Seeds of Discordia

Liam watched as his Weak Poisoned Null Zone took hold of the Hobgoblin and the two goblin mages. A smile crept onto his face as he watched their faces turn from confused to pained then finished with panic. He then saw the Weak Poisoned Shadow Ash explode to life around the group of sword wielding goblins and goblin archers not too far from the Hobgoblins group.

Liam frowned as he noticed the distanced between both Chemicalized Creations. He realized they were going to overlap and wasn’t sure what would happen. During his studying on the Knowledge Theory of The Beginner’s Guide to Things that go Boom, it had never mentioned what would happen if the radiuses of such items overlapped. Would they cancel each other out? Would they combine? Or would nothing happen and the line between the radiuses just shorten? He really didn’t know.

He had a few seconds to catch his breath his Shadow doubles held the other goblins’ attention. He took this time to see what would happen since he would need to adjust to whatever the outcome would be.

Liam’s eyes widened before letting out a short chuckle. He had gotten his answer as he watched the poisoned shadow ash start to slowly bleed into the Null Zone. He figured it was moving slowly since the Null Zone technically held things in place. The powdered poison from the Shadow Ash must have been seen as the same as the powdered poison that was floating inside the Null Zone.

He thought this because as the shadow ash bleed inside the area he watched as the magic that the powder held started connecting to one another. Thus, allowing the shadow ash to follow an invisible path towards the targets. This was a wonderful discovery that he was going to need to write notes about later.

Feeling like the mystery with the two Chemicalized Creations overlapping was somewhat solved, Liam decided to turn his full attention back to the group of goblins that weren’t trapped. Since those who were trap would die off sooner or later thanks to the Chemicalized Creations he wanted to finish these ones off as fast as he could.

He pointed his dagger to the group and started to chant, “Hidden within the dark, I call upon you to bind my target. Grasp them with the tendrils you possess. Remind them why…”

Before he could continue chanting, a loud and blood curdling roar escaped from the area the Hobgoblin was in. Not too soon after the scream was let loose, Liam’s Danger Sense flared up. It wasn’t as bad as earlier, but it was still enough for Liam to stop his chanting and start moving from his location. However, as he moved something flew through the fog of shadow ash and collided right into Liam’s side causing him to fall down on his other side and slide away from where he stood.

After Liam stopped sliding, he quickly got back to his feet and looked at what was thrown at him. It was the dead body of one of the goblin mages. The robes on the body were burnt to ashes in certain areas while patches of flesh on the creature’s body was melted and sizzling. The monster’s eyes were half decomposed and burnt. Liam could feel his stomach churning from the sight. He fought back the bile that was threatening to escape before turning his attention towards the area where it had come from. Liam’s eyes widened at what he saw.

The bodies of the goblins were sprawled about on the ground. While they all sported the similar wounds as the goblin mage that was thrown at him, the ones that weren’t stuck in the Null Zone had thick ashy foam escaping their mouths. However, they weren’t the reason why his eyes had widened nor his Danger Sense pulsing. It was the Hobgoblin.

While it had some of its flesh melted to the bone in a couple areas and some of its other flesh just burnt to the tissue, it exuded a powerful mana color that coated its entire body. It wasn’t only the mana color that had Liam on edge. The creature’s muscles had bulged and swelled. Blood was slowly leaking from the opened wounds that were created from the two Chemicalized Creations and pushed out from the expanded muscles. It wouldn’t have been an issue if this continued since the creature would die from blood loss and the poison coursing through its veins, but the flow of blood was slowing down and looked to be coagulating. Preventing any more blood from escaping his body.

This worried Liam. If this monster were able to do that then could it also heal itself over time from whatever it was doing? He didn’t want that to happen. He needed to take this monster down. However, the power that was exuding from it had Liam hesitate. He wasn’t completely sure why, but as he stared at the monster he was starting to realize he had seen something similar to what was going on. He had seen someone use an ability that gave him more power and swelled muscles once before. It was from his fight against Jude.

If he remembered correctly the spell he used was called Berserking Will. A spell that boosted his strength, speed, and other sub-stats that revolved around battle prowess. In exchange it clouded the mind making them unable to think straight. However, he didn’t know if it had any healing capabilities. If the spell did have that then the difference between Jude using it and this Hobgoblin must be the level of the ability.

Liam didn’t like this. He needed to take this monster down fast. Liam let his mind work double time during the brief moment of pause the Hobgoblin had given. He was going over what he could do to try and fight a monster like this. However, halfway through his strategy working, the Hobgoblin gripped his axe tightly and raced towards Liam.

Liam’s heart dropped as he saw the speed the monster had while jolting towards him. The monster was fast. Much faster than what he thought he would be. It didn’t take long before the creature was within striking distance of him.

Without fail, the Hobgoblin lifted his axe above its head and struck down at a forty-five degree angle. Liam, with as much agility and speed as he could push out, pushed off his back foot and jumped forward towards the creature’s right leg that was outstretched backwards. He barely missed the strike that was aimed to decapitate him. As he moved, he sheathed his Shadow Moon blades and pulled out a Gravity and Lightning Enchanted Dagger and ran them along the skin of his target’s outer thigh. The curved daggers cut through the material that wasn’t burnt away and grazed the monster’s skin. He could feel the resistance of the creature’s hide as he tried to slice through the skin.

Liam clicked his tongue as he turned back around after getting behind the monster. As soon as he turned, he bent his knees down low enough to bring his whole upper body down to dodge a horizontal slash from the Hobgoblin. He pushed off from the balls of his feet and as low as he could keep himself without falling flat on his face, he ran through the monster’s legs. He tried slashing the inner things as he went through, but much like last time the attacks barely grazed the skin.

Liam spun around again to get ready for another attack but wasn’t ready as the Hobgoblin mule kicked in right in the chest. The force of the kick sent him flying backwards. He could feel liquid escape his lips as he flew away from where he stood and pain erupting throughout his chest. As his body came down he skipped across the ground like a skipping stone.

After he stopped, he felt his bones ache and sharp pains as he tried to gasp for air. He didn’t know the extent of the damage, but he knew if he got kicked again he wouldn’t be able to walk away. He needed to do something. After experiencing the agility, speed, and strength the monster was now showing, he knew this wasn’t a monster he could take on alone. He needed numbers.

He quickly scanned the areas he had his Shadow Doubles at to assess their situation. The one he had attacking the lone archer had just finished taking out that monster and was ready to help, but the other three were still fighting the full force of the five remaining goblins. He knew if he tried to get them to help the one that was free then those goblins would capitalize and take them out. He needed to figure out what to do. He not only needed a diversion to keep the hobgoblin busy, but he needed to create some kind of chaos amongst the goblins.

A sudden memory came to mind as he remember something about the goblins’ reaction when the mages attacked the archer from the left side group. It looked like annoyance and irritation. If the smaller creatures had some annoyance to the treatment of their leader then there was a possibility he could exploit that.

Deciding on what to do, he sent a mental command to his three Shadow Doubles. They received it and while fighting the goblins without turning their backs to them, they started backing away and spreading out.

He created his final Shadow Double that he was allowed to have while having the free Shadow Double start running towards the Hobgoblin that was already on its way towards him. Liam waited for the monster to get closer while the Shadow Double that was closest to him ran for the monster. As soon as his target was close enough, Liam used Shadow Step to appear behind his Shadow Double that was behind the Hobgoblin.

He didn’t have enough time to see how his two Shadow Double would fair against the Berserking monster, so he turned to look at the group of goblins. Luckily for him they were spread out enough that they wouldn’t see him do what he was hoping would work.

Time to spread my Goddess’ nature. Liam thought as he used Shadow Step twice to reach the shadow of the archer that was farthest away.

As he appeared behind the monster he got as close to the creature’s ear and whispered as quietly as he could so no one would hear him, “Conflict is the start, discord is the goal. Cloud the trust with doubt and bring forth the true feelings of bitterness masked away. Influence the quarrels you have with the person in sight. Strife Inducement.”

As soon as he finished the chant he took a step back and waited to see if it worked. The archer had stopped shooting at one of his Shadow Doubles and shook its head. After a couple of shakes, the goblin archer growled before turning its heated gaze at the Hobgoblin. Without any hesitation, the monster notched an arrow, aimed, and released it towards the one it had strife with.

 

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The four examiners watched as Liam took a kick to the chest.

Lady Arachne could hear the others let out an ooooo noise as they watched the young man skip like a stone. Even though they were much stronger than both the young man and the monster, they could tell that hurt.

Lady Arachne was interested to see how he would try and turn his situation around. It wasn’t easy to fight against a monster that was stronger than you much less one that grew in almost all battle prowess due to a Berserking ability. While the monster could regain its health slowly thanks to the ability it looked like to her the effects of both Chemicalized Creations the young man used were keeping the healing at bay and caused the damage over time to slow down to a single digit of health loss over time. She was impressed he was able to much such items. These two items plus the ones he had used earlier just showed his talent in Alchemy.

However, items such as these could only get one so far. The more one worked on their craft the more money one had to throw into the materials. Certain materials weren’t cheap, especially when you start getting farther into the craft.

She was already impressed with his crafting skills and with her theory on what his race was, it wasn’t surprising seeing his capabilities in the items. No, what she wanted to see was his adaptability and battle prowess. While he had shown some impressive things in the last two tests, they weren’t really the best to show how well he could kill.

These waves were the perfect opportunities to see what he could do if he were to ever take an assassination mission. While the best assassins in their Association, and other Associations, would be able to kill their lone target without worry of having to face others, there were still times one had to fight off waves of enemies to get out of the area. This test was going to show how he would be able to or if he could.

The first few waves were easy to deal with and didn’t prove to be a challenge. They were there to see if he would over do the killing or if he had a brain and used just the bare minimum. While he was able to kill them quickly, there were moments he could have done less. It was something she would have to go over with him after the testing was done. Right now, though, she wanted to see how he would get out of this peculiar situation.

Her attention was fully on the young man as he suddenly created another Shadow Double. This was another surprise to her. His use of Shadow Magic was splendid and caught her off guard. The way he was able to use certain spells was great. One could confuse him for a member of that race. However, his mention of crafting and his physical looks from what she was able to see showed he wasn’t from it.

She watched as he had his Shadow Doubles fighting the group of goblins start to spread them out. She thought that was an interesting thing to do but wasn’t sure what he had planned. If he had a charm or some sort of mental magic spell then maybe he could use them to manipulate the creatures to… She stopped her thought process as she watched him suddenly appear behind a lone goblin archer. She then saw him lean close to the creature’s ear.

 Was he whispering something into the monster’s ear? Lady Arachne thought to herself. If that was the case then did he have some sort of mental manipulation spell? She turned to the others and asked, “Can any of you hear what he is saying?"

The others looked at her with just as confused expressions as they shook their heads.

“I can faintly hear what he is saying, but its coming in as a jumbled mess,” Silent Saboteur stated with a strained and puzzled sound in his voice. “Its sounds like gargled nonsense, but at the same time I can feel power from the words.”

Lady Arachne tilted her head while lifting a brow she knew the others couldn’t see. That was weird. She looked back at the scene before and grew even more confused as the young man stepped back and watched the goblin shake its head.

Did it fail? Lady Arachne thought. Maybe he tried to use something he didn’t fully understand, and it didn’t come out right? She had seen this happen before. Many who wanted to use something they had no knowledge of, but had seen other people use, tried to imitate what they said but it would always come out wrong and fail.

To her surprise, the goblin archer scowled and launched an arrow towards the Hobgoblin. She heard the gasp that came from Orchid and noticed Noxi’s and Silent Saboteur’s body slightly twitch at the corner of her eye. She didn’t take her sight off of Liam as he tried whatever he did again on the other archer. This second time failed as the archer turned to attack him but failed as he drove two daggers right into the skull of the monster.

Swiftly after that, he tried again on the three sword wielding goblins. Two of the three were successful while the last one tried to attack and died to both the young man and his Shadow Double.

All four of them were silent as they tried to think exactly what spell he used. Silent Saboteur had confirmed each time he whisper the chant into the target’s ears it still sounded like a jumbled mess. No matter how hard he tried to decipher the chant he just couldn’t. Could this be something none of them had knowledge of? Orchid had the best knowledge on Mental manipulation type spells, but since she wasn’t close enough to hear it she was of no help.

Once again my little crafty kitten, you have shown us something interesting. Lady Arachne thought with an approving and malicious grin.

 

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Liam was excited. He had used Strife Inducement only once before. Even though Eri had told him there were certain conditions for the spell to work, he wasn’t entirely sure if it would work. Still three out of five successes was a great outcome.

His focus was now back on the Hobgoblin. While it was under attack by his Shadow Doubles, goblin swordsmen, and the lone goblin archer, the monster took the hits without any worry. This made Liam worry. He wasn’t entirely sure how the Berserking Will spell worked and only had guesses. But from what he was seeing he could guess that his pain tolerance was high. It was almost like the monster fixated on one target at a time as it tore through of his Shadow Doubles with a powerful swing of its axe before attacking another.

After destroying another, Liam decided he needed to restrict the monster’s movements the best he could. Channeling as much Shadow Mana as he could and coating both of his hands and forearms, Liam pushed some of that mana into the spell he started chanting.

“Hidden within the dark, I call upon you to bind my target. Grasp them with the tendrils you possess. Remind them why they should fear their own Shadow. Grasp of the Shadows!”

The shadows underneath the tall monster quivered before shooting up and snaking tendrils around its beefy and swollen arms, legs, and forehead before tightening pulling each limb down as hard as they could. To Liam’s surprise, the Hobgoblin resisted as much as he could. His already bulging muscled strained and veins started popping up as it tried to push forward.

Liam could see the tendrils straining from the resistance and force the monster was using. Not liking this, Liam started up another chant and poured the rest of Shadow Mana into it. “Shadows so dark come forth, pierce through this pour creature’s sight, temporary blinding it with a pain it never knew existed, Blanket of Darkness!”

A thick shadow snaked up the monster’s leg and body, quickly making its way towards the monster’s head. After wrapping itself around the creature’s eyes, it pierced into them pouring every once of pain as it could while creating damage with each second it was on.

Liam watched as the Hobgoblin let out a mighty roar as it allowed its right arm to slacken a bit before thrusting it as hard as it could forward. Liam heard the strain of the tendrils fighting back to not break.

Liam sheathed one of his daggers away before chanting a different spell. “Lightning surge bright and engulf my hand with the sparks of your stunning force. Static across my enemies as my grasp collides with their form. Static Grasp!”

Sparks formed over his free hand. After enough accumulated he took a step forward. Before he could finish that step, the tendril that was holding the arm that was gripping its axe snap free, allowing it to throw the axe in his direction. The axe sliced through of the goblin swordsmen’s head while making its way towards Liam. He wasn’t sure how the monster was able to tell where he was with the Blanket of Darkness spell in affect, but he knew he didn’t have time to question it.

Liam’s eyes widened before he used Shadow Step twice to appear behind the monster. He quickly looked down to make sure the Static Grasp spell hadn’t disappeared. To his relief it was still active. Without wasting any time, he jumped up, punched the free arm, and watched the lighting sparked came alive on the target’s arm.

The bulging muscles twitched and spasmed, giving Liam the telling sign it was paralyzed. Not wanting to allow it to lose its affect, Liam sheathed his other dagger and pulled out his Gravity and Lightning Enchanted daggers. He then attacked the arm over and over, trying to hit the same spots in unison as he could. His aim was to get their effect to come into play and take the arm out of commission for the rest of the fight. Although he wasn’t sure if he would be able to finish the fight in time, he still wanted to try.

Liam attacked each limb he could reach trying to apply the effects the daggers gave as quickly as he could. He could see the effects taking control and thought he was doing well. That was until he noticed the muscles all over the monster’s body tense up and expand even more while letting out a loud and terrifying roar.

The force of the roar was enough to push him, the last goblin swordsman, his remaining Shadow Doubles, and arrow that was shot by the goblin archer away from him. To Liam’s horror, even the tendrils that were keeping him in place had disappeared. The only thing still holding on for dear life was his Blanket of Darkness spell.

After recovering from the sudden outburst Liam noticed the strain the hobgoblin had in its arms and legs. While still being able to move, the effects his two daggers had were still active. His worries only grew when he saw the goblin swordsman race back to attack the Hobgoblin only to be sliced through as the axe came flying back towards the monster’s hand. The creature then attacked the other annoyances as they tried to strike at the monster.

Liam realized he was losing numbers. He didn’t know how much health the hobgoblin had, and it was irking him. While focusing on fighting and not looking at the monster’s health over and over made his fights more combat focused rather than stat focused, he still wished he could see the amount of health the monster had.

He looked over at the goblin archer and grew a bit concerned as he noticed the monster had started to hesitate. Almost like it was questioning what it was doing. He didn’t know how long his Strife Inducement would last, but it looked like he was getting an answer to that now. His issue with this happening now though was that he needed to focus all his attacks on the Hobgoblin before it could see again. However, now that the goblin archer was slipping out of Strife Inducement, he need to make sure no arrows would attack him from behind. So now he needed to figure out which would take priority.

As he thought about this, a sudden idea popped in his mind. As he looked back at the goblin archer he muttered, “What if I prioritized both?” A devilish grin formed as he added, “I have just the spell for that.”

He used Shadow Step to appear right behind the goblin archer. As the creature struggled to figure out what it was doing and what it needed to do, Liam readjusted his body to line the creature up with the Hobgoblin.

Once he got into the position he felt was right he started chanting while placing a hand against the creature’s back, “Hinderances and obstacles blocking my path, weighed down by the law of Gravity. Reverse and move away from me, allowing the way to be clear. By the law of Gravity, I forcibly reject you. Gravity Force Push!”

Before the goblin archer could react to what Liam was doing, the monster floated off the ground. Liam moved his hand towards his lower back while trying to angle his hand slightly up, hoping the idea of sending the monster up higher would work. After a second had passed, the goblin archer flew forward. Liam watch with anticipation that his idea would work, however, the goblin archer’s trajectory didn’t shift up to hit the Hobgoblin’s chest or the head. Instead, the monster went forehead first right into the Hobgoblin’s crotch.

Liam subconsciously moved his hands towards his own as he grimaced and let out a pained, “Ow.” To his surprised he heard Noxi and Silent Saboteur say the same thing.

Liam wasn’t sure if its pain tolerance would mask it, but to his shock, the Hobgoblin let out a wheezed cough before dropping its axe and falling down while gripping his private area.

Liam shook off the phantom pain that he only had because he could only guess the creature was enduring. He then sprinted forward with his remaining Shadow Doubles and started attacking. While his Shadow Doubles were attacking the arms, legs, and back, Liam went for the area where the neck and back of the head was. He sliced as hard as he could with as much force as he could. He could feel the fatigue in his arms start to fill him as they started getting heavy with each attack.

Every attack he landed tore through a small part of the monster’s skin. Slice by slice, chunk by chunk, Liam raced against the clock of the monster recovering from the dirty attack. He felt the monster stir underneath him as it tried to push itself off the ground. However, Liam saw through the blood that had started to pool out from the wound he created. It was a wedge between the neck and head. He switched out his daggers for the scythe he had in his inventory, Lifted the weapon as high as he could while taking a step back and swung down as hard as he could.

The edge of the blade of the scythe dug into the wound wedging itself in deep. Then with the last bit of stamina and strength he had he wrench the weapon to the side and through the bone, severing half of the hobgoblin’s neck.

Liam fell backwards to his back while keeping his eyes on the monster. He wasn’t sure if the Hobgoblin was going to still be alive with his Berserking Will still active. However, to his relief, he felt he bloodlust that the monster had exuded snuff out as it dropped limply face first into the dirt.

Liam panted heavily as he felt victorious over this fight. This was by far the hardest fight in this wave. He felt that with how much power this monster had it could be considered the boss of the wave. He was about to celebrate his victory until he heard a click echo in the air. He felt his heart thump loudly while dropping into his stomach as he turned his face to look at the area it came from.

Slowly walking out from a pen was a huge rhinoceros looking monster with eight thick legs and lightning sparking from both of its horns.

“Oh, fuck me,” Liam swore out loud.

 However, before the creature could make a move, Silent Saboteur and Noxi appeared before it. They both used some sort of power Liam wasn’t able to comprehend that made the monster turn back around and enter its pen.

Liam let out a painful breath of air as his body relaxed. Even though he didn’t complete then entire wave of monsters, it was finally over for him.

Lady Arachne and Orchid appeared right beside him. Approving smiles were spread on their faces as the shorter of the women stated, “Congratulations…this concludes the test.”