Overwhelming Firepower

The Goblin Gladiators roared as they charged, each step shaking the frozen ground.

Arrows cracked uselessly against their thick hides.

Lead balls sank into muscle, drawing blood but failing to slow them. Even the Thunderspears struggled to track their lumbering speed.

Vardon and Thalos were not making a move yet since they were still trying to recover as much as they could.

”Heh, those look like some sturdy experimental subjects.” Robert, who was watching the charging Goblin Gladiators, smiled. ”I need to get a bit closer to test it out.”

Robert took out a vial from his jacket. He then looked at Harlik, who was standing beside him, and spoke. ”Cover me.”

The second he said those words, he did not wait for Harlik to reply and jumped down from the battlements. Before he hit the ground, he cast a minor wind spell to break his fall. Robert then proceeded to use physical enhancement spells to dash forward.

Harlik, who was stunned by the sudden actions of Robert, finally spoke. ”That bloody b*stard! Everyone kill the enemies getting close to Robert.” Harlik commanded the others.

***

The vial in Robert’s hand pulsed faintly, a soft blue light leaking through the glass.

Frost clung to his fingers where it touched, and a mist coiled from the cork like a

breath that was too cold for the night air.

”Using one of the Frost Titan’s lungs, which has the highest concentration of mana, and adding a few other things to enhance that mana. Even after putting it into a vial that was specifically created to trap mana, some of it is still leaking out. I wonder what will happen if I throw this at one of those monsters.”

Robert muttered to himself as he dodged an arrow coming his way. He was dashing through the battlefield, his focus was on the charging Gobling Gladiators. Robert was looking at them not as enemies but as experimental subjects to use his new toy on.

The Goblin Gladiators thundered closer, their clubs raised like falling towers. Every impact of their feet made the icy ground tremble. Instead of being afraid, Robert grinned wildly.

”Perfect,” he breathed.

He twisted, avoiding a spear hurled by a hobgoblin, and continued to dash toward the Goblin Gladiators. Once he was close enough, he threw the vial in his hand. When the vial was in front of the Goblin Gladiators, Robert fired a small concentrated amount of mana at the vial.

The vial exploded in front of the roaring Goblin Gladiators. A storm was born.

Frost and wind erupted outward, shrieking like a blizzard loosed from the mountains. The temperature plummeted in an instant. It was already cold before, but now, the breath froze in midair, steel hissed and cracked, and even the ground glazed over in jagged ice.

The lead Gladiator, caught in the blast, howled as its massive body stiffened. Crystalline veins of blue light raced across its hide, freezing flesh and bone alike. Its swing faltered mid-arc, the club dropping from its fingers with a thunderous crash.

The Gladiator’s body convulsed, skin splitting as shards of ice burst outward. Nearby goblins screamed as they were skewered by frozen shrapnel, their bodies twitching before falling silent.

One Gladiator fell to its knees, then toppled sideways, frozen solid. Another staggered backward, half its body encased in rime, every step cracking its own limbs.

Robert’s eyes gleamed behind his mask. ”Ohhh!!! How marvelous! A hybrid reaction—partial crystallization, volatile mana discharge, collateral fragmentation... That Frost Titan was truly something out of legend. If the juvenile had this much power, I wonder what an adult can do.”

He muttered faster, nearly giddy. ”... If only I had more time to create more variations. I could have tested it on these beautiful, sturdy test subjects.”

As he was muttering to himself, Robert’s body was still moving. This time, he was moving to the next targets. He had a few more items he wanted to test out. A few arrows and spears came his way, but he dodged them with ease.

In the battlements, Harlik and the other Thornefang members who were firing at whoever the enemy was closest to Robert were quite amazed by how fluid his body movements were.

”The crazy b*stard, just what does he think he’s doing?”

Below, Robert ducked under a thrown axe, his boots skidding across ice he himself had created. He laughed as if the battlefield were a laboratory, each shriek and clash another datapoint.

The goblins and hobgoblins did not stop their attacks even after the frozen blast. With the power of the Goblin General, they knew no fear.

The Goblin Gladiators that were only partially hit by the frozen blast did not stop their charge. One of them bellowed, its massive chest steaming as it exhaled clouds of frost and rage, pounding forward with even greater fury.

Robert drew another vial, this one faintly glowing green. ”The stomach sac of the Grey snake. I infused it with the icy parts of the Frost Titan. I wonder what would happen when this type of melting acid combines with freezing mana.”

Robert twirled the green vial between his fingers as if it were a toy instead of a weapon. The liquid inside churned like molten emerald, faint wisps of frost curling around the glass.

He licked his lips behind the mask. ”Now let’s see what kind of truth I will learn from this.”

He spotted another Goblin Gladiator nearing the fortress wall and decided to test his toy on it.

Robert hurled the vial at its chest and snapped his fingers, releasing a needle of mana. The vial shattered.

What poured forth was no simple frost nor venom, but something altogether different. A flame was born, but it burned blue-green, cold enough to crack stone, hot enough to melt steel. It hissed and roared like fire, yet the air froze around it, brittle and sharp.

The cold fire clung to the Gladiator’s chest. Its roar faltered as flesh blackened and froze, then peeled away in steaming tatters.

Every swing, every breath only fanned the strange flames, which spread across its hide like a living frostfire parasite.

Nearby goblins shrieked as tongues of cold fire attacked them. Their bodies froze from within, then shattered into brittle pieces, but their armor dripped and warped as if half-melted.

The Gladiator staggered, one arm breaking off in a spray of shards while the other dissolved into sludge, its hulking form collapsing with a seismic crash. Cold fire devoured its corpse for a moment longer, then guttered out in a hiss of vapor.

Robert clapped like a delighted child. ”Hahahaha! Splendid! Amazing! Acid amplifying frost into flames, a sort of cold fire. An unexpected reaction, but a great one.”

When Robert was enjoying the experiment he was doing, a Goblin Hero approached him and pointed his sword at Robert.

The Goblin Hero’s blade gleamed under the moonlight, its stance upright, practiced, almost regal compared to the chaos around it.

”Vile human!” it snarled, voice guttural yet clear enough to carry meaning. ”I challenge you to a duel! One warrior against another. No tricks. No cowardice.”

Robert tilted his head, blinking as if the words were spoken in another language. Then, behind his mask, a grin spread.

”A duel?” His laugh burst out sharp and sudden, like glass breaking. ”Hahahaha! Now that’s quite the interesting thing to say. Unfortunately, I’m no warrior who would accept such a challenge. This is my lab and you are my test subjects, nothing more, nothing less.”

The Goblin Hero’s nostrils flared, its jagged teeth bared in fury. ”You dare mock me, human? Do you have no honor?!.”

Robert laughed even louder and more raw than before, his voice cutting through the chaos of the battlefield.

”Honor? Hahaha! What use is honor when your entrails are scattered across the snow? When your body melts into nothing but ash and ice? You chase meaning where there is none. To me, you are merely materials, things that I will use in my pursuit of the ultimate truths. To see the very ends of alchemy, and more!”

Robert’s manic eyes that were hidden behind his bird beak mask felt like it was almost glowing.

The Goblin Hero snarled, slamming its blade into a ready stance. The blade in its hands shone from the moonlight. A sword taken from a knight it had defeated in combat. Its voice thundered with conviction.

”Your madness dies by my blade!”

Robert’s shoulders shook, and then he doubled over in laughter, clutching his mask as if it could barely contain his glee.

”Magnificent! Hahaha! You even talk like them. You truly believe you’re more than a beast in a stolen helm. Fine then! Show me this honor of yours! I’ll record every crack in your flesh, every shriek in your voice, and engrave your so-called honor into my mind to be part of my knowledge!”

The Goblin Hero lunged, blade flashing with the precision of a knight’s thrust. Its stolen armor rattled, its steps thundered, but its technique was unmistakably human.

Robert leaned back, the tip of the sword grazing the beak of his mask. Instead of fear, a shrill laugh tore from his throat. He flicked his wrist, and a vial spun through the air.

The Goblin Hero did not know what that was, but its instincts were telling it that it was dangerous to come into contact with whatever was inside the vial.

The Goblin Hero evaded the vial and continued to attack Robert, who used a third ring spell to summon a wall of stone. The Goblin Hero slashed at the wall of stone, and when it did, Robert was already a distance away.

”Hoh! As expected of a beast, you were able to instinctively understand that it was something dangerous and avoided it. It’s also quite fun to see that you’re able to copy the sword techniques of knights.”

Robert was smiling wildly behind his mask as he spoke with glee.

”I must admit that you are not a simple monster, but I’m disappointed. You have gained intelligence, but what do you do with it? Instead of seeking the truth of the world, you mimic a knight’s honor and dignity, his sword techniques, his way of life. Everything about you is simply stolen, from your weapons to your very ideals.”

Robert used this chance, as he was talking, to conjure a few more stone walls. The Goblin Hero pressed forward, not responding to Robert’s words, and was now focused solely on the fight.

Its blade moved in disciplined arcs, each slash carrying both power and precision. Sparks scattered as the edge cut through stone and shattered Robert’s hastily conjured walls.

”The techniques of human knights, with the desperate weight of a mercenary’s slash, and the heart of a true beast. You are a chimera made of steel and will. You truly are a wonderful test subject.”

The Hero snarled, thrusting again. Robert twisted aside, the blade grazing his shoulder and drawing a line of blood. He didn’t flinch; instead, he bent close, eyes gleaming behind his mask.

”Ohhh, fascinating! You even angle your thrust to puncture organs. Did you learn that from killing my kind, or watching them die?”

”I have only fought honorable knights in duels. I have not fought any of your kind.”

The Goblin Hero answered, enraged. Its anger stemmed from Robert saying that he was of the same kind as those honorable knights. It swung its sword wildly, making it easier for Robert to predict its movements as he evaded.

”Heh, how funny. You might have gained intelligence, but you don’t know how to use it.”

Robert tossed a pouch at the Goblin Hero, who was at mid swing, making it slice through the pouch. Black powder spread to the Goblin Hero. Robert had quickly distanced himself from the Goblin Hero by using a wind spell to push himself backward.

”How unfortunate, you may have intelligence, but you lack originality and imagination.” Robert then snapped his fingers as a fireball spell came hurling towards the Goblin Hero.

The Goblin Hero was a monster that had fought mages before and was not afraid of a fireball spell, which he could cut in half. The Goblin Hero sliced the fireball, but the second he did so. The black powder that was all over his sword and itself exploded.

The night erupted in a blinding flash. A thunderous explosion tore outward, swallowing the Hero in fire and smoke.

The shockwave knocked lesser goblins flat, their ears bleeding from the force, while a spray of molten shrapnel scythed through their ranks.

When the smoke cleared, the Hero staggered, its armor scorched and cracked, flesh burned and bleeding. Half its helm had been blasted away, exposing one blazing yellow eye beneath. Its once-pristine knight’s blade was warped, its edge jagged and blackened.

Robert stood several paces away, his coat fluttering from the blast. The Goblin Hero roared in fury, battered but not broken, and charged through the smoke, its monstrous vitality carrying it forward.

”All that talk about honor and such, in the end, you truly are nothing more than a beast parading itself as a knight.”

Robert once again snapped his fingers, and the black powder that was in the path of the raging Goblin Hero exploded, finally killing it. Once the Goblin Hero he was facing was dead, Robert looked at the Goblin Mage that has been gathering mana for a while.

”Now, onto the next test subject.”

As Robert was about to dash towards the Gobline Mage, the corpses of lesser goblins smoldered in the snow, but their stronger kin stepped forward.

One by one, more Goblin Heroes emerged from the tide, their stolen blades catching the moonlight, their movements eerily synchronized like knights drilled on the same battlefield.

They fanned out, circling Robert, their guttural growls vibrating like a war drum. Each stance was disciplined, each step precise, their mimicry of human warriors sharpened to a terrifying edge.

Robert only laughed, tilting his head back, his beaked mask gleaming with frost and firelight. He spread his arms wide as if welcoming the encirclement.

”Well, isn’t this interesting, an entire species of goblins pretending to be knights.” His voice rang sharp, giddy with hunger. ”Very well, come then. Show me your so-called honor, your rage, your stolen steel! Show me what truths your broken bodies will scream when I carve them apart!”

The Goblin Heroes tightened the circle, blades raised as one. Robert’s fingers twitched over his vials. His manic eyes burned behind the mask.

”Let the next experiment begin.”