Chapter 98: Silver Garden Domain
The sky was still dull grey but was slowly turning light signalling it was almost noon in Morva.
The ground shook as countless feet trampled through the forest, drawing closer to the trio and the Eldrath Executor.
Goblins. Countless goblins. They came from everywhere rushing like a green river of war filling the whole forest.
The creature had made its decision. Since it could no longer hide them inside illusions and distortions, it simply called them directly.
Leo clicked his tongue as the first wave burst through the trees. There were dozens at first, then hundreds behind them. Large goblins pushed through the smaller ones while crude weapons rose above the crowd like a forest of rusted steel.
"So much for a fair fight."
"We were never getting one," Lucien replied.
Nightwalker remained focused on the Eldrath Executor. He did not even glance at the incoming horde.
"Ignore the goblins."
Leo nearly laughed. "There are hundreds of them."
"There will be thousands if we don’t kill that thing."
Leo couldn’t argue with that. He tightened his grip on the Yielding Spine and frowned.
The Executor stood motionless in the center of the clearing while the goblins flooded around it. Not a single goblin entered a certain radius around the creature. It was almost as if they feared it.
...Or worshipped it.
The dozens of eyes covering its face shifted toward the approaching army before returning to the trio.
It was buying time. The wound on its shoulder had already healed halfway.
Leo immediately understood the problem.
Every second they wasted fighting goblins was another second for the Executor to recover, reorganize, and bury them under numbers.
"We need to keep moving."
Lucien nodded.
Nightwalker finally raised his sword. Then he vanished, moving so fast that Leo almost failed to follow.
A silver flash crossed the clearing.
The Executor reacted instantly as the air twisted and the distance shifted. Nightwalker’s strike should have reached the creature.
Instead it landed several meters away.
The distortion had redirected his perception again. At the same moment, black spikes erupted from the ground beneath him.
Nightwalker cut through them and retreated without hesitation. He had not gained anything but neither had the creature.
The brief exchange confirmed something important.
Its distortion still had limits. Otherwise it would not have bothered dodging.
The first goblins reached them.
Leo stepped forward and thrust the Yielding Spine through one skull before activating Severed Link. Several blade fragments shot outward and tore through the front ranks.
Lucien moved beside him like a golden streak and three goblins collapsed instantly.
More replaced them. Then even more arrived behind those.
Leo frowned.
The creature was not simply calling reinforcements. It was as if it was trying to drown them.
The Executor suddenly took another step forward. The distortion around the clearing thickened.
Several goblins immediately changed direction and began charging straight at Leo.
His eyes narrowed. "Seriously?"
The moment he had identified the larger eyes, the creature had marked him as a threat.
"Apparently it doesn’t like me."
The dreadful voice inside the Yielding Spine chuckled.
"Most intelligent creatures don’t."
"Helpful."
"I try."
Leo ignored the sword and cut down another goblin.
His mind was already racing. The creature was stronger than them individually.
The goblins were endless and Nightwalker was clearly saving whatever ability he had mentioned earlier.
Which meant they were still in the opening stage of the battle.
No one had truly revealed their trump card yet which means this fight was not near its end yet.
The battle continued for several more minutes without either side gaining any real advantage. Every goblin Leo killed was quickly replaced by another. The clearing had long since disappeared beneath the growing horde as goblins poured into the area from every direction.
The Eldrath Executor barely moved from its position, yet its influence could be felt everywhere. The distortions remained active, the mental attacks continued without pause, and the goblins fought with a level of coordination that should have been impossible for creatures like them.
Even Nightwalker, who had been dominating the battlefield earlier, was slowly being forced into a defensive position as he balanced fighting the Executor with preventing the goblins from overwhelming everyone else. Lucien fought beside Leo without complaint, his Aura steadily cutting through enemies, but even he was beginning to show signs of exhaustion.
The situation was becoming worse with every passing minute and Leo could not see a way to win through brute force alone.
Another wave crashed into them. Goblins pushed forward from every side, climbing over the bodies of the dead without hesitation. Leo drove the Yielding Spine through one skull before ripping it free and slashing across another throat.
Several detached blade fragments flew through the air and cut down more enemies, but the gap they created lasted only seconds before it was filled again. Nearby, Lucien crushed the chest of a larger goblin with a single strike, only to be immediately surrounded by smaller ones.
The pressure never stopped. The horde felt endless. Worse, the Executor was adapting. Every time they discovered something useful about its abilities, it altered its tactics slightly. Leo hated that realization more than the goblins themselves because intelligent enemies were always troublesome. They made plans. They adjusted. They refused to die conveniently.
Then suddenly something changed.
A silver light spread across the battlefield.
At first Leo thought it was another distortion from the Executor, but the feeling was completely different. The pressure vanished. The sounds of battle disappeared. The smell of blood faded. Before he could react, something grabbed him. It was not a hand and it was not physical. It felt more like the world itself had pulled him away. The battlefield vanished completely. For a brief second, his vision blurred. Then everything became still.
Leo blinked.
The goblins were gone. The Executor was gone. The forest was gone.
Instead, he found himself standing in a large garden filled with silver lilies. Gentle wind moved through the flowers while tall trees covered the surrounding landscape. Their leaves shimmered softly beneath a silver sky. Small streams of water crossed the garden and reflected the strange light above. Everything felt peaceful.
After spending so long surrounded by battle, the silence almost felt wrong. Several students stood nearby looking equally confused. Lucien was there as well. A short distance away, Mira and Gareth were helping some injured students recover. More people continued appearing throughout the garden every few seconds.
It did not take long for Leo to understand what had happened.
Nightwalker had removed them from the battlefield.
A few moments later, Lucien reached the same conclusion.
"Seed Domain."
Leo nodded.
This was Nightwalker’s Seed Domain. Rather than forcing everyone to remain on the battlefield, he had separated them from the fight entirely. It was the only logical choice. The students were becoming liabilities. The goblin numbers were increasing too quickly. The Executor was growing more dangerous. Keeping everyone there would only create additional problems. By moving them into his Seed Domain, Nightwalker could focus entirely on the real battle without worrying about protecting dozens of weaker people at the same time.
Unfortunately, that realization did not make Leo feel any better.
Nightwalker was now fighting alone.
An Upper Rank was powerful. Leo knew that much. But the Eldrath Executor was not an ordinary enemy. It controlled distortions, mental attacks, endless goblins, and who knew what else. Even if Nightwalker could win, the fight would not be easy. Leo disliked the idea of sitting safely inside a garden while someone else handled everything.
More importantly, he disliked being useless. The feeling annoyed him more than he cared to admit.
Nearby, some of the students seemed relieved. Others looked worried. A few were already asking questions about what was happening outside. Leo ignored all of them. Instead, he sat beneath one of the silver trees and focused on something far more important.
’My Vestiges.’ he said with hint of realization.
Until now he had relied almost entirely on the Yielding Spine and the Shell of Dread. They were familiar and he understood them. More importantly, they worked well together. Because of that, he had never spent much time examining the other Vestiges he possessed. Most of the time they remained forgotten within the system. Yet if there was ever a moment to revisit them, it was now.
The Executor’s greatest strength was distortion.
The creature hid itself. It manipulated perception and it altered awareness.
Trying to defeat something like that using ordinary methods was inefficient.
Leo frowned.
Then he summoned the system.
Vestige(s): [Yielding Spine], [Shell of Dread], [Ticking Death], [Mirror Fang], [Grinning Mist], [False Saint], [Starved Choir], [Widow’s Thread], [Black Parade], [Glass Monarch], [Hollow Lantern], [Kingless Throne]
He slowly scrolled through them while considering their Characteristics. Most were immediately discarded. Powerful did not automatically mean useful. What mattered was compatibility. He needed something that could directly interfere with the Executor’s strengths. Something capable of exposing hidden things. Something capable of weakening distortions. Something capable of revealing truth beneath lies.
His eyes eventually stopped on three particular Vestiges.
Leo stared at it for several seconds.
Then as a plan surfaced in his mind, a grin appeared on the face of the [Shell Of Dread].
"What are you grinning about? It’s a stupid idea. It won’t work! Same way Exodus plan didn’t work!"
Leo ignored the Yielding Spine and called the students together ready to discuss the plan.
