Final Charge!

Another swing came towards him from his right. It was a diagonal attack that aimed at the front of his face. Although Leo's spell was very effective in misdirecting his opponent's accuracy, the Goblin King's enhanced reflexes allowed itself to offset any mistakes it had made, barely leaving any openings to be taken advantage of.

Leo used [Earth Manipulation] to change the elevation of the ground. The area underneath both individuals' feet quickly turned uneven, becoming lower and taller respectively, forcing the swing of the club to miss just a few inches above his head. Leo sidestepped to the right and tried to jump around the monster using [Wind Boost]. For added measure, he raised spikes from the floor to target the enormous goblin and restrict its mobility.

The Goblin King growled before fixing his footing and breaking through the spikes Leo laid with his sheer body mass. There was a distinct annoyance on his green face, but deep down he was actually feeling very pleased with the current events.

'It won't take long before this little human runs out of mana,' the Goblin King thought in amusement. Having gained some experience and knowledge around other mages, he knew that there was a limit to the amount of spells a single mage could cast in a period of time. This human may have beaten his best goblins, but it had only been through trickery and not overwhelming power. Right now, stalling the fight would only be a waste of energy.

Of course, the Goblin King was well aware that the human mage could be trying to wait for his comrades to come and save him. But from time to time, using his peripheral vision to check the other side, the Goblin King witnessed that his kin were successfully able to hold off the remaining adventurers. Whether this was a result of the women's weakened spirit didn't matter. All he needed to know was that the end was near.

'I may have lost some important men in this battle, but I'll make sure to keep the women alive to provide new knowledge for our troops.

'Some of our goblins will be close to maturing after the fighting is finished. It'd be quite interesting to raise a healer among us.'

As for the numbers of ordinary goblins, this ruin had another secret which could allow monster species to effectively increase their rate of producing offspring. They would only need to sacrifice human blood to trigger this mysterious ability. Reassuring himself with the ruin's secrets, the Goblin King felt much happier at the future prospects for his kin and his attacks started becoming fiercer than ever.

Facing this new storm, Leo was thinking of providing the best opportunity for Alex to finally kill this monster.

'By now, he should probably have gained enough time to recover. But I still need to get the Goblin King to reveal a good opening.

'The best method would be baiting him to attack me while my guard is down.'

For this, Leo didn't actually require any extensively well-thought out plan to achieve this. Judging on the flow of their fight, sooner or later he would eventually find himself at the Goblin King's mercy. His body was exhausted, his mana was decreasing, and his thoughts were slowing. But at the prospect of facing near-certain death, Leo became increasingly afraid.

For the first time since Leo entered this ruin, he felt great distress over his predicament. Doubts had started to form in his head, causing him to develop worries over whether he had managed to save Alex from dying.

'A number of things could have potentially gone wrong; just one misstep in my guess and I could be sharing my teammate's fate.

'But either way, we're all done for if nothing changes,' Leo thought sardonically, 'No point hesitating when one of our possible endings is certain.'

He tried remembering some advice on calming the mind when fear takes hold. One good solution was to distract his thoughts with the present situation, which, thanks to the Goblin King, was easily taken care of. But the fear of death never left him.

The fortunate thing was that Leo still had some mana remaining, allowing himself to delay the inevitable moment where he would be helpless against the enemy. But as seconds turned into minutes, he soon started to regret it. Every spell Leo casted to avoid dying drained his mana, which not only dragged the time, but also slowly pushed himself a step closer to when he would have to bet on his friend's survival.

It was a bit agonizing to watch yourself steadily crawl towards the moment where you might be killed.

Although the Goblin King did not know of Leo's plan, through instinct, he could sense that the climax of their battle was approaching. In celebration of this, he decided to taunt the human as he continued his assault.

"Give up, human!

"We both know that you're nearing your limit.

"Why don't you surrender to me now? I promise that I won't kill you immediately. I've already decided: For every new piece of knowledge you can teach to our next generation, I'll keep you alive for one extra day."

Leo grit his teeth at the Goblin King's increasingly smug expression. But unbeknownst to him, the opposing monster was actually willing to uphold its offer. Whatever it was, it was still a leader that had its own principle, resembling an actual royalty with its own code of honor.

But there was no compromise that could be made between them. Determination to win was on both combatants' faces. The next instant will decide everything.

"Huff, huff..." Leo breathed heavily as his mana was nearing its end, and he collapsed himself onto the ground. His [Shadow Cascade] had also reached its duration and dispersed along with the rest of his hopes. All that could be done was to put his faith in a friend that he had just made less than a couple hours ago.

He kneeled with his right leg on the ground as he gazed up defiantly against the Goblin King's raised club. The magic sword was gripped beside his waist as he waited for the strike.

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"Leo!" Several meters away, Sarah called out to him. From her perspective, it seemed like this adventurer had exhausted too much of his energy and was now resigning himself to his fate.

Leo's body was positioned with his front facing in the direction of the cavern's entrance. The Goblin King was standing between both of their lines of sight, and was gleefully staring down at Leo with his broad back partially obscuring Sarah's view.

Powerful guilt gripped Sarah's heart as she realized that they had been too distracted with their emotions earlier. She and Judy should have been nearby to intervene, but the weight of Alex's likely death had taken away much of their conviction to fight. Subconsciously, their attacks had slowed and their coordination lacked diversity. Every movement they made was mechanical, thus allowing the goblins to easily adapt to their spiritless offence.

Even though they had previously heard Leo's outcry, they knew that it was only a helpless reassurance. In the end, their morale was still too low to make a difference.

'We never should have entered here...

'Our team should've left as soon as it was suggested.

'Then no one would have to die...'

Sorrow loomed inside her, and Sarah felt as if her throat was lodged.

'We need to run away,' in that split second, she firmly decided on their next course of action, 'The entrance is behind us. Even if Judy refuses, I must force her to leave.'

This was the only logical conclusion for her. Although something told her that the traps that were recently deactivated would likely resurface again, she had no choice but to make this final struggle.

Only by surviving could they get revenge.

But she actually didn't need to implement this. A distance away, sounds of cracking stone could be heard. From the left side of the cavern's wall, a dashing armored figure suddenly approached where Leo and the Goblin King were facing each other.

----------

'It's arrived!'

Lodged inside the wall, Alex finally found the opportunity he had been waiting for.

Just lying a few feet away, his sword was currently laying on the ground, and was still in pristine condition.

He had already formed a plan. The moment when the Goblin King fully focused its attention on Leo, that is when he would break free from his position and immediately grab his sword before making a final headway towards the giant monster.

'Right about... NOW!'

With his body fully recovered, he instantly separated himself from the wall he had been stuck in and charged forward.

----------

The Goblin King leered down at the exhausted adventurer. Just as he raised his club, a disturbance suddenly occurred in the cavern's left wall.

Completely bewildered, he turned his head in shock as he saw an armored warrior dashing towards him with a gleaming sword.

For just that single moment, the Goblin King was half a beat too slow in reacting. Even if he hadn't been, Leo would have used his last bit of mana to distract him long enough for Alex to launch a decisive strike.

[Bravery Charge]!

[Instant Slash]!

Without any regard to the potential risks, Alex put everything he had in this attack as his body trailed ferociously forward with every intent to slay this monster. Strength and momentum surged through him as his sword reached the speed of sound.

The air shook and blood splattered.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

The Goblin King screamed in horror as both his hands were cut from the wrists. They both fell onto the floor, with one of them still holding his spiked club. Blood was pumping out of his arms like a fountain and sprayed the ground red.

Because of his slightly slow reaction, the Goblin King had only managed to raise both arms before Alex struck with his enchanted sword.

'How... HOW WAS THIS POSSIBLE!?'

'It didn't make sense, the human warrior should have perished!

'Wait...!'

Straining his eyes open, the enormous creature noticed that the male human named Leo did not have a pouch wrapped around his waist. This prompted a thought to form in his mind.

'Did the human perhaps...?'

Experience with fighting other human beings had taught the Goblin King of the numerous types of magic items a person can possess for exploration.

Barely realizing that he was about to die, the Goblin King activated his hidden magic item to heal his wounds. But it was all too slow.

Not taking any more chances, Alex jumped up and quickly sliced his sword into the neck of the terrified Goblin King.

"Hahhh!"

Roaring with tenacity, in one fluid motion, Alex finally took the head of this monster who injured him.

THUD!

The Goblin King's body, and its severed head, finally fell towards the ground in defeat. The magic item it had activated also stopped as well; there was no point in healing a corpse.

----------

On the other side of the cavern, Judy watched in disbelief as she witnessed Alex rushing up towards the Goblin King and taking the latter's hands and weapons. Then she saw him leap towards the creature's neck and finished it off with one last stroke of his sword.

All sorts of thoughts filled her head, but at this moment she was mostly thrilled that her friend was still alive.

"HE'S BACK!" Judy shouted in joy towards Sarah, "He actually survived on his own!"

Sarah also gaped in disbelief at Alex's recovered form. There was still some blood and bits of rubble stuck to his armor, along with what appeared to be traces of a bag, but overall her comrade was surprisingly still alive and fit for battle.

It was not only them who were stunned at the unexpected scene, but the rest of the goblins were also dazingly looking at the revived warrior whom their leader had recently crushed.

The unpleasant scream from the Goblin King had caused them to look behind them in terror before they saw Alex take off its head.

Now, with their strongest member gone, all they could do was panic in confusion. Without their king, they had no idea of their next approach against the humans.

----------

Alex took several deep breaths as he stood in front of the kneeling Leo. Offering his hand, Alex pulled up his ally from the ground.

"That was an amazing trick you pulled. I have so much to owe you today." Alex said in all sincerity. As of this moment, there was nothing else he could think of saying.

"You saved my life as well," Leo sighed as his heart still shook at what happened earlier. If Alex had not gotten out, or if the Goblin King had been too fast, Leo likely would have met a certain end today.

"Let's worry about favors later," Leo cut off Alex who was about to say something again, "We've got bigger things to worry about now."

He pointed towards the panicked goblins who were uncertain of which side they should attack.

"Hm, alright," Alex nodded in agreement as he flicked off the blood of the Goblin King from his sword.

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