Ethan opened his eyes as the sound of rapid footsteps reached his ears, he looked around and was almost hopeful that some of the people he fed his blood were waking up but when he looked towards the main street he could see Harris rounding the corner with a few guards. While the guards split up, approaching some of the squads still spread over the area Harris walked straight towards Ethan.

  The man with the impressive mustache stopped right in front of him and offered Ethan a hand. The elf took it and let himself be hauled upwards. “Well Harris I didn’t take that long of a break, so do you need my help with something?” Ethan gave him a small smile and was using his staff to keep himself steady.

  “The first monsters appeared and while most of them can be dispatched quite easily there is a big white…creature we can’t even use identity on. There are these rods sticking out of it covered in red script and we would like your help in figuring out what it is and if you can kill it or at least subdue it with your magic.” Ethan listened to Harris and nodded. “Alright let’s go but you need to organize something for me, something to eat. I'm starving.” Harris nodded and a smile appeared on his face. “Sure, that’s no problem.”

  While Harris gathered more men and supposedly some food for Ethan, he made his way towards the gate. It was some time ago that he offered his blood to a person and the superficial wound on his wrist was already healed. But the energy he expended was something running deeper and was not as quick to replenish. He needed more time, but Ethan knew it was only temporary before he was back in perfect form, he could feel that this loss wasn’t permanent.

  Reaching the gate took a bit longer than expected and he could already hear the scream of goblins as they attacked the walls, opposite was the melodic twang of bowstrings getting released as the guards used arrows to cull their numbers. Ethan walked up the stairs and soon reached Liam who was standing with his arms crossed, his eyes wandering over the approaching monsters.

  Ethan was surprised when he saw goblins carrying ladders, a group of them was building something on the edge of the forest. It didn’t look like much but he could see a massive tree being stripped of its bark, with one end getting cut into a rough spike. “Are they actually building a battering ram to attack the town with? That’s not how goblins act, right?” Liam shook his head and sighed. “Nope, we’re dealing with a goblin shaman or even a hobgoblin shaman at this point. We had some tutorial scenarios with goblins as they’re so common but I never see them bring a beast like that. Do you know what it could be?”

  The elf asked himself again why his tutorial was so fucking stupid but he just sighed and let his eyes wander over the monster, it was covered in white scales that grew bigger and taller on its back and the tip of its tail, they almost looked like ice being a deep blue instead of white like the rest of its body. It looked like a cross between a pangolin and a dragon with the way its thick diamond shaped scales overlapped. The legs were thick and powerful, adorned with claws the size of kitchen knives. The reptile-like head whose mouth was filled with massive teeth. The large horn on its nose would be able to pierce the wooden gate with ease as it was at least as long as Ethan’s arm.

  Liam looked at Ethan, saw his thoughtful gaze so he didn’t try talking to him, instead he guided his guards to lay fire on the right side where more goblins were pushing forward. The problem was that more goblins were still coming from the forest. Ethan came back out of his thoughts and turned to Liam. “Why do they even come here? I know the shield is gone, how do they know?”

  The guard captain turned to Ethan. “As we gather experience from monsters so they can gather it from us. We’re a concentration of energy to them if you think about it, now that this spot isn’t hidden anymore by the shield they come in hordes. Like I said I didn’t really think it through when we disbanded this town. Do you know what kind of creature that is?”

  Ethan sighed and shook his head. “No, I haven’t seen something like this before and like you said, identity is blocked somehow. The script on these rods…it’s not something I’ve seen or used before.” He turned to the approaching goblins and took a deep breath, exhaling a cloud of frozen air. “Well I think we should get this show started right?” A crooked smile on his face as he tapped his staff on the ground. It took a moment but then his soldiers rushed towards the gate at an incredible speed. He was glad he didn’t have to create them as that would have drained him instantly.“Let’s try something new…” he whispered as his soldiers piled on another, melting together until they split into two blobs that reformed into the big hulky soldiers with blood reaper halberds and spiky shields in their hands. They reached the wall, while Ethan stood there grinning to himself, and jumped over it with ease landing on the ground in front of the goblins.

  The goblins stopped moving for a moment, taking a few steps back in fear. Ethan said nothing as the first goblins then got crushed into pulps by heavy shields or dissected by halberds in big swings. Liam shivered. “Those are truly terrifying…” Ethan laughed. “I wish I was stronger, right now I can’t use that much magic but I still have some…” Another tap on the rampart and his aura broke free from his body. A massive net of orbs shoot out in every direction as hard unforgiving eyes stared at the goblins below. Those caught in his aura stopped moving and got ripped apart, still that large wingless dragon moved forward at the same slow pace without a care in the world.

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  “I wonder how many more will come…this seems endless.” Ethan said, leaning heavily on his staff. Liam gave Ethan a worried look but nodded and leaned on the wall, looking over the field. “We have to wait, the bigger threats are at the back of the horde and they are intelligent enough not to rush towards us, fortunately they're dumb enough to send them in waves like this.”

  “You know a lot about monsters Liam, more than I thought and certainly more than me…I think you need to give me a crash course in the near future.” Liam laughed. “Just wait what you will find. Not far from here is something that will surprise you a lot it is…, nah I won’t tell you, see for yourself.” He grinned at the exhausted elf, at this moment Harris came with more guardsmen that took up position next to his captain. “I brought most of them but also positioned more on the other parts of the wall. We have everything covered for now.”

  “Good job Harris, what about Hawthorne is he still busy?” “Yes he is still in the caves scouting it out and seeing if we missed anybody down there who needs saving. But he should be finished soon and can join us then.” Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Hawthorne is your other second?” He asked Liam. The man nodded and looked over the wall.

  “Yes he’s as reliable as Harris over here. Shit, look Ethan we got more company.” He gestured to the edge of the forest. There more goblins came, these ones a lot bigger than those little fuckers that were now just stains on the ground. In the midst of the new arrivals was a goblin covered in a thick black robe, glowing red eyes visible inside the hood.

  “That’s the shaman no doubt about that, looks like he controls that thing. If we kill him it should free that big beast from its control at least that’s my guess. The only problem would be if orcs showed up.” Ethan listened to him and nodded along. “I feel like I’m in a fantasy novel with all those monsters…” Harris nodded slowly at those words. “I feel you, you wanna know my theory? The system introduced these monsters to us through art and stuff so we wouldn’t find it that weird. Who knows how long it’s been watching us before the integration?”

  “I…must admit that actually sounds probable if you ask me, it makes a lot more sense than that we came up with them in fiction all on our own.” Ethan admitted, while they were talking, his soldiers were still butchering the enemy while Liam’s guards fired arrows with really needing to aim. But when they tried to hit the shaman they were deflected in every direction, sometimes even hitting the shaman's own allies. But he didn’t seem to care as he raised a gnarled staff that started to glow with a red sinister energy.

  “Guardsmen! Prepare yourself! Get someone to reinforce the gate!” A group of twenty men rushed down the rampart and casually went to the next house to get beams from it to reinforce the gate by pushing them at an angle against the door. On the wall more arrows were brought up from a storehouse that was right next to the guard post at the gate.

  “Your guys are working like a well oiled machine Liam, you must be proud.” Ethan watched them work for a while longer before contributing on his own. He gathered the bit of mana he had and chains erupted from the ground, shackling the big white beast to the ground and stopping it in its tracks. He could feel chains crack instantly, it was clearly a higher level and a lot stronger. Still he managed to hold it as it couldn’t really push against these chains as it was just too slow. Still he summoned more chains just to be sure. The goblin shaman was lifting his staff into the air and a shock wave of red light radiated in a circle from it. It traveled at incredible speed over the goblins and towards Liam, Harris, Ethan and the guards. They braced themselves but nothing happened to them.

  The large ice soldiers stood at the ready next to the gate also unaffected, the guards had their bows at the ready and Ethan was concentrating on keeping the monster in check. Just as the elf thought nothing was happening a loud cry echoed from the woods, deeper and more predatory. A goblin broke from the treeline, its body covered in red veins, its eyes glowing. Before their eyes it grew bigger, more muscular and looked in general just fiercer and stronger.

  Ethan had sweat running down the side of his head from concentrating on his magic. “Liam…do you have an idea what's going on?” Before the guard captain could speak more cries rang out and a new horde of goblins broke from the trees, multiple times bigger than all those waves that came before in one combined force. Liam slowly nodded. “He’s a blood shaman, they boost your strength by taking your life force….”

  “So that’s a lot of drugged up goblins…”

  “Yeah…”

  “With more coming from deeper in the forest…”

  “Probably...”

  “Well…fuck…”

  “Yeah...”