[Thud!]
The instant the mageia needle pierced its brain, the creature gave a violent shudder. It didn't even manage to prize its eyes open before falling into a final, eternal stillness.
Seraph didn't pursue a continuous barrage. Instead, he retreated deeper into the cavern's maw, ensuring no goblin could discern his presence or the lethal strike just delivered. He peered through the gloom with the calculated patience of a professional executioner.
Yet, it appeared the young magis had been overly cautious. The slain goblin hadn't shifted an inch; it remained curled upon its side, its kin blissfully ignorant that one of their number had departed for the eternal dark.
"Adequate..." Seraph whispered to himself.
He intoned the spell once more, holding his ground and refusing to venture too near the exit. A dozen viridian motes of light coalesced around him, making him appear as a celestial body orbited by lesser stars. But if he were a star, he was a star of silent assassination.
The young man unleashed the mageia again. The emerald needles streaked forward with such velocity that even his own eyes, narrowed in focus, could scarcely track their flight.
[Zing!]
A green needle transfixed the heart of a second goblin. The creature bucked, its maw twisting and eyes snapping wide—yet its throat yielded no sound. Within seconds, it succumbed to a heavy lethargy, slipping into an everlasting slumber as the mageia needle dissolved into nothingness.
[Thud!]
"Very well..." Seraph murmured, satisfied.
The young magis loosed a dozen more wind-shards. Those nearest the entrance were culled in absolute silence, the bolts dispatched one by one. Seraph was in no haste; he dismantled the demonic brood piece by piece. So long as the glowing emerald sting remained unnoticed in the shadows, the Ventus Spiculus would continue its rhythmic work of death.
Seraph was in no haste; he dismantled the demonic brood piece by piece with exquisite precision. As long as the glowing emerald sting remained undetected, the Ventus Spiculus bound one fatality to the next in a seamless, invisible rhythm.
The shadow of death crept forward, devouring those slumped in sleep before claiming a solitary goblin perched in a corner of the vale. They fell one by one, unnoticed and unmourned. From one carcass to the next, the carnage spread; most of the brood were too occupied with their own bestial infighting to perceive the lethal shards darting through the stagnant air.
The young magis fixed his gaze upon a goblin dozing atop a monolithic boulder. A sharp, viridian needle was destined for the centre of its cranium—a swift end followed by the mageia dissolution of the bolt. It was to be a flawless execution.
[Whizz!]
The emerald shard streaked toward its mark, but at that precise heartbeat, the creature slipped from its stone perch. The needle's trajectory veered; it sheared through the goblin's mangled ear and slammed into an adjacent rock with violent force.
[Crack!]
The impact of the mageia against the stone rang out like a hammer-blow, the bolt embedding itself so deeply that spiderweb fractures radiated across the surface.
The goblin shrieked in unbridled fury, baring its yellowed fangs. It clutched its torn ear as dull, greenish gore seeped through its claws, its roar echoing through the entire basin. Though the rest of the brood remained ignorant of the cause, they collectively answered with a cacophony of frenzied howls.
Demons are predators by design. They mirror feral beasts in their primal instincts, possessing a preternatural sensitivity to the sudden ripple of mageia.
A single errant strike, yet it felt as though he'd stepped off a precipice into the abyss. It wasn't merely the wounded goblin that sensed the intruder; those surrounding it, having witnessed the emerald needle, surged into a state of immediate, violent readiness. Though some remained ignorant of the cause, frenzy is a contagion among demons. Each creature seized its mace the moment the first howls of mania rent the air.
"Curse it! I've barely thinned their ranks!" Seraph hissed, his face draining of colour.
The brood, nearly a hundred strong, scoured the canyon with wild, searching gazes. Within a heartbeat, one caught the scent of man. Their barks and howls unified, pinpointing the intruder's position. They gave him no quarter, charging toward the cavern mouth on all fours like a maddened gale.
The sequestered vale transformed from a secret sanctuary into a frantic slaughterground. The atmosphere grew stifling, charged with a sudden, crushing pressure.
"They must not pass!" Seraph roared.
"Ventus Shellux!"
The canyon was a cramped hollow, too small to house even a minor hamlet. It took but a few frantic heartbeats for the lead goblins, claws tearing at the earth, to reach the cavern's egress. They threw themselves forward—a relentless tide of muscle and malice that left no room for manoeuvre.
[Boom!]
A shield of viridian wind detonated with violent force. While many defensive spells possessed greater raw potency than Shellux, within a passage no wider than a golem's height, the mageia barrier sufficed to seal the mouth with absolute, unyielding stability.
The wounded goblin was the first to slam into the wind-wall. Emerald mageia erupted in a shimmering ring of force. The canyon air, once stagnant and heavy, was whipped into a sudden, howling fury.
The thunderous explosion echoed far beyond the mountainside.
The cliffs shuddered, shedding torrents of stone that dissolved into a shroud of dust over the surrounding woods. It was as if a cataclysmic tremor had seized the vale, vibrating through the very marrow of the earth. In that heartbeat, every sentry outside sensed the savage carnage unfolding within those jagged walls. Archers gripped their bows, knuckles white with tension, hearts hammering to the rhythm of a battle that had only just begun.
[Boom!]
Emerald mageia erupted, searing through the valley. The foremost goblin was caught by a blade of shearing wind, flung across the chasm and slammed into the opposing precipice. The impact was so violent the creature was pinned—broken and embedded deep within the high stone face.
[Whirr!]
A ring of Ventus mageia swept the remaining goblins off their feet at the cavern's mouth. Yet, in an instant, the largest of the pack lunged into the dark maw. A frenzied gale lashed against the young magis's face, carrying the rank stench of the demon and the suffocating weight of death.
"Kogoblin!" Seraph cried, his visage drained of all colour.
The Kogoblin was a demon alpha, nearly twice the size of its lesser kin. Two nights prior, this pack leader had been nowhere to be found; it had been lurking here, entrenched in the shadows all along.
The beast's fanged mace was as massive and leaden as its own limb. It swung the weapon, scraping the cavern walls and igniting a hail of sparks that flickered through the gloom. For a fleeting second, the dark chamber was bathed in light—then the spiked club lunged straight for the human's face.
"Ventus Impetus!" Seraph roared.
[Bang!]
The tunnel acted as a cannon's bore. A explanation surge of air pressure hammered into the Kogoblin, reeling it back with sheer force. However, the fanged mace was already too close; it collided violently with the mantle of mageia surrounding the magis. A deafening crack shattered the silence.