Small beasts of little more than a meter in height came running out of the thick bushes of the forest, jumped from the huge branches of the tall trees, leaving the camouflage that their dark green skins gave them.
Their legs were short so each step they took was extremely small but the short distance they could close with each step was compensated by how fast they moved. Around their waists they had waist-high sheets and even some sort of leather covering their crotch. Their stomachs were clearly bulging outward in a strange way and made them look extremely odd considering how small they were.
Their noses were long, their faces ugly, their golden eyes seemed to glow even when the sun was high in the sky. Warts covered part of their long noses, the monsters' mouths were totally disproportionate compared to their heads and large fangs that they weren't able to contain showed outwards with a small curve at the bottom.
"Damn goblins." Bai Zemin muttered in a low voice.
His voice was devoid of any emotion and even anger was not distinguishable in the slightest. His cold eyes took a detailed look at the creatures several kilometers away, realizing that there were some male and some female goblins; this was all too obvious and even someone who knew nothing about goblins could easily identify them as the females had distinct protrusions on their upper bodies while the males did not.
Unlike what a man might feel if he saw a woman's naked upper body, the only thing Bai Zemin felt was disgust. This disgust reached its peak when he perceived the lust in the expression of the female goblins as they looked at him, causing a deep frown to appear on his handsome face.
The breasts of these creatures were wrinkled, sagging, and there were several blemishes that did not help at all to improve their already hideous physical appearances.
A detail that Bai Zemin and Shangguan Bing Xue had come to conclude when the goblins first appeared was that they were an extremely lustful race. In some fantasy tales of the past, goblins were portrayed as evil and unintelligent creatures that only knew how to slaughter, while in other legends they were both; lustful and evil creatures at the same time.
Unfortunately, the goblins that were born on Earth as a consequence of the mutation of the world in general and the support of mana were beings whose lust seemed to have reached an unprecedented level. Worse yet, these beasts that seemed to know no fear and were extremely brave were also attracted to human women and Bai Zemin had just confirmed that goblin females were also attracted to human men.
This meant that goblins were lustful beings whose sense of beauty was considerably similar to that of humans.
Bai Zemin clicked his tongue and felt it was a waste.
If goblins were lustful and evil beings but their sense of beauty was different from humans, perhaps goblins would focus more on fighting mutant beasts, mutant plants, or even zombies. However, that lust made humans the main target; at least, humans were undoubtedly their favorite.
In just a matter of seconds, Bai Zemin had analyzed and drawn several conclusions while trying to think of countermeasures so that humanity would not have to face so many enemies at the same time. Unfortunately, these kinds of countermeasures didn't usually magically appear in an instant, and given the circumstances, he didn't have time to sit comfortably and think calmly either.
As Bai Zemin prepared to receive the uninvited guests who decided to attack just as the base was at its weakest point and just as the troops were starting their march, which left them at a great disadvantage, a cold but at the same time gentle voice reached his ears:
"Do you need help?"
For a moment, he thought Shangguan Bing Xue had returned. However, a moment later he realized that the voice came from inside the radio in his bag.
Looking behind him, Bai Zemin realized that the large motorcade had barely advanced 600 meters, and Shangguan Bing Xue was standing over the corpse of a giant beast that a huge truck was struggling to move.
Bai Zemin took the radio out of his leather bag and as his black eyes met her blue eyes, he calmly replied, "No need. It's only several thousand, I can take care of it in a couple of minutes… On the other hand, you secure the convoy and have the soldiers and soul evolvers advance alongside."
"Oh?" Shangguan Bing Xue frowned upon hearing Bai Zemin's words. Soon, however, a glint of understanding shone in her eyes as she nodded toward him without a word and cut off the communication.
Bai Zemin immediately noticed how the convoy's speed visibly slowed down as all the soldiers dressed in cop uniform and the soul evolvers wearing leather armor or cloth armor hurriedly got off the different vehicles. Immediately after getting off the vehicles, all the men surrounded the trucks and buses in which were the survivors and important supplies.
The movement speed of the vehicles slowed down to even less than ten kilometers per hour as the soul evolvers followed closely behind them and monitored the surroundings with maximum caution and their weapons held high.
Bai Zemin nodded as he watched this and in his heart, he praised Shangguan Bing Xue for her quick understanding, swift reaction, and wise decision.
At times like this when it was not known whether a second enemy might appear after the first one showed itself, increasing the speed of escape was only feasible in cases where your speed was faster than the enemy's and you had no obstacles. However, in this case, the speed of the vehicles was slow and there were almost 5000 survivors who in this situation were nothing more than a big obstacle.
Fleeing under such circumstances would only weaken the defense enormously, exposing areas that the enemy could exploit to wipe them out completely. Therefore, Shangguan Bing Xue's decision was undoubtedly the best; not to stop completely and continue to advance while moving all possible defenses to create something similar to a turtle shell filled with thorns.
Bai Zemin turned his attention to the enemy ahead and his eyes flashed coldly.
The goblins had already crossed the 500 meter range. Many of them had already stopped and raised their bows to the sky while placing a white bone arrow on the string of the weapon.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!…
For an instant, the skies seemed to darken under what appeared to be an endless stream of flying locusts.
Although it was impossible to know the exact number, Bai Zemin estimated while looking at the sky that there should be at least twenty thousand more arrows flying in his direction. The arrows made from the bones of some kind of mutant beast were launched with a force that even surprised Bai Zemin himself a little as he did not expect those little creatures whose arms were as thin as sticks to have so much power as to make the arrows fly more than a thousand meters high.
When the arrows began to fall due to gravity, even an armored vehicle would be torn apart by such firepower. Probably only the kings of the earth, the war tanks would be able to withstand this kind of large-scale attack and even the IFVs would turn into a pile of scrap metal after receiving several hits.
Dodging so many arrows at the same time was impossible unless one had the ability to move two kilometers in a very short time; something that Bai Zemin could actually do. However, how could he worry about the attacks of small creatures whose power was that of an insignificant Unclassified existence? Wouldn't he end up becoming a laughing stock if he couldn't even counter that much?
"Unless your numbers cross five hundred thousand, you all can forget about even crossing over here!" a battle-excited smile appeared on Bai Zemin's face without him noticing, completely exposing his features as a Berserker born for combat.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!…
The small crimson pearl glowed at Bai Zemin's mental command and the blood in it immediately shot outward at lightning speed, even surpassing the falling speed of the bone arrows launched by the goblin archers.
A glowing red shield approximately ten meters in diameter appeared just above Bai Zemin's head, completely covering his surroundings. In addition, a second giant shield appeared right in front of the building, protecting the structure from the attack in progress.
The bone arrows fell and in a second began to hit the blood shield steadily. Many arrows hit different parts of the blood shield at the same time but they did not even hit it at all, leaving only small white dots that disappeared in an instant as the blood moved strangely and as if it was alive covered those small marks.
More than five thousand arrows hit the blood shield raised by Bai Zemin casually but not even a single arrow managed to pierce through its defense. The only remarkable thing was the loud explosive sound that the arrows caused as they struck one after another, causing his ears to go numb very faintly.
However, although Bai Zemin was able to easily take the attack of the goblin archers, the same could not be said for the rest of the surrounding base.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
…
Tens of thousands of arrows rained down on the houses, buildings, and different constructions made of concrete or wood. Many of these constructions managed to withstand several hits, but when the number of hits increased and reached a peak, the buildings began to collapse one after another.
"Help!"
"Save me!"
"God help us…"
"Please! No!!"
…
Of course, the buildings were not the only ones to suffer the consequences of the goblin attack.
Approximately three hundred survivors had stubbornly decided to stay on the base despite warnings from the armed troops. They all decided that somehow or other they would be fine as long as they avoided the periphery of the base, confident that they would be able to survive for a long time using the remnants of the mutated beasts left behind.
When the goblin army appeared in the distance and became visible after breaking through the small walls of the base, these stubborn survivors finally realized how naive their previous thoughts were and hurriedly tried to flee towards the convoy that was getting farther and farther away, abandoning not only the homes they had previously decided to stay for but even losing the smallest of their personal property due to their stubbornness.
Unfortunately for all of them, the speed of a normal human was incomparable to that of a goblin whose average level was between 10 and 15. Therefore, by the time the survivors had run a hundred meters, the goblin archers had already stepped into firing range and unleashed their deadly arrows.
A young man of about 24 was running hand in hand with his girlfriend. The desperation on the couple's faces was visible to the world but the way they clung to each other's hand seemed to be worth mentioning.
Swoosh!
A bone arrow fell from the sky and easily pierced the back of a man running a meter away from the couple. The man's body was stabbed into the ground and the resulting explosion caused the ground to break apart; this tested how powerful the attack was thanks to the gravity of the Earth and the height from which the bone arrows fell.
The resulting explosion from the attack sent the pair flying a meter or two, causing them both to roll on the ground as the bone arrows fell one after another.
"Ugh… I think I broke my ankle." The man groaned as he tried his best to stand up. Unfortunately, the pain seemed to be much more than he estimated as he immediately fell back to the ground.
The man looked at his girlfriend and hurriedly called for help in an urgent voice: "Hao Li, help me! We have to escape quickly!"
However, his girlfriend didn't even look at him as she instantly after crawling and standing up started running away, leaving her partner behind as if she was abandoning a sack of junk.
Bang!
The man stood there stunned for a brief moment, and that brief moment was what led to his death when he was finally hit by an arrow that caused his head to explode in a bloody mess.
The expression on the face of the woman named Hao Li got even worse when over her shoulder she saw the fate of her former partner. She screamed and cried out in fear as she commanded her legs to move at speeds that even she did not know she could reach.
The arrows fell one after another and although most of them only hit the ground or knocked down buildings, there were also many others that hit the survivors who were trying their best to flee for their lives.
Hao Li came to see the huge blood shield in the distance that easily covered the giant building, and a faint glimmer of hope shone in her eyes as she hurriedly ran in that direction.
"Help! Help me please!" She screamed at the top of her lungs.
At the top of the building, Bai Zemin watched everything taking place with a deathly cold expression on his face.
* * * * * * *
Thank you very much to everyone who voted for Blood Warlock with their Golden Tickets! <3
