The Corrupted Draconic Spawn reared back, its throat splitting the night with another ear-splitting screech.
Flames licked the edges of its torn, rotting flesh. It stepped back awkwardly, creating some distance between itself and those flames.
Syl's eyes sharpened.
'Maybe fire is more than an annoyance to it,' she thought to herself. "It's stepping away from the flames!" Syl shouted. "Use them! Try to burn it!"
The command cut through the chaos, and several Goblins scrambled to grab burning branches from the fallen huts. Hobgoblins tore makeshift torches from the wreckage and raised them high.
"Throw!"
The next second, the Goblins and Hobgoblins made burning debris descend upon the Corrupted Draconic Spawn just like it had done to them earlier.
'Tsk.' The female Hobgoblin looked around momentarily. 'We can't move around well here.'
The ground was covered by dead Enraged Beasts that had been defeated. Wolves with twisted spines, deers with blackened wounds, rodents bloated with ooze… They all made moving around troublesome. Each step needed to be taken carefully for one not to stumble.
A Goblin shrieked as it slipped on entrails and fell face-first into the muck.
The reek of rotting flesh mixed with the smell of cooked meat and burnt fur, choking the air.
Amon crouched low in the shadows, claws flexing.
'Just as I thought. Fire doesn't just irritate it, its a weakness. Good to know, but how do I use that? The Goblin Chief could shoot Fire Balls, but by Evolving into a Beastly Goblin, I left that behind-'
Amon's thought were suddenly interrupted. Syl, the other Hobgoblins, as well as the Goblins, froze in their tracks.
Just as a second volley of burning debris was about to reach it,
"It…" The female Hobgoblin whispered in disbelief. "It disappeared?"
The Corrupted Draconic Spawn had vanished.
It didn't fade. It didn't move so fast that they couldn't follow it. The Corrupted Draconic Spawn was simply gone. It had simply disappeared. One moment looming in the smoke, the next replaced by empty air.
"W-Where—?!" A Goblin stuttered, twisting in circles.
The answer came a second later.
SPLURT!
"ARGHHH!"
A shout suddenly echoed.
SPLURT!
From behind them.
"What the…?!"
The creature had reappeared in the rear ranks, its maw stretched wide. The Hobgoblin's scream was cut off mid-breath as half his torso was bitten away in a single crunch, leaving his legs twitching in the dirt.
The Goblins collapsed into panic.
"We're trapped…!" Syl muttered, biting nervously on her lower lip.
They truly were trapped. On one side, the monstrosisty. On the other, the blazing flames that governed what remained of the huts. Due to the debris launched by the Corrupted Draconic Spawn earlier, the fire was spreading. Quickly spreading. A half circle of flames cut them off from the forest.
Syl's grip tightened on her spear.
"The Wolves are gone… The fires block us in… This thing." She swallowed hard. "It feels like we walked into a trap. Did it kill our wolves before coming to us? No, it came from the opposite direction from where the wolves were. This doesn't make any sense!"
The Goblins and Hobgoblins found themselves unable to make a move. They had stepped back until their backs were inches away from the flames. At least, their feet could move more freely now that the ground below wasn't covered by the corpses of dead-
The Corrupted Draconic Spawn crouched low, its black flesh rippling unnaturally.
With its head facing the ground, it opened its mouth wide.
Its stomach started twitching.
Bellowing, the Corrupted Draconic Spawn widened its stance. Then,
BLEUGH!
From its jaws spewed out heaps of thick, dark ooze.
A chill went through Syl's spine.
"Something's coming!" she shouted.
It didn't take long for the ground beneath the Corrupted Draconic Spawn to be smeared in a spreading pool of black liquid.
The black pool seeped between the corpses, carpeting the space around them. Goblin, Hobgoblin, Beasts… It didn't matter. The ooze touched them all.
And then the corpses began to tremble.
First a twitch, then violent spasms. Bone cracked, wounds sealed with wriggling tendrils of black flesh. Eyes rolled back white, before turning black.
The Corrupted Draconic Spawn raised its head to the sky.
SCREECH!
Thump- Thump- Step- Step-
The Goblins who had fallen only minutes ago lurched upright, weapons still clutched in rigor-stiffened hands. The Beasts with broken skulls now staggered to their feet, jaws unhinged wider than before.
"Fuck…" Syl gulped. "Fuck!"
***
Meanwhile,
'I see.'
Amon crouched atop a scorched beam, lips curling.
[Species: Corrupted Draconic Spawn.]
[Rank: D~C]
[Stats:
Strength: 21
Agility: 12
Perception: 15
Endurance: 14
Vigor: 30
Mana: 40
]
[Skill(s):
-Corrupted Skin Manipulation[D Rank]
-Corrupted Healing [D Rank]
-Corrupted Scent [D Rank]
-Slithering Shadow[D Rank]
-Call Of The Dead [C Rank]
]
[Slithering Shadow: D Rank Skill:
The User is able to sink into a shadow and reemerge elsewhere, reemerging from within that same shadow.]
[Call Of The Dead: C Rank Skill:
The User excretes Corruption onto corpses that enter the bodies, heals, and reanimates them as minions. Strength, resilience, and durability depend on the corpse's condition.]
Amon licked his lips, tension prickling his skin.
'Just like the Black Stone healed that dead Hobgoblin.' He smirked. 'So it has sucked in enough of the Black Stone's energy to do this by itself.'
The Corrupted Draconic Spawn's entire Status Window was now available.
"Arlight," Amon whispered as he stood up, rotating his right arm as if to warm up. "Let's get this started."