Chapter 116: Night Goblins

At that moment, Zuo Ertan also heard it.

He seemed to recall something terrifying, drew in his stout neck, turned and said, "Shall we retreat first?"

Lei En and Luo Jue both felt a bit puzzled.

Meanwhile, Lei En swiftly scanned the surroundings; it was an irregular cavern, as if randomly dug out, its highest point no more than ten meters, yet its area was vast, perhaps close to a thousand square meters.

A layer of luminescent fungi clung to the cavern ceiling, emitting a dim glow; countless giant mushrooms grew inside. These mushrooms reached three to four meters tall, their stalks too thick for a person to encircle, caps spreading like umbrellas, tens of thousands interwoven, forming a bizarre mushroom forest.

Beneath the mushrooms lay a thick carpet of mycelium, trampled into several paths.

A main road led to the far end of the cavern, where an opening provided an exit—the only one.

Seeing this, Lei En couldn't help but be astonished; the markings were clearly left by an intelligent race, not natural formations.

"There's no time to retreat."

Lei En shook his head, saying that the cries had already reached the cavern's exit.

No sooner had he finished speaking than a horde of diminutive creatures appeared, charging into the cavern; upon seeing the three people emerge from the passage, they froze in shock.

"Sure enough, Night Goblins."

Zuo Ertan said in a low voice, his complexion turning very grim.

Lei En observed these humanoid beings: under a meter tall, dark‑green skin, clad in crude leather armor, hideously featured, a huge mouth bristling with sharp teeth, a pair of green pointed ears, cloudy eyes suggesting poor sight, yet a massive nose endowed with keen smell.

He had just noticed that these creatures, which Zuo Ertan called Night Goblins, had relied on scent to locate the three of them when they burst in.

Each Night Goblin brandished a weapon—some knives, swords, axes, hammers, others bows—an utter chaos.

The most striking was a Night Goblin clearly the leader; it was sturdier than its peers, mounted on a bizarre beast.

The beast possessed only a massive head, no torso, and beneath were two enormously muscular, thick thighs, standing nearly two meters tall; its front bore a blood‑filled maw lined with fangs, its exterior thick‑skinned, balanced by a dinosaur‑like tail.

The Night Goblin leader rode atop it, making the creature restless; it periodically gaped its huge mouth, revealing a bottomless stomach.

The group of Night Goblins numbered over twenty.

Sensing an unfamiliar scent, they hesitated, crowding together; within seconds they began squabbling, shoving and jostling, shrieking chaotically, utterly undisciplined.

Lei En immediately thought of a term: a rabble.

In the Soul Eye, these Night Goblins' souls were feeble, weaker than ordinary humans, except for the leader, who equated to a second‑tier transcendent.

Zuo Ertan's face flushed with irritation as he shouted, "Kill them, or more Night Goblins will appear."

Having said that, he was the first to charge into the cavern.

Lei En and Luo Jue followed suit.

The Night Goblins opposite the cavern erupted like a boiling pot, first scattering chaotically, then, at the leader's shout, reluctantly regrouping to face them head‑on.

Both sides met beneath a swath of mushrooms.

Luo Jue was the swiftest; he raised his hand and unleashed a spell.

With a booming roar like a howl, an invisible icy force fanned out, a flash of blue‑white light striking the front‑line Night Goblins, knocking down more than half of them; their bodies were fragile, several reduced to shattered corpses, the dark‑green blood freezing before it could spill.

"Waji guala…"

The sight didn't frighten the remaining Night Goblins; instead they grew more excited, brandishing rusted weapons, trampling over their companions' corpses as they surged forward.

A few Night Goblins at the rear drew their bows.

Bang bang bang…

Gunshots rang, Zuo Ertan began firing, one shot per target, the arrow‑wielding Night Goblins were blown up one after another.

Luo Jue brandished a steel sword, his figure flashing like lightning as he darted among the Night Goblins, leaving a field of shattered corpses.

In just a few breaths, almost every Night Goblin was dead.

Only the Night Goblin leader mounted on the beast remained alive; he was clearly wiser than his mindless kin, eyes filled with terror, desperately pulling the reins and turning to flee.

Boom!

A heavy war hammer whooshed in, crushing both him and his mount into a meat paste.

Silence returned to the cavern.

Lei En went over, picked up the war hammer, and silently shook his head; the souls of those twenty‑plus Night Goblins plus their leader added up to less than five energy points for him.

To avoid energy overflow, he had to invest in "Strength," nudging the progress bar up a little over two points.

"What's going on?" Luo Jue asked.

Zuo Ertan holstered his soul‑gun, kicked aside the Night Goblin corpse at his feet, and said in a deep voice, "They are Night Goblins, distant relatives of goblins, like us dwarves they favor living underground; aside from mushroom cultivation, they are simply a low‑intelligence, inferior race."

"They usually dwell in tunnels, most fond of raiding fortresses from dwarves."

"Night Goblins reproduce prolifically, more than pigs, eat anything, like rats they're never eradicated; the presence of one implies hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of them."

While speaking, Zuo Ertan examined the Night Goblin corpses' gear, muttering, "These Night Goblins hail from the same tribe; their weapons were forged in dwarf furnaces, clearly having seized the fortress—surely a large tribe."

"I don't know how many years they've been in the fortress; if it's long, they may have tunneled the whole place into a mess."

Zuo Ertan's mood was very low; after the Night Goblins ravaged the fortress, not even treasure remained, perhaps even the rune knowledge was destroyed.

Lei En was about to offer a few words of comfort when chaotic cries rose again outside the cavern.

"More Night Goblins are coming," he warned.

Luo Jue looked at the dwarf and asked, "Zuo Ertan, shall we continue?" He meant that pursuing the rune knowledge would mean confronting countless Night Goblins, endless slaughter.

Zuo Ertan hesitated briefly, then resolved, "Continue."

"Lei En, go block the passage so the Night Goblins can't find this route; also collapse the upper layers."

"Alright." Lei En immediately returned to the passage, moved the massive stone and sealed the way.

The stone weighed over ten thousand pounds; even he struggled to shift it. With Night Goblin strength, even if they discovered the passage, they couldn't get through unless they could move the stone.

After sealing the passage, Lei En hammered the war hammer nearby a few times, sending down a cascade of earth and rubble to cover it.

Back in the cavern, a swarm of Night Goblins charged in.

Their numbers exceeded the previous batch, over thirty, led by two leaders each riding a beast.

The night goblins were too weak; Lei En and Zoltan didn't need to act, Roger killed most of them with just a few "Ice Howls", leaving only a few stragglers.

The two leaders riding "Clamp-Tooth Beasts" were slain by Roger with two sword strikes after he caught up.

Lei En reaped the benefits, absorbing seven or eight units of electricity.

The three did not linger in the cavern, leaving quickly.

The entire sixth level was originally a dwarven farm for growing staple mushrooms; after being occupied by night goblins, after who-knows-how-many years of digging, hundreds of caverns were connected, forming a vast underground labyrinth far more complex than a beehive.

The map in Zoltan's ancient tome is completely useless.

The three could only follow the direction the night goblins came from to find their way.

Every cavern was filled with towering mushrooms, leaving no empty space, which made the trio feel uneasy—so much food, how many night goblins could it sustain?

Their numbers are likely far more than just a few tens of thousands.

The facts also proved this.

Wave after wave of night goblins came at the sound; with low intelligence, aside from the leaders they didn't even know what fear was. Upon seeing the three unfamiliar foes, their eyes bloodshot like seeing enemies, they immediately chattered and charged.

Lei En even wondered whether these brainless green-skinned creatures were immune to mind-control spells due to their extremely low intelligence.

The night goblins kept coming one after another, and their numbers kept growing.

After killing several waves of night goblins, each wave exceeded a hundred enemies, taking at least half a minute to wipe out.

Roger looked at the corpses littering the ground and exhaled.

As a legendary powerhouse, he also felt the pressure; the night goblins were too numerous, seeming endless.

To conserve stamina and soul power, he avoided using spells as much as possible, killing foes solely with swordsmanship.

Zoltan's situation was also poor; from the second wave of enemies onward he stopped using his soul gun.

The rune armor on his body and the metal box on his back added to his burden, draining his stamina quickly, and his double-bladed battle axe grew heavy.

Among the three, only Lei En was unaffected.

Not only was his stamina abundant, but each batch of night goblins he killed also recharged him; little by little, his charge rose by over thirty units, all poured into "Strength".

Zoltan sat on the corpse of a Clamp-Tooth Beast, panting heavily.

"Why don't we turn back?"

The dwarf said with some regret: "These greenskins can't be killed off; I fear the whole stronghold is packed with them, even the tribes have split into several—just on the sixth level alone, there are likely tens of thousands of night goblins."

Roger also hesitated.

The battle so far has been relatively easy, but he knows this isn't a long-term solution; even a legendary figure gets tired, and if they keep fighting like this, once their stamina is exhausted they will eventually be overwhelmed by the night goblins.

Lei En, however, did not want to give up just yet.

How much charge could all these night goblins give him? He still hoped to harvest souls, raising his strength to level five; even his level-three Iron Body wasn't without hope!

After thinking, he said: "We've come this far; turning back now would be a shame."

(End of chapter)