Chapter 129: Stage Two

The reaction from both sides was immediate.

Paulina’s earlier excitement disappeared as she stared at the blood pouring from Kellan’s body, while Julia’s hands tightened around her bow and Stella instinctively stepped forward before catching herself.

Even Ronan, who had spent enough years fighting to recognize the difference between a painful wound and a genuinely life-threatening one, grimaced when he saw the enormous diagonal gash stretching from Kellan’s left shoulder toward his right hip.

On the opposite side, Vesha looked even worse.

"FATHER!"

She struggled against the lingering pressure Damian had left upon her, tears flowing freely as Varkas coughed another mouthful of purple blood into the grass.

The Goblin Shaman similarly stared at the puncture in his Chieftain’s chest with a grim expression, clearly understanding better than most that one functioning lung and a body rapidly filling with blood did not leave Varkas much time.

Only Damian appeared calm outwardly.

Inside, though, Damian’s heart was hammering!

’Holy shit, my boy almost died!’

For all his confidence in Kellan’s growth and all his willingness to let the teenager experience genuine danger, there was a rather enormous difference between ’danger’ and watching a massive poleaxe nearly turn the brat into two separate inheritance problems!

’Okay! That’s enough character development for today! I should stop this right now before my little idiot actually dies!’

His face revealed none of that panic, though.

Damian simply unfolded his arms, stepped forward and allowed his voice to carry across Greenmoss Flats.

"Enough!"

Kellan’s unfocused eyes shifted toward him while Varkas lifted his head slightly.

"You’ve both fought well, and you’ve both earned what was promised," Damian continued in a deeper tone.

"Kellan, stand down and await healing. Varkas, say your final words to your daughter before she is sent away."

A thread of unwillingness immediately entered Kellan’s expression, his gaze returning toward Varkas.

The creature who killed Garrick was right there, wounded and dying, barely capable of remaining upright.

After everything Kellan had endured, after every pill, every beating, every Goblin warrior and every nightmare since Otter Village, revenge stood only several meters away.

Yet when Kellan attempted to push himself upright, his body answered with a wave of pain so overwhelming that his arm buckled beneath him.

Blood continued flowing from the wound, warmth was leaving his body frighteningly quickly, and his vision darkened around the edges.

For perhaps the first time since deciding he wanted revenge...

Kellan became afraid of dying!

He was afraid of feeling his body stop working and never being able to return to Rosewood Town, never seeing the children from Otter Village again, and never learning whether all Garrick’s hopes for him amounted to anything.

Indeed, his desire for revenge remained, but the desire for survival overwhelmed it.

Kellan’s head slowly lowered.

"...Yes, Lord Damian."

Damian sighed inwardly.

That was... not ideal.

Kellan had reached the exact enemy who haunted him, fought brilliantly, pushed Varkas to the edge of death and still failed to personally finish the matter.

That kind of unresolved ending could become another knot inside the young man’s head if handled poorly.

Unfortunately, the alternative was allowing two dying warriors to continue fighting until one became a corpse.

Damian would deal with the psychological consequences later.

For now, he had to keep them living first.

Varkas, though, reacted very differently.

The moment Damian confirmed that Vesha would be spared, tension visibly drained from his battered body.

His daughter would live!

Nothing else truly mattered anymore.

Varkas turned his head toward her, purple blood staining his teeth as he prepared to speak.

Vesha was already sobbing.

"Father, don’t...!"

Suddenly, Damian’s face changed greatly as his Divine Sense showed him something he would never have thought possible.

Purple-grey mist exploded around Damian as he activated <Misty Step>!

His body vanished, and Longtian disappeared with him.

CLANG!!!

The sound of colliding weapons tore across Greenmoss Flats, causing everyone to flinch.

Damian reappeared beside Varkas with Longtian already halfway through a murderous horizontal slash.

Except...

He wasn’t attacking Varkas.

A new figure stood directly behind the dying Chieftain, her hand resting gently upon Varkas’s bald scalp with pale-purple fingers that were slender and almost delicate.

Damian had not even sensed her approach!

One moment, empty space existed behind Varkas and the next, she was there!

Her voice flowed across the grass like music.

"Nila’sith, fhaor-gwyllt na scrios’ari!"

(Inferior Fey, descend into madness and destroy my enemies!)

The effect was immediate.

The usually faint Fey energy saturating Valoria suddenly became visible, purple streams illuminating the air.

Threads of violet light rose from the surrounding grass, descended from the open sky and poured through the woman’s hand into Varkas’s wounded body.

The Goblin Chieftain screamed in agony.

"AAAAAAAAARGH!"

His back arched violently as purple energy invaded every muscle, vein and organ inside him.

At that exact moment, Damian’s Longtian struck the newcomer’s weapon.

CLAAAAANG!

Silver-white light erupted between the blades!

The mysterious woman had drawn her sword with astonishing speed, meeting Longtian edge-on barely inches before Damian’s strike reached her neck.

For a moment, neither weapon moved, then Damian’s superior physical force pushed through.

The woman grunted, her boots tearing trenches through the grass as she was driven backward several meters before twisting aside and breaking contact.

Damian landed lightly, Longtian grumbling furiously in his hand.

The Epic-tier sword felt genuinely irritated, almost as though Damian had just used it to strike a diamond wall rather than another weapon.

Damian glanced toward its edge.

No damage.

Good.

Across from him, the woman performed the same inspection, and her reaction was considerably less pleased.

The silver-white blade in her hand carried a tiny nick along its otherwise flawless edge, causing her eyes to widen beneath the shadow of her hood.

Damian noticed, finding it interesting.

The newcomer was tall, very tall for a woman.

She had sleek dark leather armor that hugged a figure so dramatically endowed that Damian briefly wondered whether Fey biology considered subtlety some kind of moral failing.

Her hood concealed most of her face, although strands of silver hair spilled from beneath it and moved strangely despite the lack of strong wind.

That appearance triggered something in Damian’s Arcane Knowledge.

Silver hair, purple-grey Fey light, and a woman with enough power to hide completely from his perception until she appeared almost within arm’s reach.

There was no time to think about it, though, as a wet cracking sound came from behind him.

Damian spared Varkas a glance, then his eyebrows rose.

"Oh, that’s... disgusting."

The Dark Goblin Chieftain was changing.

His four-foot frame expanded violently, bones lengthening beneath skin that shifted from its original dark tone into an ugly purplish-green.

Muscles inflated until they looked almost absurd, his chest widening while his arms thickened into monstrous limbs larger than Kellan’s torso.

His fingers extended, nails becoming claws and his jaw pushing forward while veins bulged across his neck and temples.

Within seconds, the compact Goblin Chieftain who had fought Garrick and Kellan disappeared.

In his place stood a seven-foot monstrosity.

Varkas’s eyes had become huge and bell-shaped, every visible vein within them blood-red while whatever intelligence normally lived behind his gaze drowned beneath animalistic madness.

The wound through his lung remained, and so did the abdominal injury.

Yet Fey energy flooded through both constantly, forcing the mutated body to operate despite damage that should have left Varkas dying on the ground.

"ROOOOOOOOOOOAR!!!"

The sound slammed across Greenmoss Flats, causing grass to flatten around him as wind exploded outward.

Vesha and the Goblin Shaman were nearly thrown backward while the Human slaves desperately covered their faces.

Kellan, already barely conscious, swayed beneath the pressure.

Damian’s eyes hardened.

Whatever that woman had done...

It hadn’t healed Varkas.

She had merely transformed him into a weapon and forced his dying body to keep moving!

His gaze returned toward her as Longtian rose.

Damian pointed the sword directly at the hooded woman.

"I don’t know who the hell you are or why you did that..."

His expression became cold.

"But I will make you suffer for it."

The woman straightened, her surprise at the damaged sword vanishing beneath unmistakable arrogance.

"Ignorant Human! You dare address a Trueblood in such a manner?" she answered with a cold snort.

Trueblood?

Damian’s eyes narrowed.

Very interesting choice of words!

The woman lifted her silver-white blade.

"You may have bested Ravelhorn, but do not allow that victory to inflate your mortal pride. He was merely a mid-level Fey who elevated himself through combat and circumstance."

Her voice became openly disdainful.

"He is nothing compared to me."

Damian stared at her, then smiled.

"Oh?"

Longtian slowly rotated in his hand.

"We’ll see about that."

Purple-grey mist erupted around him as the woman moved at the exact same instant, her body dissolving into a matching burst of Fey light.

Both vanished in that moment, their presences disappearing entirely from Greenmoss Flats.

............

"Kellan!"

Ronan moved first.

The veteran Fighter ignored the mutated Varkas for exactly long enough to reach the wounded teenager, slide one arm beneath him and drag him away from the immediate battlefield.

Kellan groaned as the movement shifted whatever damage existed inside his torso.

"Easy, Lad," Ronan gently advised.

Eunice was already running toward them.

She dropped beside Kellan immediately, hands glowing with divine power as she inspected the horrific wound across his body.

Her face scrunched up with worry.

"Hold him still."

Ronan obeyed as Eunice pressed both hands over Kellan’s chest and divine light erupted.

Right away, flesh began closing as the enormous gash sealed from both ends, while bruised and displaced organs beneath it were restored toward their proper condition.

Kellan gasped violently as the pain disappeared almost as quickly as it had arrived, although the psychological memory of that axe tearing across him remained unpleasantly vivid.

By the time Eunice finished, his breathing had stabilized.

Kellan opened his eyes.

"...Varkas."

"Not your problem anymore," Ronan replied immediately.

Kellan tried sitting up, but Ronan pushed him back down with one hand.

"Stay there for ten bloody seconds."

Ahead of them, Varkas slowly turned, the mutated Chieftain’s enormous bloodshot eyes sweeping across the gathered Humans.

There was no recognition within them, no concern for Vesha, no calculation, nor a desperate father attempting to save his child.

Whatever Fey command had entered him appeared to have consumed everything except aggression.

Paulina slowly moved forward, the Wolf Beastwoman taking the frontline instinctively, her powerful arms lowering while her claws extended.

Julia stepped several meters behind her and drew an arrow.

Janet disappeared from direct sight almost immediately, the Rogue circling toward the flank while Stella drew her greatsword and positioned herself near Eunice and Kellan.

Ronan stood, both longswords sliding from their sheaths.

SHING!

The Goblin Shaman stared toward Varkas in horror, and even he seemed to have no idea what his Chieftain had become.

Vesha’s tears stopped.

"Father...?"

Varkas looked toward her.

For one terrible second, hope entered her expression.

Then the mutated Goblin snarled, and Vesha recoiled.

Paulina moved between them.

The Wolf Beastwoman’s usual confidence was noticeably absent as she studied Varkas’s expanded body and felt the violent energy rolling from him.

Her instincts were howling at her.

"This... is not going to be easy," Paulina muttered as her tail stiffened behind her.

"No. No it is not, Madam," Ronan agreed.

He stepped beside her and rolled both shoulders while adjusting his grip upon the longswords.

His eyes moved briefly toward the empty space where Damian and the mysterious Fey had vanished.

"The Lord is dealing with what should be the bigger threat."

Ronan looked back toward the seven-foot monstrosity.

"So we deal with the smaller one."

Julia glanced toward him. "Smaller?"

Ronan’s lips twitched. "Relatively."

Paulina nearly laughed, but then Varkas roared and the ground cracked beneath his feet.

"ROOOOOOOOAR!!!"

The transformed Goblin launched forward with shocking speed.

For something so huge...

He moved like a fucking missile!!

Paulina’s eyes widened with horror!

"BRACE!"

Varkas crashed toward them!