Merlin stood back up and drew his last arrow, he saw that the goblin hexer was still alive, although it seemed to be barely hanging on by a thread. Merlin tried shooting it once more, but his arrow was intercepted by one of the armoured goblins that had closed in on his position.
The arrow shattered against the goblin's armour, and Merlin's bow snapped in his hand. The goblins quickly ran towards him with their swords drawn, Merlin grabbed the shield and a spear and dashed around the treeline towards another location where he left supplies.
The armoured goblins breached the treeline and began chasing after him. Merlin turned around and threw his spear at one of the goblins.
Although the goblin's oversized breastplate served its purpose, the force of the spear easily knocked the goblin over, leaving only three goblins to chase Merlin down while it struggled to stand upright.
Another black bolt was flung towards him, as the almost dead goblin hexer began desperately firing his spells off in Merlin's general direction. One almost made contact, but Merlin's shield was raised just in time.
Unfortunately, after only one corrosive bolt, Merlin's temporary shield began rapidly decomposing. One of the goblins had caught up to him and swung its sword at Merlin, who blocked it with what remained of his shield, unfortunately that caused it to split in half.
Merlin leapt backwards and he noticed that his foot had hit something hard, he briefly looked down to see that it was a spear. He had finally made it to his next stash.
The goblin charged at Merlin once more, the other two were slowly following behind and there was one much further in the distance. Merlin glanced out of the treeline and saw the hexer had also begun casting again.
Merlin kicked the spear up and caught it, using the wooden shaft to parry the sword that was being slashed towards him before kicking the goblin in the chest and forcing it onto his back. Merlin dodged another bolt of magic as he began chanting heavy strike.
「Skill ⟪Heavy Strike⟫ Activated, your next attack will do an extra 35% damage, and has a 15% chance to trigger the stagger effect.」
Another goblin charged at him, but Merlin avoided its attack. He swung his spear like a quarterstaff and struck the goblin's oversized helmet. He received a notification jingle informing him that the stagger chance had triggered.
Merlin flipped the spear around and thrust the blade into the goblin's eye before quickly ripping it out and gouging out the other. Merlin finished his combo by swinging the shaft down on top of the goblin's helmet. The spear shaft suddenly shattered into hundreds of splinters upon making contact with the helmet.
That goblin lifelessly fell to the ground, but before Merlin could celebrate, another goblin thrust its blade at him. Merlin twisted his body to avoid the blade, and in the process of doing so ended up behind the goblin as it lunged past him.
Merlin noticed black sparks in the distance, so he quickly grabbed the goblin's sword arm and hooked his other arm around the ridge of the goblin's breastplate. As the goblin hexer fired another bolt at Merlin, he swung the goblin around and threw him into the magic bolt's trajectory.
Black sparks flew out as the spell collided with metal, but only a few moments later did Merlin see that a small hole had formed in the armour, as if the metal around that area was suddenly eaten away by rust. Unfortunately the goblin was still alive, but there was now a glaring weak spot in its armour.
Merlin unsheathed his blades and pounced on the goblin that was still laying on the floor, he easily parried away the sword it began flailing around before he kicked the goblin's helmet off and plunged his blades into the goblin's head.
The last goblin, the one he had originally knocked over, had finally made its way over to Merlin, who immediately charged at it. The goblin swung its blade at Merlin, but its blade was parried away with ease.
Thinking back to how easy it was to kill a goblin when it was stuck on its back like a turtle, Merlin slipped his leg behind the goblin's legs and punched the creature in the face. Although the metal armour hurt his knuckle, he got the effect he was hoping for, and the goblin was forced onto its back.
Merlin repeated the process as with the last goblin, he knocked away the blade, knocked the helmet off, and then executed the creature. He stood back up, only to find a bolt of magic was flying at him. A surge of dark energy struck his chest, creating a hole through his clothes and burning his skin.
Merlin stared down to see that the flesh underneath the hole in his clothes looked like it was decaying. It was a grotesque sight, but it only dealt twenty-three damage. So it wasn't enough to make him worry when he had a maximum of seventy points of health.
Merlin began chanting cleanse as he dove under cover. As the filth left his weapons, he sheathed them and immediately crawled to the bow and quiver he stashed nearby.
He pulled an arrow out of the quiver and quickly nocked the arrow, and once he had done so he drew the bow back and jumped out from cover, using the brief moment of surprise to locate the hexer and aim his bow at it.
Merlin released the arrow at the same time the hexer fired its bolt, and as the two collided in the air, the arrow disintegrated into shards. But unfortunately for the hexer, it didn't take Merlin that long to grab another arrow and shoot it again. The second arrow hit its mark, and Merlin watched as the hexer went down.
Fortunately, outside of the long ranged damage spell, the hexer didn't pose much of a threat to him when he attacked at a distance, but he would most likely have suffered a worse fate if he charged into melee range where it could hit him with curses.
The hobgoblin leader that was stationary until this point suddenly let out an enraged roar. Merlin quickly dealt with the last armoured goblin that had just gotten up and attacked him. Fortunately the hole in the armour gave him easy access to the goblin's heart.
Merlin barely dodged a spear that was thrown at him by the hobgoblin. He turned to see that the spear was buried quite deep into the tree.
Merlin grabbed another arrow from the quiver and shot the hobgoblin, the bow snapped but the arrow continued towards the leader of the goblin camp. Merlin watched the hobgoblin as he reached down and grabbed another spear from the floor, but surprisingly the goblin batted the arrow out of the air with a one-handed axe.
Merlin left the treeline and began walking towards the hobgoblin, who was only now pulling out its second axe. And as Merlin approached, he saw that the hobgoblin was level nine, its face was covered in tribal paint, as were the two muscly arms that were poking out of the metal breastplate that seemed to actually fit the creature.
Merlin charged at the leader with his spear and threw it with all his strength, the hobgoblin rolled out of the way and rushed towards Merlin. As soon as it entered melee range, it swung its one-handed axes around in a frenzy.
All Merlin could do for the most part was unsheathe his blades and attempt to parry each blow, but he found that he was slowly being pushed back. Merlin's upper arm was cut, which told him it was time to bring the fight's tempo under control.
After parrying a couple more strikes, Merlin leapt backwards and tried making a gap between him and the hobgoblin. Unfortunately it didn't seem as though the hobgoblin had any intention of letting him leave, so it charged at him once more.
Merlin waited for the goblin to close the distance before he kicked a pile of dirt at the creature, but it didn't seem to have the effect he wanted as the hobgoblin blocked the dirt from entering his eyes.
Merlin charged at the monster while it was partially distracted, but the creature swung an axe at him, threatening to chop his head off.
Merlin slid under the blade and slashed at the creature's leg before dashing in the opposite direction while chanting cleanse. It didn't seem to do much against the creature, but now he was just trying to slowly wear it down.
Merlin sliced his forearms with his blades, allowing his daggers to get coated with his own blood. He turned around just in time to see the hobgoblin was closing in quickly. The parrying and slashing continued, but now Merlin's blood was being flung around onto the hobgoblin as he swung his blades.
Unfortunately his passive hadn't triggered yet as there were no cuts for the blood to enter, and he wasn't lucky enough to get any blood to land in one of the hobgoblin's orifices, and even then it would only be a ten percent chance.
Merlin was slowly losing ground once again, but instead of staying still and getting sliced up, Merlin sent his vines out to attack.
Vines burst out of Merlin's forearms and began wrapping around the hobgoblin's arms. Merlin and the hobgoblin were now closely tied together, neither of which could swing their blades with any convenience as they were linked by the arms.
Rather than a fight where they swung blades at each other, the fight quickly progressed into a tug-of-war as the hobgoblin began trying to swing Merlin into things, and Merlin was preventing himself from being dragged around. Fortunately it appeared as though Merlin's strength stat was higher, although the hobgoblin seemed to have an endless supply of energy.
Merlin bit his tongue and allowed his mouth to slowly fill up with blood as he stared the monster down.
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