Emerald mageia detonated into a brilliant ring of light. An explosion ripped through the chamber, the walls groaning under the vibration as jagged shards of the ceiling rained down upon the young man.
The Kogoblin was hurled from the cavern by the blast. It suffered only minor abrasions and a torn palm; its hide was so unnaturally thick that its form remained almost entirely unscarred.
Seraph, however, was sent recoiling like a stray ball from the impact. Stalactites fell like plummeting spears, shattering the stone floor where he'd stood only a heartbeat before. The emerald shield splintered into a thousand jagged shards—obliterated in the mere microsecond of collision.
Though the club hadn't grazed his skin, the sheer kinetic vibration had surged through him, rattling his brain until it felt as if it were boiling. The world shuddered before his eyes, his vision straining in its sockets. The young magis slammed into the wall with sickening force. He coughed up a spray of crimson and rolled into the gloom; a single strike from the Kogoblin had left him shattered.
[Crunch!]
His vision blurred, the goblins multiplying in his sight like a fractured mirror. Sensing their foe was crippled, the pack swarmed forward, granting no reprieve. To Seraph, they were a relentless tide—a vast army of vermin closing in. He was entombed by the stench of the horde and the encroaching dark.
"Ventus Impetus!" the young magis roared, gasping the incantation even as he lay broken upon the silt.
His wooden staff levelled at the cavern's maw, where a fresh wave of goblins came thundering in. Once more, the emerald mageia detonated. The cave became a barrel; the gale became a slug.
[Boom!]
The roar of the wind-burst deafened the chamber. The mountain shook to its very foundations. The atmospheric pressure tore through the goblin ranks, flinging them back. Those caught in the epicentre simply came apart, their bodies erupting into a mist of gore. Red viscera painted the cavern walls in a macabre spray.
Two or three goblins tumbled from the cave's mouth, mangled and broken—little more than heaps of ruined flesh.
The gale surged toward the valley's end like an engine of war, lashing into its deepest recesses. The cyclonic winds, compressed within the gorge, birthed a crushing pressure; the air simmered until the atmosphere warped and twisted into a heat-haze.
The Kogoblin rose, unleashing a howl of primal fury and madness. The lesser minions took up the cry, brandishing their fanged maces as they were consumed by a feral rage. Wrath was the very foundation of the demon; the greater their frenzy, the more potent their strength.
Seraph struggled to find his feet. His entire frame screamed in agony, as if his anatomy were about to splinter. He was certain of multiple fractures; every breath felt like a shard of glass in his chest. Yet, adrenaline flooded his veins, granting him a fleeting reprieve to endure the catastrophic toll.
The young man clawed at the thought of a potion, but his foes granted him no quarter.
A fresh wave of goblins lunged into the cavern. Despite their stunted limbs, their leaps carried them across vast distances in a single bound. Fortuitously, the passage remained narrow—only two could charge abreast through the bottleneck.
"Ventus Pressux!"
"Ventus Impetus!"
Seraph intoned the twin spells in a blur of motion.
[Boom!]
The explosion rattled the mountain. The wind-slugs tore through the air, their immense pressure pulverising five goblins into a slurry of broken bone and tissue. The singular advantage of this enclosed valley was the bottleneck—there was but one path to reach him. They were forced into the kill-zone two by two. Unless they breached the cavern mouth, their only other ingress was the labyrinthine burrows they'd carved beneath the earth.
The Kogoblin was no fool. Its gaze locked onto the human with seething, murderous intent. It bared yellowed fangs in a low growl—the strongest, most cunning of the pack. In the entire horde, it alone possessed a hide so resilient and a threshold for mageia resistance high enough to defy the elements.
The beast stomped the ground with crushing force, splintering the stone beneath its feet. It lunged for the cavern's maw, crossing the expanse in a heartbeat, swinging its fanged mace with a savage, unrestrained momentum.
[Whirr!]
The whistle of the mace shearing through the air was a death knell.
Seraph was forced into a desperate retreat. Despite the distance from the entrance, the Kogoblin had closed the gap in a single, terrifying bound. Within a second, the spiked iron was upon him.
He had two choices: defend or strike. The young magis chose to strike. An emerald aura flared, radiating from his frame with blinding intensity.
"Ventus Pressux!"
"Ventus Smash!"
"Ventus Impetus!"
Seraph charged the triple incantations, unleashing them with every ounce of his remaining strength.
[BANGGG!]
The explosion roared like a thunderclap. The fanged mace was ripped from the Kogoblin's grip, sent spinning into the dark. A volley of wind-slugs detonated against the demon's chest, flinging it backward once more. It tumbled out of the cavern, reeling through the air until it hit the dust far below.
With their living shield gone, Seraph loosed a fresh barrage, hammering the remaining goblins until they were swept from the entrance in a pathetic, broken heap.
Yet, the Kogoblin was already clawing its way back to its feet. Though it remained standing, its constitution was failing; the internal toll was mounting.
A resilient hide did not grant immortality. If a demon were subjected to impacts akin to the strike of a giant's hammer, its internal organs would eventually rupture. No matter how ironclad its skin, it could not endure such a relentless pulverising forever.
The more the Kogoblin bled, the more its madness seethed; the closer it drew to death, the more lethal it became. Its viridian eyes flared with a malevolent glow, burning with an ever-deepening resentment. Veins of a dull, sickly green bulged across its orbs as the creature glared at the magis, priming its assault to deny him even a moment's respite.
'This cannot endure,' Seraph assessed, the weight of the crisis pressing down on him. 'My mana is nearing exhaustion, and these injuries worsen by the second... I can perhaps sustain two or three more spells, but these goblins could endure several more volleys. I'll never prevail in a war of attrition.'
Finally, the young magis resolved to initiate the second phase of his strategy.
"Ventus Pressux!"
"Ventus Shellux!"
"Atramentum!"
[Whoosh!-Splash!]
Seraph unleashed his defensive wards, but simultaneously, a jet of ink-black oil spewed forth. The thick, inky stream surged into the enclosed valley, coating the bodies of every goblin—even the Kogoblin—and drenching the entire gorge.
The goblins bore witness to this strange, dark assault. The sheer abnormality of the strike caused them to falter, halting their charge. The Kogoblin, which had been pressing its continuous attack, leapt back instinctively to defend itself. Typically, every spell cast by the magis carried a violent, offensive weight; even his defensive mageia possessed a hidden lethality.
Yet, the black liquid dealt no damage. It merely left them in discomfort, unable to shake the viscous residue from their forms. Confusion rippled through the pack as they faced the inexplicable.