Chapter 110: Limit Testing -2-

The trees shook violently, making room for the green tide pouring out of the dense forest.

Eren gripped the heavy orc dagger with bloodstained fingers and took a slow step back. The rhythmic, metallic clinking he heard earlier wasn’t a disorganized mob. It was a fully structured, multi-layered army.

In the front lines, massive elite orcs marched in tight groups. They wore the same heavy, blackened plate armor as the Vanguard Chief he just killed, holding giant battle axes and thick shields. But they were just the meat wall.

Behind them, dozens of scrawny, hunched goblins scurried around in packs of twenty. They carried crude wooden staves and short bows, their yellow eyes locked onto Eren. Further back, a swarm of kobolds hissed and screeched acting like completely expendable foot soldiers.

Half of them were riding those featherless dinosaur-looking mounts that Thadric seemed to love but impossible to tame in Elf’s level and they snapped their heavy jaws at the air.

These new breed of mounts looked more like war mounts unlike the two of them they captured before.

“I am literally looking at a complete MMO raid group.” Eren talked with confidence, wiping a mix of sweat and green blood from his eyes.

And I’m the solo boss they came to hunt.

He didn’t have time to admire their military structure or amuse his vision of being a boss monster in the eyes of these little army.

These creatures probably had their own visions, plans or opinions about their attacks to the village and they must be hating him for killing their kind. But too bad for them Eren lost most of his soft spots in the last weeks of being a half elf. Or maybe it was due to his hunts all arount the village and the creepy dungeon.

But he couldn’t suddenly be a pacifist or a Pollyanna. He was a half elf and part of the village. And they had to die!

He tore the last remaining piece of shorts he was wearing into pieces with his left hand and threw them on the ground. It was distrupting his movements.

He’d also like to fight in clothes, but he hadn’t yet figured out how to prevent everything on him from tearing apart in close combat. Eren didn’t know how everyone was doing it in the movies and books. Maybe he was doing something wrong, or fantasy culture creators were all bunch of idiots.

For example, the excitement, adrenaline and desire to kill prevented him from needing to pee right now. But he was sure his intestines would release everything he’d eaten that morning if he’d only allowed a second. Just one muscle release and he would bombard with a bang and relieve himself even if he was standing up.

If he had just a few seconds, he’d use them to go to the toilet, not for drinking water or eating!

This was the first time he’d experienced how uncomfortable it was to participate in serious fights back-to-back without a break.

Just after he flexed his body and let out a small and quiet fart, the scrawny goblins in the second row raised their wooden staves all at once like they could see what he did!

Chill out, it was nothing personal…

Eren expected giant, cinematic fireballs like the ones he shot from his Ember Necklace. Instead, the air crackled with a sharp, annoying static noise. Dozens of small, incredibly fast magic projectiles shot out from the staves. There were thin streams of blue electricity, compressed balls of water and jagged rocks flying right at him.

They were much smaller than his Minor Fireball but they were terrifyingly fast.

Eren wasn’t too worried. His base stats were ridiculously high now. He felt like an immortal tank against physical damage, knowing his skin could probably bend a cheap iron sword. He dodged a flying rock and deflected a water ball with the flat side of his heavy dagger, grinning slightly.

Then a thin, pale blue arc of electricity clipped his left shoulder.

“ARGHH!” Eren screamed, his voice cracking into a guttural roar that echoed through the dark trees.

He dropped to his knees instantly. It wasn’t like getting a mild static shock from a broken wall outlet. It felt like someone had injected liquid fire straight into his bone marrow. The electrical spell only stayed on his body for three or four seconds, but the agonizing pain fried his nerves, cooked his cells and made his brain feel like it was melting inside his skull.

His physical defense meant absolutely nothing against pure magic.

Holy shit, spells hurt like hell!

He rolled violently through the mud just as another electrical spark hit the exact spot he had been kneeling on, leaving a scorched black mark on the dirt.

His whole body twitched from the residual shock, but his Combat Mastery pushed him to move. He forced his heavy legs off the ground, narrowly avoiding a massive axe that cleaved the air where his head had just been.

Five elite orc leaders had already broken from the formation and surrounded him in a tight circle. Their dark eyes carried a cold, military discipline.

Eren couldn’t rely on pure brute force or his insane health pool anymore. If one of those goblins landed another clean spell while he was trading blows with the orcs, he was dead. For the first time since he cleared the Verdant Hollow dungeon, he actually had to use his brain in a fight.

The brawl turned into a desperate, tactical struggle for survival.

He kept his eyes moving constantly. He noticed the goblin mages took exactly four seconds to charge their electric attacks. He used that window. When a goblin raised its staff, Eren didn’t dodge backward. He lunged forward, grabbing the thick wrist of an elite orc and pulling the giant directly into the path of the incoming lightning spell.

The orc roared in absolute agony as the electricity cooked its armor, giving Eren the perfect opening to drive his dagger through the creature’s exposed neck.

He didn’t stop to watch it fall. The barrage of magic was relentless. Eren grabbed the dying orc by its heavy shoulder plate and swung its massive body around just as a dozen jagged rocks and water balls slammed into it. The dead weight absorbed the hits, spraying green blood everywhere.

He needed to move faster but his legs felt like they were moving through wet cement. He forced mana down into his calves, pushing his elevated Agility past its physical breaking point. His muscles tore and rebuilt instantly under the massive strain.

[Congratulations! You have learned: “Dash”]

His body blurred as the system granted the new skill. It was suppose to be a joyful moment if he had time to think.

Eren crossed five meters in a fraction of a second, appearing right behind another elite orc. He slashed the back of its knees to drop the giant and immediately used the falling body as a meat shield against the next wave.

But the goblin mages were already aiming again.

Lovely Eyes!

He pushed mana to his eyes, locking onto three goblins at once. The spell hit them, scrambling their tiny brains and canceling their electric cast. He did it again. And again. Lovely Eyes! Lovely Eyes! He spammed the skill desperately, draining his mana pool to the absolute bottom just to buy himself half-second windows to breathe and counterattack.

There was no room for error. He counted spell cooldowns, tracked the dinosaur-riding kobolds trying to flank him and searched for the tiny weak points in the forged orc armor while dodging deadly magic streams.

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