The handsome elven warrior had declined the honest request of the Goblin King.
Jogund could not take the rejection. Valor had, in a carefree manner, spat in her face.
An insult in fact. Not many lived after committing such an atrocity.
She was Jogund, the Goblin King. The bane of towns and villages.
The green disaster.
How could a mere elf spit in her face? Species that she viewed as inferior to her grand majesty, no better than the ants that she squashed under the sole of her feet.
"You have chosen your path," she said, "I have no choice but to kill you now but I must honour you by saying it will hurt me to do so."
Valor struck his swords against each other, its clinking sound going off loudly. His eyes and action were fuelled by his unyielding determination to save his village.
Valor clicked his tongue, raised one of his swords and pointed it to the green menace in front of him.
"You fail to ask yourself one thing," he said.
His words confused the Goblin King, who raised her eyebrows and slightly tilted her neck.
"How can you assure you will be alive by the end of this battle?"
Jogund facepalmed and laughed. She laughed uncontrollably and suddenly stopped.
She hit her chest and grinned menacingly.
"Hit me with your best then. Let's savour our last moments together!" she said, daring the valiant knight of the elves to come at her at the peak of his strength.
Valor began to chant unknown words — ancient elven words that only he understood.
Jogund was taken aback by Valor's sudden switch to spellcasting.
She smirked. "So that's why he was feeling so confident. I like it!"
Valor's elven magic was the ace up his sleeve against the green monstrosity in front of him that was the Goblin King.
Banal ways of fighting did not work against her and he realised this when they clashed with their weapons.
Jogund was also a spellcaster with the ability to use her mana in manipulating earth. Valor's sword skills alone, though elegant and proficiently honed to the zenith, were not enough to defeat both Jogund and the earth beast that guarded her — the lady of the earth, Terramera.
Valor continued to incant in his native tongue until his mana started seeping out from his body and escaping into the surrounding.
His swords dropped to the grassy ground and he was adorned with a new weapon — one that was strong enough to turn the tables in his favour.
"What is that?" Jogund blurted out with a deeply curious look on her face.
Valor was adorned with a long bow in his hand and a quiver of arrows on his back. He pulled out three arrows at once and drew upon his bow with a fixed aim at Jogund.
While he still chanted strange words, a sudden gust of wind surrounded him, imbuing his arrows with a radiant glow.
Valor let out a battle cry and released the three arrows at the golem first and a barrage of arrows followed immediately after.
"Boltenn nei Valore!" Valor exclaimed in elven vernacular. The name of the technique was 'The Bolts of Valor'.
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...
...
Terramera staggered back and started to crumble. The stone lady's rocky form was chipping away, forming small shards of stone that floated around her.
"Yes!" Valor exclaimed inside of him.
The Bolts of Valor was a technique that travelled at immense speed. Each arrow found its mark, allowing the golem no time to escape them, especially with its massive size.
Jogund, on the other hand, slithered her way behind Terramera and managed to escape the barrage of arrows that Valor unleashed on them.
The Goblin King, however, was not idly watching Valor unleash punishment on her and her earthen summon. It appeared as if she fled from the Bolts of Valor but that was not the case.
She blitzed past the crumbling golem, circling around the elven warrior, her movements swift, agile and stemming from an ocean of battle experiences.
Jogund taunted her opponent to get into his head. She laughed maniacally as she dodged his punitive arrow strikes and counterattacked with deathly precision.
Valor's eyes widened when he noticed Jogund's presence in front of him. It was the same opponent but her physical form differed from what he remembered from minutes earlier.
"When did she—" Valor tried to think back but then it hit him. Jogund had activated her strange magic when she hid behind her golem.
Jogund bore a horn, hard and thick, at the centre of her forehead that radiated with a light greenish glow. That was the source of her new strength.
Valor fought with all his might and stepped back as fast as he could to escape, the newfound strength and deftness of the Goblin King were unmatched.
Bam!
The sound of a dull yet devastating impact resonated in the forest, the echoes reaching as far back as the elven villages and leaving both goblins and elves in shock.
"The boss," the goblins muttered with grave concern.
"Valor," the elves breathed with quavering voices.
Birds escaped for their lives, flying away from their nests hidden in the tall trees of the forest.
Crawling animals slithered away from danger.
Burrowing animals dug their exit tunnels underground and escaped for their lives.
The trees still swayed to the pressure of the aftershock and energy generated from the strike even seconds after.
Just what was this attack?
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...
...
Jogund, in the state of her horned enlightenment, dominated the battle and turned it from an evenly matched fight to a one-sided one in just a split second.
A powerful blow from Jogund's glowing metal club struck Valor on his side, shattering about four of his ribs. The Goblin King was unrelenting with her attacks and continued punishing the elf.
Another devastating and resounding blow from Jogund's metal club sent Valor flying into a nearby tree, his head spinning from the impact.
As the elf tried to regain his bearings, he noticed Jogund conjuring another spell and her eyes glowing with an eerie green hue that reflected her form menacingly.
Jogund was finished with her incantations and a giant revolving green magic circle appeared in front of her.
She clenched the handle of her glowing club and with a loud cry, she swung forward and landed a heavy strike at the centre of the magic circle.
"Earth Magic: Stone Barrage!"
With a sinister grin, she released the spell and a shower of sharp rocks and boulders came hurtling towards Valor.
Valor stretched out his arm and jumped back. Struggling to defend himself, he summoned his barrier once more, but the onslaught was too much for him to bear.
The barrier shattered easily for the second time in a row, and the rocks struck him mercilessly, knocking him first to a large tree and then to the ground.
Jogund approached Valor triumphantly, her gleaming metal bludgeon raised high, ready to deliver the final blow.
"Perhaps, coming under my wings and fighting for me wouldn't have been a bad choice after all."
Valor coughed and turned slowly, writhing in pain as he tried to lie on his belly. The elf tried to muster the strength to stand, but his body refused to obey.
"It's over for you, my little elf," Jogund sneered, raising the shimmering bludgeon even higher.