Glacial Goblins

"Crap!"

Kai panicked a little as he watched the horde of ice goblins started climbing up the titan's leg.

No side was safe, they were climbing up every side of it, Kai and the rest of the group would be completetly overwhelmed when they reached their current altitude.

And the worst part was that the goblins were incredibly efficient climbers. They would use each others bodies to scale the leg, and they were even quicker climbing it than Petunia was with the help of Esurient.

Kai frowned worriedly.

There was a decent amount of room on the ledge they were on, but it wasn't a massive amount of space that they could maneuver and fight.

And Kai was also still incredibly weakened. The tingling from using Mana Surge earlier had somewhat died down, so he could probably use that skill again.

Umbra had no room to help because the ledge was too small. Kai couldn't use Soul Flame because his soul wasn't repaired yet.

Kai cursed.

He only had two ways to fight and hold off the ice goblins.

One was with Mana Surge, but he could only use that when they actually reached him.

And the other method...

"Go."

Esurient sword down towards the tide of climbing ice goblins, like an eagle about to descend on their unsuspecting prey.

With all the momentum they gathered, they were able to pierce straight through the head of one of the ice goblins, travel straight through its body, and kill another few before they had to pull away in case they got grabbed.

You have slain Glacial Goblin

XP gained

You have slain...

You have slain...

That caused a sort of chain reaction, all the breaking ice bodies of the few goblins Esurient had killed managed to knock a few other goblins off the leg, but they weren't high enough yet for the fall to do any meaningful damage so they just stared climbing the leg again, this time with a few cracks in their bodies.

Kai mentally cursed.

Luckily, there was still another few minutes before the first goblin reached the ledge they were on, so they had a bit of time.

But what could they do...

Kai's eyes widened as he looked at Cecilia.

"Your storage ring, does it have any incredibly heavy and incredibly useless items?"

Cecelia's widened at the sudden question, but she did not hesitate.

"Let me check..."

Esurient managed to pierce the bodies of another few ice goblins, shattering them.

You have slain...

You have received...

The next moment, the air over the ledge shimmered as a light blue glowing anvil manifested into existence.

And like the laws of gravity dictated, it instantly started plummeting towards the goblins.

Kai chuckled to himself as he watched the anvil fall and pick up speed, its hulking body racing towards the wave of goblins.

It shattered the first one with no problem, same with the second, and the third.

It slowly started losing momentum with each goblin it decimated, but its weight and the raw power it had after falling from such a height meant that is was still able to crush dozens and dozens of the goblins.

And even if it didn't make them shatter on impact, just its body was enough to make a large amount of goblins lose their grip.

Finally, the anvil landed on the ground, creating a large hole in the snow, which is where it would remain for all eternity. They had no way to get it back after all.

The good thing about the anvil being dropped was that it managed to knock off a large amout of ice goblins.

The bad part was that it could only get so many due to the fact they could only drop it off one side.

And even worse than that, the goblins knew what was coming now.

Kai watched as the goblins skin shimmered, becoming an even lighter shade of blue and even more crystal like.

Suddenly, Esurient had a much harder time piercing their bodies. If before they could go through three or four before losing momentum, now they were barely able to get through one of them.

Kai cursed to himself.

It was obvious what the goblins had done. It was some sort of skill that allowed themselves to make their bodies even harder. While it made them much more resistant to Esurient, blunt damage would do a lot more damage to them instead.

And currently, there was a lot less blunt damage than there was piercing damage.

Cecilia continued dropping various items over the ledge, frantically scurrying around so she could drop them at all angles.

A large black closet, a gray glowing ball, a... piano?

What sort of items had been stored in the treasury in the first place?

Still, even with Esurient constantly chipping away at their vast numbers and Cecilia dropping heavy items on them, they were still rapidly climbing up the leg.

It was now more than ever that Kai was upset that he couldn't use Soul Flame. Just imagining the vast amounts of XP he was missing out on made him want to shed a tear.

But what could he even do? Did they really have to kill all of these goblins?

Why couldn't life just be easy?

Suddenly, Kai's eyes widened as realisation hit.

They didn't have to survive all of the goblins, they just had to survive until the leg they were on had its next movement. He had nearly fallen off when he was climbing it during the ascent phase, so he was sure as hell that these goblins wouldn't be able to keep their grip.

And he had also seen one shatter from falling from a much lower height than they would be if the titan lifted its leg, so they were sure to die on impact once they hit the ground.

"Stop dropping things for now."

Cecilia froze, her hand extended over the ledge. She looked back at him incredulously and simply said in a small voice.

"... Didn't you just say you would let me know of your ideas more than a minute in advance?"

Kai blinked.

"I did... but I only thought of this idea a few seconds ago, so this is all the advance I could give."

Cecilia bit her lower lip softly, relenting and pulling away from the ledge.

Esurient also pulled back, returning to the ledge that they were all positioned on.

Seconds ticked by in which the goblins continued to scale the leg of the titan, aiming to get even closer to their prey.

Kai did not react, he patiently watched them, waiting for them to get even closer.

However, he needed the goblins to nearly reach the ledge at the same time, not one side reaching them before another side.

So he had to thin the herd a little.

After a few minutes, it became increasingly obvious that the goblins on the back side of the leg would reach them before the goblins on the front side.

So Kai gave Cecilia her instructions.

"Drop something on those ones there."

The next thing Kai knew, an anchor had appeared out of thin air. It shot down towards the tide of goblins.

Because of the fact that their skill increased their resistance to piercing damage but made them more susceptible to blunt damage, the anchor was able to wreak havoc on the tide of monsters.

Their bodies shattered on impact, millions of shards of ice scattering throughout the sky.

As for why there had been an anchor in the treasury... who knew?

Kai stifled a sob.

All of that XP, all of those possible items, all of it was going to waste because dropping items on enemies didn't count as you killing them.

Well, it was Cecilia doing the dropping anyway, so maybe she was getting a little XP, but still.

Another few minutes passed and the goblins continued to get even higher. By now, the titan was in the descent phase of its third leg, meaning it wouldn't be long until this leg went up in the air.

So all they had to do was hold out until then.

Noticing that the goblins on the right were progressing quicker than the goblins on the left, Kai instructed Cecilia to drop another random treasury item on them.

The minutes passed excruciatingly slowly.

Finally, the titan began lifting its fourth leg, meaning the groups leg would be the next one lifted.

Kai gazed down at the tide of goblins.

They had nearly reached the ledge, so he decided that he had held out enough. He would probably be able to wipe out enough of them with this one move, so he got to it.

Kai took a deep breath as he grasped Esurient's hilt.

Making use of his new skill, he switched to his Pitch Perfect Preset, making all of his stats perfectly equal.

Then, he infused Esurient with a little bit of his Mana.

Letting go of the blade so it could fly over the edge, Kai watched his trusty Ruby sidekick begin to glow with the seven colours that were inside his soul.

Then, he grinned madly and said:

"Equilibrium."