Chapter 327 Dongshu and Aspen

"Boom!"

Blinding lightning flashed across the overcast sky. Fat raindrops poured down, stirring the thin mist that permeated the air.

The downpour was torrential!

Even with the dense canopy overhead providing cover, the freezing rain fell relentlessly onto Xia Nan, pinging sharply against his metal armor.

His half-dry, messy hair was soaked once again. Xia Nan looked up, his gaze passing through the gaps in the foliage. The churning leaden clouds above reflected in his dark eyes.

He found this incredibly troublesome.

By now, he had long since left Rivervale Town and was right in the middle of his quest.

The plant known as fog lamp grass was a crucial ingredient for crafting various potions, including night vision and climbing potions. Lady Edwina of the Verdant Crucible had a substantial demand for it every year, regularly commissioning adventurers to harvest it.

The route was clear, the location was exact, and even the ten-day round trip was meticulously calculated.

After visiting the Verdant Crucible to get a detailed map from Lady Edwina and asking about key details to watch out for, Xia Nan packed his bags and left Rivervale Town.

The journey had been relatively easy so far, practically devoid of any danger.

After all, an F-rank quest was the lowest tier among the Association's official commissions. The only reason it required adventurers with a Class Grade was the plant's seasonal nature; fog lamp grass had to be processed as quickly as possible after being picked to prevent it from rotting, which meant the gatherer needed the speed only a professional could maintain in the forest.

Otherwise, delegating the task to bottom-tier adventurers who hadn't even earned a Class Level would have been perfectly fine.

About three days had passed since Xia Nan set out. He was currently on the very fringes of the Misty Forest, an area where the mist drifting through the air was barely visible.

He traveled fast, running nearly half a day ahead of schedule.

This was exactly what he had planned.

To maximize his earnings, he had specifically taken on two goblin extermination quests located right along his route before leaving town.

This extra half a day would give him just enough time to head into their lair and properly unwind.

Unfortunately, the heavy rain had come at a bad time.

While it dispelled the summer heat, the downpour completely washed away any tracks the goblins had left in the woods.

Even with the vague coordinates provided by the Association, following the vine to find the melon to track down the target Goblin Lair without delaying his main quest would be no easy feat.

Fortunately, Xia Nan had always been rather lucky in that regard.

He stood in the rain, looking around and considering whether to temporarily abandon the Goblin extermination commission to harvest the fog lamp grass first, then carefully search for the lair on his way back once the rain stopped.

Suddenly, a shout echoed from deep within the forest.

His interest was immediately piqued.

Concealing his presence, he quietly slipped toward the sound.

...

"Screech!"

The sharp, excited shriek sounded like the Grim Reaper knocking on the door. Extreme tension wiped his mind blank. Unable to form a coherent thought, his body moved entirely on instinct.

Dongshu tightly gripped his well-maintained one-handed sword with both hands. It had clearly seen years of use, its surface covered in mottled marks.

He trembled all over. Sweat mixed with the rain rolling down his forehead, his pale face taut.

He couldn't be blamed for reacting this way.

After all, the creatures surrounding and slowly closing in on him weren't ordinary beasts like coyotes.

They were a pack of nearly thirty green-skinned Goblins!

Faced with such numbers, let alone a young man like him, even the so-called grizzled veterans in Rivervale Town might not have been able to keep a steady grip on their weapons.

Not to mention that Dongshu wasn't an adventurer at all. He was just a young hunter from a nearby village out on a hunt.

Who could have guessed that a small deer breaking free from a trap, a perfectly understandable moment of impulsive pursuit, and a sudden downpour would drag him into such a deadly predicament?

Fortunately, Dongshu was not entirely alone in his despair. Standing back-to-back with him in the middle of the goblin encirclement was an older, far more robust middle-aged man.

"Brother Aspen, what should we do? Can we still escape? I... I don't want to die..."

The putrid stench of the filthy Goblins permeating the rain, their excitedly swung wooden clubs, and the jagged bones protruding beneath their festering green skin made Dongshu's trembling voice sound exceptionally panicked.

In contrast, the veteran hunter named Aspen remained much calmer.

Though his left hand gripping his longbow was slightly white at the knuckles from sheer force, and blood constantly oozed from a wound on his calf, his face maintained a basic level of composure.

"Don't panic. You must not panic!"

"You can't let these greenskins see that you're afraid of them!"

Having hunted outside the village for years, Aspen naturally understood a thing or two about goblins, those disgusting creatures that infested every corner of the forest like roaches.

He knew exactly how to deal with the ugly little runts to achieve the best results.

However, being surrounded by nearly thirty of them at once was a first even for him.

He couldn't help but feel a little uncertain.

But giving up was out of the question.

His mind raced. Waves of pain surged from his wounded calf, and a mixture of sweat and rain soaked his coarse linen shirt.

"There are too many goblins. If they keep boxing us in, we're both going to die here."

"We have to find a chance to break out!"

"Listen to my command in a moment..."

Speaking as fast and as concisely as possible, Aspen explained his plan to his companion behind him.

Dongshu looked incredibly nervous, but he still upheld the fundamental discipline of a hunter.

Even though his heart was practically pounding out of his chest, he committed every word that reached his ears to memory.

"Get ready..."

A shout that bordered on a low bellow erupted from behind him.

"Three, two, one!"

Thrum—swoosh—

It was a sound Dongshu had heard countless times—the vibration of a fully drawn bowstring snapping back, followed by the sharp whistle of an arrow tearing through the air.

"Screech!"

A blur flashed through the air.

The spinning arrow left a vacuum trail through the rain and mist.

With deadly precision, the wooden shaft pierced straight through the skull of the goblin standing closest to Aspen's front flank.

Fired with full strength, the powerful impact pinned the scrawny greenskin directly to the ground, taking down several neighboring Goblins in the process.

At the exact moment the bowstring thrummed, Dongshu followed the plan Aspen had just explained. He abruptly spun around and sprinted in the direction the arrow flew.

Gritting his teeth, he didn't even bother aiming for vital spots. He simply swung his blade wildly, forcing back the goblins on either side that tried to close in on him.

At the same time, Aspen scrambled backward immediately after firing.

Moving in opposite directions, the distance between the two rapidly widened.

This caused the twenty-odd goblins surrounding them to split like a severed raindrop, dividing into two clinging halves and losing their airtight formation.

The plan seemed to have largely succeeded.

Dongshu prepared to turn around and, as planned, continue disrupting the Goblins' formation to carve out an escape path for his teammate, who was still trapped among the bulk of the goblin horde.

However, the second arrow Aspen fired landed on a goblin right next to Dongshu yet again.

Suddenly realizing what was happening, the young man's pupils shrank. He whipped his head toward the battered figure desperately drawing his bow amidst the swarm of Goblins.

"Go!"

The resolute roar flooded Dongshu's ears.

Yes, this was Aspen's real plan.

He was using himself as bait to create a chance for his young companion to escape.

Aspen never considered himself to possess noble character.

If there had been even a sliver of hope to survive, he would have fought for it with everything he had.

But the nearly thirty goblins vastly exceeded the number he could handle.

Furthermore, the grisly wound on his right leg severely hampered his mobility. He simply couldn't muster the explosive speed needed to break out.

The situation was clear.

If they stayed to fight, they might drag a dozen Goblins down with them, but both of them would die.

If they split up and fled, Aspen's injured leg meant he couldn't run fast, and Dongshu clearly lacked the experience to handle such peril. There was a high chance neither would escape, meaning they would still die together.

For Aspen, who was already trapped in a deadly, hopeless scenario, trading his own life for his teammate's survival was the best possible outcome he could imagine.

"Don't worry about me! Run toward the village!"

"Don't look back!!"

Roaring in a tone that bordered on an absolute command, Aspen completely ignored the greenskin Goblins lunging at him with swinging clubs and flying drool.

Staggering backward, he continued firing arrow after arrow at the goblins harassing his distant teammate, helping to clear his path.

Dongshu's mind was in total chaos.

Memories of his time with the older man flashed before his eyes. A powerful urge suddenly surged in his chest; he wanted to turn around, charge back into the Goblin horde, and help Aspen.

But a second later, an inexplicable surge of calmness—the kind born in the most critical of crises—reconnected his frozen thoughts. It drove him to make the most correct decision of his life.

He whipped his head back, his eyes cutting through the space between them to stare intently at Aspen's distant face, as if searing the image into his soul.

Then, in an instant, he turned back around. Swinging his sword to force back the Goblins in front of him, he sprinted away from his companion.

He could not fail Brother Aspen's expectations!

At that moment, on the extreme outer fringes of the Misty Forest, faced with a goblin ambush, both hunters made the absolute best decisions possible for their circumstances.

And if the situation had continued to play out, the final outcome would have matched their hopes: one hunter's sacrifice buying the other's survival.

However, more often than not, when faced with immense, looming danger, people tend to overlook the tiny, avoidable mistakes right at their feet.

It was a fist-sized rock, as ordinary as could be.

It might have been left over from some earth-shattering battle centuries ago, or perhaps unearthed by an adventurer setting up camp just last year.

Its origin didn't matter, nor did its appearance warrant any attention. Not even the dumbest Goblin would care about such an inconspicuous, everyday stone.

It just lay there quietly.

Half-buried in the soil, its exposed edge obscured by fallen leaves.

Until it caught the toe of a hastily raised leather boot.

Completely strangling the escapee's hopes of survival.

"Gah..."

His toes left the ground.

The sudden resistance from below, combined with the explosive momentum of his sprinting legs, completely destroyed Dongshu's center of gravity. Borne by his own inertia, he practically flew through the air.

In that split second, he could already picture the look of sheer despair in Brother Aspen's eyes behind him.

"Thud!"

He tumbled and crashed heavily into the dirt.

The sharp pain from underneath him felt muted beneath the rush of his boiling blood. He instinctively rolled over.

Before he could even stand, before he could even raise his sword halfway...

The menacing goblins around him, previously held at bay by the sharp blade, pounced on him like jackals catching the scent of blood.

The fastest of the bunch was already leaping high into the air.

Its twig-thin arms tightly gripped a wooden club, mud and dust flinging from its dark brown claws.

Blazing lightning erupted across the gloomy sky.

Time seemed to freeze.

Dongshu could see a bursting, pus-filled sore right in the center of the goblin's chest. He could see its saliva-coated, pointed tongue sliding between jagged, rotten teeth in its excitement, and even the writhing contours of the muscles beneath its paper-thin skin.

He subconsciously tried to raise his longsword to block the descending strike.

But he found his body's reaction lagged far behind his racing thoughts.

He was too slow!

Even lifting his blade at maximum speed, the wooden club would smash into his skull long before the sword reached a defensive position.

Despair washed over him.

It was as if someone had pressed the mute button on the surrounding world.

Brother Aspen's distant roars, the noise of rain striking leaves and dirt, the goblins' excited shrieks... everything instantly vanished.

All that remained was the sound of his own breathing and heartbeat.

The leaping goblin reached its apex and plummeted down with the pull of gravity. The iron nails embedded in the wooden club glinted coldly in the rain.

Half-sitting on the ground, Dongshu could almost feel the phantom pain of the club crushing his skull.

And right at that moment.

"Squelch."

It was an incredibly faint noise, yet exceptionally clear in this seemingly dead-silent world.

It sounded like a child accidentally poking a hole in a paper window out of curiosity, or like the rabbit skin he had accidentally sliced through a few days ago.

The Goblin's face still held that excited expression, but it looked as if something was about to burst out of its neck.

Its fragile skin was stretched to the limit by a sharp object from within. Finally, accompanied by a soft "pfft" and a few splatters of blood, it was pierced through like wet paper.

It revealed the incredibly sharp, dark-gray tip of a sword.

It continued forward.

The momentum only stopped after nearly half the blade had pushed through the Goblin's throat.

Hum—

The inexplicably sluggish flow of time instantly snapped back to normal.

A wrist twisted, and the blade rotated.

Without deliberately seeking an angle, relying purely on the unparalleled sharpness of the sword and the falling goblin's own momentum...

The wielder simply gripped the hilt and lightly pulled upward.

"Riiiip."

From its neck all the way to its crown, half of the Goblin's head was sheared off by the blade, spraying a mixture of red and white fluids.

Rumble—

A belated crack of thunder echoed through the air.

Lying battered on the ground, Dongshu reflexively looked up.

Through the narrow gap cleaved in the goblin's flesh, he met a pair of piercing, ice-cold dark eyes.

A second later, freezing rain mixed with warm, filthy blood splashed over his face.