Goblin Chapter 479: Suppression (Patreon)

The impact caused by the breath attack did not settle for a long time.

The surviving soldiers below were already staring with their mouths agape.

Was that still something a human could do?

It was powerful, crude, wild, unreasonable, and sacredly mighty.

So much so that they even forgot the shattered fragments from the falling boulder were like terrifying stray projectiles. Fortunately, Gauss had already clapped his hands in front of them from above, knocking away the many stone fragments flying in their direction and dissolving that wave of aftershock before it could even descend.

The humans behind Gauss were not the only ones stunned. At that moment, the cyclops on the mountainside was also completely dazed.

What had it just seen?

The granite boulder it had thrown had been effortlessly annihilated by that mysterious creature using a method almost like firing a cannon at a mosquito.

The destruction of the rock by that terrifying attack seemed only an insignificant side effect. The remainder of the attack had pierced through the sky itself.

The cyclops stared at the huge hole in the clouds above and instinctively took two steps back.

An enemy like this…

Even with its slow, dull brain, it knew this was not something it could fight now.

The opponent’s body was only an insignificant ant compared with its own, but the power he wielded was far more terrifying than its own massive and powerful physique.

But before it could think any further, Gauss’s gaze suddenly turned toward it.

The moment Gauss looked at it, the cyclops felt pressure hundreds or thousands of times more terrifying than when they had first locked eyes.

That pressure drowned it like a tide.

Gauss’s “small” body rapidly enlarged in its vision, until it seemed like a great mountain was pressing down over its head, making it unable to breathe.

“Wait here for me for a moment.”

Gauss’s voice reached every soldier below.

As soon as he finished speaking, his wings stirred up a gale, and he shot out like a beam of light.

A moment later, he had already arrived before the mountainside where the cyclops stood.

Gauss and the cyclops stared at each other across a distance of one hundred meters.

One hundred meters was a very short distance, whether for Gauss or for the cyclops.

Gauss observed the cyclops’s body up close. This was perhaps the largest monster he had ever come into close contact with.

Even the transcendent centaur had not been as massive as the monster before him in terms of sheer size.

Of course, in this fantastical transcendent world, size and strength were not completely equivalent. Otherwise, with Gauss’s small frame, he should have had no way to fight enemies far larger than himself.

What mattered more was whether one possessed power on other levels, such as magic or a Domain. In addition, the density of muscle, explosive strength, agility and speed, toughness of skin, and many other factors all determined whether a creature was truly powerful.

Compared with the smaller transcendent centaur, this cyclops was clearly somewhat impressive-looking but lacking in substance.

Although the muscles beneath its skin were enormous, under Gauss’s scrutiny, they were not solid enough. What this reflected was that although it had more muscle, its strength was quite ordinary.

In truth, this was because Gauss’s perspective was now too high. He had grown used to seeing stronger monsters, so when he examined enemies from a previous level with a higher-level gaze, they naturally seemed unremarkable.

But from the perspective of ordinary adventurers, such a gigantic cyclops was almost a despair-inducing opponent.

At range, it could throw rocks with unmatched accuracy and destructive power. If one got close, the situation became even more hopeless. Once its three-story-tall body moved, it was a giant killing machine. With every movement, it could crush any human in front of it into paste.

In terms of defense, its yellow-brown skin offered the kind of protection most ordinary adventurers found most despairing. Even if it stood still and allowed them to slash it, or allowed their magic to bombard its body, most of them would have great difficulty breaking through its defenses.

Its only weakness was probably its eye.

But the cyclops naturally knew this too and would never allow enemies to freely attack its weak point.

This was also one of the survival rules of ordinary people: if you saw a giant creature, it was best to avoid it from far away in advance. After all, a small monster was not necessarily proficient in magic or possessed of strength completely disproportionate to its size, but a large monster’s strength would definitely not be too weak. Otherwise, even moving would be difficult for them.

“Roar-wah-wah!”

Gauss heard the cyclops saying something to him, and the fierce expression on its face was gone.

What it was saying should have been Giant.

Gauss had never learned it. Of course, he could activate Comprehend Languages to hear its general meaning.

But right now, he had no such leisure. Most likely, it was begging for mercy. Or perhaps it had a bit of backbone and was choosing threats or temptation. Either way, Gauss was not interested.

His expression was indifferent. The white wand in his hand fired a Dragon Roar Missile.

Boom!

A crisp snapping sound rang out.

The massive body of the giant toppled crookedly to one side.

Shock appeared on the cyclops’s face, and its single pupil looked downward. It saw that the knee of its pillar-like leg, thicker than an elephant’s, had already been blown apart.

Blood surged from the severed section of its thigh like a waterfall.

Perhaps because the attack had been too fast, it had not even had time to feel pain.

The cyclops knelt on the ground, barely holding its balance with its upper limbs.

Its other arm grabbed the giant axe beside its foot. Just as it tried to raise its head and search for the enemy’s position, it realized that Gauss had disappeared again.

Where…

Above!

The cyclops instinctively sensed a powerful aura from above its head.

But when it swung its giant axe, it split apart only an afterimage.

“Wrong. I’m behind you.”

Of course, Gauss knew the cyclops could not understand his words.

But he did not give it any time to react.

The next moment, the dragon wings behind him retracted back into his body, and his right arm immediately began to change.

Platinum-white scales emitted an intense glow. Behind that light, his right arm suddenly swelled several times over, the writhing muscles moving rapidly beneath the scales like little mice.

In an instant, his right arm had become a thick dragon claw covered in bulging muscles and shining platinum scales.

He raised his right arm high. Its size was even larger than his body.

Boom!

The claw locked onto the back of the cyclops’s neck, then suddenly exerted force.

The cyclops instinctively wanted to resist, but that sudden tremendous power was far too terrifying.

On top of that, with one thigh broken, it was already difficult for it to maintain its full strength. The resistance it had just gathered was instantly smashed apart in a brutal manner by the dragon claw gripping it.

Bang!

The cyclops was instantly pinned hard to the ground.

Its face flushed red with congestion, and thick veins like giant pythons throbbed wildly at the side of its scalp.

The force pressing it down was too strong.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The cyclops braced its arms against the ground, trying to crawl up, but Gauss, riding on its back, remained completely unmoved. The arm transformed into a dragon claw applied even greater force in an extremely short time.

It wanted to attack Gauss on its back like swatting a mosquito, but the moment it raised its arm, a missile instantly shattered its elbow joint.

Crack, crack, crack!

The bones and cartilage beneath the giant’s neck exploded with sounds like firecrackers.

Then the force of its resistance grew weaker and weaker.

Finally, its body suddenly went limp and stopped moving altogether.

“Commander-level Monster Cyclops ×1 slain.”

“…”

Gauss continued applying force for a few more seconds before slowly reducing the strength in his hand.

In truth, he had many ways to kill this cyclops. The reason he chose close-range dragon claw transformation to strangle it was, on one hand, to preserve as much of the body tissue as possible. Using Fireball, Dawn, Bigby’s Hand, or Dragon Roar Missiles to pierce its vital points would all reduce his gains. On the other hand, he also wanted to test the power of the dragon-body transformation he had obtained not long ago in actual combat.

The facts proved that dragon-body transformation was indeed extremely powerful.

The dragon wings gave him strong flight ability at the level of physical function.

The dragon scales gave him powerful protection.

The dragon throat gave him the destructive power of true dragon breath at range.

The dragon claws and partial dragon body gave him incomparable brute force, to the point that even giants, famed for strength, could not show the slightest resistance beneath him.

Unfortunately, he had sent the red dragon Hephis out to work, while also protecting the members of the Red Dragon Company. Otherwise, Hephis could have stayed by his side and received direct teaching, learning about the powerful abilities of true dragons.

He looked down at the massive giant body beneath him.

He did not think that the giant race, known alongside true dragons, was unimpressive or undeserving of its reputation.

Because that comparison would be unfair and unequal.

In the eyes of the world, true dragons were mostly powerful dragonkind like chromatic dragons and metallic dragons. As for other lesser dragons, wyverns, land drakes, and the like, did they count as dragons? Barely, perhaps, but no one would ever call them true dragons.

The giant race had an equally vast family tree. Hill giants, cyclopes, fomorians, and the like were not truly “real giants.” At most, their status among giants was comparable to dragonborn or lesser dragons among dragonkind.

There were storm giant nobles who lived far from the mortal world, mastered prophecy, despised conflict, and were viewed as lesser gods by some humanoid civilizations.

There were cloud giant nobles who could transform into mist, become clouds, take physical clouds as their territory, and control weather.

Not to mention giants with titan bloodlines and descendants of giant gods. Their destructive power could increase dozens or even hundreds of times, surpassing true dragons of the same level.

The giant race had once created an ancient giant empire. Beyond the world, they also had a pantheon of giant gods: the storm giant chief god Stronmaus, the cloud giant chief god Memnor, the stone giant chief god Skoraeus Stonebones, and many others protecting them. Above them all stood Annam, the Father God of Giants, whom they no longer truly worshiped.

Those divine children of the Father God, and the giant pantheon mixed with heroic spirits and evil gods, were proof of the race’s strength.

Even if one ignored the distant gods in the sky, the situation in the material world alone was enough.

In another borderland not too far from here, the lord of the Giant Fang Plateau was a mountain giant king with ancient high titan blood. It was said that its destructive power surpassed even that of the Green Dragon Queen.

The First Settlers Province bordering its territory had long been devastated. Natural disasters caused by its awakening had destroyed numerous human settlements.

The entire province had already been riddled with destruction by war. It was said that the kingdom’s direct knight order had already stationed itself in First Settlers Province, precisely to resist the war offensive launched by that mountain giant king.

Gauss dispelled the dragon-body transformation on his arm.

The storage bracelet he took out glowed faintly. With a thought, the entire cyclops corpse, along with the severed lower leg, was taken into the storage space.

Fortunately, the storage bracelet that held the four juvenile dragons was still on him. Otherwise, storing this trophy would not have been simple.

Gauss inspected the trophies inside the bracelet once more, like an old miser counting his treasury. After confirming nothing had changed, he put away the bracelet.

After death, being placed in the same space as true dragons could be considered a dignified end for this cyclops.

After all, in terms of sequence rank, this cyclops, which was neither noble nor possessed of a powerful ancient bloodline, could not even hope to compare with true dragons.

Gauss turned and entered the cyclops’s lair to sweep through it, looting its “treasures.”

Only then did he return to the forest clearing where the soldiers were.

By now, they had already handled the matters around them, including collecting their comrades’ remains into body bags, sorting the equipment and armor scattered around, and gathering the corpse materials of the many monsters in the forest.

Seeing Gauss descend from the sky, the vice-captain—or rather, Caleb, who would likely become captain before long—quickly jogged forward.

“Lord Gauss, we’ve sorted all the spoils from the monsters you killed.”

Caleb gestured to Gauss at the neatly stacked pile of monster corpses.

In truth, he was understating it. That pile did not only contain monsters Gauss had killed. The monsters their team had killed earlier were also included.

But at this moment, compared with those petty gains, everyone who had walked once past the gates of hell felt that surviving was already the greatest reward.

“You can keep those.”

“Process and divide the monsters I killed among yourselves. Give a few extra shares to the families of the dead. Consider it compensation for their loved ones.”

Gauss waved his hand, his face unconcerned.

At his current level, many spoils were no longer worth his attention. He had left most of the monsters he had killed alone in the wild earlier without harvesting or processing them.

One reason was that it wasted time and affected his monster-killing efficiency. Another was that the gains were not high, and it would take up storage space.

The most valuable thing in this camp was the cyclops corpse he had just collected. It seemed to contain a portion of giant bloodline. Perhaps special potions could be refined from it.

As for these external monsters, many of them had traveled lightly and did not have much value to squeeze out.

However, for the people before him, this was still quite a considerable profit.

“…”

Hearing Gauss’s generous decision, Caleb slowly raised his head and felt his throat grow a little itchy.

After hesitating again and again, however, he still could not say any fake words of refusal.

They really did need these profits. This money could let them upgrade to better armor and weapons, buy higher-level battle techniques, and improve their personal combat strength. As for the families of their fallen teammates, although the army would issue compensation, they had after all lost the pillars of their households. Their wives and children truly needed more money.

“Then I will thank you on behalf of my comrades, my lord!”

Gauss openly accepted everyone’s gratitude.

After asking which army unit they belonged to, he escorted them to a safe main road and watched them head toward the city wall.

Then he continued throwing himself into the busy work of searching for monsters and killing monsters in the wilderness.

When Gauss finished his day outside and returned to the military camp, President Monroe had just sent someone to notify him that the guild’s senior actuary had arrived at the front-line camp with the exchange catalogue.