While the red mist user was holding it in place, the female one that was giving him the creeps was doing some strange movements.
She had her short sword in hand, but instead of doing something similar to her companion, she simply cut her wrist.
Instead of bleeding out immediately, her blood flowed out in front of her and formed a rotating magic circle.
"Blood magic?" He was familiar with the type of magic that she was using as one of his instructors specialized in it, even if he didn't use it in training.
It was classified as black magic and while not inherently evil, many of those who use it tend to lean in that direction more often than not. This was because there was often no difference in who the majority of the blood that was used as a medium came from, leading a lot of the users 'acquiring' it from others.
If you had no need to injure yourself during battle and still be just as powerful then you'd also take it.
While this wasn't a problem in the old world with the existence of blood banks, such things were a scarcity in the new world. This problem leads to multiple cases of powerful blood mages massacring hundreds if not thousands of beings in an attempt to grow their strength.
While the blood of any race with intelligence equal to or higher than that of humans would do, such monsters were a rarity around human settlements. The fact that Ray came into contact with so many hobgoblins immediately upon entering the new world means that he was far away from any other humans.
Her blood was draining fast, but before she bleed out it stopped and the wound quickly healed itself.
Pulling out a flask of red liquid, she chugged it down while attacking the worm with the magic circle.
The blood that was flowing out of the worm started to flow upwards and formed a ball above it, even the blood that was in the sand was being pulled up.
Sensing something was wrong, it tried to move past the red mist hobgoblin in an attempt to kill the source of the feeling, but before it could even get close the red mist hobgoblin jumped into the air and swung his giant sword at it.
"Impressive, to be able to jump that high even in these conditions."
The blow left it unable to move so the blood attack was sure to hit. Hundreds of blood arrows formed from the ball and quickly impaled themselves into its body, passing through its thick armor like it wasn't there and after a quick flash of a red light the worm stopped moving.
This is why blood magic was so attractive to so many power hungry mages. Even though it was slow and mentally draining, the pay off was more than enough.
While only a select few had the capabilities of learning it, those who could were ensured a great future. A well placed competent blood mage could turn the tides of any battle, especially if you provide them with the blood or didn't care how they procured it.
In this case both of them worked brilliantly, while the first one injured it and kept it in place, the second one took advantage of those injuries to deal massive damage to their target.
Seeing how easily those two dealt with it, he realized that he was overestimating the worm based on its size. While they were stronger than him at the time, if what he saw was the extent of their capabilities then they were far weaker than he was now.
Like most people, he simply assumed that it must have been powerful because of how big it was. That's how things tend to go in the natural world, but due to his lack of experience he wasn't taking into account the existence of mana and mysterious techniques like the red mist.
Fortunately he had a gauge as to just how powerful the worm really was so he wasn't as afraid of it as before. Unfortunately if he sensed correctly then he was going to have to put that to the test.
The group of remaining hobgoblins was slowly making their way towards him shouting things at him and throwing weapons that didn't make it that far.
"Understandable really." He wasn't going to wait for them to come kill him so he planned to make a move, but the vibrations that he felt coming from the sand made him jump high urgently.
For the first one he was caught off guard and was almost swallowed, but he wasn't going to let that happen again. He didn't notice before but just before the worm made its entrance the ground vibrated, and if his estimations were right then 3-4 more were going to appear right under him.
The moment he reached the apex of his jump, the heads of three similar worms popped out of the sand, all of them screeching in annoyance. He didn't know why these worms wanted him so bad, but they were certainly going to help with his food problem.
"Three it is." He bent his back on the decline and formed 3 highly compressed balls of flame before throwing them with all his might. The three balls grew into javelins as they accelerated into the open mouths of the worms.
When opened, the hole was about 30 meters wide so hitting a bullseye was easy. In a matter of seconds after entering, three loud explosions went off and the three worms had their stomachs blown out.
They died almost immediately, an injury like that isn't one that you just walk away from.
Before he landed he looked over to the crowd of pursuing hobgoblins that halted after seeing how he easily dealt with three of the worms.
"Stay right there." He formed another 2 javelins, one out of fire and another out of light, and sent them rocketing on their way. The light javelin got there first and blinded all of them before an intense explosion took over killing most of them in the process.
The only ones that were left alive were the two that dealt with the first worm, but they were both severely injured. The red mist seemed to block damage and the other was slower than the others as she was further to the back trying to recuperate her mana and regenerate her blood.
They looked at each other and nodded while taking a strange glass orb out. They said something brief to him which he couldn't understand and then they broke it.
With a flash of light they disappeared and left behind an interesting feeling energy that was somewhat familiar but also completely foreign.
This was spatial energy, with spatial magic being the most difficult to learn but also the most dangerous. For the both of them to have such priceless artifacts then that would mean that they are people of high status in whatever society they had come from.
He didn't know nor would he care. He quickly collected the giant bodies of the three worms and their soul power, and moved over to where the last explosion took place.
There were no bodies left after the explosion so he just absorbed the soul power, but something shiny was on the ground where the larger hobgoblin was standing.