He shut his eyes and clasped them tight with musing. Within the sea of his soul, a chip part of it retracted and drifted to his hand. A purple flame sparked erratically and danced on his fingers. Flame with no warmth, and rather, he beheld a chilly touch.
He beckoned. Clux zoomed in next to him with a face crunched in confusion.
'Here goes nothing,' interlocked between the tips of his index and middle finger, the tiny soul spark hissed, drilled into Clux's forehead, and as if struck by dizziness, Clux's eyes turned all white.
By the speck of his piercing soul. Similar to a vaccine, he injected Clux's soul with memory antigen, triggering an immune reaction from the soul. In response, to prevent the spread of the invading soul antigen, the soul will create duplicates of the memory antigen to counter it by itself.
Clux's eye flashes in purple prior to returning back to normal emerald. "What?" he tilted his head in question.
Since the process results in a memory implant, there was no improvement in goblins' wisdom. Adding the fact that the memory Clux has received is only comprised of knowledge about furniture creations and other basics.
"M'Love what happened?" Melantha asked.
"Let's just say I performed a little experiment by sharing my knowledge with Clux via soul interaction."
"What? Did you take out a piece of your soul and implant it in him?" She grabbed his arm with force, her grip was powered by anger.
Knowing how fragile souls can be, her intense gaze was screaming that she does not care what ensues to Clux, but rather, she was more concerned with her husband's welfare.
Call her selfish, but choosing between a goblin she had companionship for only 39 days or her husband she had in two lifelines? Too easy, she would choose Mordred in any kind of situation without batting an eye.
"Relax, Darling. My soul ain't never be incomplete." With a sniff, a ghastly trail of purple was sucked up to his nose. "See?"
"Now, shall we see what gains can we acquire from the previous party?" He added.
------
In a vision from the blazed lavender eye of a tiny walker. The said party was next to the serpent's carcass that was taller than any of their members' statures.
"The Night Lightning Serpent is dead, geez." The man in bulky armor said.
"J-just the two of them and their summons?" A boy with a bowl cut pokes the serpent with the red gem of his wand curiously.
"I don't see any small cuts that may come from the iron skeleton of the summoner too. There were only arrows and a huge blow from a large sword." The aged leader thoroughly inspects the fine specimen.
"So that elven lady was their ranger? I would love to have an exchange of accuracy with her."
"Oh please, you and your untamable arrogance, Paulina. How 'bout we clash with your arrows and my blade?"
"Anytime! Our great Ceasar, A coward who only hides in his black shell."
The man in spike armor and the ranger woman scoot close to close, clashing in the heat of their arrogance as they grip their weapon's handles.
"Stop bickering you two!"
No matter what these people blabber, the couple could not understand a word they spoke, and so they can only read their meanings through their gestures.
A deafening hiss of anger blows the greens of the rainforest to where the party stands.
"Damn it! So that's why I haven't seen its counterpart. UNTO ARMS!"
As experienced fighters, just before the leader's sentence was complete, the party had already repositioned in haste. The ranger and mages immediately dashed to the backline while the swordsman and the shielder confronted the rampaging serpent at the front.
"Warriors, stop its charge! Mages and Ranger, strike on my signal!"
Balls of flames, lasers of lightning, spears of ice, and a dazzling light hurl toward the giant. Tough and rough, the serpent's resilience is not easy to penetrate as it incessantly lunges against the sword and shield of the annoying frontliners.
As the rainclouds above cycled in grey and black, thick fog twirled within the motions of battle. The drizzle continued its chilly pats and tall trees fell into crisp from the crossfire. But never the swordsman and the shielder who has protected the party without fail.
With the shielder's specialized wide pavise shield made of high-insulating materials, the fierce lightning of the giant was blocked with ease. The muddy ground where he stands might be wrecked and caved, but he remains erect against the beast's raging waves.
The serpent's attempt to push its way physically has met a thorny sword, unrelenting against its brute strength like a stoppage of the forceful dam. Sparks flew in their every exchange, the sharpness of its fang and the swordsman's blade, both unable to be chipped by their firm blows.
Blow after blow, bruises of blood, and scorch of black marks were gradually painting the serpent's scales. The tide of battle was not in favor of the giant, a huge disadvantage for it was being against the perfect sync of the party's attack.
"Persevere, the beast is about to fall."
Precisions of the ranger arrows have left the giant in a roaring hiss of sorrow. Unforetold, a sudden lapse of time has occurred. None of them could explain what had transpired.
When they all awoke in their stupor. Their faces switched from being twisted of disbelief into a jaw slack of horrors as they bore witness to their trustworthy shielder now in between the fangs of the giant, grasping for air as he tried to pull himself and his crumpling bulk armor out of its jaws.
With the slip of his hand, the covered-in goo pavise shield clangs on the ground. Ruefully, its owner cannot even cry for help within the suffocating constrict of the serpent's mouth.
"W-what in the hell happened?" The one-eyed bald man pauses before his punch of the spiked gauntlet.
"Target its NOSTRIL! I won't let even one of us die!"
"Mister Roem, keep pulling yourself together, rescue will come!" A young woman pointed the end of her wand, and after channeling a chant, the sapphire's illumination washed her chin.
As they were about to recast their courage and summon an attack of rescue, the time once again relapsed. With just their blink, the shielder can no longer be found. Their countenance paled in fright when they peered upon the bulging stomach of the serpent.
"Damn it! What is happening? Does this serpent have spatial ability?"
"Shit-shit-shit! This is dangerous! This is dangerous!"
"You all fall back, I'll block its way so you guys can retreat."
Within the screams of confusion and fear, the swordsman braves his way— tail whips and bite lunges were deflected by his heroic swordsmanship.
"Ken, thank you, for your bravery," the leader spoke in solemn, then he turned and escaped with the others.
Mordred, the watcher, knew how corrosive the serpent's stomach was. Once its victims were devoured, without the same toughness of his skin, only death awaits even if a rescue was successful hereafter.
Uknown has always been the bane of humanity, for endless questions in their mind could cloud their judgment. To battle? Not until they had an answer could they have hopes of replanning and re-engaging the serpent in battle.
Exhausted and alone, the swordsman was slowly losing his frontal battle. It was hard to tell what emotions were stirring in his veins due to his overall armor. But the watchers could sense his aura of relief when he glanced upon his party members' shrinking backs of depart.
After an unstoppable whip, he was thrown and kissed the damp ground. In his peripheral vision, he caught an odd tiny object behind the moldy tree vines, and before a full realization fully sank in, he sank into the corrosive throat of the serpent.
Hissing in delight, the injured serpent recalls its vengeful spirit and tracks down its victims' scent of panic. Its eyes squinted playfully as it slithers to claim its sweet revenge.
"Such as splendid display of death!"
"Mordred who are these peeps? Their faces were splashed in fright, look-look, owie they awful!" The familiar rowdy fairy hanged her legs on his shoulder.
The panic-stricken party halted before the same two beings they had encountered hours ago, their mud golems took shape in their borders. Oddly, one had come out behind a tree in hiding and was holding a cylindrical wood in one hand.
"What is this madman saying?" The ranger locks him with her arrows. Anger, and fear in her facial zaps her mind, unable to fully register the man's meaning.
"Why were you doing this?" The leader grips his staff two-handedly.
"M'Love! Just behead them and loot their stuff. We don't want their clothes to be ripped apart like in the past do we?"
"Woaa! Don't forget to take all their shiny goldies!"
"Fucking long-eared bastards! Since when did elves become savage bandits?" Hearing the venomous words of the couple, the leader could not help but spit a curse.
The three youngest of the group huddled and started to sob. They were chased by a serpent with a mysterious ability, and now there was a cruel couple blocking their escape.
"P-please, not me and my sister. We are too young to die." The oldest of the youngsters, a woman in a sapphire capped robe pleaded.
"Are they useful enough to be spared?" Melantha asked.
An iron arrow splats on the ranger's hand, throwing off her crossbow into the air. The air vibrates, sending shockwaves to their nerves, one by one, their unconscious bodies plopped to the ground.
Before they had a chance to reawake, the four golems bluntly hammered fists their heads like they were playing whack-o-mole.
Should he further the converse to the point that the enemies will have their first shot? Not a fat chance.
"Oh, their mental power was so drained that they'd ended up losing consciousness with a mere flick of direct Soul Disruption." He snapped his head towards the cruising serpent. "Our scaled accomplice has arrived."
With a rough and prolonged ding, he pulled his sword and jumped in to allow his blade to meet the giant serpent skull. Injured and wound-hindered, the serpent easily succumbed to its death with few clashes and few Soul Disruption thrown in the fray. There wasn't an ounce of tiredness from his relaxed breath.
If he knew that the group is just a bunch of circus clowns, entertaining to watch yet weak in the actual sense that would make anyone disdainfully frown. He would've engaged them the last time.
Funny thoughts, his arrogant goblin side has again resurfaced for him to one day trip by on his own pride. Not in this life, is he a fool that he would risk Melantha's safety in engaging a physically and mentally healthy party of yester-hours.
What was to be prideful about when all he cut down were pitiful wounded dogs on the road?
"Lookie here, some goldies! Eh? A little few." She happily rummaged inside an adventurer's bag.
That particular member of the party seems like just an ordinary man in shabby clothes, who takes the main role of a moving bagger.
"So many mouths to feed! Say M'Love, could it have been better to kill them off?"
"That's what I'm thinking too. Well, they could lend me a hand in my more complicated soul experiments." He grinned viciously without him knowing.
Just imagining what he could do to their intact souls has opened his skin to the seeping cold of the drizzles. Sapient beings were truly always the best materials. How nostalgic, just the way he remembers way back in their old labs.
Why were they unable to conceive a child in their past lives? For they had experimented on themselves. To prolong their lives, they alter their genetics to mimic the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, the immortal jellyfish, allowing them to switch back to an earlier stage of human age, puberty.
Stuck in cycles of repeated puberty, they had gained sharper features that are currently the prominent standard of beauty, coincidentally matching the appearances of elves. Sadly, nothing was perfect, and due to the incompatibility between human anatomy and the immortal jellyfish. It had negatively impacted their fertility.