Clearing the Goblin Lair

Like that 5 months had gone by in a blink of an eye, Both Magtris brothers were working so hard that they had lost track of time, each solely focused on their own tasks.

Noah had managed to fully learn the 2nd form of the Style of the Soul Reaper Martial art and could execute all the series of moves with perfection now. In terms of swordsmanship, there was no one on their cultivation rank that could beat them now.

Peter had also made some extreme progress with his inscription. He could now create more runes like trap runes that could hold prebuilt spells and would only activate under certain conditions. He had programmed his strongest trap to activate a precast 'Darkness Entrapment' spell.

The Shadow Army on the other hand had grown by tens of times, now holding close to 3000 Beasts.

5 Tier 5 Beasts

80 Tier 4 Beasts

345 Tier 3 Beasts

832 Tier 2 Beasts

1646 Tier 1 Beasts

His shadow army was already a humongous size and he could now stand against Proficient Ranks Cultivators with the high number of Tier 5's and Tier 4's in his army. Hunting Tier 5's was definitely the harder task as Peter was only in the Novice Rank still - he wasn't even meant to be killing Tier 3's.

However, the sheer number of Tier 4's and Tier 3 beasts working together against a single Tier 5 beast was almost unfair. Although Tier 5's were 10's of times stronger than Tier 4's, everyone had a limited mana reserve and magic beasts weren't an exception.

When Peter had finished his short meditation, cultivating mana, he got up and geared up. He put on some new clothes made out of the Black coated skin of a Tier 5 Shadow Panther. The Tier 5 Shadow Panther was his strongest shadow soldier. When it had died, Peter was at the brink of death; he got lucky that the beast underestimated Peter's strategies and sheer number of soldiers working under him.

Peter harvested its tough skin and manufactured it into a decent looking long sleeve coat. Black fur coated his hood and some traced around the edges of his sleeves, giving him a unique look.

Peter took out the mask that he had procured from Noah's inventory back at the bank and placed it on his face, equipping it. He shook his head to see if it would fall but it seemed to be glued to his face.

'Good.' Peter nodded in satisfaction.

Ella had told him that it was a simple White mask with a single black line running through the right eye. However, Peter couldn't do anything with this information so he just shrugged it off.

'Are you ready?' Peter asked his brother.

'Mmh. We'll switch as soon as we arrive. I'm itching to test this martial art on that guy.' Noah replied excitedly.

Although Peter was strong currently, Noah still had much more battle experience and had even started learning the 5 star martial art. He was the best person to take on such a tough foe.

'Shadow Teleport: Goblin's lair.'

Peter's incantation immediately took them to the front of the gates of the final floor of the Goblin dungeon.

Both brothers switched control of Peter's body. He immediately stretched, getting used to Peter's body again. When he was ready, he opened the large doors of the Goblin King's chamber.

An unrefined grey view of several tall beings came into Noah's attention.

"We'll. Well. Well. You arrived much sooner than I anticipated, little human." The Goblin King slowly, raised from his throne revealing his colossal size of 15 meters.

He pulled out a large club from his back; a powerful mana pressure also was released causing Noah to grit his teeth.

The other smaller troll-like beings stood up from their resting positions all unsheathing their weapons of choice, ranging from spears to swords to shields; they all looked menacing.

"Come out." Noah uttered, nonchalantly, holding his stare with the Goblin King.

Suddenly, streaks of darkness mana flew out from under Noah's feet, forming into different shaped beasts. They all ranged from large 10 meter flying Chimera beasts to elemental wolves.

In front of them all, a powerful 5 meter tall Black panther stood right by Noah's side. Glowing runic purple lines ran through its body and his claws also glowed a menacing purple color.

The goblin king looked around at the large number of Tier 5s that had appeared around the large chamber.

Even though he was at the peak of The 5th tier and his intelligence had already formed at such an early stage, he felt something new in him.

A blossom of fear…

"What the h*ll are you?" The Goblin King glared at the small human and then the dozens of magical Tier 5 and Tier 4 beasts.

"Well I told you I'd have your head." Noah spoke coldly, exerting his mana pressure.

His body ceased to disappear as he appeared mid air with his blade shrouded in darkness mana.

'Darkness Slash.'

A powerful arc of darkness mana collided with the Goblin King's large club. He gritted his teeth getting pushed back slightly.

His subordinates took this as the start of the battle and all charged towards Noah.

Roarrrr!

Noah's Shadow soldiers also moved in taking down the 10 or so Tier 4 Goblins with ease. They shredded their foes to pieces howling when they felt themselves power up. Every Time they'd kill another beast, they received a slight boost.

Noah executed the 2nd form of the Style of the Soul Reaper martial art releasing a fury of swings and cuts. He matched this with the Flash step and shadow step spell, making him look like a blitzing black streak appearing and reappearing in different vital spots of the large humanoid figure.

The Goblin King roared, activating one of his flame spells.

A dome of flames exploded from his body, Noah immediately teleported away to safety. He had already placed magic circles everywhere so he could teleport away if things got rough.

Noah's black panther leaped up slashing with its claws causing 3 vertical arced darkness slashes to cut through the flames and pierce into the King's chest.

'My mana is running low. Crap.' Noah cursed.

He retracted all of the mana beasts back into his shadow only keeping the black panther Tier 5 beast by his side.

The Goblin King roared a battle cry urging Noah to attack him.

He didn't wait any longer and charged in, zigzagging in unison with the black panther's movements.

A lot of damage could be seen on the Goblin King's body. The scars and cuts that Noah had caused from executing his new martial art was evident but the difference in battle power was also clear.

The goblin King's attacks were fast and simple but for small and agile beings like Noah and his companion it was easy to dodge.

Numerous scorching hot fireballs were shot towards Noah but they were all just a waste of mana as he dodged them all teleporting right on the Goblin King's nape.

A perfect combination of spells and martial arts and the stigma's boosts was all needed to kill the large beast.

'Darkness Entrapment.'

'Darkness Slash.'

Noah used his strongest attacks mixing the 3rd form of the Ethereal Arts with the 2nd form of his new 5 star martial art unleashing a monstrous combination of attacks.

The Goblin King's head was cut violently, causing his body to topple over. Noah teleported right beside the Black Panther's side huffing and puffing.

He had over exerted his powers so much his consciousness even faded.

Peter took control right in time, before his body could fall to the ground. The 5 meter black panther moved towards the large corpses of the different Troll-like mutants gathering them all in front of Peter.

"Thank you. You did a good job, you can go now." Peter moved his hand to touch the head of the large panther that had lowered its head.

With a puff the large darkness panther disappeared and joined back with the other undead residing in Peter's shadow.

Peter sensed his mana core and found that it was completely empty. He could only imagine how hard the battle was for Noah.

For his consciousness to be sleeping, it could only mean that he had overused the Stigma's boosts.

Peter sat down in a meditation position absorbing mana at a rapid speed. After a couple of hours Peter's oversized mana core finally filled to the brim.

He got up standing in front of the gathered corpses and exerted his full mana pressure, making the ground shake a little.

'Exsurge a Mortuis'

The incantation siphoned out almost 80% of all his mana. A dark cloud surrounded each body, joining dismembered body parts together and forming purple runic lines especially on the peak Tier 5 Goblin King.

As the large figures stood up they all gripped their clubs and kneeled in front of Peter in submission with the Goblin King right in the front.

"Give me a name master." The Goblin King spoke with a hoarse voice.

'He can't talk?! But why? Is it because of his mutated intelligence before he died? Strange.'

Peter thought for a while before speaking.

"How about Gollum. The first ever Goblin King to reach the Legendary rank and declare war on the humans. I'll call you Gollum." Peter spoke, holding his chin in thought.

"As you wish, master." The former Goblin King replied.

Suddenly, a current of mana was taken from Peter's mana core; it flowed into the Goblin King's body shrouding him in darkness mana.

'What just happened?' Peter couldn't help but feel shocked.

He sensed a change in his new shadow soldier.

'He's evolved to a Tier 6?! I forgot that giving names to shadow soldiers makes them generals of the army, so they receive a large boost in power.'

It wasn't only an increase in power, the Dark body of the Goblin King had more distinct purple runic lines on its body now.

"My first Tier 6!!" Peter shouted in glee, feeling his power increase. His shadow army increased his power too like it increased the potency of his mana pressure.