Goblin Base Part II

'Thud'

[You have killed a 'Goblin' Lvl. 11]

'This is... too much...'

Pant... Pant... Pant...

I killed the last one surrounding me and the remaining four backed off step by step, shaking with fear.

'This makes them twenty four. If I kill these four, five others and the Shaman will be left, a total of six. I am at the peak of Level 12 now. At this rate, I can level up in a few days.'

I rushed at the one nearest to me but before I could kill him, my instincts began to shout like crazy. A cold sweat dropped down my forehead as I jumped back immediately.

And the next moment, a loud explosion occurred just a few feet ahead of me.

Booooom!!

I could see it was a wise decision; even the goblin in front of me was burnt down to crisp.

I looked towards the main camp and saw the ugly green monster standing there with a proud smile, holding a large staff.

Five other goblins were behind him, smiling as if their time has finally arrived.

'These guys really have a way to irritate others.'

The Shaman was finally here, so now I had to consider this variable too. But fortunately, it wasn't as dangerous as I predicted initially.

'The attack power is quite lethal but the casting speed is much slower than I imagined'

I immediately picked up a falchion near me and threw it towards one of the three remaining goblins near me. It didn't hit him but it was enough for me to distract him for a second, considering he was already too scared now.

I slashed his head easily without much effort and ran towards the others. The goblins started running towards the Shaman in fear and the effect of my charm was already over to catch both of them.

But I was still much faster than them.

I caught up with one of them and pierced its head from the back. Withdrawing my sword, I ignored all the notifications I was getting and started running towards the other direction, opposite to the Shaman.

I didn't try to catch the second one. It wasn't because I knew I couldn't catch it.

I did this because I knew it was about time.

'The second spell is coming.'

I was certain that I could avoid it if I maintained a distance. I would just have to jump and avoid it.

But something happened beyond my expectations. My body slowed down and my speed became slower and slower. I was now running at the same speed as the goblins.

I could see the Shaman laughing loudly in speaking in some unrecognizable language.

'W-what? A 'slow' spell. Not good!'

If it's like this, then there was no choice but to attack them head on.

I changed my plan again and retraced my steps, running towards them as fast as I could. I neither had enough strength nor enough speed to kill them all. My defense was also weak from the start and my mana was slowly reaching towards the bottom.

But I was confident.

Because I still had some tricks up my sleeves.

My low strength prevented me from killing them easily so I just had to increase my strength. I knew it was impossible to increase my stats here but that didn't mean I can't increase the strength of my weapon.

I poured all my remaining mana into the sword as I could see it glowing faintly. It was the same way I did with my spear when fighting the Dark Wyvern.

Surrounding your mana around your weapon was not an easy technique.

Especially more so during an actual fight. Even veteran demigods soldiers struggle to achieve it perfectly.

The time I did it against the Wyverns was nowhere perfect. And I wasn't really in between a fight at that time so I was able to concentrate my best from the sidelines.

Only after learning Mana Borrow was I able to complete that task, though still not perfect.

But now…

I had the Elven Mana Manipulation technique with me.

In the past three weeks, I trained and trained till I felt like passing out every day. My swordsmanship and spearmanship were improving gradually and I saw a massive improvement in my archery the other day.

But what I really learned the most is manipulating my mana. It was the only thing I practiced every day. If one day I practiced it by the waterfalls, the next day I kept using it before falling asleep.

I also trained to envelope my weapons using mana more efficiently. And while I was still not perfect, I was finally able to slightly use it better between my fights.

Szzzzz!

With a sizzling sound, the attack power of the mana-enveloped sword increased by several folds.

But as a result, my mana was starting to deplete at a much faster rate. And within a few minutes, I would run out of it too.

But that's okay. Because my manipulation technique was incomplete without my skill.

{Mana Borrow}

My body started to become pleasantly warm as I could feel the mana near my solar plexus filling up. I enveloped it more and more around the weapon as the ethereal light emitting out from the sword became brighter.

I also spread the mana towards my arms and legs to slightly increase my speed.

The only reason I didn't use it before was because it was not perfect. Or to be precise, my body and my level were not strong enough for me to use it frequently so the backlash was huge.

Based on my fight against the Dark Wyvern on that fateful night, I learnt that Mana Borrow has a huge impact on my body. My head and my muscles start hurting and aching tremendously after some time. In that condition, a single mistake might lead me to my death.

Moreover, I was confident that I could win without using it today.

But now, I have no choice.

I ran at the group of goblins behind the Shaman and without waiting for it to cast another spell, I slashed the throat of two other goblins.

At least that was what I intended.

Instead of just slicing the throats, my weapon went inside without any resistance and the two heads flew away as the headless bodies began falling one by one.

'Thud'

[You have killed a 'Goblin' Lvl. 10]

'Finally… this butter-like feeling'

But even so, my speed was much slower than the time I used the charm, and so I couldn't avoid some of their attacks.

A goblin in front of me attacked me with his falchion and as I blocked his weapon with my sword, I failed to avoid the other two goblins that attacked me simultaneously on both my arms.

Drip... Drip...

My right hand only had a shallow wound but blood started dripping down my left arm.

Pushing back the falchion goblin, I rolled down towards the left and cut the legs of the goblins which injured my left arm.

I managed to reach one more goblin that threw himself at me and killed it before I started to proceed towards the falchion goblin.

But suddenly, vines started to grow and wrapped my legs up towards my upper body restricting my movements. I knew it was the work of the Shaman.

Though they weren't very difficult to cut, I still wasn't able to free myself. It was because these vines had a really powerful regenerative power. I cut one, and the other one grew back.

I freed my right hand somehow and deflected the falchion goblin that was still persistent as ever with my sword. Concluding that a fire skill would be good enough against these vines, I proceeded to use my skill.

{Fireball}

Argh!

But just as I put my whole focus into these vines, I felt a sudden pain and saw a long knife pierce into my body from the side near my abdomen.

'Crap! There's one more? Was it hiding? I miscalculated.'

It was most probably the one that ran earlier with the remaining three goblins.

{Fireball}

I was almost free from the vines as the fire was burning them without stopping.

Biting my lips I took out the long knife and pierced the goblin's hand that attacked me.

Kaaaaaa!

Though it wasn't dead, it did drop its guard, letting out a shrieking cry.

Freeing myself completely, I rotated my body in a circle with a high speed and in the process I gashed both the goblins out, the one that hurt me in the abdomen and also that persistent falchion goblin.

[You have killed a 'Goblin' Lvl. 10]

[You have killed a 'Goblin' Lvl. 14]

I withdrew my sword and tried to dash forward only to stop immediately in my tracks. A fireball was coming this way.

Booooom!

This time, I couldn't avoid it completely as my shoes and half of my pants towards the bottom burnt down. I was tossed into the air by the large impact of the blast and hit a wall behind me. Even the sword fell down from my grip.

'That's....'