Broken Tower Saga: The First Swordsman

".. . your father; I already killed hundreds of you goblins. Cooommme oonnn."

'There's no mistake, it's Ton's voice.' Wrik ran anxiously after the desperate voice as fast as he could. He became more anxious as he ran. Anton might be somewhat ludicrous in some particular areas, or awful at making quick decisions, but one thing was clear—he was not stupid enough to shout while squabbling with goblins. It would only bring the herd of goblins nearby. 'Maybe he already had enough.' That meant he was in an entirely brutal situation with the goblins.

As Wrik trailed behind the goblins, after a few moments of moving, he discovered what he was most afraid of.

A young man alone was tussling with a horde of goblins with his body seething with green-grey and scarlet blood of the goblins and his. He had killed over twenty goblins already, but the numbers of goblins assaulting him were still over fifty, after the reinforcement brought by his cry. But another thing to note was that the goblins were fighting him with uncontrollable madness and frenzy, as if Anton was the archenemy of their tribe.

Wrik's anxiety rose. Though he could finish up a few goblins with ease, but the equation became different if tens of goblins assaulted one alone. 'I need to do something. .. something fast.'

Among the herd of goblins assaulting Ton, eight of them stood out from the pack with their unique features. Wrik didn't delay anymore, scanned the elite goblin with the [Eye of Insights], as he entered the conflict.

A blue window appeared in front of his eye.

[Target: Elite Goblin

Specie: Goblin (primitive)

Height: 163.4 cm.

Mass: 69.4 kgs.

Gender: Male.

Private Attributes :

Strength: 12

Agility: 12

Constitution :16

Vitality: 18

Perception: 8

Intelligence: 4

Magic Power: 7 ]

'Well, I expected as much,' yet Wrik gasped. They were similar or a bit stronger than him in brute force, but lacked mental attributes like perception, intelligence, and magic power.

"Ton, open up a path towards the south-east, we'll make a run for it." He shouted, sneaking on an elite goblin from behind. South-east was the direction of their shelter.

"Wrik! Why are you here?" Anton, who was astonished by his presence, shouted. Anton didn't have time to rejoice in their reunion, knuckled a knife in a goblins' eye.

Wrik gasped again, ambushing the goblin in the back of its head with a piercing strike. Blood bust out of it in green and grey as it collapsed in the ground with a deafening growl. Some amount of the filthy blood even splashed on his face, but his attention was on Anton who reinforced his strength seeing him.

Anton pounced on the goblins maniacally with the blade that was releasing dark smoke. He already could discharge mana. Moreover, his mana had an unique element to it. If Wrik was not mistaken, the black ethereal mane flowing out from Anton's knives and the blade was the Shadow element. A rare and hard element to master.

One must know, even in the Maha Tower, an element like a shadow was unbelievably hard to find. Ton must have got that after the awakening of his unique trait. Wrik still had some doubt about the ability, but he didn't have time for it as they were in a dire state.

"That's not the question you should be asking. Advance towards the south-east." Wrik yelled back, collecting his sword from the neck of the goblin. After five days of trial, his strength had already advanced to 10, so it was of little effort to pierce the fragile neck of the goblin in a sneak attack.

Wrik didn't plan to kill all the goblins here with Ton. His plan was to open a path towards the southeast – their current shelter. He was not dumb enough to confront the enemy alone when their numbers were well above fifty.

As he assaulted the goblins, he found out that they didn't care much about him. All their attention, rage, and madness were against Anton.

'Really, what the heck did this guy do to them? I have to open the path myself,' His contemplation was broken, Wrik screamed out in agony. A pike was pierced in the side of his left thigh.

Wrik gritted his teeth in pain and controlled his mind to concentrate on the battle. He triggered the [Eye of Insights] without any thought. That was a wrong decision to make. In that state his perception, vision, intuition doubled, so now he could feel more of the pain in his thigh than the actual pain. It's almost unbearable, but he endured, gritting his teeth harder.

Wrik put his mind in mana discharge as the blade of the sword turned sharper; he slashed at the chest of the damn goblin that pierced the pike in his thigh. And unsurprisingly, it dropped dead in two parts on the ground. Wrik didn't stop there. He slashed all the goblins in his direction to make a path to escape.

"Rush out now." He bellowed. Scarlet blood was rushing out in haste from the wound on his thigh. The pike didn't reach the bone, the thick leg guards defended most of it, yet it's still damn painful for him. It was even affecting his advance.

Anton was abnormally fatigued, yet still hacked his blade with all his strength, the shadow from his blade already infected the goblin. Although Anton used less firepower than Wrik, the result was the same.

They dashed towards the open path swiftly. Wrik found that moving caused even more pain in the wound, yet he fled as fast as he could.

The goblins didn't choose to just sit back and watch, either. They trailed behind, growling in madness.

"Man, what the hell did you do to make them go berserk?" Even his mouth spoke in vulgarities, seeing the frenzied pack—chasing. Maybe the agony in his left thigh was a justification for his flare up.

"It's a long story!" Anton said, panting through his nose and mouth. "In short, I killed their king."

Wrik was stupidly flabbergasted. Did he hear wrong? But he didn't ask again as he found that Ton's current condition was not normal. There are no serious wounds in his body apart from a few scars, but they were sallow. It would not cause much problem in the long run.

Then suddenly Wrik picked up something in his senses. He heard the growl of the goblins—not in madness, but in agony. When he turned his sight towards the location of the growl, he was truly astonished.

"Heck! Has this girl always been this strong?" Wrik was stunned by the sight he was seeing. There were over a dozen goblins laid on the ground, dead in a blink of an eye. Few of them were still agonising in the mists. The cause of their agonies were ice arrows pierced in their bodies.

A slender silhouette appeared from behind, white mists all-around her. She was still firing ice arrows at the goblins. Sweats were formed in droplets on her face as she fired three arrows at the same time. The emerald-eyed girl seemed to have no intention of fleeing away from the confrontation. She boldly confronted the goblins alone and winning it.

Maybe she was always this strong, just wanted to stay low key in the group.

"Holy cow! How was she even controlling those?!" Anton exclaimed.

Yes, it was not as easy as it looks. The Emerald-eyed girl was controlling her mana sense while casting small magic circles accurately and providing it with significant mana one after another. It might have been easy for a veteran mage, but a new chick was doing all this at the same time, was unbelievably astonishing.

Maybe, Wrik's way of thinking was passive. He clenched the hilt of the sword tightly and dashed towards the goblins with his injured leg; he was bored being an audience.

Suddenly his vision became slow as the [Eye of insights] was triggered unconsciously. All the goblins looked slower than before as Wrik assaulted them, not giving any time for recollections. Goblins were just weak mobs, he should have thought of them like that, nothing special.

[Agility increased by 1.]

A small blue window appeared in his vision, but he didn't peek at it. He pierced the skull of a goblin. There were now only two elite and dozens of normal goblins remaining.

Few goblins started to make moves on the caster—the emerald-eyed girl, disabling her from casting. Wrik charged at one of the elites. It was already injured with a couple of ice spikes in its body, so it didn't even last a few of his moves. After avoiding its attack, he ended its pitiful life by penetrating its heart.

The battle was already wrapped up. The three of them didn't ask any questions, exchanged glances with each other before departing from there. After covering a good mile, they finally stopped.

Wrik looked around to notice the emerald-eyed girl was looking at him with apathetic eyes. She was looking at his wound. Then he turned towards Anton, who seemed to have barely been able to keep himself conscious with a lot of effort.

"So, Ton, care for an explanation?"

"Let me rest for a bit, I haven't had a rest since I arrived here."