Chapter 73: Destructive Testing

Porkchop smashed into the clumsy formation of goblins with the force of a landslide. Diminutive green bodies crunched. The line collapsed, the ‘lucky’ goblins that weren’t completely trampled being sent tumbling to the floor.

Kaius watched his friend roar, laying into their massed enemies with a fury, his artefact enhanced paws batting aside weapons as he crushed bone with every swing.

There was no way he was going to let Porkchop have all the fun. Sprinting into the fray Kaius lashed out with A Father’s Gift. Holding his sword in a high grip, he pivoted his hands. Enchanted steel whirled through the air. He cleaved through the neck of a dagger wielding goblin, too preoccupied by Porkchop’s assault to react.

**Ding! level 12 Goblin Skirmisher slain**

Dark green blood sprayed across Kaius’s face. With his lips twisted into a grin, Kaius was treated to the taste of copper on his tongue. There was no disgust, only joy as he spun and drove the point of his sword through the chest of a goblin Bruiser.

**Ding! level 13 Goblin Bruiser slain**

Now they noticed him. A devil in blued scales. Scything through their numbers like so much wheat, more kill notifications dinging in his mind. They felt..slow. He did too. His latest Honour had provided him with a substantial boost to his Intelligence, speeding up the rate at which he processed the world around him. Tuning his reflexes.

A full third of the pack turned on him, rallying blades and clubs to cut him down. He didn’t let them. His blade flashed through the air in a silver blur, turning aside their assault. Twisting attacks into openings. He followed through to cut limbs and torsos to the bone.

**Ding! level 14 Goblin Bruiser slain**

…

**Ding! level 11 Goblin Skirmisher slain**

The stone of the junction quickly turned into a sticky mire, streams of blood slickening its surface. None of it was red. Even swamped, the goblins struggled to pierce his scale, ramshackle long knives tinking as they skittered over its surface.

He moved. Turning as he blurred through the mass of depths-born, doling out death and slaughter. With every parry, every block, he felt a reservoir of energy in his vambraces fill. It was getting close. Another thing he had been looking forward to testing.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw an arrow lancing for his head. He was already moving, cutting the underpowered missile out of the air with his blade. Releasing his sword with his offhand, Kaius pointed at the offending archer over the head of its fellows that blocked his path.

Power crackled in his glyph. Right beneath the surface. Watching, waiting for his command.

He willed it, and it was so.

Gold light radiated from one of his four runic hymns. It burned without pain, embers of radiant amber wafting from his skin to drift through the air. An instant later he felt his mana surge, expending itself with a snap.

A bolt of the purest azure materialised, exploding forwards to rocket towards his target. Like a shard of crystal shrapnel it crossed the distance in moments, trailing a mystic haze.

The shard of power punched straight through the archer’s face. Blowing through to crack the wall of the stone building behind it, coating the ground in a splatter of brain.

**Ding! level 13 Goblin Archer slain**

Kaius felt the thrum of his heart, the hot hunger as he saw the power of his spell. There had been no pause. No moment where he had to hold the spell in his mind, draining his mana into the working. He simply wished it done, and his glyph obliged.

Snatching up his sword with both hands, Kaius deflected yet another assault from the goblins arrayed against him. A goblin with jagged knives in each hand grew over confident, pushing past the pack. Barely lasting a second before he lanced it through the heart, ripping his blade free of its chest cavity to spill its ropes of severed intestines on the floor.

**Ding! level 14 Goblin Skirmisher slain**

The foul stench only angered him. Urged him to press on. A wild sweep sent the mob leaping back, and Kaius pushed in, joining Porkchop in the thick of the thrum.

Sparing a moment to check on his friend’s progress, Kaius found shattered bodies littering the ground in front of his friend. Small of frame, the goblins fared as well as children in the face of Porkchop’s might.

Porkchop had definitely killed more. That wasn’t good. Kaius would never hear the end of it.

He redoubled his assault. With a clang he deflected a two handed club held by a particularly beefy specimen – beefy for a goblin that is. It was no taller than his chest.

As he sent the club sailing to the side, Kaius felt something in his vambraces click. He could feel a new well of power come to his awareness. One that would bolster an attack, empower him to new heights..

He didn’t keep it waiting long.

Lunging forwards, Kaius threw his full body weight into a heavy sideways cleave and tapped into the power held in his vambrace.

Fire roared through his veins. A violent energy bolstering his muscles, his bones creaking under the force of his suddenly empowered swing. A Father’s Gift glowed a shimmering red in his True Sight as his blade rocketed towards the line of goblins.

The first goblin in the line was wearing scraps of chain. His sword bit into its arm, cleaving through flesh and bone. Continuing through its torso with a sickening crack. Ripped out the other side to cut. And cut. And cut.

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Kaius laughed as he severed the goblins, cutting clean through their chests. Exalting in their dying gurgles and the sound of wet meat hitting stone. Four goblins collapsed in a wave of viscera, coating the flagstones below.

**Ding! level 12 Goblin Rogue slain**

…

**Ding! level 11 Goblin Skirmisher slain**

Taking a moment to pause, Kaius revelled in the destruction he had wrought. He’d expected the vambraces to be good, but that was phenomenal. Just a shame that it took so long to charge. He doubted he would get to use it more than once or twice a fight.

Kaius heard a screech from above. He looked up, finding one suicidal goblin Skirmisher had someone made it onto the roof and launched itself off. Currently on a terminal descent towards him with its knives held out wide.

He stepped back, gesturing towards its form with his left hand. Golding light burnt once more, and an azure bolt shot out. Punching straight through the goblins chest to continue sailing through the air far above the city before dissipating into nothingness. Kaius frowned. He’d been aiming for the head. A heart shot was no guaranteed kill.

Thankfully, the splat as the goblin impacted hard stone after a four story drop took care of that.