Power flowed into Rick’s body like a river ending in a waterfall. It started as a little trickle that turned into a roaring torrent of power throughout his body. In fact, Velora, although she would not choose this time to mention it, thought that the power he was gaining right now might have been more than enough to surpass his base level in the Sixth Tier by itself. To put that into words, it was to say that the power just from activating Ruknar was stronger than Tier Six Rick.

  To anyone deemed an enemy by Rick, that was a threatening fact. But of course, this came at a cost, one that Rick wasn’t aware of yet. Though even if he did know about this cost, he wouldn’t have cared, at least not right now, not with how strong and invigorated he felt at this point in time.

  Before the two Tier Sevens knights could react, Rick vanished from his location and reappeared in front of the Spear of Touval. A fist barreled toward her head, which she slapped away with her spear. All that did was move Rick’s arm out of the way, and he was once again sending an attack toward her head.

  But the old woman wouldn’t be defeated so easily. She let out a mighty roar before activating one of her skills.

  “BARELIUS!”

  Mana instantly traveled through her feet into the ground, and then the blackened soil and stone of the Dark Lands of Mir rose up in gigantic spikes around her.

  Perhaps a lesser man would’ve been impaled right then and there, but Rick reacted quickly, jumping out of the way, immediately repositioning himself, and preparing for another strike. Only the Verdan Knight Commander wasn’t sitting idly by.

  He raised his sword and unleashed a skill of his own, which manifested as an arc of blue mana aiming directly for Rick’s head. It whizzed through the air with sickening speed, with every intention of severing Rick’s head from his body. But once again, Rick’s reaction time proved too good for his enemies.

  He ducked out of the way and, in that same motion, bent his knees, leaned forward, and pushed off in the direction of the Knight Commander, who wasn’t nearly quick enough and failed to properly set up a guard in time. By the time Rick got there, it was too late for the man to react.

  And The Goblin King never hesitated in his actions.

  Rick let out a mighty roar as a fist covered in green flames shot toward the Knight Commander’s chest. Not even his powerful armor or the strength of his body could do much to stop the fist of the Goblin King.

  A gaping hole was left by the time Rick pulled his fist out of his body. He once again turned his attention back to the Spear of Touval.

  She gritted her teeth and while barreling towards Rick, at the same time she also began to coil and churn mana not just in her body but this time in her spear.

  Rick met her advance with a charge of his own, more and more green flames continuously gathering around his limbs as the power flowed throughout his body. He felt unstoppable, and that began a powerful exchange between him and the Spear of Touval.

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  Back and forth they went, skills and mana flying all over the place as they clashed, trees turning into shards in their wake, the ground being filled with craters at every step they took.

  If you were too weak and happened to stand too close, your body would simply be no more from just the offshoot effects of such a battle. If there was time to stand and watch, there would have been spectators all around them.

  But all good things had to come to an end eventually, and that included this battle between the King of Goblins and the woman who held the military of Touval on her shoulders and the citizens of her nation on her back.

  It was the type of battle that stories were written about in all forms available, from traveling bards in alleyway bars to the pens of authors and playwrights around the continent. People would have flocked to hear about this battle and everything that surrounded it.

  Though they would unfortunately never get the ending such a battle deserved, because reality doesn’t always conform to fantasy.

  The Spear of Touval disengaged from Rick after one exchange and took that as a chance to finally pay attention to the state of the battlefield. What she saw left her shaken and filled with forceful resignation.

  While she fought with everything she had to keep the Goblin King from running rampant across the battlefield, the Goblins didn’t waste any time in decimating the rest of her force.

  She had no choice but to once again call for a full retreat in the face of the inevitable. If she were to continue fighting here, not only would they all die, but even worse, the mission of killing the Goblin King would remain incomplete.

  Their deaths would serve no purpose, the worst type of death for a warrior.

  If there had been even a small chance of them succeeding in completing the mission, she would have pressed on. But the Goblin King’s prowess was beyond her understanding of all she thought possible.

  He was a newly evolved Tier Seven, and he had already been rather strong during their first meeting, so she made sure to overestimate how much stronger he would become over the last couple of days. But to think she would still fall short in her estimations was something she had not expected.

  Perhaps when he first arrived at this battle and the fight began, he was within the limits of her estimates. But then he uttered a word, one that wasn’t translated for her to understand.

  And there was no need for her to receive a definition of what it meant. The result spoke for itself. It didn’t make sense. How could a skill grant someone so much power?

  Those were the thoughts of the Spear of Touval as she conducted a fighting retreat with all the forces she had left.

  Of all the Tier Sevens that entered the Dark Lands of Mir with her, she could only see three more retreating alongside her: the man from North Balarian, the lone remaining Knight Commander of Verdan, and the Elven Archer.

  That was it.

  To make matters worse, it wasn’t even worth mentioning how few of their troops had survived and retreated alongside them. It was an utter defeat at the hands of the Goblins, one they would have to live with forever.

  Something they would have the opportunity to do only because Rick didn’t give the order to pursue and kill them all.

  The Goblins were riding high after winning such a massive battle, but beneath that veil of victory, everything wasn’t sunshine and rainbows. While no other Chiefs lost their lives, the same couldn’t be said for the lower Tiered Goblins on the battlefield. The number of deaths had lessened significantly but not been eliminated.

  Rick knew that the chances of that paltry force returning soon were unlikely, so he decided that it was time for his people to rest. There would undoubtedly be more problems in the future, but for now, they had lost enough, and it was time to rest for a significant period.

  He would handle things from here.