Chapter 6: Command to Kill
The Tank and Assassin looked at the goblin champion that had arrived right in front of them, and their hearts dropped instantly.
"That’s, that’s a goblin champion," the Assassin managed to mouth. She subconsciously took a step back, and her hands moved to her daggers.
"What is a monster like that doing up here? It’s a floor five boss monster," the Tank said.
"Maybe it’s a weaker version that found its way here. An actual goblin champ would be—"
Rawrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
The goblin champion let out a roar that caused the walls to shake. Rocks fell from the ceiling and hit the floor hard. They had to move to avoid getting hit.
"That’s definitely a goblin champion," the Tank said. "There is no way that we take on a monster like that, the two of us."
"We have to retr—"
Before the words left his mouth, the Goblin champion exploded forward, moving at a speed that looked almost like teleportation. He swung before it even got there, and by the time it was close, the blade was already near the neck of the Tank.
The Tank managed to react at the last possible moment. He raised his shield as fast as he could, and the blade slammed into it so hard that his hands felt numb immediately after. He was thrown back so hard that he slammed against the wall, coughed, and almost blacked out before even reaching the ground.
The Assassin, watching this, was stunned. She pulled her daggers immediately and tried to merge into the shadows, but before she could, the goblin hurled his blade at her. It ripped through the air faster than the eye could see. She barely managed to evade as it went past her and stabbed into the wall with so much force that it got stuck.
Cold sweat formed on her face. She looked up, and the goblin was already rushing toward her. She dashed, moving faster than ever. The goblin got to the wall and pulled his blade out. In that time, she had managed to regroup with the Tank.
"This bastard is too fast," she gritted her teeth and said.
The Tank got up from the ground, his head still banging like local drums. "We can’t take this goblin. We don’t have the attack power for that."
"I have a plan. We can lead it back to the alcove where the others are, and from there, everyone will be forced to handle it," the Assassin suggested.
"Yeah, that works," the Tank agreed without a moment of thought.
"These bastards. After leaving the group and betraying them, they want to lead the monster back to them?" Kael was pissed. He looked at the goblin champion and then spoke right into its mind.
"Kill them. Make sure you kill them, or you die."
That threat acted as an immediate trigger. The eyes of the goblin glowed red. He oozed bloodlust.
Rawrrrrrrrrrr!
The goblin champion came at them like something that had been waiting its entire existence for this moment, unwilling to allow them to run away.
The Tank planted himself in front and raised his shield, not because he thought it would hold cleanly, but because there was nothing else between them and the blade. The impact, when it came, was worse than the first time, the force transmitting straight through the shield and into his bones, his feet leaving the ground for a full second before he crashed back down and somehow stayed upright.
His arms were screaming.
The Assassin moved the moment the goblin committed to the Tank, both daggers finding the gap at the back of its knee, driving in deep and twisting before she pulled free and created distance. The goblin barely flinched. It turned toward her with those red glowing eyes and swung a backhand that she ducked under by a margin so thin she felt the air from it move her hair.
She rolled, came up, and drove both daggers into its side this time.
It grabbed her.
One massive hand closed around her shoulder, and it threw her into the wall with a casual violence that knocked the breath completely out of her. She hit the stone and dropped, her vision going white at the edges, daggers still in her hands by pure muscle memory alone. She pushed herself up before she had fully processed being down.
Blood was running into her eye from somewhere above her brow.
"Get up," the Tank growled from across the corridor.
She was already up.
They came at it together, the Tank drawing its attention with the shield, absorbing another blow that drove him to one knee, his whole body shaking under the weight of it. The Assassin circled fast, reading the angles, looking for something that would matter. She found a gap at the neck and went for it with everything she had, both blades driving in simultaneously.
The goblin caught one of her wrists.
The crack was audible.
She didn’t scream. She bit down on it, wrenched herself free, and stumbled back, her right hand now barely able to hold the dagger, the grip weak and trembling. She switched it to her left and kept moving because stopping was not something she could currently afford.
The Tank was bleeding from the head.
Somewhere in the last exchange, the goblin’s blade had caught him above the ear, not deep, but head wounds didn’t need to be deep to be a problem, and the blood was coming down fast, mixing with the sweat on his face and dripping from his jaw.
He spat and raised his shield again.
"How is this thing still going?" he said through his teeth.
The goblin champion rolled its neck, the red in its eyes burning brighter than before, Kael’s command sitting in its mind like a brand. It looked between the two of them with the patience of something that knew the outcome and was simply deciding how long to take getting there.
It raised its blade. It was now eager to destroy them.
