Bai Xia was no priest, and her healing capabilities were certainly not enough to soothe a troubled heart.
Seeing her mortified and indignant, Tian Zheng dared not jest further.
He swiftly rose, instinctively reaching out to help Bai Xia up, only to have his hand slapped away with a look of utter disdain.
He paid it no mind, however.
As he retrieved a healing potion, his attention quickly shifted to the Goblin Lord, which had just undergone a sudden transformation.
In the brief moments since they had both been flung away by the lightning, the Goblin Lord nearby had completely changed its appearance.
No, perhaps it would be more accurate to say it had changed species entirely?
The Goblin Lord from before had been gaunt and diminutive, with sickly pale skin that bespoke malnutrition.
Were it not for the ‘Lord’ title unequivocally displayed above its head, anyone would have dismissed it as nothing more than a mutated common goblin.
Now, however, it was a completely different beast.
Its formerly scrawny frame, enveloped by crackling lightning, had swelled to a towering height of over two meters.
Muscles bulged, arcs of electricity danced around its body, and a single one of its arms was thicker than Bai Xia’s entire waist!
To call it a goblin now felt inaccurate; it more closely resembled a werewolf shrouded in thunderous light, assuming one could overlook its head, which remained grotesquely unchanged.
“Pfft!”
Gazing at the Goblin Lord’s current state, Bai Xia, who had moments ago been seething over the assault on her chest, couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
Its appearance, for lack of a better description, was akin to a child’s head forcibly grafted onto a hulking, muscular body, creating an utterly jarring dissonance that reminded Bai Xia of Nezha from a certain animation in her memories.
The Goblin Lord’s small head, however, was far more grotesque, especially its blood-red eyes, which burned with fury and resentment.
[Mutated Goblin Lord]: Level 10 Elite. HP: 2200/4400. Originally an ordinary goblin, it mutated and continuously evolved after accidentally consuming an unknown substance.
However, its evolution was interrupted midway, causing its powers to spiral completely out of control.
[Talent: Goblin Commander]: For every 10% of HP lost, it will automatically summon one goblin to join the battle.
The type of goblin summoned is random.
[Skill: Thunder Cleave]: Gathers a blade of lightning to cut enemies, inflicting significant damage and a brief paralysis effect.
[Skill: Thunderstorm]: Gathers the power of lightning to explode around itself, creating a small area of lightning domain.
[Skill: Thunderfall]: Condenses all lightning power, then, after a brief charge-up, bombards the surroundings with countless bolts of falling lightning.
The lightning damage increases with each hit.
(Cannot use any skills for a short period after use; activated only when HP drops below 30%.)
As the system transmitted these detailed statistics, Bai Xia breathed a slight sigh of relief, seeing that the Goblin Lord remained a Level 10 Elite BOSS.
Furthermore, while its total HP had increased slightly compared to before, the Goblin Lord was still at half health, not having immediately regenerated to full.
This fact was, without a doubt, a huge positive.
“It’s fortunate it’s still at half health,” Bai Xia mused.
“Otherwise, with the Goblin Lord’s talent, we might have had to face several more minions.”
The Goblin Lord’s talent allowed it to summon a goblin minion for every tenth of its HP lost.
If it had been at full health, it could have already summoned a total of five minions, and given the randomness of the summons, there was no telling if it would have called forth some truly troublesome goblins.
Just as Bai Xia was feeling a touch of relief, large bursts of white light suddenly flared around the Goblin Lord.
“Eh?!”
Five ephemeral bursts of white light vanished as quickly as they appeared, and from within them emerged five distinct monsters.
Bai Xia: “…”
The five summoned monsters were clearly two Goblin Warriors, an equal number of Goblin Slingers, and finally, a single Goblin Archer.
Bai Xia and Tian Zheng had never encountered the former two types before, yet these goblins didn’t appear particularly formidable.
The Goblin Slingers, in particular, were so utterly dark-skinned they resembled refugees who had just crawled out of a mine shaft.
Clad in crude rags, they were named Goblin Slingers, yet there was no discernible place on their persons where they might conceal stones.
Their overall threat level seemed even lower than the common, green-skinned, small-eyed goblins they had faced previously.
However, the unknown invariably signified danger, and Bai Xia clearly had no intention of underestimating these creatures.
Moreover, the number of monsters they had to contend with had instantly multiplied from one to six, a prospect that felt overwhelmingly stressful.
Even as Bai Xia silently lamented her own ‘crow’s mouth’ (TL Note: A Chinese idiom referring to someone whose predictions or comments, especially negative ones, tend to come true), the Goblin Lord, having summoned its minions, charged forward with rabid fury.
It had produced, from seemingly nowhere, a massive, lightning-infused greatsword, adopting a stance that clearly stated it would not retreat until both of them were dead.
This was, of course, to be expected, considering its evolution had been violently interrupted by Bai Xia and Tian Zheng.
Its aggro (TL Note: A gaming term for ‘aggression’ or ‘enmity’ from a monster towards a player) level must have undoubtedly shattered all previous records.
As the Goblin Lord charged, its other minions naturally didn’t remain idle.
The Goblin Warriors followed close behind, the Goblin Archer drew its bow, and the Goblin Slingers… raised their hands.
There were no stones in the Slingers’ hands.
They merely raised their branch-like, grotesque hands, muttering something incantatory, and then Bai Xia finally understood why they were called ‘Slingers.’
For, as the two goblins chanted, copious amounts of earthy-colored light began to converge in their hands, subsequently solidifying into sharp, stone-like projectiles!
Bai Xia had initially assumed that these so-called Goblin Slingers would be similar to the throwing goblins in some ‘Disconnected City’ (TL Note: Likely a reference to Dungeon Fighter Online, known as ‘DNF’ or ‘DnF’ in China, which sometimes has connection issues, hence ‘Disconnected City’) game—the kind that carried baskets full of stones and used them to attack enemies.
She had been puzzled earlier by the absence of visible stones, but after all this, it turned out Goblin Slingers were actually akin to mage-class professions?
A sense of speechlessness washed over her, yet with danger rapidly approaching, there was no time to dwell on such thoughts.
Seeing the Goblin Lord charging with its two minions, Bai Xia and Tian Zheng hastily retreated to create distance, continuously repositioning themselves to evade the preemptive attacks from the Goblin Archer and Slingers.
Though they easily dodged the poisoned arrows loosed by the Goblin Archer, the moment the stone spikes hurled by the Slingers whizzed past them… BOOM!!
The seemingly innocuous stone spikes exploded directly before Bai Xia’s dumbfounded expression, their scattering fragments engulfing both her and Tian Zheng, leaving no room for evasion!
The bursting fragments inflicted little direct damage, but the sudden impact caused a degree of disorientation and a slowing effect, leaving them unable to fully distance themselves before the Goblin Lord, greatsword in hand, caught up.
The Goblin Lord let out a guttural roar, and the lightning on its greatsword instantly writhed like countless small serpents, as a terrifying, electrically charged slash swept towards them.
“It’s actually prioritizing me?”
Observing the lightning blade that was clearly aimed at her body, Bai Xia curled her lip in disdain.
While signaling Tian Zheng to retreat, she… ducked down, hugging her head.
The next instant, with a tearing *slish*, the blade’s light cut through the air just above her head, leaving Bai Xia completely unharmed.
Witnessing this, Tian Zheng, who had retreated, froze in astonishment, nearly misstepping and getting struck by another poisoned arrow.
After all, if that attack had been aimed at him, his neck would surely have been severed!
“You foolish monsters,” Bai Xia declared, “having witnessed my ‘head-clutching squat defense,’ you may now die without regrets.”
Having evaded the overhead slash with her loli-exclusive ultimate technique, Bai Xia instantly sprang to her feet and, instead of retreating, advanced.
Closing the distance, she used Shadow Harvest to pass through the Goblin Lord’s body, and before it could even turn, she unleashed her blade upon its two minions.
The Goblin Lord reacted, spinning around to bring its greatsword down in a torrent of lightning, but Bai Xia effortlessly dodged it with Shadow Stealth.
Just as it prepared to attack again, Tian Zheng, who had simultaneously closed in, interrupted it with a sword strike.
The Goblin Lord could only watch helplessly as its two goblin minions were cornered by Bai Xia and mercilessly cut down with a few precise strikes to their weak points.