"What is the meaning of this?" Lugh roared in Eri's direction, expanding his aura, and struggling to protect his men from the rain of arrows.
"I don't fucking know!" Eri yelled back as she drew her sword and ran in front of her group.
"Shields!" She shouted to her soldiers; unlike Dunul's guard, who usually only used long swords for close combat, the ten men she led carried wooden tear shields and short swords.
Hearing their commander's order, they quickly positioned themselves beside her and raised their shields.
"Bring your men over here! Their arrows shouldn't be endless!" Eri shouted to Lugh, who didn't hesitate before ordering his troops to take cover under the shields of Eri's men.
Arthur quickened his pace and his blade, imbued with crimson light raced through the air, parrying many of the arrows that flew toward the recruits who were unable to defend themselves.
In less than a second, more than fifteen men were cowering behind Eri's men as the arrows continued to pierce the edges of the forest whose darkness protected the attackers.
It took another thirty seconds of unstoppable arrow rain and two cold corpses on the ground before the arrows stopped colliding with the wooden shields.
In that brief moment of peace, a trumpet sounded, and Arthur was able to peer through one of the gaps in the shield wall as small, green-skinned creatures appeared, led by two larger ones.
They were goblins, but not like the ones Arthur had encountered in the past. Their appearance was still ferocious, but not as ferocious as the chaos-corrupted goblins, and even their aura was different; it was still vicious and disgusting, but not to the point of making Arthur's stomach turn.
However, the biggest difference between these goblins and the ones Arthur had encountered in the dungeon was certainly their gaze, which, unlike the hungry, bestial gaze of the beasts in the dungeon, now had intelligence and a mixture of complex emotions in their ugly, distorted faces.
At that moment, under the bloodthirsty gaze of everyone present, the hobgoblin leading the small army stepped forward.
"H-humans..." the hobgoblin stammered, his voice hoarse and his pronunciation a struggle, as if his throat or even his intellect couldn't keep up with his words.
Despite these difficulties, Arthur was still impressed by the fact that they spoke. All his previous encounters had led him to believe that the goblins of this world were nothing more than mindless, bloodthirsty beasts, but this short word and what followed had proven him wrong.
"The... sovereign... of the… black scales... is merciful and... offer... the opportunity... to... surrender... to the... sovereign..." The hobgoblin cried, his faulty voice filling with fanaticism as he uttered the name of his god.
At the sound of that name, the blood of Eris, Lugh, and all the other natives of this world ran cold.
Clyde, one of the recruits and natives of this continent who had converted to Aelius, raised his hand to a small cross-shaped pendant he wore on his chest before beginning a silent prayer.
The natives who had not yet converted to Aelius did not bother to pray to their gods, but their expressions were clearly frightened.
Only Arthur still seemed confused and a little lost in the situation, a confusion that Robert noticed and explained to Arthur in a low whisper. "The Sovereign of the Black Scales is an ancient god worshipped by some monsters on the continent, he is known to demand the death of thousands every year to satisfy his hunger... The mercy he has to offer is to become his food."
"I see," Arthur whispered back as his eyes turned to the goblins.
Their situation was complicated, but not impossible. Arthur could count about forty goblins.
After the two casualties from the rain of arrows, they had just over twenty-two soldiers, each of whom would have to fight two goblins if they were to win this battle.
That wasn't a number that would frighten Arthur if it were only the chaos-corrupted goblins he had encountered in the dungeon, but these were different. Their minds had not been consumed by some malevolent energy, and they were at least much more intelligent than those he had faced in the past.
The only thing that made Arthur confident of an easy victory was the difference in level and size between them and these creatures, and the fact that they were on high and very favorable ground.
Most of the smaller goblins were between level twenty-five and thirty, with only two level forty-eight goblins leading them.
At that moment, Arhtur's gaze fell on Lugh's back, waiting for the man's command.
Lugh walked to the front of the shield formation and stood next to Eri. He had a look of disgust on his face as he turned to the woman, who had the same look.
After they nodded to each other, Lugh looked up and shouted. "If you want to die, come soon! I will not listen to your nonsense about your damned god!"
"You dare... insult my lord? I... kill you and... feed you to the giant snake!" The hobgoblin roared before grabbing a horn he wore at his waist, blowing it, and ordering an attack.
"Archers to the rear, shields to the front, and swords to the flanks!!!" Eri shouted, taking the left flank while Lugh ran to the right.
Arthur naturally followed Lugh, along with the other recruits, while some of Dunul's guards reinforced Eri, and the hunters fell back, looking for high ground from which they could fire their arrows more accurately.
Arthur gripped his sword tightly and positioned himself shoulder to shoulder with Robert, watching with amusement as an arrow from one of the hunters flew over his head, piercing a goblin's eye, going through the other side of his head, and causing him to stumble and fall backward, bumping into other goblins and taking them down the hill.
A single arrow killed one goblin and knocked down four others, who had to start all over again.
Arthur smiled at the sight, but he didn't let his guard down, and soon the first of the goblins arrived in front of him and, amidst angry shouts and roars, tried to attack Arthur with his rusty axe.
As Arthur took a single step backward, the blade of the goblin's axe hit nothing but empty air, causing the goblin to roar even more angrily.
"Son... of a... b-b-bitch!!!" The goblin cursed.
Arthur didn't even waste time answering or getting angry at the goblin's cursing before he countered with a high blow.
The battle had already erupted in every corner, the screams of humans and monsters mixing in a deadly symphony.
Lugh and Eri fought one hobgoblin each, their swords slicing through the air at tremendous speed, the amount of mana exhaled by the battle causing the air around them to tremble violently, creating an isolated area where no one dared enter, allowing them to fight freely.
Not far away, the recruits were also busy fighting their own battles. Robert faced a level twenty-five goblin alone, while the other three recruits fought together against two goblins of the same level.
Their swords lacked the power of Lugh's sword, and their senses lacked the perception of Arthur's mind, but they still managed to pull through.
Amid all this chaos, the sound of Arthur's blade crashing into the poor goblin and knocking him to the ground, even though he had raised his axe in time to parry Arthur's blade, went unnoticed, as did the faint line of blood that ran down his sword and was absorbed by his hand.
Glancing at his status and confirming that the blood storage in his necklace had increased by 0.01, Arthur tightened his grip on his sword and moved on to his next victim.