Chapter 10
At the edge of the Blighted Forest, war had broken out between a Lord and a native race.
Both sides had come to wipe out the other.
The Goblins wanted revenge. Lilith was fighting in self-defense—but she also intended to claim their resources and convert the battle into Kill Points.
This was nothing like fighting ordinary beasts, or even the Frost Sabertooths. When native creatures realized they were losing, they usually retreated rather than fight to the death.
Not this time.
Neither side intended to leave survivors.
The battle hit its peak almost the moment it began.
It was Lilith's first time facing a native race with this kind of resolve.
Hundreds of Specters rose over the battlefield and gathered their power. Morwen struck first, and a storm of invisible Soul Blades rained down on the Goblin ranks.
Lilith could already picture the enemy formation crumbling.
The Goblins barely outnumbered her Specters, and she had always thought of their race as weak and cowardly.
She had never treated this battle as a serious threat.
But the Goblins did not stand helpless beneath the invisible barrage.
The priests at the front raised their staffs.
Green energy coiled around them, building until it spread into a massive barrier that sheltered the entire Goblin army.
The Soul Blades struck.
There was no explosion. Faint ripples washed across the barrier, then faded.
Not a single attack broke through.
Lilith stopped short.
Across the battlefield, the Goblin High Priest gave a contemptuous laugh.
Without lowering the barrier, he swept his staff through the air.
Several green beams lanced upward and struck the Specters before they could react, annihilating them on contact.
The other priests followed his lead and opened fire on the sky.
Lilith finally understood how dangerous this enemy was.
The Specters' attacks were useless against these Goblin spellcasters. Their sensitivity to magic let them detect even invisible Soul Blades and raise defenses before the strikes landed.
Worse, the Goblins' magic seemed purpose-built to destroy Spectral Undead.
Even the smallest spark of green flame could devour a Specter's ethereal body in seconds.
This went beyond their ordinary weakness to fire.
Lilith pinpointed the root of the problem at once.
"Ignore the soldiers. Keep the priests busy from the air."
She leveled Waltz of Ashes at the High Priest.
"All Veterans—take down their leader first."
The High Priest was clearly the strongest Goblin on the field.
Once he fell, Lilith could pick off the remaining Veteran-ranked fighters, then crush the rest of the army.
At her command, the Specters scattered across the sky and began circling above the Goblin formation.
Flight still gave them an edge. As long as they avoided using Soul Blade—a skill that left them briefly exposed—the Goblin priests would have a hard time landing clean hits.
At the same moment, all six Black Knights charged.
They burst from the tree line in a blur, converging from three directions. Black katanas carved the air as each of them unleashed the full pressure of a Veteran.
The six-pronged assault was meant to end the fight in a single exchange.
The High Priest reacted instantly.
Instead of falling back behind the barrier, he stepped out to meet them.
He swung his staff, and coils of Vital Soulfire wound around the weapon like emerald serpents.
A single stroke intercepted all six Black Knights.
And still, the High Priest had not released the full pressure of his Rank.
Lilith stared.
What followed surprised her even more.
The other Goblins made no move to help him. They simply watched their High Priest fight six Veterans alone.
Their confidence in him was absolute.
Though he looked every inch a spellcaster, the High Priest dominated the melee through magic.
Every sweep of his staff drove a Black Knight back.
Their blades struck hard enough to shriek through the air, but the High Priest moved with uncanny precision, slipping past each attack at the last possible instant and answering with a green beam that forced his attacker to retreat or block.
After several exchanges, the six Black Knights had gained nothing.
Lilith could hardly believe what she was seeing.
"Lowborn undead," the High Priest sneered. "Today you'll learn the price of attacking my tribe."
He slammed the butt of his staff into the ground.
A ring of green force erupted around him, hurling all six Black Knights backward.
His body blurred.
He appeared behind one of them, bringing a mass of emerald fire down toward its back.
The Black Knight spun and slashed clean through it.
The flame detonated against the katana, bursting into countless sparks that showered the surrounding undead.
Green embers clung to their armor.
The metal hissed as the Vital Soulfire began eating through it—its power all the more corrosive against the undead.
Then a wave of frost rolled across the battlefield.
The green flames vanished beneath a sheet of ice.
Lilith and Morwen had struck as one.
Six Veteran-ranked Black Knights could not bring down the High Priest. If Lilith kept watching from the sidelines, he would destroy them one by one.
She met Morwen's gaze.
No command was needed.
Morwen transformed in midair, her ethereal body swelling into a massive Spectral Dragon. Blue-white energy gathered in her jaws before Netherfrost Breath swept down across the Goblin army.
The Bone Dragon circling overhead attacked in the same breath.
Two streams of dragon breath crashed into the Goblins' barrier.
Both strikes landed toward the rear of the formation, where the magical defenses ran thinnest.
The High Priest understood at once.
Without his power reinforcing the barrier, the other priests might not be able to shield the ordinary warriors behind them.
He turned to intervene.
Lilith stepped into his path.
Waltz of Ashes rested in her hands, and the Wraithveil Robe stirred around her body like living shadow.
The six Black Knights closed in again, hemming the High Priest in from every side.
Seven opponents sealed off every avenue of escape.
"You're begging for death!"
The High Priest roared, and a crushing aura erupted from his body.
Only then did Lilith sense his true strength.
Tier 9 Veteran.
No wonder he had been so overwhelming.
The six Black Knights were only Tier 1 Veterans. That none of them had died in the opening exchange was little short of a miracle.
Or more accurately—the High Priest simply hadn't been taking them seriously.
That was over now.
His tribe was in danger.
He cast every distraction aside and prepared to fight with everything he had.