Zectas Volume III: Malediction of Veneficatl Valley (27 page)

He tried not to be bothered by the haters, but hurtful comments still affected him. He wondered if he should show the other players his Manatl ability.
That thought quickly disappeared from his head as he realized that he would only be needlessly showing off his ability and would gain nothing significant from it.
After reading some more comments, Nash checked up on his auctioned-off items created by Darius. His wise Zectian friend had wares from double-bladed swords to enchanted gas masks.
However, Nash's auction income had recently been reduced by half. All because Duke Burmistrz, mayor of Coatl city, placed a big bounty on Smoke and members of his private army.
To avoid capture, he had the Lioumereans shift their auction placements from the heraldic city of Coatl to the climatic city of Centza, located on the northern tip of the Wysteria Continent.
He detested this idea, but he was forced to ask Gandiva and Laernea to take the longer trips. Not only that, but they also had to traverse through rough terrain and constantly-changing weather.
This was the reason why Centza was called "The climatic city". The landscape around it contained everything from hot desert plains to damp thick forests to cold icy passageways. Laernea and Gandiva traveled through these places as fast as Bilis and Tulin could carry them.
Nash had just started depositing into his younger brothers' educational fund, which meant that he had nothing saved up for this month. He remembered his rare level 500 items and thought about auctioning off one of them.
The storm staff of Ehactl, the mirror of Meztli, the gloves of Itzli and the ring of Ezikill. He had not yet chosen which of these items to focus on, since they had high requirements of opposing affinities.
He decided to save the items for a later date, when he might really need the money. Nash checked the clock and saw that he had enough time to take his power nap before logging in back to Zectas. 

* * * * * * 

After almost twenty hours of travel, Smoke and his men arrived near the mouth of a cave. They remained hidden in a forest patch as Smoke studied the opening in the extremely steep mountainside from a distance.
Ledur mentioned that the location given to him by Smoke indicates that the temple of Vigilantez should be inside that mountain.
However, Smoke and his Tikbalang corps could not proceed to the clearing because of a Gobble Goblin encampment right in front of the cave. With his Cunning of the Dire Fox, he sensed that there were three hundred of these thin green monsters.
"I wonder where these monsters came from. We haven't seen any of them around this area before." Ledur explained to Smoke.
"Don't worry about it. I think we could just charge right in. I mean, we have twenty Tikbalangs, these monsters should be easy even if there's this much of them." said Smoke in a hushed voice to Ledur.
"I'm not so sure about that. After all, some of them are equipped with weapons. I think a single Tikbalang could probably handle about ten of those Gobble Goblins." answered Ledur.
"Ten, huh? I guess we can't charge in then." Smoke checked the clearing and looked at his symbiote. "Igniz, do you think you could keep in check half of the goblins?"
Igniz nodded without hesitation. The dark ember sprite had been itching to fight. Smoke took a few more minutes to iron out his plan of attack and shared it with Ledur and the rest of the Tikbalangs.
All of them fed on the lemurcat jerky Smoke had made. The jerky temporarily boosted their health regeneration rate by 2%. It wasn't an increase as high as one given after eating a well-prepared meal, but it was better than nothing.
He ordered the twenty Tikbalangs to spread out, stay hidden and wait for his signal, while Smoke, Igniz and Ledur took to the skies.
Smoke's Earth affinity was greatly increased by the Ring of Domination, which in turn enhanced his Earth Manipulation ability. Due to this, he tasked himself with creating three-meter-high earth walls on three sides of the Gobble Goblin encampment, and left the creation of the fourth wall to Ledur.
The winged Tikbalang descended first and caught the goblins' attention as he started to create the earth wall. He was flying just beyond the reach of the leaping goblins.
Smoke remained at a higher altitude while creating three earth walls simultaneously. The task proved to be more difficult than he had imagined, as he only managed to raise two-meter-tall walls.
Just as Ledur's wall reached Smoke's desired height, the Goblins began throwing crudely-made wooden spears at the flying Tikbalang.
Ledur did his best to dodge the spears, but there were just too many of them. His life bar displayed (364,929/400,000 HP).
Igniz immediately swooped down and created a firewall across the enclosure. This divided the goblins in two groups.
The first group of Gobble Goblins numbered one hundred sixty. Ledur created two openings in his earth wall and ten Tikbalangs swiftly entered the enclosure through each of them.
With their hard black hooves, the Tikbalangs bashed the heads of the thin green monsters as they charged. The goblins fought back and damaged the Tikbalangs for 700 points.
The Tikbalangs had life bars in the range of 280,000 to 300,000 HP. Minutes after the goblins' retaliation, the Tikbalangs revealed their life bars to be damaged by 5% to 7%, as each of them faced more than ten of the thin green monsters.
Ledur furled his massive black wings and dove down fast. He crushed two Gobble Goblins on the ground as he landed. In a blur, Ledur bashed the skulls of several green monsters with a single hoof strike.
Still up in the sky, Smoke observed the situation from above. He watched the Tikbalangs slaughter the goblins. A part of him feared that the killing frenzy might bring out their feral instincts and make them lose control again.
He looked over to the other side of the firewall and noticed that the other goblins just stood and watched their kin getting ripped apart.
He surmised that these monsters were afraid of fire, because none even tried to jump across Igniz's firewall in order to help their fellow goblins.
Not satisfied with the current limit of his earth walls, Smoke took out the Digger's Wand and created trenches inside the enclosure. 'There. That should stop them from escaping.' he thought to himself with a smile.
As Smoke finished digging the trenches, Ledur and the Tikbalangs were almost done with the first half of the Gobble Goblins. Smoke checked the life bars of his Tikbalang corps.
Smoke beamed when he saw that they still had around 60% left on their life bars. He ordered Igniz to lower the flames of the firewall and allow more goblins to cross it and fight the Tikbalang corps.
As Igniz lowered the firewall, Smoke slowly descended. On the way down, something unusual caught his attention.
The bodies of dead goblins remained on the ground. They did not disappear like the bodies of other killed monsters. Smoke knew that there were certain abilities one could use to make this happen, but neither he nor the Tikbalangs used such abilities.
He was then surprised by the Gobble Goblins' strange behaviour. As soon as they stepped through the firewall, the green monsters sprinted to the corpses of the defeated goblins and started to cannibalize them.
Alarmed by this, Smoke took out his weighted chain and sickle in mid-air and used its active ability Cyclone of Slaughter as soon as he landed. The incoming Gobble Goblins ran to their own demise.
Despite Smoke's efforts, more goblins broke through and ran past the range of the his sickle. The thin green monsters ate with much gusto.
The Gobble Goblins wolfed down fingers, toes, feet and various other body parts until the whole body was consumed. In a matter of seconds, the goblins devoured corpse after corpse. After eating a certain number of corpses, the monsters would run and hide.
Seconds later, larger Gobble Goblins emerged. Their skin became darker and their bodies grew in size. A Gobble Goblin finished its transformation, picked up a rusty crude sword and rushed towards a Tikbalang. It was soon joined by three more transformed goblins equipped with similar weapons. These one-and-a-half-meter-tall goblins delivered heavier blows and inflicted 1,000 points of damage on each attack.
Smoke jumped high in the air towards a spot near Igniz's firewall and used his hooded cloak's active ability Stunning Landing. He stunned three transformed goblins as he crushed the ground he landed on. He threw his sharp sickle at the immobilized dark green monsters and attempted to chop off their heads and limbs.
Yet he could not do so with only a couple of strikes. These monsters displayed a maximum life of (150,000 HP) instead of only (50,000 HP). Other transformed goblins started to run towards Smoke. Igniz took notice of this and created a fire cage to capture them.
Smoke shifted his attack pattern and focused on the goblins' shoulders and legs until he successfully severed the targeted body parts. He turned around and looked back at his Tikbalang corps. "Don't let them eat the corpses! They evolve if they do!" shouted Smoke.
He feared that Ledur and the Tikbalangs hadn't noticed the transformation of the Gobble Goblins. Right after Smoke warned his men, ten dark green goblins rushed to him.
Igniz tried to force them back with multiple fireballs, but the transformed goblins were resilient against the dark ember sprite's attacks.
Thanks to his Cunning of the Dire Fox, Smoke sensed the incoming attackers. He tried to jump away, but two transformed goblins grabbed his feet and brought him down to the ground.
Less than a second later, more Gobble Goblins jumped on him and pinned him down. Some used their crude weapons and slashed his dark purple skin while others clawed, punched and bit him. In a very short time, Smoke received a total damage of 45,200 points.
Three Tikbalangs came charging towards Smoke and tackled six dark green goblins off his back. Each Tikbalang fought hard against two transformed Gobble Goblins.
The remaining four goblins looked up to see what happened, which gave Smoke some much-needed space. He switched out the weighted chain and sickle for his white metallic staff.
He pulled himself up to a kneeling position with the goblins still holding onto him and forcefully created a spherical purple Manatl around him.
HISSS HISSS HISSS HISSS!
Scorch marks appeared on the dark green monsters as soon as they made contact with Smoke's Manatl. He tightened his grip on the staff as the goblins continued their attack on his spherical barrier.
HISSS HISSS HISSS HISSS!
The goblins backed away after their second failed attack. They looked around and searched for their weapons.
Smoke noticed that the three Tikbalangs had difficulty dealing with six transformed Gobble Goblins.
CLINK CLANG CLINK CLANG!
Rusty swords and spears bombarded Smoke's purple Manatl as the goblins attacked it with their crude weapons.
Smoke wanted to wait for one more round of attack, but his Manatl already showed signs of dispersing. He quickly canceled the barrier and focused the gathered energy on the end of his white staff.
The four Gobble Goblins jumped at him. Smoke dodged their weapons and claws as best as he could. With the aid of his Agility of the Horned Rabbit, he only received two attacks and got damaged for 8,419 points. 
Smoke quickly thrusted the energized end of his staff into the stomach of one of the goblins.
THUCK SWWISHH!
The struck goblin's entire body shook as its life bar was quickly being drained to the point where was nothing left of it.
The remaining three goblins attacked him again after they recovered from the shock of seeing their comrade killed instantly.
The DarkElf kneeled down once more and created another spherical purple barrier.
CLINK CLANG CLINK CLANG CLANG CLINK!
As Smoke waited for his Manatl to absorb enough energy from the goblins' attacks, he looked at the Tikbalangs who had saved him from his pinned-down position before.
He saw an alarming sight of three Tikbalangs half-dead on the ground. He became even more alarmed when he caught a glimpse of their life bars, which displayed less than 10% left.
"Ledur, I need your help!" Smoke called out to his Tikbalang captain.
However, Ledur did not answer him. As Smoke scanned the battlefield, he noticed that most of his Tikbalangs had little HP remaining. Ledur himself only had 50% of his life bar left and was still dealing with three dark green Gobble Goblins.
Smoke noticed that he had absorbed enough energy and dispersed his Manatl. This time, he evaded all of the goblins' attacks as he leapt away from them. He held the uncharged end of his staff as he stretched it out and stabbed one of the Gobble Goblins.
The goblin's body shivered as the charged attack went through it. Smoke watched the life bar of the monster drain as he killed it with one hit.
The two transformed goblins grabbed the remains of their fallen comrade and retreated away from Smoke. They fought over the dead body until it finally split in half. Both goblins hurriedly ate their shares.
Smoke desperately ran as fast as he could towards the feasting goblins. He switched back to using his chain and sickle as he sprinted.
With the knowledge that he couldn't slice off their heads in one attack, Smoke used the metal chains to bind the monsters instead.
He threw the metal chains up and created two loops in the air. His high Dexterity allowed him to wrap both loops around the Gobble Goblins' necks.
Smoke pulled as hard as he could and brought the two goblins down, preventing them from eating any more Goblin meat.
As the DarkElf held the two dark green monsters down, he saw several thin green monsters step through the boundary where Igniz's firewall was before.
"Igniz, re-create your firewall! Don't let any more monsters in." Smoke pointed at the burn marks where the firewall once blazed.
His symbiote followed his command without delay and re-ignited the firewall. The ordinary Gobble Goblins backed away, frightened by the flames.
Smoke pulled the two loops into a tight noose and tried to keep the transformed goblins bound together. Moving in closer, he struck the sharp sickle down into their skulls as hard as he could until their life bars were completely depleted.
The DarkElf looked around and saw that Ledur directed the severely injured Tikbalangs out of the earth wall, while six Tikbalangs with more than 60% of their life bars guarded them as they escaped.
His Cunning of the Dire Fox indicated that there were still five transformed goblins left. He searched for the monsters on the ground, but could not see any visible life bars.
'These Gobble Goblins are even clever enough to play possum.' Smoke grinned as he switched weapons.
Smoke checked up on Ledur and saw him closing up the earth wall. Ledur walked towards him with six of his brethren in tow.
"Guys, there's still some stragglers left. Follow my markers." He looked at the battlefield again and confirmed the general direction of the hidden monsters.
He drew his power chainsaw bow back and released three fire arrows. The arrows traveled fast and struck different areas where the goblins hid.
"Everyone, double team on the monsters near the fire arrows! Leave the remaining two monsters to Ledur and me." yelled Smoke.
The DarkElf nodded to his dark ember sprite. Igniz understood Smoke's orders and blasted a nearby pile of goblin corpses, which revealed the concealed life bar of a straggler goblin.
Multiple fire arrows shot out of Smoke's bow as he targeted the lying-down monster. As soon as eight fire arrows pierced the goblin's back, it stood up and made a beeline for Smoke.