Draped in a oversized black cloak with white stripes, the levitating anthropomorphous creature stared at the players. Its arms were concealed within the cloaks sleeves with its facial features were hidden underneath the hoodie; only a patch of darkness together with two deep red beads could be made out . Due to his mana’s attribute and quality, the space around him warped with his body oozing out an eerie aura. As it took form, a system notification appeared on every player’s interface.

[[ System Notification :

The Goblin’s Invasive Retribution : Mission Package

A player has just discovered the goblin hideout, Gnorka. Hold down the fort and stop the goblin’s from further conquering more lands.

The mission begins in X hour(s).

Rewards : Based on performance.

Failure Penalty : Destruction of the nearest Town

Loss of 2 levels with reduction of experience gained by 30% for 2 weeks

Relationship level with human forces at [Dislike] ]]

Even so, most of the players ignored it, still staring at the humanoid monster. When the creature faced the players, a slit formed within the darkness that replaced its face. Slowly, a white colored material was revealed until it turned out to be its teeth. Looking at it with an overall view, the creature seemed to be grinning wildly as if mocking the players’ phony intelligence that made them think they could challenge it.

“He’s mocking us..” Kodak frowned while staring at the bipedal fiend.

“…intelligence?” Little Song hesitated before asking.

“Probably.” Even Pilate took the fellow seriously as he had stopped smiling, frowning at the feeling the creature gave him. “Is this the result of that feeling you got?” Pilate asked White Zero.

On the other hand, White Zero frowned before shouting “Mage Unit !” while casting a wide range [Placate].[1]

With that, some of the players recovered their senses with Kodak and Pilate quickly taking command of the other squads.

“MTs, divide yourselves into 3 groups. Group 1 handle the goblin horde. Group 2 and 3 interchange with the boss’ aggro. Damage dealers, divide into two groups; the first group would be made up of the close combat players and the second, of ranged players. First group, focus on the goblin horde while the ranged players focus on the boss. Cursemancers and druids, try to hold the boss in place and keeping casting control spells at him. Now go!” Kodak yelled.

Even though the pro players were initially intimidated and awe-struck by the monster’s initial move, they were still worthy of their titles as pro players as they recovered quickly.

Kodak took control of the second and third MT squads while Pilate commandeered the close combat damage dealers to handle the horde. The 1st MT squad was headed by the vice guild leader of a 3rd tier guild. White Zero took charge of the ranged players to handle the boss. In less than 30 seconds, they were already in formation. This was the plan B Kodak, Pilate and White Zero had orchestrated in case the boss responds before they had wiped out the goblin horde. The were hoping that they wouldn’t have to use it but as it turned out, fate had a different plan for them.

During the time they were arranging themselves, the boss ignored them and stared at a patch of land on the ground. It had stopped grinning and stared deeply at the area, ignoring the commotion caused by the players. The place it stared at happened to be the courtyard where Sato and Fudo battled the [Cursed servant]. The fiend still kept staring there even after the players had taken their posts and started attacking the goblin horde.

Seeing an opportunity with the boss being distracted, White Zero yelled “Fire!”

Immediately, the sky was assaulted by a multitude of colours and arrows. It looked awfully like a distorted rainbow as there was no arrangement to it. The myriad of spells, arrows and colours gave off an imposing and overwhelming feeling to the spectators which included the players and monsters. In a sense, it was quite alluring and pleasing to the eyes. The mana brewing from the attacks was somewhat tremendous as even the clerics were able to sense it.

It took less than 4 seconds for the varying myriad of attacks to hit the creature. Even as they approached it, the creature seemed to ignore them, with its eyes still fixed on the same spot. Since they were a lot of them, most of them had collided with each other causing explosions halfway. Despite that, at least 60% of the attacks had successfully landed on their target.

The end result was a devastating explosion that clouded a part of the sky. Even the very few goblin mages had clearly sensed it as they had reflexively stopped their attacks in shock. The mana resulting from the explosion was far more than that felt when the spells were still moving towards their targets.

“There’s no way the boss could come out unscathed from this.” A druid, who had clearly sensed the mana the attacks wielded, stated with full conviction still clearly stunned at the explosion.

Even White Zero didn’t deny it but still kept his guard up.

However, reality still wasn’t satisfied with slapping their faces once. The smokescreen that resulted from the explosion cleared within 15 seconds and the creature was still floating in mid air, ignoring the masses of players who were staring with their jaws open wide at the it.

“Impossible, impossible, impossible. How are we supposed to defeat that?” An elementalist exclaimed.

“There’s no way he withstood that easily. He had to have used a barrier or something.” Another shocked player who happened to try to keep his cool commented.

“No, he did. I didn’t see any barrier taking form or disintegrating.” White Zero clarified. ‘I thought the difference wouldn’t be much but why did it have to be?’

“Did anyone use an [Inspect] on it?” Driar, an elementalist from Halo’s Dawn asked out loud.

“No. He’s too far.”

“Everyone. Don’t give up yet. Fire another round while the boss is still distracted. He should have a limit.” ‘I just hope so.’ White Zero tried to keep the morale stable even though he himself doubted his own words.

“Indeed. So let’s not give up yet; come on.” Driar who noticed what White Zero was trying to do supported him.

Suddenly….

“Foolish mortals.”

The creature spoke.

As he did, the entire player army, including those battling with the goblin horde, shuddered.

‘With just two words, he has already cast a spell; no signals whatsoever.’ Driar thought, with fear in his eyes as he stared at the System notification on his interface.

[[ System notification :

You have been inflicted with [Fear] status effect. Main attributes reduced by 10% as long as effect is still active. ]]

‘How do we beat this?’

It then glared at the players and said “Today, you shall know pain.”[1]

The creature spoke in a weird language that none of the players knew. Despite that, the players were able to understand his[2] words.

Following that, the fiend lifted on arm and pointed it straight towards the players. Immediately, a huge amount of dense dark mana, capable of rivalling a 5 storey building, took form. It oozed off a grim creepy aura and before anyone of them were able to react, the ball took off, landing right in the midst of the players and goblins, eliminating them both.

“Shit!” White Zero screamed. Since the attack was aimed towards the physical class combat players, the ranged players were still alive.

“Everyone retreat!” No one knew who shouted it, but no one cared to know. All the players took to their feet and ran towards the exit hoping they might survive this trial.

“Krawww!” The creature yelled. With that, more goblin troops came up from the pit and ran towards the escaping players, massacring them with little resistance.

The monster on the other hand, focused on pursuing the clerics though at times, it would kill whoever stood in it’s path.

Mass slaughter with almost no resistance, extermination, genocide, annihilation. None of these words are an understatement of the current event. Even pro players who were well known for their skills and had plenty of battle records couldn’t even last a mini-second against it.

‘Why were we so stupid?’ Little Song, who happened to still be struggling in the midst of the goblin horde, questioned inwardly. ‘It’s a good thing Dream Tiger didn’t come with us otherwise..’ Little Song recalled Dream tiger who had earlier departed in search of more Sinland players to slaughter.

‘It’s not a bad thing to die this early. Better now than later..’ Those were his last thoughts as he got drowned in the wave, falling prey to the numerous goblins around him.