Leank was in a foul mood. He had spent an entire month in secluded meditation, polishing his mind, refining his race level, and imagining the glorious future in which humanity would be trampled beneath goblin feet. During that time, the twelve tribal leaders had repeatedly assured him that the front was stable, that the humans were exhausted, and that victory was only a matter of patience. Then he returned and learned the truth: the humans had advanced to within 3 tribe distance (rougly a 100km) of the portal. For several long seconds, the imperial palace trembled beneath the force of his rage.
"So tell me," Leank said, voice low and shaking with fury, "why are they this close?" The twelve leaders knelt in a line before his throne. Massive goblins who ruled billions each now looked like children awaiting punishment. None dared meet his eyes. "Do any of you have excuses?" Silence answered him, and even the bravest among them bowed lower.
Leank rose from the throne so abruptly that two servants fainted where they stood. "I will deal with all of you later. For now, mobilize every goblin with armor and every goblin whose race level is at least zero point zero one. I want them armed, assembled, and marching within the hour." His yellow eyes burned with wrath. "The humans have come too close to my gate. That insult will be paid in blood."
The tribal leaders scrambled from the chamber so quickly that several collided in the doorway. Leank snorted and went to prepare for war. Like all goblins, he disliked armor. Their bodies were broad, uneven, and poorly suited to elegant craftsmanship, so even imperial plate looked less like armor and more like someone had forced a metal dress over an angry beast. Still, it was durable, and if humans found it troublesome to cut through, that was enough.
By sunset, the elites had gathered. More than ten billion goblins had officially stepped onto the path of cultivation. Of those, roughly nine hundred million possessed true armor and weapons worthy of the title elite. When those legions marched, the earth itself seemed to groan beneath their feet. Leank stood atop a raised stone platform near the rear of the army, chest swelling with pride.
At last, the humans would understand despair. Let them see what happened when goblins stopped sending expendable hordes and began using real warriors. As the armored ranks entered the battlefield, fighting along the front slowed. Human lines hesitated, and even from a distance Leank could see uncertainty ripple through them. Spears lowered, shields tightened, and officers shouted fresh commands.
He grinned. Yes, this was how enemies should react to an emperor. "Goblins!" Leank roared. "For too long we relied on cannon fodder! For too long we let the weak die in our place! Now it is our turn to show them who rules this world!" The cry echoed for kilometers as tribal chiefs repeated it and the army howled in answer. Leank raised both arms dramatically.
"Attack!" he shouted from nearly a kilometer behind the front line. Leank was many things, but he was not foolish enough to stand within bow range of humans. At once, the armored goblins surged forward in a crashing tide of iron and snarls. Behind them, goblin mages rose from concealed positions and began casting berserker enchantments into the masses.
Red mist spread across the field. Entire swarms of goblins went mad. Eyes rolled white, muscles swelled, and pain vanished from their minds. They crashed toward the human trenches with no concern for death, trampling even allies beneath their feet. Leank laughed in delight as he watched the chaos unfold.
Then the sky answered. A storm of human magic missiles descended in disciplined waves. Blue-white bolts slammed into the armored ranks, exploding on impact. Goblins were hurled into the air, helmets shattered, shields cracked, and entire spear blocks vanished in bursts of light. Before the smoke had cleared, human artillery joined in, followed by arrows and charging infantry.
Leank's smile twitched. Instead of collapsing in terror, the humans advanced. They were supposed to cower before imperial might. They were supposed to tremble when he personally took the field. They were not supposed to counterattack while he was watching. Leank screamed fresh orders and waved both arms like a furious conductor.
More goblins charged. More mages cast. More bodies piled high. He never noticed the frontline drifting closer. He never noticed the rise where he stood was no longer safely distant. He never noticed the human soldier kneeling behind a broken barricade three hundred meters away. That soldier had once been a sniper in the United States military.
Now he used a reinforced crossbow because firearms had become unreliable under mana distortion. He saw a loud figure in shining armor waving dramatically and shouting orders. So he aimed. He exhaled. He released. The bolt crossed the battlefield in a clean arc and punched through Leank's throat.
The Goblin Emperor of Planet Vaerriobis died with both hands still raised. Across the battlefield, goblins froze. Armored elites stood motionless. Berserkers halted mid-charge. Even the tribal leaders looked stunned, eyes fixed on the corpse of their emperor. Then every goblin head slowly turned toward the human line.
Toward the sniper. "Oh, hell," he muttered. The legion commander beside him did not waste time. "Signal officer! Full retreat posture! Defensive circles now!" Then the commander jumped into a mage formation and began casting magic missiles himself to relieve the front ranks. Because the goblins had gone insane.
A howl rolled across the plain like thunder. The death cry passed from goblin to goblin. Revenge replaced fear. Discipline vanished. Every warrior hurled itself forward with suicidal fury. Human formations bent immediately beneath the impact. Armored goblins tore through barricades, berserkers clawed over walls of corpses, and mages burned themselves out trying to stem the tide.
Within an hour, the front had been pushed back nearly five kilometers. A hundred million humans died in that first surge. Morale cracked under the weight of it. Then salvation arrived in the strangest possible form: Legion 23. Eloi and the rest of his legion hurled themselves straight into the armored goblins.
This was exactly what they had trained for: elite targets, close combat, brutal attrition. Eloi was swallowed by enemies almost instantly. But before disappearing beneath the tide, he screamed words that carried across the battlefield by sheer force of will. "These goblins are worth a shit ton of points!" Then he vanished.
There was silence for half a second. Then thousands of humans checked their notifications. The effect was immediate. Exhaustion disappeared. Pain was forgotten. Fear was postponed indefinitely. All across the five-hundred-kilometer line, soldiers suddenly saw not terrifying elite enemies, but walking currency.
Nothing motivated humanity quite like money. "Push!" officers screamed. "Kill the expensive ones first!" Human lines surged forward with renewed madness. Mages bombarded elite clusters relentlessly. Archers were ordered to fire without restraint. Vast stockpiles of arrows that had been hoarded for critical moments were finally released in endless waves.
The sky darkened beneath fletching. Kilometer by kilometer, the lost ground was retaken. Then another kilometer. Then ten more. The goblins, leaderless and crazed, fought savagely but without strategy. Their numbers dwindled under disciplined slaughter while humanity advanced through blood and smoke.
For five days and five nights the battle continued. No one slept properly. No one ate enough. No one cared. By the fifth day, soldiers at the front finally saw it: the unmistakable glow of the portal. Cheers broke out across exhausted lines. They had made it, though barely.
In those five days, humanity killed roughly ten billion goblins. They paid for it with three billion human deaths. Even resurrection could not soften numbers like that. The surviving troops were hollow-eyed and stumbling. Supply lines had collapsed, ammunition was scarce, and bodies lay where they fell because every living hand was needed to keep fighting.
Of the forces on that side of the Trial, only around two billion humans remained battle-ready. Yet when they looked ahead and saw the portal shining in the distance, many laughed anyway. Because if they had to endure one more week of that battlefield, they were not sure humanity would survive victory itself.