“Reeeeeeeeee!”

The goblin made a pitiful screech as the skeleton knight pressed the burning torch into its right eye. With one hand grasping the goblin by the neck, the skeleton pushed the goblin’s body onto the cavern’s walls. With only a raggedy cloth covering its genitals, the goblin’s green skin and scrawny, malnourished body was revealed for all to see.

With a bald head, mangly teeth and yellow eyes that had no irises and pupils, goblins were an ugly sight to behold. Their inherent capabilities weren’t any better either. It was common knowledge that the goblins’ only advantage was their teeming masses and their low cunning. However, this goblin was alone with its back literally against the wall.

Its inferior strength meant that all of its attempt to break free failed completely. All it could do was scream in pain and struggle in vain. A few feet away from the goblin, Walter watched the whole thing unfold with a surprising sense of fascination. Flanked by Thyvin and the other three skeletons, they simply remained still as the skeleton put a cruel end to the goblin’s life.

That poor lone goblin was the last survivor of a failed ambush. The bodies of its comrades littered the cavern floors. Although they lurked in the darkness, they were still spotted and then promptly eliminated by the skeleton knights.

Apparently, due to their lack of eyeballs, skeletons possessed some sort of ‘magic vision’ which allowed them to perceive pitch black darkness with no difficulties. To them, the darkest cavern would appear no less brighter than an open plain with the sun hanging directly overhead.

There wasn’t a need to explain how useful the skeletons’ ‘dark vision’ was. Especially since it was very likely for more goblins to be skulking in the dark.

“Guah!”

Without warning, a skeleton knight slashed seemingly at nothing before another screech echoed in the cave. With the light from the skeleton’s torch, a headless goblin was revealed, along with several other ones that were still living behind it.

“Criiiiieeeeee!”

At the same time, the goblins let out a high-pitched battle cry before they swarmed at the skeleton knights. Within seconds, the skeleton knights engaged in another melee brawl. With speed, strength and skill, they effortlessly held the line against the greenskin horde. Their undead nature meant that the skirmish prior to this one did not tire them out.

And of course, Walter would stay as far back from the action as possible.

“Kiah!”

The body of a goblin flew over the three skeletons and crashed into the horde as their fourth brother joined them in battle. Now that the other goblins were lured into battle, the skeleton knight no longer needed to burn the original goblin’s face. Instead it ‘repurposed’ the goblin as a thrown projectile.

As if they shared one mind, the skeleton knights fought as one.

With a horizontal cleaving strike, one skeleton eviscerated three goblins. The skeleton to its right kicked forward against its opposing goblin, knocking it to the ground together with the goblins behind it. With the opening made by the kick, the two skeletons seized the opportunity to slay ten more goblins.

“Giyah!”

Another skeleton thrusted its sword straight towards a goblin’s chest, skewering the goblin behind it in the process. Letting go of its sword, the skeleton caught the face of a lunging goblin before smashing the back of its head against the cavern wall, painting the walls red with the goblin’s blood.

The last skeleton wasn’t as lucky as the others. Unfortunately, it had to face more goblins than its peers. Fortunately, the goblins’ crude stone daggers and axes were useless against the skeleton’s plate armour. Although it was rusty and dilapidated, hardened steel was still hardened steel. It would take more than sharpened stone to pierce such armour.

“[Raise dead]”

It was at that moment when Walter heard a voice come from beside him. Soon, he felt his mouth curve upwards into a smile.

Although the skeleton knights had no problem dealing with the swarm, they were slowly being pushed back by the goblins’ sheer weight of numbers. That meant that there was the slightly unlikely possibility of the skeletons eventually being overwhelmed.

It would seem that Thyvin wished to eliminate that possibility. Glancing to his right, Walter found Thyvin stretching both of his hands outwards with his palms open. The symbols on his golden coat which were previously black in colour now glowed a dim purple colour, not bright enough to illuminate the cave.

Half a second later, the bodies which were scattered around the cave twitched. Apart from the decapitated ones and those cleaved in two, the bodies of the dead goblins turned into dust. As their bodies literally faded away, the dead goblins began to quiver uncontrollably.

With their skin rapidly decaying into dust, their inner organs soon followed suit. It was only their bones that remained. When the spell was finally completed, the purple symbols on Thyvin’s coat returned to their original black colour. With nearly dozens of skeleton goblins now under his command, there was only one thing left for him to do.

“Kie? Kiieeeee!”

The goblins who dogpiled on the skeleton knight soon found their own tactic being used against them. Dozens of skeleton goblins crashed into their living counterparts, creating some breathing room for the skeleton knights. With a new line of cannon fodder, the skeleton knights no longer had to concern themselves with defence.

What happened next was a slaughter.

The skeletons knights could already easily cut down goblins while being bogged down in defence. But now, they were given free reign to relentlessly butcher their goblinoid foes. Not caring about friendly fire, they simply slaughtered both friend and foe alike. Some skeleton knights even used the bodies of their undead goblin allies as blunt weapons.

In a few minutes, all forms of opposition was crushed completely. The goblins lost heart upon being faced with their undead counterparts and quickly routed. The only ones who were left were those who were too injured to run away, abandoned by their kin in order to buy themselves more time.

Under orders from Thyvin, the skeletons bound these injured goblins with ropes and brought them before him, creating a sort of ‘queue’ for the necromancer. With a smile, he grasped the head of the frontmost goblin with his right hand before he uttered two words.

“[Drain Life]”

The symbols on his coat turned purple in colour again as he casted another spell. However, the symbols on his coat weren’t the only things to change colour. His eyes also began to glow a soft purple too.

“K-ka…”

The goblin made a feeble groan as Thyvin’s spell did its work. As one would imagine, the creatively named ‘Drain Life’ spell did exactly what its name implied. After a short moment, the goblin’s green skin has lost its colour and became a ghastly white. Its bones became visible unders its skin while the muscles of its already malnourished body degenerated.

“Reinvigorating.”

Thyvin let out a content sigh once the spell was complete. Without even giving the goblin a passing glance, he let it collapse in front of him as he moved on to the next goblin.

It was while watching Thyvin drain the life of all the captured goblins when Walter remember one of Thyvin’s statements during their first few meetings.

“The art of necromancy is the art of manipulating life itself. A necromancer has the ability to grant life. As well as to take it.”

Walter couldn’t help but feel impressed when he watched Thyvin’s necromancy in action despite the fact that he already knew beforehand what the necromancer’s capabilities was. As the saying goes ‘seeing is believing.’

After doing the same to the other goblins, Walter and Thyvin ventured deeper into the cave. They didn’t even concern themselves with the goblins’ hides or ears to sell on the market or submit to the Adventurer’s Guild respectively.

For their target was something far more lucrative.

...

After waiting for several dozen minutes, Gale and Cloud saw light coming out of the cave. Soon after, they saw the bleached skulls of the skeletons alongside their masters. They have returned.

However, their numbers was more than before. They entered with four skeletons but they exited with a couple dozen. The new skeletons’ size and body type was different from the original four, wearing only basic linen instead of plate armour. They were much shorter and had hunched postures. Their teeth were mangled and uneven, unlike the perfectly lined teeth of the skeleton knights.

They were skeleton goblins.

Gale heard Cloud gulp when they saw just how many skeleton goblins Thyvin raised. At a quick glance, there had to be at least twenty of them and that was only the ones that Thyvin decided to bring out with him. Who knows how many more monstrosities they decided to leave inside the cave.

“Come on. Let’s go. We got what we came for.”

Walter causally ordered them to leave as he walked out of the cave, seemingly unphased by the small horde around him. Gale was about to follow him when–

“Wait!”

Cloud’s shout stopped everyone in their tracks, including the undead.

“I don’t smell it.”

A look of confusion appeared on Walter’s face as he questioned what the ranger meant.

“Don’t smell what?”

“The burning smell. There is a unique stench that greenskin pods make when you set them on fire. There’s no way that there wasn’t any greenskin pods in a goblin cave and I refuse to believe that you forgot to set them on fire.”

Gale’s eyes widened in shock as she realised that Cloud was right. Greenskins like goblins don’t reproduce like most animals do, instead they ‘grow’ out of greenskin fungal pods which are usually cultivated by goblins. Whenever an adventurer entered a goblin cave, it was important that they set the pods on fire to prevent greenskins from reproducing.

Necromancy was one thing. But leaving a greenskin pod be is something else entirely. If one didn’t burn a greenskin pod then that meant that they must be planning to do something with it. However, goblins were only one of two greenskin subspecies. Their larger, bulkier cousin was far more terrifying. The last time someone tried to exploit greenskin pods for their own gains, an entire civilisation was destroyed.

This wasn’t just heresy, this was treachery of the highest order. Not against the Principality of Valha or the Farnko Kingdom, but humanity as a whole.

Gale felt a single bead of sweat form at the top of her forehead while she slowly reached for her mace and dagger strapped to her hips. Part of her even cursed Cloud for running his mouth loose without thinking of the consequences. Regardless, she also knew that regretting the past will do nothing for the future.

On the other hand, Walter sighed before giving an indifferent response.

“Damn. It’s always a shame whenever talented people have to die.”

A brief moment of awkward silence occurred upon those words.

That bastard.

Without giving it a second thought, She then pounced at Walter, her drawn dagger aimed for his neck. However, her blade never reached its target.

Instead, she felt something tackle her, knocking her to the ground. To her shock and horror it was a goblin skeleton, its crude stone axe in hand.

She smashed its skull with her mace before it could attack and threw it to her side. Scrambling on the floor, she tried to flee only for her escape attempt to fail almost immediately when another goblin skeleton leapt on her.

Followed by another.

And another.

Within seconds, she was drowned in a wave of bones, pinning her to the grounding. The skeleton goblins tried and failed to pierce her padded clothing with their crude weapons while she frantically protected her face with her left forearm and swatted them away with the mace in her right hand.

She didn’t even know what has become of Cloud at this moment, her focus was entirely diverted to her own survival. One would have to be either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid to do otherwise.

For a split second, Gale felt that somehow, someway, she will survive this nightmare.

She was proven wrong when she felt a metal boot stomp on her face.