Ichor Cell-Chapter 59: Goblin Slayed

Ichor Cell-Chapter 59: Goblin Slayed

Eve fell back as the thing she had mistaken for a man savaged the variant’s shoulder.
The goblin variant staggered, bellowing in pain and fury as the imposter tore into the damaged plating with teeth and claws alike. It slammed itself sideways into a dead tree, then another, brittle trunks shattering on impact. It didn’t help. The pale, human-shaped thing stayed locked in place, limbs clamped tight, head jerking violently as it ripped free and bit down again.
The guild master kept her distance.
Her shattered arm pulsed painfully with every movement, a constant reminder that getting close would be a mistake even without the new unknown. She tracked the fight from the edge of the clearing, mana channels faintly throbbing with pain, eyes flicking between the variant’s movements and the thing riding it. If it turned, if it so much as glanced her way, she was prepared to retreat immediately.
The variant finally managed to reach back, thick fingers digging into its own shoulder as it grabbed hold of its attacker. With a roar, it wrenched the creature loose and slammed it into the ground hard enough to crater the dry soil. The impact echoed through the clearing, followed by a second, heavier blow as the variant drove a foot down where the creature had landed. A spray of blood and gore erupted where the monster’s foot cratered the creature’s chest.
Then it kicked out with the leg.
The pale figure skidded across the clearing and vanished into the dead brush, leaving a dark smear behind. In any other circumstance, Eve would have called that the end of the fight.
The variant agreed. It straightened, chest heaving, one hand gripping the torn shoulder where blood and fragments of plating still hung loose. It turned its malevolent gaze on her, taking a threatening step forward.
The creature burst back out of the undergrowth at full speed.
It moved low and fast, limbs snapping into place between strides, and slammed straight into the variant’s legs. The goblin stumbled as a fresh spray of blood erupted from its leg before it could stymie it with its water magic. Its balance broke just long enough for the creature to climb again, scrambling up its side and sinking its teeth into a fresh wound without hesitation.
The guild master gritted her teeth as she made a decision she hoped she wouldn’t regret.
‘You better not fucking turn on me, Wood rank, or I swear on everything that is holy…’
She stepped forward, ignoring the burn in her mana channels, and joined the fight.
Another root binding erupted from the earth and wrapped itself around one of the goblins arms, preventing it from reaching the assailant on its back. With a roar of fury, hydraulic power built within its legs, and Eve’s eyes barely had time to widen before it
jumped
, cratering the ground around it and snapping the roots binding it like twigs.
Now in midair and free from its bindings, the variant didn’t waste a second as it once again ripped the leech off its back, taking another chunk of flesh with it.
Huffing in fury, the variant paid back all the damage it had suffered with interest. It gripped the creature’s leg with one arm and used the other to absolutely savage its body. The former adventurer desperately defended himself, but a few of the blows managed to get through, breaking bones, tearing chunks of flesh out and raining blood on the surroundings.
Once they started plummeting back down, the variant twisted in midair as it wrenched the creature into position beneath it. The variant tucked its legs and
drove
downward, aiming to turn the impact into a killing blow, all its mass and strength focused on smashing the creature into the ground and pulping whatever remained beneath it.
A heartbeat before impact, the ground gave way.
The earth beneath them softened and sank as Eve forced mana through it, turning hard soil and stone into something closer to quicksand. A geyser of sand and dust shot up dozens of feet into the air, but the creature was driven into the earth rather than crushed outright, the spell adding just enough give to change certain death into survival.
Snarling with rage, the variant rushed out of the cloud of dust, almost instantly closing in on the guild master’s position. She paled as she fell back. A quick pulse of mana raised a patch of dirt and tripped the monster up, sending it flying over her head. She winced at the burn in her channels and rushed over to the sandy crater.
Peering inside, she was greeted with the sight of a bloody figure trying to free itself from the sand.
“Stupid fucking sand!” Alex cursed as he pounded at it with his one working fist, the other busy reassembling itself from the shape of a pancake. “Where did it even come from?”
He looked wildly around the crater he found himself in, trying to make sense of the situation. The last thing he remembered was waiting for his injuries to heal and his hunger growing. And now-
His thoughts paused when he saw the guild master peering over the edge of his crater, an expression of both confusion and fear on her bloody features.
‘Ah. I see.’
He winced.
‘So that’s what happened.’
“I-” A furious roar interrupted his words.
“Shit!” The guild master glanced behind her and disappeared from view. The next moment, Alex heard a serious of impacts, a tremendous collision, and saw the huge variant soaring through the air above him, limbs thrashing through the air.
The guild master’s hesitant face popped back up over the crater lip.
“Okay, look, I suspect you have a lot of questions and doubts right now, and I promise I’ll explain everything as truthfully as I can later,” he said quickly, “but I promise you that helping me out of here right now is in your best interests.”
The woman looked at him for a second longer, and Alex thought she was really going to leave him here until a loud crash and an angry roar snapped her into motion.
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“Fine.” The woman’s expression hardened. “But that explanation better be good.”
Focusing, she gestured in his direction and muttered something under her breath. Alex felt the ground around him shift in response, the sand and dirt roiling and pushing him up. Before long, he was standing in a much more solid crater, the sand having solidified into a cohesive whole.
“Thanks.” As soon as he straightened up, a wave of pain and exhaustion washed over him; a weaker version of the mana sickness he had experienced before. He stumbled to keep his balance.
“At least it seems you’re not completely inexhaustible.” The guild master’s voice came from above. “I was starting to think I’d encountered some unkillable demon.”
Throwing another glance at the guild master, Alex finally noticed that she wasn’t in a great state either. Her armour was covered in dents and scratches, and her entire left arm hung limp at her side, blood dripping from her fingers.
“Damn, you ok?” He asked in concern as he clambered out of the crater.
“I’ve been better.” She grabbed his hand to pull him the rest of the way up. “And it seems like we’re not the only ones just about ready to end this.” She nodded behind him.
Turning around, he saw the variant watching them warily from the treeline. Deep wounds covered its whole body, though instead of spilling out, the blood swirled around the openings, as if held in by some barrier. It cradled one of its arms protectively, the shoulder savaged beyond belief.
“It’s probably suffering from some pretty intense mana sickness right about now.” The guild master explained. “It’s a physically focused fighter, so its mana limit should be pretty low.”
Alex nodded with a groan. “Then let’s finish this.”
The variant seemed to agree.
One moment it was standing still on the other side of the clearing, the next the earth around its feet had exploded and it was rushing in their direction, though it was noticeably slower than before.
Alex raced to meet it, ignoring the pain shooting through his veins.
The two collided in the middle of the clearing with a dull, heavy impact. Alex slipped past a wide swing and slammed a fist into its chest, only for the blow to hurt his hand while the goblin didn’t even flinch.
It snarled and struck back, a brutal elbow catching Alex in the side and sending him skidding through the dirt. He rolled, came up on one knee, and forced himself upright as his regeneration sluggishly ate through the bruising. Fortunately, his hunger was long gone, so he had plenty in the tank, as long as he could ignore the pain in his channels.
Behind him, the guild master planted her staff and raised her good hand.
Roots burst from the ground in a wide arc. Thick tendrils wrapped around the variant’s ankles and calves, tugging and pulling unevenly. The goblin tore free of several immediately, muscles bulging beneath its skin, but it was forced to slow.
Alex took the opening.
He jumped, sailing over the variant’s head and jamming his claws into its shoulder wound and forcing it to roar in pain. The goblin roared and threw him off its back, but the throw lacked its earlier force.
Alex hit the ground and winced, every bit of healing also hurting him, then pushed himself back up anyway.
The variant fell to one knee.
Its breathing was ragged now, chest heaving. The invisible barriers keeping its blood in its wounds were beginning to fail, blood slowly seeping out of its injuries.
The guild master grimaced and forced more mana into the earth despite the burn in her channels. This time, the roots came up thicker and slower, reinforced with compacted stone as they wrapped around the variant’s legs. One arm was caught next, dragged down and pinned against its body.
The goblin surged, snapping several bindings and dragging itself forward anyway, but a few of them remained, quickly getting reinforced by new ones.
Alex jumped in again.
Scaling up its side, he jammed both his hands into the wound on its shoulder. The monster growled in pain, no longer even having the energy to roar as it tried to swipe at him.
Having gotten a good grip, Alex took a few deep breaths before flooding his upper body with power, clenching his teeth as the magical force burned through his channels.
Then he
pulled
with everything he had left.
That
got its attention. Flesh tore with a wet, brutal sound as the beast roared in agony, suddenly regaining its former energy. He doggedly held on as it tried to swipe at him, but the roots capturing its limbs held fast, preventing it from affecting him. He roared back down at it, the agony building in his channels fuelling the strength coursing through him.
With a final heave of effort, he ripped its arm free at the shoulder in an explosion of blood and gore, the limb coming away in his hands as dark fluid sprayed across the clearing. The variant tried to stagger back, screaming, blood pouring freely now that its magic could no longer contain it.
The roots tightened, wood grinding against stone as the guild master forced the bindings to hold. The variant sagged forward, its remaining arm shaking as it pressed against the restraints, then slowly, painfully, it sank to the ground, its voice quieting to a whisper.
Alex let the severed arm fall and stumbled back a step, chest heaving. His hands shook violently, blood dripping from his fingers onto the cracked ground. For a moment, he just stood there, staring at the thing they had finally brought down.
“We… we fucking did it,” he managed, voice hoarse.
The guild master didn’t answer immediately. She summoned a pillar of stone to lean on, shoulders slumped, breathing hard as she kept the bindings in place. After a few seconds, she straightened slightly, eyes fixed on the immobilized variant.
“…Yeah,” she said at last. “Looks like it.”
The clearing felt strangely quiet.
Alex felt the tension slowly drain out of him, his knees threatening to buckle now that nothing was forcing him to stay upright. He laughed weakly.
“God,” he muttered. “I thought—”
Then the variant began to glow.
The air around the variant shimmered and distorted, heatless light warping everything it touched. Alex’s smile vanished.
“Oh shi—” he started, trying to move.
His body didn’t respond fast enough.
The guild master reacted instantly. She leaped forward and unleashed a brutal blast of force straight into Alex’s side, hurling him away from the variant with no concern for how hard he landed. The impact knocked the breath from his lungs as the world behind him detonated.
When his sight finally began to return, it did so in painful fragments. Shapes swam into focus through lingering glare, and Alex groaned as he forced himself onto one elbow, blinking hard to clear the spots dancing across his vision.
The clearing was gone.
Where the goblin had been, there was now a massive crater carved into the earth, its edges cracked and scorched, the ground warped and broken as if something had punched straight through it from above. Smoke and dust drifted lazily upward, hanging thick in the air and stinging his eyes.
At the center of it stood the guild master.
She was upright, somehow, one boot planted forward, right arm held in front of her defensively. The last remnants of several overlapping barriers flickered weakly around her before collapsing entirely. Her armour was ruined—plates split, sections torn away, enchantments burned out—and she was soaked in blood from head to toe. Her left arm hung at an unnatural angle, far worse than before.
But she was standing.
Alex let out a long, shaky breath. Relief washed through him so hard he felt lightheaded.
“Holy shit…” he muttered.
Then the air around her began to fracture.
Fine cracks spread outward from her position, branching through space itself like glass under strain. The light bent strangely around them, colours smearing and warping in ways that made Alex’s head ache just from looking at it. Recognition hit him all at once.
‘It’s like that time in the dungeon!’
“WATCH OUT!” He shouted, scrambling to his feet.
The guild master looked up, confusion flashing across her battered face. The air shattered silently, collapsing inward as the ground beneath her gave way. The pull was immediate and absolute, yanking her downward in a blur of motion.
She vanished.
The space snapped shut without a sound, leaving only a scar of disturbed air that faded a heartbeat later.

Chapter 59: Goblin Slayed