Chapter 173: Madness
Looking at the village in front of him, Dhruv put his finger in between the view of the village. He was now looking at his ring.
With just a single thought, a bright crimson weapon materialized in front of him. This was [Bloodrage], the very first magical weapon he had obtained, and today he planned to use it once again. He wanted to feel the brutality of this era so he wouldn’t become soft.
Gripping the handle of the spear, Dhruv began to walk forward with a determined face.
While walking, a hollow cone-shaped object suddenly materialized in his hand. Dhruv quickly put the object in front of his mouth and shouted with all his might...
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
In an instant, his shout began to echo throughout the surrounding area and in the village itself. Dhruv continued to shout for another few seconds to get the attention of all the goblins.
He was trying to get their attention because it would mean that he could hunt them quickly and efficiently.
His plan worked, as just a few seconds later, a wave of angry goblins could be seen running in his direction. Dhruv observed the running monsters carefully to determine their class or in what category they were from.
After watching them for about ten seconds, he deduced that most of the goblins were still the regular variety, while the second most consisted of warrior goblins who wielded real weapons rather than just wooden clubs.
Dhruv was surprised to find that there were very few magicians in the crowd, and even more scarce were the ones with poison darts.
"So, the Shamans aren’t as common as I thought," Dhruv concluded as he focused his gaze on the monsters in the front row.
When he saw that the monsters had come within 10 meters of where he was standing, he took a deep breath and raised his spear in front of himself.
"Tempest Charge."
A whisper left Dhruv’s mouth as his body blurred after activating his skill. He charged at the monsters with inhuman speed. The moment the tip of his spear connected with a goblin’s head, it burst without any resistance.
Dhruv could feel the green blood and brain matter splattering all over his face. He wanted to remove them, but more and more just splattered onto his face as his charge continued.
When he finally stopped, Dhruv looked behind him and found tens of goblin corpses without heads. In just a matter of seconds, he had killed dozens of them.
Numerous notifications began to pop up in front of him, but he ignored all of them and wiped everything off his face. While wiping his face he looked at his as a thought appeared in his head.
’I lost how to control this skill efficiently.’ Dhruv mumbled as he looked around him.
After acquiring the skill and using it numerous times, Dhruv had managed to learn how to control the skill with great efficiency. At that time, he could even stop a charge mid-way or change his direction, but now he was unable to do any of that.
He doesn’t take that to heart and looks at the crowd around him. It doesn’t take long for him to find that the crowd, who were charging at him just a second ago, is now standing a few meters apart from him.
There was a clear sign of fear in their eyes.
He didn’t find that surprising and began to wait for them to charge at him once again. While he was waiting, all the blood that had been sprayed on his armor quickly began to get removed as the self-clean feature of the [Leather Tunic of Unholy Souls] began to work.
Although Dhruv wasn’t injured and didn’t need any healing at the moment, he placed his spear near a goblin’s body to check if the enchantment of the spear was working properly or not.
The moment the tip of the spear touched the blood of the corpse, it began to crazily devour that crimson liquid from the goblin’s body.
As time passed, Dhruv began to feel that something had just happened, but he couldn’t know what it was. He blinked twice, but once again he couldn’t find abnormal even with mana sense.
Dhruv removed his spear from the corpse and began to carefully observe the surroundings. It was normal for another ten seconds but after that, he managed to notice the change,
Slowly but surely, the eyes of the goblin where fear was present just a moment ago begin to change into those of rage. Clear signs of redness began to appear in their eyes.
The monsters who were initially keeping their distance due to fear began to circle around him. Now all of them were moving toward him with clear hatred in their eyes. It didn’t take long for their cautious walk to turn into a sprint, and soon they were running toward Dhruv from all directions.
"Roarrrrr!!"
With a thunderous shout, all of them managed to get too close. Dhruv didn’t panic and instead began to wait for them to come even closer than that; he wanted them within his spear’s reach.
When the goblins finally crossed that distance as well, Dhruv simply thrust his spear outward and began to move it round and round. Now, he was rotating his spear with all his might. Due to its sharp blade, the moment any monster got close to it, they would be cut down.
Dhruv wanted to just do that and kill all of them, but this time it didn’t go as he had planned. As the normal goblins began to get killed, the warrior caste began to approach him.
When the tip of his spear reached a warrior goblin, he quickly placed his mace between himself and the spear. Although he wasn’t able to stop the spear with that single try, he was able to slow it down.
Just slowing down was enough for him, as the single advantage they had over Dhruv was that of numbers. With enough warriors in the mix, they were able to stop the spear in just a matter of a few seconds.
Dhruv didn’t falter at the goblin’s move and swiftly ran in one of the warrior’s directions. Due to his relatively high agility, he reached the monster’s location almost instantly. He placed his hand on top of its head and forced the monster to fall on its back.
Crack...
The power behind the fall was so great that the skull of the monster cracked the moment it touched the ground, killing it instantly. While he was busy with the warrior, numerous attacks landed on him.
When he stood up, he found out that many monsters were attacking him, but he couldn’t feel any of their attacks. The only thing he was feeling was a slight tickle.
He even saw a dart bounce back from his chest. Looking at this unbelievable scene, he remembered one particular enchantment of his leather armor.
[Resilient: The souls within the armor keep it bound together, making it more durable.]
This piece of armor that he had acquired at the end of the first quest is very useful during these types of battles where one couldn’t keep track of every attack.
Dhruv quickly began to attack each of the monsters in front of him one by one with his spear. It didn’t take more than one hit to kill any of the monsters. While he was busy killing the monsters, he suddenly felt the same feeling once again.
This time he didn’t waste precious seconds figuring it out on his own and instead instantly activated his mana sense. The moment he activated his mana sense, he sensed something.
In front of him, away from the crowd of monsters that were attacking him, a cloud of black mana was gathering. Dhruv suspected this to be an advanced spell.
He knew that there were only four people on this entire second floor who could cast this level of spell: himself, Alaric, Vexar, or the boss of the village, which Dhruv suspected to be a Shaman.
Focusing on that black cloud of mana, he found that the cloud didn’t remain in its place for long and quickly began to disperse. The dispersed mana began to flow towards the crowd of goblins in front of him.
Quickly enough, the mana was inhaled by the monsters. The moment they inhaled the mana, the redness in their eyes began to turn red once again. All of this had happened within five seconds.
Dhruv couldn’t help but notice that the speed at which the redness was growing this time was abnormally fast. And he was indeed right; in just another five seconds, there was nothing but madness in their minds.
Before attacking the monsters in front of him, Dhruv first created a metal pillar beneath his legs and began to rise above them. He did this to get a look at the culprit and what he suspected to be the boss of this village.
When the height of the pillar reached four meters, he finally managed to see the monster in its true form.
His lips curled up as he released the metal pillar and got in the middle of the crowd once again. Before starting the bloodbath, a shout rang through the village.
"If madness is what you want, then madness you will get..."
