The assassin goblins knew that this was a trap. If the Avatar of Ifrit, Green Fire wanted to finish them in one shot, he would have blasted the tavern to kingdom come. Yet, he did not. It could probably meant two things. One, Green Fire wished to bring in prisoners so that he could interrogate them. Two, he really just wanted to flaunt his powers so much that he could ‘toy’ with the goblins.
Break them? Burn them? Why not both at the same time? He was after all granted all this power and he did not have any chance to use them until now due to the restraining order by Orc King Hamu himself. Now that his King allowed him to vent some stress, why should he not?
Of course, Ripcaller also believed it was the latter especially since he saw how Green Fire set everything in flames. He deduced that there was a high chance the orc of fire came here alone with no backup. No sane orc would burn the surroundings with his comrades or fellow soldiers beside him…unless they were as crazy as him.
“Your orders?” one of the assassins asked Ripcaller as he was appointed as the interim leader by General Igni before he performed the ritual. The General could have chosen his veterans to lead the team but the goblin assassins had a tradition of letting the young ones to lead so they could feel the pressure of leadership. (Or perhaps, feel the pain of sending one to their possible death.) But if things really went south, the most veteran in the group that would take things over. Seeing how things were going, the most veteran assassin in the group, Daga, was on the verge of taking over the command of the team if Ripcaller was not able to do something quick.
Thankfully, Ripcaller was able to composed himself fast since he had always been the one to lead the goblins Piercestriker and Slashreaver in dungeon instances. He made a command to the goblins to hold their position in the tavern because he did not want to meaninglessly sent the goblin assassins to their unwanted death against an enemy which they knew was too great a risk for them right now.
If Ripcaller wished to set an example, he should be the first to fight against Green Fire since escaping was not an option and protecting General Igni was the priority. As unfortunate as it might be, Dagger General Igni did not come out from the basement when the ruckus happened. That meant that the ritual should have already started in the basement with all the commotion that was happening on the first floor and Ripcaller would be unable to rely on his father to fight against this fearsome Orc pyromanic.
“Should I inform Master Jin about this?” Ripcaller thought to himself since the reveal of Jin or other monsters coming into the picture might alert and raise the suspicion of the Avatar of Ifrit. He might do the same as Red Hurricane and escape whenever possible. If he did managed to escape and report the news to his King, there might be consequences he could not fathom. Would it delay the operation that they were preparing or would it quicken the attack by the Orc armies.
Maybe the King might even call off the operation they were doing although Colonel Ayse somehow had return to the Kingdom to observe his movements based on her new master’s decision and ensured King Hamu did not do anything drastic which would jeopardise Jin’s plan that was set in motion. No doubt, She had to do some explaining upon losing the super laser cannon artefact. However, the King did not pass on any heavy handed punishment like the way he did against Red Hurricane.
Hamu knew that he needed her to oversee the ongoing scientific research plus her past contributions of all the inventions she created made it unworthy to punish her. A short one day jail term was given as a warning and that was all. Besides, she was not a soldier in the first place but a researcher. Her rank was a formality so the orcs have to do her bidding when she needed the manpower.
Ripcaller became indecisive especially when he saw Green Fire appeared to be sick of waiting for an answer and wanted to take the initiative. If the goblins were not moving, the orc might as well burn the tavern down right now and forced them out of there if there were any left. But before Ripcaller could make another command, Assassin Savant shot a shuriken he kept in his belt pouch to test the response of Green Fire. Yet, even before the shuriken could even come close to the Orc, the shuriken seem to slowed down upon striking onto something and melted, approximately three to five metres away from Green Fire.
“He has some sort of offensive shield barrier.” Assassin Savant whispered to Ripcaller who was at the opposing side of the front door hiding. The surprise projectile did not faze Green Fire and he scratched his head out of boredom.
“Ahhh, looks like the goblins are not stupid enough to just charge towards me. I thought I could melt a few rats first to even out you know…the playing field. Though it seems that you guys are either cautious enough or too scared to fight with me directly. Well, if you do not dare to face me, I will make you face me.” Green Fire taunted sarcastically as he walked closer towards the Tavern and everything around him started to roast from the high temperature his magical aura was emanating to frighten the goblins even more and the surroundings were subsequently burnt into black ashes.
Even the footsteps he left behind, they produced a trail of black ashen ground and a foul burnt smell. “He is really fooling around while having the intent to kill us. We should take the opportunity to distract him from the main team.” Ripcaller said to Assassin Savant which they decided to be the decoys for the assassin goblins hiding. The goblin assassins stayed put with their blades ready because they knew full well that one should not show its entire hand until they achieved a significant advantage in a fight. At the same time, they looked through their arsenal and the tavern to see if there was anything they could increase their odds of survival.
As Green Fire approached the porch of the broken tavern, he suddenly saw two cloaked figures jumping out of the broken windows from each side of the door and continued to flung metal projectiles at him. “Finally some action! And is that guy the one who Red Hurriance said he had difficulty with?” Green Fire mistaken the Assassin Savant for Jin and threw a forceful stream of fire at the Savant.
It made the Savant retreated even further from the tavern’s porch as he performed a few complicated hand movements as if to summon something.
“Ninpou, Suiton no Jutsu.” The Savant whispered and even though his mouth was covered with a fabric veil, a jet stream of magical water gusher out from his mouth to counter the onslaught of flames. Green Fire suddenly felt elated that these pesky goblins were able to ally with someone of talent. He might be able to vent his frustrations with more force since killing them at one go was not fun at all. Hence, Green Fire quickly focused his energies towards the Assassin Savant and raised his arms to hurled a large ball of greenish fire to the Assassin Savant that managed counter his previous fire attack.
“Try extinguishing this. I will like to see that.” Green Fire laughed hysterically when he released the large fireball. (Though if Kraft would to hear his laughter, he probably criticised the act. Maybe a score of -1/10.)
“Doton no Jutsu.” The Assassin Savant whispered while performing various hand signs with one hand. Instead of the Assassin Savant fighting against the ball of fire or blocking it entirely, the ground suddenly grabbed him and pulled him deep into the safety of Mother Gaia’s embrace. Savant did it in the nick of time when the gigantic fireball was coming close so that it had the impression he got hit by the fireball after countering the stream of fire.
As the ground exploded from impact of fireball, Ripcaller knew that the Savant had his tricks of his own so he took the opportunity to enter the blind side of Green Fire to strike from above. He purposely used the powers of the Gearbox boots to produce a counter heat shield and hoped that his body would not be burnt in the process of entering the fire barrier.
The sky dive strike was something he copied from Master Jin and Qiu Yue when they did the Rider Kick in the random arena. It was rather spectacular and filled with so much pow wow that he hoped to do the same against Green Fire too. (It was unfortunate that he did not understand he should only do that at the last part of the fight, and not used it as a opener for a fight.)
The strike was supposed to be quick but the impact against the fire barrier made a loud sound which startled the Avatar of Ifrit. Though Green Fire had his focus at the humanoid looking assassin figure, he knew that was a goblin who would attack but he just did not expect the goblin to challenge the fire barrier head on.
When Ripcaller made contact with the invisible fire barrier, he could sense the immense heat from his boots but the counter energy the boots produced allowed Ripcaller to pierced through the fire barrier and entered Green Fire’s proximity without being inflicted too much damage on himself. Ripcaller then realised once he got through the supposed fire barrier, his skin was not burning at all and he immediately became more aggressive with his attacks.
Ripcaller initially thought he probably would have a window of opportunity that lasted for a second or two before he had to leave. But with the new discovery that Ripcaller was not going to be burnt to death staying within the barrier, he aimed to kill Green Fire.
“Hahahah! I like crazy goblins! They are even more fun to kill! Let me tell you a secret since you were able to pass through it. Oh wait. Nope! I am not stupid to tell you my tricks!” Green Fire turned his attention to Ripcaller thinking the fireball attack should hinder if not kill the humanoid.
“If that’s the case, let me deduce. It’s more like a fiery cage rather than layers of magic protecting you,” Ripcaller replied as he attempted to stab Green Fire with his daggers.
“But in this cage, I am the warden. You are the prisoner! You have no chance of defeating me!” Green Fire smashed the ground with his fist, causing bits and pieces of earth to fly all about which Ripcaller had to used his daggers to deflect those projectiles and it slowed him down for the subsequent dagger stabbing, allowing Green Fire to escape the critical distance from the dagger’s range. The Orc then utilised his magic to make the rocks fly towards him as he made his body temperature to rise in order to melt and mend those rocks together.
Ripcaller then realised Green Fire was making an improvised molten rock armour from the ground. Green Fire did not hesitate to test out his new armour by breaking a part of it and threw the molten rock fragment at Ripcaller.
The goblin was able to evade in time but that was just a distraction by Green Fire as he dashed towards him with hands burning with intense green flames. He wanted to slam the goblin into the ground, shaping Ripcaller and mould him to goblin paste from his burning corpse.
Suddenly, multiple clay hands emerged out of the ground blocking Green Fire’s inevitable palm strike. It gave Ripcaller some breathing space to move away just in time for the hiding Assassin Savant to release his next move.
“Hyoton no Jutsu.” The ground split open revealing the Assassin Savant with his hand signs already performed. A giant drill spike of ice spun from the crevices of the broken ground when Green Fire succeeded in decimating the earthly hand models in an instant. Because of his current posture after defeating the clay hands, Green Fire was not able to evade in time and the Ice drill pushed him into the sky and making him hit his own invisible fire cage barrier that was meant to injure his opponents and not him.
A part of the cage broke from the force, similar to what Ripcaller had done and it burnt the back of Green Fire’s molten rock armour while the ice drill had nearly penetrated a hole through the front of molten rock armour. It was close but close did not cut it when you want to take the chance to finish your enemy in one strike. That was the goal of all assassins and sadly Savant did not take account of the molten armour and therefore the drill was not deep enough to injure him.
Green Fire coughed for a moment but to an assassin, a moment was golden enough for Ripcaller to pressed on for an attack as he boosted towards Green Fire with his gearbox boots while making sure he was as close to the drill as possible in order not to get hit by the now visible fire cage barrier.
Green Fire instinctively used his arms to block and that saved his head from a savage cut from Ripcaller’s boosted jump attack. He shouted at the loss of his arms and his eyes turned from greenish jade to burning ruby red.
“I shall let you taste what the flames of hell truly feels lik-” The sentence was cut off when a breeze of fresh air whiffed passed Green Fire. The silhouettes of five goblins instantly appeared flying in the skies. Green Fire was not cut into two but ten pieces. His head, torso, upper arms, legs were sliced and diced by the veteran goblin assassins.
They were all carrying weapons imbued by the power of Light magic, courtesy of King Sol for just this expedition. The weapons immediately broke into pieces upon use but fret not, they have spares in their bags after all.
“You did the hard part, we just cleaned it up nicely for you.” Daga said as the five assassins landed down together all at the same time, as if the attack was synchronised to the very second. Ripcaller who was hanging at the tip of the ice drill spike smiled.
However, the surroundings that was burning began cease and instead smoke gathered in the sky and a vague silhouette of Ifrit appeared right in front of Ripcaller. “The fight was not interesting at all. That useless piece of garbage did not even sate my hunger for battle.” Ifrit’s silhouette that was mixed with smoke and green flames echoed throughout the quiet night.
“But you.” The smoky silhouette moved closer to Ripcaller as he picked up his dagger in a defensive stance while the rest of the assassins was in a dilemma. Their spare imbued weapons were left in the tavern and their normal steel weapons could never win against the Shaitan Noble. Should they abandon Ripcaller in the scene alone and collect their weapons to have the chance to finish the remnants of persistent Shaitan Noble of Fire or stayed to watch things unfold. Daga eventually decided on the latter as his guts dictated even though logic defied it.
“I have a premonition that if I stick with you, my appetite might be quenched even though you are just lamentable meagre goblin.” The Silhouette then spun around Ripcaller to ‘check’ him out.
“Quench your appetite? Please, I can even make you so bloated by offering you all the fights you desire if you follow me. That is the promise my Master had given me and he had yet to disappoint me ever since I met him. The opponents I met just get stronger each time we meet again.” Ripcaller decided to take a gamble and said in a mockery tone. He realised that the Shaitan Noble was in a negotiating mood.
“Hah! Your aura though as pitiful it can be, proved that you are telling the truth as compared to those other old pansies who are hiding in the darkness. Very well. I shall make an exception just this once and bestow you a small portion of my powers. If you can deal with my trial of flames, then I will let you be my interim Avatar until I find a more suitable one!” The silhouette boomed his voice as he distanced himself a little more before he flew into Ripcaller’s body.
Ripcaller screamed at the sudden surge of power coursing through his veins. His body temperature started to rise so much that it melted the tip of the ice drill and made him fall to the ground. The ground gave way too because the fire itself burned it into ash. The rest of the goblins stepped back as they have no idea how to help him.
“If he can overcome this trial himself… he might be able to…” Daga whsipered solemnly. This was the first time he saw the Shaitan Noble possessing with a goblin and as excruciating it was to see Ripcaller suffered, he told the rest to get the imbued weapons of light…in case Ripcaller failed the trial of ascendancy.
Suddenly, a notification appeared on Jin’s screen as he was focusing on other stuff in the Dungeon Maker. “User, Ripcaller the dagger goblin is proceeding with an unintended step up evolution without your permission. Do you wish to allow it? Or do you wish to assist with the step up evolution?”
