The dying clang of metal echoed through the cave for a long second.
Then—silence.
A silence worse than noise. Heavy. Deliberate.
High above, in the darkness, Ren felt the Rogue's fury like a wave of cold.
The hunt had become personal.
Plan B, Zephyr's mind snapped. They're going to Plan B. Overwhelming force.
Ren didn't hesitate. He dropped from his perch, landing among his shaken followers.
"SPREAD!" he barked, voice sharp with urgency. He didn't point to the entrance—he pointed to the sides, to the cracks, behind massive rock pillars. "HIDE! NOW!"
Kick and the younger goblins obeyed instantly. Their faith absolute. They scattered into the shadows like frightened roaches.
The old guard didn't move.
"The coward hides!" Hugh roared, his voice dripping with contempt. Loud. Defiant. Trying to reclaim authority.
"We are goblins! We fight! To the entrance! Show these intruders our strength!"
It was stupid. Suicidal.
And it worked perfectly.
The older warriors, humiliated by the kobolds and bitter over Ren's rise, needed this. They rallied around Hugh, forming a dense, furious mass near the cave entrance, waving weapons and screaming into the dark.
A perfect target.
Ren watched them with cold pity.
Dead men.
From the tunnel's darkness, a voice spoke.
Clear. Calm. In a language only Ren understood.
The system's language.
The chant of a spell.
"Aeris, ignis, lapis… converge!"
Lesser Meteor Shower.
Level 20 Mage spell.
Not a Fireball.
Artillery.
A red-orange glow lit the cave entrance.
Then the sky fell.
Fist-sized rocks, wrapped in crackling flame, rained down. The bone palisades Ren had worked so hard to build were erased instantly—burned to ash.
Hugh's goblins never stood a chance.
The meteors hit like warhammers. Burning stone crushed bone and flesh. Screams were swallowed by impact after impact. In seconds, the tribe's strongest warriors became a heap of charred bodies and broken limbs.
The entrance became a funeral pyre.
Through smoke and heat, a figure stepped inside.
Massive.
Encased in full plate armor, glowing with protective enchantments. A shield the size of a barn door strapped to his arm. A warhammer resting on his shoulder.
The Tank.
He slammed the base of his shield into the ground.
BOOM.
The sound rang like a death bell.
"Hey, trash! Come get me!" he shouted, voice amplified by magic.
AoE Taunt.
The surviving goblins—Hugh among them, burned and broken—reacted on instinct. They charged. Their pathetic blows bounced harmlessly off enchanted steel.
The main battle had begun.
But Ren's war was different.
From the shadows, he saw two more figures step in behind the Tank.
The Mage. Staff glowing.
And the Healer, robed in white, scanning the battlefield.
Soft targets.
The brain.
"BACKLINE!" Ren hissed to his hidden followers. "NOT THE GIANT! BACKLINE!"
It went against every goblin instinct. Attack the farthest target? Ignore the armored monster?
They obeyed anyway.
From cracks. From shadows. From the walls themselves.
Ren's guerrilla force struck.
No charge.
They threw stones.
They loosed crude arrows from stolen bows.
Kick darted out—fast, reckless—drove a metal-tipped spear into the Mage's calf, then vanished into another tunnel before anyone could react.
The damage was minimal.
That wasn't the point.
The Mage, mid-cast, had to raise a mana shield to block the incoming barrage. The Healer broke focus, casting quick heals on himself and the Mage instead of supporting the Tank.
Harassed.
Disrupted.
Their perfect formation was breaking—not from strength, but from a swarm of biting insects.
"They're being coordinated!" the Mage shouted, frustration cracking his voice. "Where's the Rogue?! Find their leader!"
Ren allowed himself a thin, dark smile.
He had turned their fight into hell.
Then—
The danger he'd been waiting for arrived.
As he shifted between shadows, repositioning, he felt it.
A chill.
The air behind him thickened. Cold.
He didn't hesitate.
Didn't look.
He threw himself sideways, rolling across the filthy ground.
Shhhink.
A blade cut through the air exactly where his neck had been.
Ren rolled to his feet, iron sword raised in a desperate guard.
In front of him, the darkness gathered.
Condensed.
A figure stepped out of nothing—like smoke taking form.
Black leather. Seamless with shadow.
Two curved daggers, dripping with sickly purple poison.
The Rogue.
He wasn't looking at the battle.
His eyes—cold, furious slits—locked onto Ren.
He had found his target.
The battle for the tribe raged in one corner of the cave.
But here—
In the shadows—
A far more personal fight was about to begin.
The strategist…
versus the assassin.