章 82: Chapter 82: Goblin

Chapter 82: Goblin

"The whole city seems to be filled with undead beings," Raven spoke as he stood atop the seven-meter-tall wall and looked at the houses, shops, and industrial factories. Soon, his gaze zeroed toward many undead beings slowly marching in their direction.

At that moment, Selene furrowed her brows as if she had sensed something and looked at the woodlands that appeared more than a kilometer away.

Then, she turned around and spoke while looking at the walking undead.

"Are they aware of our presence? How are they locating us even though they act like beasts? Are we being watched?"

"No idea. For now, we should leave this city and search the surrounding outskirts to look for any survivors." Saying so, Raven moved towards the edge of the stone wall and jumped down.

Selene also moved closer, suddenly disappeared for a second, and reappeared on the ground before Raven could reach.

Meanwhile, Raven landed on the ground with a thud and slowly stood up.

"Is that a teleport spell?" He asked in curiosity. In truth, he had long known her spell but didn't show it on his face.

"It's an inferior version of blink spell, My Lord. I can only travel around 10 meters distance." Selene said with a smile, focusing on the dirt road path on her right side.

"Shall we follow the road, My Lord?" She asked.

"Yes." Raven nodded.

As they started walking towards where the dirt road was leading, Raven suddenly thought of something and asked.

"Can you cast the 'Dream Alter' spell on me? Also, give me some explanation."

Selene nodded as she touched his shoulder and cast the 'Dream Alter' spell on him.

At the same time, she waved her hand and covered the surroundings with a strange energy.

"With dream alter spell, I can alter the surroundings and make others believe what I'm thinking, My Lord. If someone spied from a distance, they would only see what I allow them to see."

"I don't understand. What do you mean by what you allow them to see?" Raven looked confused as he continued walking.

"This spell works based on imagination, My Lord. For example, think of yourself as someone and try to cast their magic spell."

"Wizard?" Raven was startled, instantly thought of someone, and closed his eyes before casting a 'Fire Ball' spell.

A moment later, he felt a scorching feeling before his face and opened his eyes.

To his shock, a head-sized ball of fire hovered just two feet away from him and was burning fiercely.

What shocked him was that he could even control the fireball's movement.

With a simple thought, he controlled the fireball, let it move toward the nearby tree, and made it explode upon contact with the trunk.

"What the hell?" He couldn't believe his eyes.

"This is only a part of Dream Alter spell's power, My Lord. But there are limitations to this spell. What you see now might look real, but they are merely a dream illusion. After some time, the burning marks on the tree will disappear like it never existed." Selene explained and soon added while taking a mirror from her dream storage spell.

"Take a look at yourself."

"Oh?" Raven caught the mirror and soon froze as he looked at it.

At that moment, what he saw was a completely different person. The one who appeared in the mirror had deep-bluish hair, deep-set jade eyes, olive skin, a fleshy nose, and short eyebrows.

He was a completely different person.

"Charles Nightwind…" He muttered in shock.

"I don't know whom you've picked up, but he seems to be a foreign Wizard. The Dream Alter spell won't work if you don't have some important information about the person you are trying to mimic. For example, if you know about his spells and how they work, you can use them in this dream world. But there is an extent to this spell. You can't cast some legendary spell like the person you are trying to mimic. If you are a Rank-1 Wizard, you can only cast Rank-1 spells. And when the Dream Alter spell disappears, all the damage you've done to the enemy will disappear, too."

'I managed to mimic correctly and even cast the Fireball spell because of a memory book of Runeth related to Charles Nightwind.'

He soon shook his head and returned to his original look by thinking.

Soon, they also arrived at the main road leading to the nearby town and noticed that not even a broken carriage appeared.

Raven quietly turned around, looked at the city gate, and noticed it was tightly shut.

"They locked down the city to control the spread of disease?"

"But I don't think lockdown could prohibit the Walkers from leaving." Selene voiced out her thoughts.

"Does that mean only commoners ended up trapped within the city? Or even the Walkers become undead?" Raven pondered deeply and was about to walk ahead but froze.

At that moment, he coincidentally noticed something flying in their direction from the nearby woods.

Simultaneously, Raven's thought process heightened, allowing him to perceive everything in a slowing down.

Thanks to that, he managed to see an arrow coated with poison flying toward Selene's neck at an incredible speed.

It was much faster than a normal arrow!

What startled him was the strange yellowish aura-like energy covering the arrowhead, making him uneasy!

'If I don't block it, Selene will die!'

He gripped the spear and slashed at the arrow as it approached them.

Even though he blocked it with all his strength, the power behind the arrow forced him to take a step back.

A clanging sound resounded as the spear collided with the metallic arrowhead and was repelled in a different direction.

Raven felt both his hands went numb momentarily and drew a deep breath.

"Ambush?" Selene was alerted and went into vigilant mode.

"Take cover," Raven spoke as he spun the spear and deflected more arrows flying from the woods.

But unlike the previous arrow, these arrows flew much slower, making it easier for him to block them.

Meanwhile, Selene ran towards the nearby tree and hid behind its trunk.

Although Raven couldn't pinpoint the enemy, he saw dark shadows running in the woods.

In two seconds, more than five humanoid beings came out of the woods and sprinted toward him at an incredible speed while carrying daggers and knives.

They were only around 120 to 130 cm tall and had pointy ears and wicked goblin-like faces. However, one thing that made it unique from the goblins he had seen before was their skin tone. Unlike green skin, these monsters had dark color with red scale-like features on their arms and shoulders.

"Goblins?" Selene was startled by these strange goblins' appearance and took an iron dagger from her storage.

Meanwhile, Raven dashed towards the incoming goblins but soon saw more arrows were coming from the woods. He kept dodging the arrows and also got closer to the goblins.

But as he has gotten closer, the arrows rained down from the woods in masses.

'How many archers are hiding inside the wood?' He noticed more than twelve arrows came in his direction at a time.

'But it's so organized. All those arrows are releasing at the same time.' Within a short moment, he concluded that it was only one archer.

'Although I don't know how he releases twelve arrows at a time, I must first lure him out of the shadows.'

Upon approaching the five goblins, he suddenly squatted down and leaped into the sky while making a body spin. At the same time, he rotated the spear around his body; it spun in continuous, fast rotations, often in front of or above the body, to create a defensive barrier in all directions while deflecting the arrows.

A moment later, Raven landed in between those five strange goblins and made a whirling stance.

His sharp spearhead moved like flowing water and neatly decapitated two goblins. Raven didn't even waste his energy as he pulled the spear and thrust it towards another goblin's chest.

Although it tried to block his attack using its dagger, his movement speed was too fast for it to react.

Within a blink, a fist-sized hole appeared on the goblin's chest.

"GUGUUU!" An angry growl came from one of the remaining goblins as it recklessly charged at him while holding its rusty dagger.

The other goblin shouted angrily and threw its poison-coated knife in his direction.

Raven was about to make a parry stance but suddenly noticed a single arrow flying in his direction from the front.

'It's the same yellow-aura-coated arrow!' Raven didn't hesitate as he covered the spearhead with the invisible basic aura and made an overhead stance to intercept it.

Although he managed to block the arrow again, the remaining two goblins used this opportunity to get closer and attacked him. The goblin from his right side plunged its dagger into his abdomen while the goblin from his back threw the knife at his back, giving him a stabbing wound on his shoulder.

"Argh!" Due to the poison coated on the weapons, Raven felt more pain and staggered.

Without delay, he made a wide, horizontal slash using the spear shaft and neatly decapitated the goblin on his right side.

Then, he turned around, made a direct thrust at the other goblin's head, and killed it in one go.

But he didn't have enough time to relax as another round of arrows came from the woods.

Unlike before, Raven couldn't block all the arrows and got two more wounds near his thigh and arm.

Upon realizing he was getting cornered, Raven hurriedly ran toward the nearby tree to hide.

But his footsteps became unsteady even before he got closer to the tree, causing him to stumble.

Soon, he fell next to the tree trunk and slowly crawled closer to hide from the arrow attacks.

For the next few minutes, no more attacks came from the woods.

Like a predator watching its prey from the shadows, the enemy hid in the woods patiently and only came out after noticing no more movement behind the tree.

It was another goblin.

Unlike the other goblins, it was completely black with a unique grey horn on its forehead, was around 140 cm tall, and held a silver bow in its left hand.

The goblin stealthily walked towards the tree, keeping the arrow at the bowstring, and spoke in an unknown language.

'It is outside the range of the mind-eye spell.' Raven quietly lay on the ground while observing the surroundings and waited.

A few seconds later, Raven suddenly jumped up while gripping the spear with his right hand, stepped forward, and threw the spear at the goblin incredibly fast.

Letting out a whistling sound, the iron spear pierced through the air and was directly stabbed into its chest.

No, the spear passed through the strange goblin as it had never before and flew into the woods!

"What the heck?"

Suddenly, Raven noticed that the goblin and surrounding areas began to break like a mirror!

A moment later, the goblin had disappeared!

"An illusion?" Raven muttered in shock and soon sensed another presence right behind him!

The goblin seemed to be standing behind him for a long time, leaving him no room to turn around.

"**** ***** ******" A strange voice came from behind.

Thanks to his mind-eye spell, he saw the goblin had long loaded its aura-coated arrow and directly aimed at his head.

With no other choice, Raven raised both his hands and surrendered.

"Haa, I didn't expect a mere goblin could be this powerful." A female voice came from Raven's left side.

Selene had long left her hiding spot and was calmly walking towards them at that moment.

"Don't do anything reckless-" Raven tried to warn her, but she simply shook her head.

"Just a moment, I'll take care of it, My Lord." As soon as she spoke, she cast [Blink] spell, suddenly disappeared from where she stood before and arrived less than 5 meters away from them.

The goblin also sensed the danger, kicked Raven from the back, and turned its aim towards Selene.

A second later, the corner of its lips rose slightly and formed into a wicked grin.

The next moment, it released the aura-coated arrow!

In truth, the goblins had been monitoring Raven and Selene from the moment they walked out of the city. Thanks to that, it knew Selene's teleportation ability and decided to kill her first by ambushing them.

But Raven somehow sensed the attack and foiled its plan.

Alas, the goblin was smart enough to realize that the woman had acted like a servant and thought of taking Raven as hostage.

All this time, it had been waiting for the female human to show up!