Zectas Volume III: Malediction of Veneficatl Valley

by John Nest

  "Smoke, I need to tell you something." Ledur said as he pointed to the earth prison he had created.

  "What's that?" Smoke asked the winged Tikbalang.

  "I captured a small group of goblins. They were frozen with fear and I couldn't find it in my heart to kill them since they didn't put up any kind of resistance."

  Smoke promptly processed what Ledur told him. "Alright, just lock them up in one of the houses for now, but make sure there's no way for them to escape."

  Ledur nodded and immediately went to transport the captives.

  "I'll send an update to everyone if there are any developments. For now, focus on recovering your health." After Smoke gave his orders, he leapt up and glided towards the command center.

  * * * * * *

  Smoke glided fast. From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of something burning. Igniz moved out of the way as he turned around to look. He was surprised to see smoke coming from the direction of one of the forest clearings, some six kilometers away from the main gate.

  With the aid of his Telefax Vision, Smoke zoomed in on the site and saw that the missing goblins were all inside a large ring of fire.

  From what he had observed in the past, Gobble Goblins normally did not harm one another.

  However, the goblins inside this ring of fire were mercilessly killing each other. Some of them had rusted swords and axes while others only fought with their bare claws.

  A figure dressed in a bright red robe, similar to what Terrabelle wore, stood in front of the flaming circle. Smoke focused on the mysterious person and saw a woman with long curly red hair and dark-red skin. She had her left hand clenched into a fist and pointing towards the flames.

  'Is that Crucibelle?' Smoke wondered to himself.

  As he watched the scene before him, he realized that this woman is the reason behind the goblins' killing frenzy.

  Posthaste, Smoke glided towards the ring of fire carefully. He made sure to stay out of Crucibelle's line of sight. Igniz instinctively lowered his luminance. Smoke landed softly on the ground, behind where the Witch was.

  He stealthily climbed a tree and hid in its thick leaves. He thought this was a perfect opportunity to use his newly-acquired symbiote ability.

  He signaled for Igniz to fly higher above the tree. Once he did so, Smoke activated the Symbiote Vision ability. It allowed him to see what Igniz sees.

  'This must be how Thyrsus feels when he uses his Falcon Vision.' mused Smoke.

  Through Igniz's eyes, he silently watched the goblins kill each other. Igniz focused on one particular goblin that carried a double-headed axe. As it cannibalized other goblins, Smoke couldn't believe how fast it could gobble up an entire corpse.

  In less than twenty seconds, the goblin had eaten four of its fallen comrades. Its belly looked like it was about to burst open.

  The Gobble Goblin's transformation process then began. Its oversized belly started to make a pumping motion. With each pump, the limbs of the goblin grew longer.

  After four pumps, the goblin's skin turned dark green and its transformation process was complete. This was the first time Smoke had seen the entirety of the goblins' transformation, since he was more focused on fighting them rather than observing them in the previous battles.

  Still hidden in the tree, Smoke called Espion and gave him the gist of the situation. He ordered the young Spy to return to the village and prepare his private army for another round of bloodshed.

  Since he only had Igniz with him, Smoke thought it best to stay hidden and just observe the goblins for now. He noticed that all of them had gone completely berserk.

  After five minutes, none of the small green monsters were left; only fifty transformed Gobble Goblins stood inside the ring of fire.

  'Fifty? We can easily handle that much.' Smoke smirked.

  All of a sudden, the flames died out, leaving burn marks on the ground. The transformed goblins sluggishly moved around. Smoke thought that they look confused about what they had just done.

  Despite using Symbiote Vision, Smoke instinctively ducked when he saw Crucibelle move. It took him a second to realize that she couldn't see him. As he focused on Crucibelle, Smoke found her curly red hair to be disturbingly attractive.

  "Now, let's really heat things up!" she yelled.

  She raised her left hand once more and a burgundy casting circle appeared around the burn marks on the ground.

  A red progress bar whizzed right through as Crucibelle finished casting her spell in less than a second. The flames were ignited once again.

  The confused Gobble Goblins instantly went berserk. The unarmed goblins scrambled for weapons while the ones wielding them swung them with great force.

  Smoke saw several severed arms fly up in the air as the axe-wielding goblin they observed earlier chopped through its own kind.

  Unlike before, it made sure to only disable the goblins that came within its range.

  After seeing that no other Gobble Goblin was near it, the axe-wielding goblin stopped chopping off arms and legs. It dropped the axe to its side, got down on its knees and sunk its teeth into the flesh of its victim.

  It ate the other goblins alive! Smoke could hear their screams as the monster gobbled them up. Smoke canceled his ability, as he couldn't watch such a horrendous scene any longer.

  While trying to breathe in some air, a question struck him. 'Wait. If they're still eating, does that mean...?' He forced himself to activate Symbiote Vision again and watched the Gobble Goblin cannibalize its kin.

  It looked like the transformed goblins could eat more corpses than before. The axe-wielding monster's stomach started to bulge only after it consumed eight bodies.

  It went after one more victim.

  Swinging the axe over its head, the monster made a clean cut in a screaming goblin's chest, jammed its claws through the wound and took a still-beating heart out of the goblin's chest before hungrily stuffing it in its mouth.

  Within ten seconds, the helpless goblin's body was devoured. The axe-wielding goblin's bulging stomach then forced it to lay down.

  Instead of just four, the bursting stomach made ten pumping motions. The Gobble Goblin's entire physiology changed with each pump. Its head became enormous, its limbs grew longer and its muscles doubled in size.

  This transformation took longer to finish than the previous one. Slowly, a three-meter-tall Gobble Goblin with rough black skin stood up. It discarded its crude weapon as its bare hands could cause more damage.

  Igniz looked around the area inside the ring of fire and found the same thing happening in several other places.

  Without warning, the fire suddenly died out. Just then, Smoke and Igniz clearly saw five goblins in their new transformed state. These monsters were no longer Gobble Gobins; they were now called Gargantuan Goblins.

  Smoke gulped when he saw them. 'They're as big as Maneators, but even bulkier.' he thought.

  The goblins staggered as they huddled together. Crucibelle called out to them.

  "Ayiii yiii yiii yaaa yii yiii..." said Crucibelle in Gobberish and went on to give a lengthy speech. Smoke grabbed this opportunity to call Adder. He cancelled his Symbiote Vision and warned his second-in-command of the incoming disaster.

  He helplessly watched as five Gargantuan Goblins charged in the direction of Banal's main gate. A dreadful thought entered the his mind, 'If they had 150,000 HP after the first transformation, I can't imagine what their life bars are now.'

  Smoke was confused about what to do next. He needed more information on the monsters, but there was no way for him to find out without the risk of giving off his position.

  From his current location, he couldn't glide back to Banal village because he would be directly in the line of sight of the Gargantuan Goblins and Crucibelle. He needed to take a longer detour to avoid being detected.

  After weighing the pros and cons, Smoke steeled his resolve and decided to risk it. With his power chainsaw bow at the ready, he waited for the goblins t
o pass the tree he was in.

  Once the Gargantuan Goblins were at a distance of more than a hundred meters away from him, he took a stance similar to the one he did when he practiced archery in the real world.

  On most occasions, whenever he thought about his lakeside experience, it was always the memory of kissing Sierra that would pop into his mind.

  However, this was not one of those occasions. Smoke controlled his breathing. Part of his arrow's fletching grazed his right cheek as he pulled the string back as far as he could.

  He fluidly released all the tension in the string and his arrow flew straight with intent. It passed through the branches that obscured him from sight. It sailed through the air until it finally hit its mark.

  The arrow bounced off of the running monster's shoulder. 'What the...' Smoke couldn't believe it. He hoped it would cause more damage, but at least now the monster's life bar appeared and displayed (449,700/450,000 HP).

  The Gargantuan Goblin stopped and scratched the place where it had been hit. After checking the small wound, it quickly hastened its pace and caught up with others.

  The second transformation tripled the monsters' life bars and Smoke's arrow inflicted only a fourth of its damage to the Gobble Goblin. He clutched his long white hair in frustration.

  Quickly, Smoke called Adder to inform him of the Gargantuan Goblin's massive life and defense, but he mostly wanted to tell him to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

  "More bad news: these Gargantuan Goblins have 450,000 HP and high defense. They're running on foot, so you should have about thirty minutes before..."

  BTOOOM!

  Smoke's call was cut off as a huge fireball blasted him out of the tree and he fell hard on the ground. Surprisingly, he only received a damage of 1,965 points.

  He looked at the tree he was hiding in just a moment earlier and found that it had been burned out of existence. He then heard Crucibelle's voice.

  "Well, well, well. What do we have here?" asked Crucibelle out loud, "A DarkElf? Could you be..."

  Igniz interrupted her by launching his own fireballs at Crucibelle, providing covering fire for Smoke. "What's this? An ember sprite dares attack me with fireballs? Nyahahah nyak nyak nyak!" he heard the Witch laugh as she easily blocked all of his symbiote's attacks.

  Smoke reflexively rolled over and attacked the red Witch with his power chainsaw bow.

  Each of his eight arrows did zero damage, as they were engulfed in small flames and burned away upon contact with Crucibelle's skin. His arrows did, however, display her life bar: (900,000/900,000 HP).

  'What? She has more HP than Calamar!'

  "A DarkElf with a dark ember sprite! It is you! You're the bastard who killed my sister Terrabelle!"

  Two huge fireballs came out of Crucibelle's hands and flew fast towards Smoke. He easily evaded the attack with a sidestep and a jump, but then a third fireball came at him while he was still in mid-air. He twirled his body to avoid the attack, but despite his evasive maneuver, a part of his shoulder was hit.

  This time, he was damaged by 1,890 points. Smoke's life bar displayed (172,395/176,250 HP). He looked at Igniz and smiled at his dark ember sprite.

  Smoke knew that it was his extremely high Fire resistance that lowered the damage this much. He also realized that he got hit because he wasn't fully focused on the fight. He still worried about his private army members who had to face five Gargantuan Goblins.

  Since his arrows and Igniz's fire attacks were useless against Crucibelle, he switched weapons and took out his deadly Chain and sickle of Dasende.

  Crucibelle mocked Smoke for taking out his weighted chain and sickle. "Nyak nyak nyak! I'm the Witch of Immolation, dearie. Regular weapons can't harm me."

  Smoke started a swirling motion with his sickle and increased the length of the chain in his hand with each rotation. With all his might, Smoke threw his sharp sickle at her.

  Crucibelle responded by stretching out her right hand and creating a Fire Shield in front of her.

  SLASH!

  His sickle went through the Fire Shield and wounded her. He watched her back away as she clasped her bleeding hand.

  As soon as he saw Crucibelle's life bar display (899,001/900,000 HP), Smoke let out a deep sigh. His damage was under a thousand points, but at least he now knew he could hurt her

  * * * * * *

  Adder led the strategy meeting of Smoke's private army outside the emergency shelter. Smoke's second-in-command disseminated the information he was given.

  "Smoke is coming here as soon as he can. Until then, we have to hold our own. He was cut off before he could finish giving me all the information, but I believe he already gave us enough." stated Adder.

  "As you might already know, not all of us at are at 100%. That is why Ledur and I have decided to gamble on using him as bait. He's already outside as we speak, preparing for the monsters' arrival."

  Espion raised his hand. "Should we start evacuating the Banalites now?"

  "No, not just yet, but that important task is assigned to you. If we fire a red flare, you'll lead them away through the back gate. We've cleared out most of the dangerous monsters and beasts in the area around it."

  Espion nodded and thought about how he would explain the situation to Banal's village chief, Sot.

  "These five Gargantuan Goblins are expected to be even tougher than Mitleid, with life bars of 450,000 HP." Adder said as calmly as possible, as to not aggravate certain members.

  Instantly, Rasant, Stark and Weise made loud noises. They clearly disagreed that a goblin could be stronger than the former King of Maneators.

  "Quiet, please!" Adder said in a raised voice.

  "Jinggu, Vijaya, Ichaival and the Banalite volunteers will take their positions on top of the third wall." Adder pointed to the two Hunters and they nodded in acknowledgement.

  "The rest of us will wait for them in front of the third gate. We have less than twenty minutes left before the Gargantuan Goblins arrive. If there are no more questions, I'd like to remind you all of one more thing." Adder's voice trailed off as everyone present spoke in unison.

  "Your top priority is your own life."

  Smoke's private army members laughed as they repeated what Smoke would always tell them. Swiftly, everyone went towards their designated spots in an organized manner.

  As they got into position, Ichaival spoke out loudly. "450,000 HP? Ha! That's just about the same as a war elephant; the Tikbalangs alone killed one of those. This'll be a piece of cake." he said cheerfully to brighten up the mood. Even though he had trouble convincing himself.

  In less than five minutes, Adder and everyone else got into their respective positions. They found Ledur collapsed outside the third wall.

  It appeared that he overworked himself while preparing for the incoming Gargantuan Goblins.

  "Looks like Ledur won't wake up in time." Adder said out loud, "Someone take him inside." Two of the Tikbalangs carefully carried Ledur away.

  "So, what are we going to do about the bait?" asked Weise.

  Adder looked up to the brunette Huntress on the third wall. "Vijaya, could you come down here, please?"

  Vijaya was briefly given a rundown of Adder and Ledur's initial plan. Without hesitation, Vijaya agreed.

  The main gate was intentionally left open and there was once again a wide opening in the second wall. This established a straight line of sight from the main gate to the third wall.

  Forty meters away from the second wall's opening, Vijaya stood alone, accompanied only by her six falcons perched on her customized staff.

  Adder and the rest of Smoke's private army remained near the gate of the third wall, where the arrows of the Banalite volunteers could still reach.

  THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP!

  Thundering footsteps echoed throughout Banal as five bulky Gargantuan Goblins went through its main gate.

  All of the nearby houses along the path were vandalized by the three-meter-tall monsters. They smash
ed the Banalites' homes with their fists. Shards of broken glass scattered, pieces of wood were all over the streets and chunks of stone foundations were littered everywhere.

  The five monsters continued with their rampage as they headed towards the second wall. As soon as the monsters came through it, Vijaya let loose her arrows and attacked the closest Gargantuan Goblin.

  Despite being told that these monsters had high defense, she still couldn't believe that her fire arrows only dealt 970 damage points.