landing beside him with a heavy thud.
Only one remained.
The seventh.
They found it deep within a forested gulch, heavily fortified with barricades and watchtowers. This general had planned, setting traps, magic alarms, and fallback positions. But none of that saved them.
Ethan carved through all of it—through wood, stone, goblin, and spell alike. The General tried to flee near the end, but Ethan was faster. One flash of silver, and it was over.
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
[You've killed a Goblin General]
[Goblin Generals Killed: 7 / 7]
[Goblin King: Yet to be killed]
[Title condition met: Goblin Slayer — Incomplete]
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
Ethan exhaled lightly as he looked down at the decapitated corpse. "Too weak."
The battlefield lay silent behind him—seven generals, seven groups, all gone.
Kaeryx approached from behind, lowering his massive head.
Ethan climbed on once more. Now, there was only one left. The king.
At that moment, a sudden surge of energy split through the sky. A green beam of light tore into the heavens like a blade through fog, illuminating the dark clouds above with an eerie glow.
Ethan's eyes narrowed. "Hmm."
Without hesitation, he turned toward Kaeryx, who had already sensed the shift in the air. "Kaeryx, let's go."
He leapt onto the dragon's back, the black-scaled beast roaring low in anticipation before launching into the sky, wings flaring with explosive force. The wind howled past them as they raced in the direction of the beam—toward the final target.
Meanwhile, in a clearing far behind, the Desperado guild party stood frozen as the beam of light split the sky.
Elira Dawnshield's lips parted in a whisper, her voice trembling, "The rune stone…"
Her heart sank like a stone thrown into a bottomless lake. They all knew what it meant.
The dungeon had acknowledged the death of all seven Goblin Generals. The path to the Goblin King had been revealed.
And it had all happened in less than two hours.
Solemn silence gripped the group like a chokehold. No one spoke, no one moved. Their expressions were pale and hollow, a mixture of disbelief, humiliation, and despair.
****
A/N:
Guys please gift the book golden tickets and powerstones, it's in dire need of it.