The sword goblin reached him first.
Its head swung from its neck like a pendulum, green eyes locked sideways on Ty as it closed the gap in three strides and drove its fist at his sternum.
Ty saw the swing before the arm finished loading. His new eyes fed him the trajectory and the angle of the elbow, and he stepped left and let the fist pass through the space where his chest had been.
The goblin's momentum carried it forward and Ty swung the blade against its heel. The ligament tore under the weight of the goblin's stumble and it fell into a roll.
[HP: 32/20]
Fuka was flying overhead, zoomed in with her wide eyes.
Ty's eyes had already tracked the uneven steps of the blind goblin. He ducked and the claws passed over his head. The blind goblin stumbled into the sword goblin and the two of them tangled for a half-second.
He used the time to put a tree between himself and the headless child, which had been circling his right side without sound.
The green glow from its neck stump was brighter than before, the muscles in its legs coiled for a lunge that would land itself on his back.
That is, if he was still in the open.
The child goblin lunged at nothing and slammed against a trunk, its neck spewing cold blood from the base.
Ty stepped behind it and hacked at its waist. The decayed meat gave easily, and before the torso could pivot, Ty drove the blade clean through the core and out the other side.
[HP: 6/15]
He plunged the blade where its spine was and the upper half went stiff.
[HP: 0/15]
Fuka shot toward the goblin cut in two by the torso and made her way to the sword goblin's dangling face, her wings a blur as she banked around it for the angle.
[VIEWERS: 6]
Ty wiped the blood against the jumpsuit, ignoring the messages blinking in his peripheral.
Undead creatures hurt more. But given it sacrificed durability for offense, these things were walking glass cannons. Besides, they'd have to land a hit to do damage.
The other two goblins were moving slower now.
[HP: 24/20]
[HP: 31/20]
His new eyes fed the information the longer his gaze lingered, even the spell that the woman had used to bring these fuckers back to life.
[Resurrection] only gives the undead corpse a temporary life. Rage after death.
If I can just keep at a distance—
The blind goblin raised a hand, murmured something incoherent, and geometric sigils shot from its palm.
The sigils shot up in the air just below the canopy, nearly hitting Fuka sailing by.
It hit him in the chest and his body locked from the ribs down. His legs went rigid, the muscles in his thighs contracting against themselves, and the sword nearly dropped from his grip.
The runes crawled through his torso and into his arms, etching themselves onto his skin, his meat sizzling.
The sword goblin was limping toward him on its torn heel, dragging the dead foot through the dirt.
It was closing distance at ten meters.
Eight now.
Ty's neck veins struggled to remain under his skin. The binding was built for something smaller than him, something with less mass to hold in place.
But the binding tried anyway.
"Not enough," Ty said through his teeth. He took a step forward in the dirt, a move that felt more like walking underwater. "Not nearly enough."
[VIEWERS: 12]
[VIEWERS: 31]
The sword goblin stopped in the dirt.
The runes on Ty's skin were already fading, the binding buckling under his mass. The goblin reached up with its good hand, grabbed its own dangling head by the jaw, and ripped it free from the last strands of neck.
Green light leaked from the open stump where the head had been.
The last of the runes sloughed off his skin like dirt under running water. Ty ignored the sharp pain and gripped the sword tighter.
The goblin's head was already spinning through the air toward his face. Ty ducked under the head and rolled into a pivot, blade raised directly under the goblin's crotch.
Behind him, the head smashed into bark and went out the other end before hitting another tree and going quiet.
He sliced upwards, then diagonally at the limbs where the chestplate protected nothing. The blade didn't cut clean, but goblin bone was as hollow as a bird's.
Even more so in death.
The goblin splattered on the dirt, most of its limbs now missing by the connectors.
[HP: 3/20]
[HP: 0/20]
It was nothing but a corpse wearing armor now.
A streak of light illuminated the forest, followed by the bang of thunder. Ty fell on one knee, his chest lighter than it had been a second ago.
The blind goblin had shot a lightning spell.
It was waiting for a clear shot the entire fucking time.
Ty grabbed a nearby rock; the same one he used to kill the child goblin the first time.
The blind goblin turned its ear, its [Lesser Bolt] already primed in one hand. Its ear twitched at the hurtling rock and it ducked low, then shot another blast in Ty's direction.
The blur of light skimmed his cheek and ruptured bark behind him. Any slower and it would've been his brain in the dirt.
Ty held his breath.
Now all that was left was the mage. It hadn't cast a single spell before Ty blinded it. The necromancy had unlocked something.
[HP: 10/20]
Regardless, it wasn't deteriorating fast enough. At this rate, it could fire one more. The blind goblin sniffed the air again, and sigils began forming at its raised palm.
Blue and hasty, the sigils connected the spell in sequences of five.
[HP: 7/20]
Fuck it.
Ty threw the sword and it spun end over end and clattered against a trunk fifteen meters to his left, and the blind goblin's ear snapped toward the sound. The sigils connected in its palm and the bolt fired at the noise, blue and bright enough to bleach the color from the trees on either side.
The blast scattered birds out of the canopy.
[VIEWERS: 55]
Ty rolled to the ground and lifted the dead goblin up, chestplate aimed right at the goblin already forming another [Lesser Bolt] in its other palm.
"You got me," he said.
The goblin let loose the bolt in his direction and it hit the bone-like surface dead center. The plate flared white and the bolt ricocheted back the way it came.
It struck the blind goblin's own armor and the lightning arced through the bone plating, crackling along every joint and seam. The green energy in its eye sockets caught the current and the light turned white, then brighter than white.
[VIEWERS: 84]
Its jaw dropped and the gray intestines inside its stomach burst out from the lips. The explosion painted the trees red. Flesh and bone scattered in every direction, chunks of armor embedding themselves in bark.
The green light that had kept all of them alive finally died out.
[HP: 0/20]
[VIEWERS: 114]
Ty discarded the goblin and fell on his back again. The hole in his chest from the first bolt was still open, the edges already cauterized.
The sky above the canopy was the same gray it had been since he arrived.
He exhaled for the first time in what could have been a minute or an hour.
A vial appeared above him, larger than what the woman had given him before she took his eyes with a smile.
In the corner of his eye, the pale green text read:
[GIFT RECEIVED: LESSER HEALING POTION]
[FROM: looking4milfs24]
Fuka caught the bottle in both arms. It was nearly the size of her entire body, and her wings strained under the weight as she wobbled down to his face. She tipped the opening against his lips and the liquid poured warm down his throat.
The hole in his chest began closing from the edges inward.
"Mister, you received a gift!" Fuka tilted the vial more. "Drink up, or you're out of business."
Ty tried turning away but the fairy guided his chin straight.
His eyes stayed on the sky, where a trail of fine dust drifted above the canopy, still pointing west.