Goblin Chapter 490: Goblin Lord (Patreon)

In truth, even without Eden’s reminder, Gauss would not have been careless.

He did indeed have a great advantage when facing goblins, but there was a full six-level gap between him and the goblin lord. The enormous advantage brought by that level difference could offset many of the buffs he possessed.

Besides, one should never underestimate creatures like goblins.

It was true that low-level goblins were weak. Compared with other monsters, they had no particular advantage of their own. Their few racial merits were their powerful reproductive ability and survival ability, but these were not very helpful in direct combat.

Yet it was precisely because they were such a frail race that the powerful individuals born among them deserved even greater vigilance.

For them to grow from insignificant roadside wild dogs into powerful individuals who dominated a region, they had to put in far more effort than other species.

In that brutal survival environment, individuals that were not strong enough would have long ago become the feces of their own kind or other monsters.

Gauss’s body was falling.

He urgently adjusted his flight posture in midair.

Thud!

His body crashed into the earth.

The dragon scales on his body and the Gauss field provided powerful protection, preventing him from being injured despite an impact speed of several hundred meters per second.

But the monsters around his landing point were not so lucky.

Dozens of monsters near the impact site were smashed into meat paste on the spot, while the aftershock from the impact sent hundreds more flying.

“Hoo!”

Inside a pit several meters deep, Gauss knelt on one knee, then slowly stood up.

The heavy-as-a-mountain force that had suddenly been applied to him just now was undoubtedly the work of the goblin that had been chasing him relentlessly.

Was it its Domain?

Gauss narrowed his eyes slightly.

Then the mana inside his body surged rapidly.

“Ah!”

Blue light flashed and vanished, and his body abruptly appeared in an open space three hundred meters away.

The place where he had originally stood was now covered by the black light of a battle axe cleaving down.

Boom!

The ground, which had already endured massive impact damage, was struck by another round of roaring destruction.

Hundreds and thousands of shattered stones and clumps of earth were thrown more than ten meters into the air. The black light that landed turned to look toward Gauss not far away. Its great mouth slowly curved upward, opening into a vicious arc and revealing brown-yellow fangs within.

It raised its head slightly, twitched its thick nostrils, and gently sniffed the alluring scent still lingering in the air, an intoxicated expression appearing on its face.

This was indeed the most attractive human it had ever sensed.

The only thing it found regrettable was that the other party was male. Otherwise, it would absolutely want to capture him alive and make him bear offspring.

As the goblin lord observed Gauss, Gauss was likewise staring at it.

At this moment, the goblin’s body had actually shrunk several sizes compared with when it had first appeared.

It was now only a little over two meters tall, but the muscles across its body had become extremely compact. A dense layer of flowing black energy wrapped around the surface of its dark green skin, making it look incomparably fierce and efficient.

“Have I been grounded?”

After landing, Gauss felt the pressure lessen greatly. The higher he went, the stronger the binding force became.

“Are you all right, Brother Gauss?”

President Monroe’s voice came through.

“No problem for now.”

Gauss replied.

As he responded, the goblin lord once again transformed into a swift black light and charged toward him.

A series of piercing sonic booms rang out in the air.

This was an extremely powerful black beast.

“Dragon Roar Missile!”

He skimmed low toward the side while firing a Dragon Roar Missile that locked onto it.

The Dragon Roar Missile was especially dazzling and eye-catching in the night, like a living flying dragon moving through the air with agility.

Snazzy, the goblin lord moving at high speed, caught sight of that nimble missile from the corner of its eye. Its gaze remained calm and undisturbed.

It raised its right hand slightly. The black light wrapped around its arm condensed into substance, and its right arm suddenly swelled several times like rubber. The right arm even became larger than its body, looking like a great shield.

Bang!

Just before the Dragon Roar Missile hit, it raised its arm wrapped in black light at exactly the right moment. Then explosive power poured out.

Dong!

The black light and the shockwave released by the Dragon Roar Missile exploded in the air, sending terrifying waves of air rolling outward.

The missile’s energy continuously tore at the tempered, resilient black-light energy.

Snazzy’s originally calm expression flashed with surprise.

The destructive power transmitted through its arm exceeded its expectations.

Why? Why is it so heavy?

Of course, this did not mean it could not withstand the attack. In fact, it had taken attacks with even greater destructive power and more terrifying force.

The reason it was surprised was simply that this attack should not have been this strong.

Whether judged by the opponent’s flight speed, the mana intensity it sensed from the attack, or various other dimensions, its power should not have reached the level it displayed when it exploded against its hand.

This situation contradicted the judgment formed by its combat experience.

Its straight-line trajectory was also forced to stall because of the explosion of the Dragon Roar Missile.

In truth, this was the effect of Gauss’s Goblin Expert title.

One of its most basic effects, Nemesis, caused Gauss’s attacks to deal an additional forty percent damage when fighting goblin enemies.

A percentage boost, combined with the already considerable power of Dragon Roar Missile, became extremely terrifying when stacked together.

In addition, there was another effect: Intimidation.

When goblin enemies faced him, their state would drop to varying degrees.

With one side strengthened and the other weakened, this single strike surpassed the goblin lord Snazzy’s prediction.

“Interesting.”

“So this is the confidence you have in daring to fight me?”

Snazzy lowered its arm, which was still smoking after the attack. A portion of the black light on it had been eaten away.

It looked at its own arm, then at Gauss in the distance.

Its vigilance toward Gauss was rapidly rising. A monster capable of becoming a level 15 monster lord could not have low intelligence.

The bizarre combat power Gauss displayed forced it to admit that he was indeed not an opponent who could be taken lightly.

For the purpose of probing him, the goblin lord Snazzy took several more Dragon Roar Missiles head-on with its body.

It ignored the torn black light and instead revealed a look of realization.

Although it did not understand where that extra power came from, it believed it had now grasped Gauss’s ability and understood the exact degree of the amplification.

As for Gauss, he released several Fireballs along the way, deliberately slaughtering some nearby goblins, using the Bloodthirst effect of his Goblin Expert title to absorb some stamina. Then he quickly used Threefold Source Power to convert it into mana and restore himself, constantly keeping his state at its peak.

He glanced without leaving a trace at the endless goblin army surging from the rear. These would all become his blood packs.

In other words, it looked as though he was trapped deep in the enemy formation, but in reality, this was his comfort zone.

If he wanted to kill more, he could actually kill far more, but he deliberately held back. His purpose was to keep the surrounding blood reserve sufficient at all times. If it overflowed, that would be waste.

As long as the battle between this goblin lord and him dragged on, the other party would gradually realize a terrifying phenomenon: Gauss was the one who seemed like the monster that never tired and never consumed energy.

The other party’s bold and aggressive fighting style, even as a powerful level 15 monster, would eventually consume more than it could recover.

And at this time, his Witching Hour talent was also exerting its effect.

The proficiency of the Level 6 spell Mental Prison had quietly risen by another point just now.

So, strictly speaking, he was not merely maintaining peak combat strength. He was growing stronger as he fought.

He had not yet used the Mental Prison spell he had just mastered for precisely this reason.

Any method was most effective the first time it was used, when the enemy had no idea about it and was caught off guard.

Moreover, its Lv2 proficiency was still a little low for now. Every additional point of proficiency would raise the success rate somewhat and also make Mental Prison stronger.

“But it really is strong.”

Gauss’s golden dragon pupils stared at the goblin lord. The aura on its body had not weakened at all.

Clearly, those few rounds of testing just now had meant nothing to it.

The no-flight Domain also prevented him from using altitude advantage to distance himself from the opponent. In terms of ground movement speed, the opponent was on par with him. In fact, at the current stage, the opponent’s straight-line burst speed was even faster. His own advantage was that he could weave the spatial magic of Dimension Door into low-altitude flight, making his movement direction harder to predict.

Additionally, his attack methods leaned more toward long-range combat. He could release spells to interfere with the opponent while kiting it.

But the goblin lord’s speed advantage was an objective fact, so he also risked being approached in close combat.

At close range, the reaction time left to a person was very short. If necessary, he would have to activate Future Sight.

In that brief moment as fast as lightning, Gauss clearly judged both sides’ strengths and weaknesses.

Thud!

In the distance, under the goblin lord Snazzy’s feet, the black energy wrapped around its legs was rapidly condensing.

Circles of air waves churned beneath it.

The land under its feet quickly sank.

It became stronger?

Gauss noticed that it had greatly increased the efficiency with which it used that black energy.

Sure enough, after a brief charge-up, the goblin lord’s speed erupted again, increasing by several tenths.

Gauss activated Dimension Door to dodge its first landing point.

His body was teleported three hundred meters away.

Then he prepared to flap his wings for the next movement, but just then, his peripheral vision had already caught a black figure pressing close to him.

So fast!

Gauss had no time to react in detail.

Instinctively, he folded his wings in front of himself, condensing them into a powerful platinum-white light shield around his body.

The next moment, he felt a rough and violent force surge through his wings.

Boom!

His body was instantly sent flying backward.

“Future Sight!”

Gauss decisively activated his ability. At that moment, the entire world in his eyes seemed to freeze.

Of course, this was only an illusion.

In reality, time was still flowing.

The best proof was the black figure in the corner of his vision that had just kicked him flying and was still closing in on him.

It was just that under the power of Future Sight, its approach seemed much slower.

But it was still moving.

Gauss could not help feeling a bit fortunate. Thankfully, he had already thought this through before, so the moment he was kicked away, he decisively activated Future Sight.

If he had been late by even a fraction of a second, the opponent’s next strike would probably already have landed on him.

Should he use Mental Prison?

As his thought moved, the image before his eyes rapidly extended forward.

He saw the future several seconds later.

Then his brows furrowed slightly.

There were many possibilities, but the vast majority of futures guided by this choice were unsatisfactory.

There were many reasons. Right now, his body was being thrown backward while enduring extremely high load. Although his brain and mind could remain clear because of Future Sight, the mana inside his body was still in a state of rapid and unstable vibration.

In such a state, let alone Lv2 proficiency, even skills at Lv3 or higher would have a risk of failing.

The other reason lay with the opponent.

The spiritual talent of monsters was indeed relatively poor, and goblins were not a race skilled in this path.

But one had to understand that the state of the spirit was not unchanging.

The same spiritual spell, when used on someone drowsy, overworked for several days, and completely unrested, would have a completely different effect than when used on someone full of energy and in a state of extreme excitement.

And this goblin lord was now in an extremely excited state.

As it moved at high speed, its thick nostrils continuously sprayed white steam, and the gaze it cast toward Gauss was full of undisguised instinctive greed.

He still had to dodge.

Gauss quickly made his judgment.

Now was not the round for counterattack. He still needed to lie low for the moment and not directly confront its sharpest edge.

His peripheral vision glanced at the wings in front of him. One wing had taken the previous attack, and its structure had already snapped.

Fortunately, this wing was not ordinary flesh and blood, but a materialized product formed by Top-Tier Mana Body condensing mana.

There was enough time to replenish and reconstruct it.

Even in the worst case, if its attack completely pierced through his wing defense and landed on his body, he could still adjust his posture and elementalize the part of his body within the goblin lord’s kick range, ultimately achieving complete damage immunity.

Through the powerful derivation of Future Sight, Gauss obtained the result he wanted.

Immediately afterward, he controlled the mana inside his body to “slowly” flow toward the wings on his back.

This slowness was only the effect inside Future Sight. In reality, this flow speed probably did not even take a tenth of a blink.

After receiving mana replenishment, the bones in his kicked-broken wings rapidly reformed and reconnected. The platinum-white wings slowly regrew over the wound.

In real time, Snazzy was still approaching Gauss at extreme speed like a charging beast.

Just as it arrived before Gauss, its black thigh, thicker than an elephant’s leg, suddenly kicked up, preparing to deliver an even heavier blow to the wound it had just made.

In its vision blurred by extreme movement, Snazzy faintly caught sight of an intact golden barrier.

Dong!

However, everything happened too quickly. Before it could think any further, the black-light energy wrapped around dozens of tons of force slammed into that seemingly frail body.

This time, Gauss was kicked even farther away.

A platinum-white beam dragged across the ground for hundreds of meters.

Countless monsters blocking the way were smashed to pieces.

After completing two consecutive supersonic lethal kicks, Snazzy also stopped in place and panted twice.

Although the duration had been very short, the power it had mobilized was extremely terrifying.

If it launched a third consecutive kick, given its current physical condition, there would be a high risk of muscle tearing.

Countless pores across its body released hot white steam. Its entire body was like a steam locomotive that had just braked to a stop.

In its mind, it was still replaying the image of that second kick. Its gaze turned toward the end of the cracked trench in the ground.

Within the smoke and dust, the wings in front of the human had snapped again and drooped before him. Blood dripped down, making him look somewhat miserable.

But…

In its expectations, that charged kick should have completely pierced through the opponent’s defense and heavily struck the human’s frail body. At the very least, it should have taken half his life.

Had he reacted in time and used some special method to resist? But how was that possible? The time was so short!

Snazzy clicked its lips, its gaze turning dark. An inexplicable irritation surged in its heart.

This human seemed shrouded in a layer of mysterious dark cloud, making it extremely uncomfortable to fight him. Past combat experience seemed to be completely unusable against him.

The more one wanted to exert full force and beat him to death in one blow, the more troublesome he became.

It felt as though it had fallen into an ordinary-looking mire. Resistance wrapped around its entire body, making it unable to fully use even its mountain-shaking strength.

After a brief rest, Snazzy continued launching a storm-like offensive.

One black and one white streak of brilliant light continuously entangled in the deep night. Overall, however, it was clear that the black light held the initiative.

The white light kept dodging, occasionally being knocked down to the ground and revealing “severe injuries.”

In the distance, the goblin commanders and three transcendent goblins commanding the goblin army to press forward in force watched their boss “severely injure” the enemy and let out waves of cheers.

They did not know what Snazzy was personally feeling right now. They only knew that from the scene, their leader clearly had the upper hand, and that human was being beaten with no power to fight back.

As for the many clansmen crushed to death along the way, as well as those casually killed by that human while he was busy, these leaders paid them no mind.

If their deaths could increase their leader’s chance of victory, even by a single point, then their deaths were worthwhile.