Chapter 136 Slaughtering Through

"Squelch!"

An iron-gray sword light flashed through the air.

A sharp, agonizing wail accompanied the heavy sound of metal plunging into flesh.

Scarlet blood mingled with icy raindrops to drip down the blade, seeping into the soil and dyeing the verdant meadow a deep brownish-red.

Xia Nan braced his right foot against the wooden fence and yanked his Decapitating Longsword out through a gap in the palisade.

His scorching breath condensed into mist in the cold air, and the messy black hair plastered to his forehead was already soaked by the rain.

Although the villagers of Emerald Creek Village had been forced to stop their retreat and return to defend the village by the Bugbear's "Taunt", their minds remained otherwise clear.

If anything, the skill had sparked their will to fight. Their minds were sharp, and they fought with even greater ferocity.

Facing the goblin assault, they quickly completed a simple defensive perimeter under the battlefield command of Adeline and the village chief:

The villagers pushed pre-prepared, spiked hardwood fences to the edge of the trenches bordering the village.

Emerald Creek Village's unique location next to the Misty Forest brought them considerable benefits, but it also forced them to constantly fend off vicious monsters emerging from the woods to forage.

Low-level monsters like goblins made up the vast majority of these threats.

Over time, the villagers had developed a simple, practical set of countermeasures, preparing relevant defensive structures.

They dug a deep trench along the side of the village facing the forest, lining the bottom with sharpened wooden stakes.

Without an elite individual like a "Hobgoblin" commanding them, small goblin packs of fewer than twenty rarely possessed the strength to breach these defenses.

However, the goblins currently surging forward like a tidal wave clearly exceeded the definition of a "small pack."

They didn't even need to flank the village. In just over ten minutes, they easily filled the trench—which the villagers had spent months painstakingly digging during their spare time between harvests—with their own corpses.

Screeching, they continuously threw themselves against the wooden fence.

"Hold the line! Don't step back!"

"Our wives and children are right behind us!"

"Don't let a single green-skinned bastard inside!"

The stooped, frail-looking village chief stood at the very front without taking a single step back. His aged but powerful voice had not stopped shouting encouragement since the battle began.

Meanwhile, the elderly, women, and children who should have been hiding in cellars or evacuating were also kept in the village under the control of "Taunt". They stayed behind the front lines, doing whatever they could—carrying supplies, passing messages, and aiding the defenders.

"Squelch!"

Another two goblins had their chests pierced by the Iron-Gray Greatsword thrusting through the palisade.

They twitched and collapsed to the ground, but before they could even draw their last breath, the advancing goblins behind them trampled them underfoot.

There were simply too many. Xia Nan didn't even need to aim. He only had to repeatedly thrust his greatsword forward to fell goblin after goblin.

Truthfully, this static defense didn't suit him at all. Armed with [Spinning Slash] and [Fang Hunt], his combat style relied heavily on high mobility.

But considering the civilians he needed to protect behind him, it was the simplest and most effective way to defend them.

A group of villagers braced the palisade to keep it from collapsing under the goblins' relentless impacts, while the rest attacked the enemies through the gaps using pitchforks and wooden axes.

Under the command of team leader Adeline, the adventurers scattered across the entire front line to contribute their strength.

Abi carried his wooden shield on his back, having already sheathed his one-handed sword at his waist—its short reach made it both exhausting and far too dangerous to use here.

Instead, he tightly gripped a pitchfork borrowed from a villager with both hands, his expression fierce as he wildly stabbed at the goblins.

His armor, already filthy from days of adventuring in the Misty Forest, was now drenched in the blood of his enemies.

Adeline, boasting extensive experience fighting goblins, roamed up and down the defensive line. She patched holes in their defenses and frequently stepped in to relieve exhausted villagers, buying them precious time to rotate out and rest.

In contrast, Berg, another veteran adventurer, finally stopped fighting the effects of "Taunt" as he faced the sheer volume of the incoming horde.

He climbed onto the roof of a nearby house, using the high ground to rain arrows down upon the goblins.

However, the deep anxiety and restlessness lingering on his face proved he had not completely returned to normal.

For now, it didn't seem to matter much.

After all, the goblins were packed so tightly together that there were simply too many of them.

Even if his aim was slightly off, firing a random arrow into the sea of green skin almost always guaranteed a hit.

His arrows frequently pierced through two or even three enemies at once.

As for Xia Nan...

His Decapitating Longsword naturally possessed an advantage in reach. Even though he had switched from slashing to thrusting, its sharpness and durability were more than enough to handle these fragile, low-level monsters.

Coupled with his enhanced Constitution, he barely needed to rest, allowing him to maintain uninterrupted combat for an extended period.

His individual efficiency was roughly equal to four or five ordinary villagers combined.

This made his section of the defensive line the most secure spot on the entire battlefield.

Through this cooperation between the adventurers and the villagers, they actually managed to withstand the siege of hundreds of goblins.

If things continued this way, it was entirely foreseeable that the humans would emerge victorious in a few tens of minutes.

Yet despite this, neither Adeline nor Xia Nan showed any signs of relief. Instead, their expressions remained grave and cautious.

They both knew that the true danger... had yet to arrive.

"Haa..."

Panting, Xia Nan gripped his sword hilt, twisted his wrist, and forcefully yanked the blade out from where it was wedged between a goblin's bones.

His gaze drifted toward the distance.

The Bugbear with the red mane stood there, resting its hollowed-out Pale Bone Club on its shoulder as it watched them from afar.

It remained planted in place, acting like an overseer supervising the battlefield.

For some reason, after successfully using "Taunt" to lock down the Green Blood Squad and the villagers and prevent their escape, the Bugbear had made no further move to attack.

It simply stood there, watching the goblins die one by one.

Even the slightest bit of command—directing the goblins to strike the weakest points of the palisade, or charging in itself—could instantly shatter their defenses.

Yet it just stood there quietly.

As if it were waiting for something.

Xia Nan wasn't naive enough to believe that these vicious monsters, who treated all other intelligent races like livestock, would suddenly show mercy and let them go.

It hung over them like the Sword of Damocles.

With the Bugbear refusing to act, Xia Nan could only heighten his own vigilance, keeping a wary eye on how the situation developed.

The only piece of good news was this.

Emerald Creek Village wasn't too far from Rivervale Town. At a brisk pace, it was only a half-day's journey, and adventurers frequently passed through.

They only needed to stall for a little while. Not even that long—just a few hours—and there was a chance that...

"Crash!"

The sudden sound of a collapse rang in his ears.

Xia Nan's heart sank instantly.

His eyes snapped toward the noise, where he saw a cloud of billowing dust, villagers sprawling on the ground, and... green-skinned goblins charging into the village over the shattered remains of the fence.

...

"Smash!"

A filthy, dark brown wooden club slammed down heavily, shaking the body of the man bracing the fence with both hands to keep it upright.

His pant legs were coated in mud and grass clippings, and his patched, crude cloth shirt was soaked through with sweat.

Blood flowed steadily from a gash on his brow, coating half his face—a wound he'd earned from a goblin's club while helping another villager shift positions.

Waves of soreness wracked the muscles in his forearms, and his violent, rapid panting left his throat dry and stinging.

Yet Jim hadn't the slightest intention of giving up.

This wasn't just because of the surge of morale triggered by the blood-red soundwave earlier, but also because of his wife and daughter, who were currently searching through the nearby houses for weapons.

If he took even one step back, he wouldn't be the only one to die. His family would perish, alongside the entire village.

The gruesome stories he had heard from passing adventurers about the scenes found inside goblin lairs only steeled his resolve.

However... a person had their limits.

Jim himself had been fortunate enough to run into a lone goblin on his way home a while ago. He had traded its bounty at the Association for over three silver coins, allowing his family to eat well for quite some time.

Because of that, he had plenty of stamina.

The other villagers, however, were not so lucky.

Facing the tidal wave of continuous goblin charges, even if they had absolutely no intention of giving up, their bodies were hitting their limits.

Physical exhaustion was not something an ordinary person could simply ignore or push past on sheer willpower alone.

"Hah... Hah..."

The involuntary grunts of extreme exertion slipping from his throat reached his own ears.

Pushing against the palisade with all his might, Jim caught sight of the man next to him from the corner of his eye.

It was Uncle Evan, the honest man who lived next door.

He was in his forties and hadn't done a single noteworthy thing in his entire life.

All he did was work the fields, fetch water, and eat.

He had been sick for a few days recently, and despite not being fully recovered, he had still stepped up to the front lines.

Seeing Evan so thoroughly exhausted that he couldn't even speak, Jim hurriedly opened his mouth, intending to call for one of the resting villagers in the back to rotate in and cover his spot.

But the moment he parted his lips, he watched Uncle Evan's legs give out. The older man collapsed to the ground, completely drained.

Then came the cracking of the wooden fence, the spray of mud as the palisade tilted over, the pale green hands reaching through the gaps, and the sudden, deafening shrieks of the goblins.

"Crash!"

The already crumbling wooden fence instantly collapsed.

Like sand pouring through an hourglass, the goblins previously held back by the spiked hardwood squeezed through the breach, cackling maliciously.

The sudden surge in pressure overwhelmed Jim. Already pushed to his limits, he could no longer hold his ground, stumbling backward several steps before landing hard on his rear.

He stared at the chain reaction unfolding before him—villagers falling one after another, sections of the fence shattering into pieces.

Despair filled his eyes.

"It's over... It's all over..."

Jim's mind went completely blank.

His overexerted body and the highly traumatic scene playing out before his eyes stripped him of his ability to think.

His face went slack; his gaze turned dull.

Even when the first few goblins to burst through the breach lunged at him with bared fangs and brandished claws, he didn't react at all.

But right at that moment...

Awoooo—

A resonant wolf howl, mixed with the screeching friction of an object moving at high speeds through the air, tore at Jim's eardrums.

In his dazed eyes, the blurry phantom of a Wolf Head formed from gale-force winds, grass clippings, and blood reflected back at him.

"Boom!"

A powerful air current howled violently past, sweeping up wooden splinters that grazed his cheek and left behind a tiny cut.

The goblins in front of him still maintained their forward momentum, but above their shoulders, there was nothing left.

Spouting geysers of blood, their ugly heads—still bearing twisted, malicious grins—spun through the air before hitting the ground alongside their headless bodies.

Xia Nan glanced down at the man slumped on the ground in front of him.

Without a word, he spun on his heel and charged straight toward the breach.

Behind him, arriving a step later, Adeline's shouts rang out:

"Don't panic! Hold the line!"

"Everyone, hold the line!"

The defensive line hadn't entirely collapsed yet.

Though the breach was rapidly widening, they had managed to kill a substantial number of goblins before it broke.

Not that many had managed to pour inside just yet.

As long as they could plug the gap for just a few minutes—preventing the invaders from swarming the rest of the villagers on the line from the inside—until the backup fences were moved into place...

...there was still hope to turn this around!

As for who could actually hold the line during these few critical minutes, facing the brunt of countless goblins and deciding the survival of Emerald Creek Village...

Xia Nan had already answered that with his actions.

A long, high-pitched wolf howl echoed across the battlefield. Under the devastating force of the fierce wind pressure, goblins—stripped of any intact skin or flesh—were hurled into the air and tossed aside like broken toys.

The iron-gray sword light flashed like the Grim Reaper's scythe. Often, a single flicker through the air meant at least three goblins lost their heads.

[Fang Hunt], [Spinning Slash], [Fang Hunt], [Spinning Slash]...

He repeated the cycle endlessly.

The black-haired, iron-clad figure tore through every green-skinned monster in his attack range like a lawnmower. Trailing frigid winds and fresh blood, he ducked, weaved, and leaped through the chaos.

Swing the sword, reposition. Swing the sword, reposition...

Even as the links in Xia Nan's Chainmail Iron Rings filled to the brim with foul goblin blood, not a single one of the green-skinned creatures managed to land a direct hit on him with their laughable wooden clubs.

The instant explosive power granted by [Fang Hunt], the immense stamina born of his exaggerated Constitution, the full hundred-percent lethality of the Decapitating Longsword and [Spinning Slash] in an open space...

Over a hundred days and nights of accumulation since his transmigration culminated in the absolute war machine hacking, slashing, and vaulting freely through the green tide.

He no longer had to grip his sword hilt tightly and thrust awkwardly through the gaps in a fence.

Being able to let loose, move freely, cleave through enemies, and unleash his combat techniques—Xia Nan had undoubtedly entered his comfort zone.

The Agility attribute he had gained from leveling [Fang Hunt] to lv3 silently took effect during the battle. Shrouded in the blurry phantom of the Wolf Head, his body moved so fast it looked like nothing more than an afterimage.

Feeling the heavy resistance transmitted through his palms with every swing of his blade, hearing the abrupt silencing of sharp shrieks, and seeing the spray of blood and viscera filling his vision...

Xia Nan once again experienced the sheer, exhilarating thrill of reaping lives with overwhelming strength.

A strange delusion even bloomed in his mind.

He didn't need a defensive line, nor did he need to lay traps in advance.

These hundreds of goblins...

He alone could slaughter his way straight through them.