Chapter : 507
Then, and only then, would they deal with the grunts. And it was rarely a battle. It was a harvest. Lloyd would use his Steel Chains, not to kill, but to control. To herd. To drive the panicking, screeching goblins into a single, terrified, writhing mass. He would trip them with invisible wires, disarm them with a flick of a tallic tendril, bind them together into a chaotic, helpless pile.
And then, Fang Fairy would descend upon them, a storm of righteous, cleansing fury. A single, focused pulse from her Lightning Cloak, a devastating sweep of her lightning-wreathed claws, and the battle would be over. Silence would fall once more, broken only by the crackle of residual energy and the faint, satisfying chi of Farming Coins being added to his account.
They cleared nest after nest. A cave system behind a waterfall, filled with goblins who had learned to use the echoing acoustics to disorient their prey. A ramshackle fortress built in the high branches of a massive, ancient, and possibly sentient, ironwood tree, complete with rope bridges and crude siege catapults that hurled large, sharpened rocks. A foul, swampy village on the edge of a stagnant bog, where the goblins rode on the backs of large, ill-tempered, and incredibly slly, giant lizards.
Each encounter was a new challenge, a new opportunity to refine their synergy, to push the boundaries of their shared power. Lloyd learned to use his Black Ring Eyes in more subtle, tactical ways. He wouldn't try for a full sensory deprivation on the stronger goblin champions—the energy cost was too high. Instead, he would place a brief, flickering seal on their peripheral vision, creating a blind spot that Fang Fairy could exploit. Or he would place a seal on their sense of balance, causing them to stumble at a critical mont. He was becoming a master of a new kind of warfare, a fusion of magic, of strategy, and of a cold, hard, military pragmatism that was utterly alien to this world.
The grind was still a grind. The work was still bloody, still repetitive. But it was no longer boring. It was a problem to be solved, a system to be optimized. And with every cleared encampnt, with every new tactical challenge overco, he felt his own skills, his own control, growing sharper, more refined. The bond between him and Fang Fairy deepened, their silent communication becoming a seamless, instantaneous flow of thought and intent. They were no longer just master and spirit; they were two parts of a single, devastatingly effective, killing machine.
After what felt like a long, long week of constant, relentless combat, after clearing out what had to be the last of the major goblin encampnts in this region of the forest, they finally took a rest. He sat on a large, flat stone overlooking a small, dark, and slightly nacing-looking lake, the bodies of the last goblin patrol scattered around the clearing behind him. He felt a profound, bone-deep exhaustion, but it was the clean, satisfying exhaustion of a hard day’s work well done, not the soul-crushing ennui of the sli plains.
He checked his System interface, a sense of grim satisfaction settling over him as he saw the numbers.
[Quest Progression: Goblin Suppression - 17/20 Encampnts Cleared.]
[Farming Coin Harvest Calculated...]
[Monsters Killed: 192 (Goblin Grunt). Base FC per Grunt: 0.5 FC. Total: 96 FC]
[Elite Monsters Killed: 17 (Goblin Shaman/Champion). Base FC per Elite: 2 FC. Total: 34 FC]
[Sub-Boss Killed: 1 (Lizard-Rider Warlord). Base FC: 20 FC.]
[Total Farming Coins Acquired from Session: 150 FC]
He had done it. He had added another one hundred and fifty Farming Coins to his balance, on top of the two hundred he had earned from the extended sli grind.
[Current Farming Coins: 200 (Previous) 150 (Reward) = 350 FC]
Three hundred and fifty. It was a respectable sum. A testant to his and Fang Fairy’s ruthless efficiency. He was still short of the five hundred he needed for the first major System Upgrade, but the goal no longer felt like a distant, impossible mountain. It was a hill. A steep, bloody, and goblin-infested hill, but a hill he knew he could climb.
He looked out over the dark, silent forest. There were still a few nests to clear. And then, the chieftain. The final boss of this particular, violent, and surprisingly profitable, level. He felt a flicker of anticipation. The chieftain, he knew, would be a true test. A powerful warrior, perhaps even a nascent Black Spirit user itself. It would be a real fight. A real challenge. And a real reward.
Chapter : 508
He allowed himself a small, weary smile. The harvest was good. The work was hard. But the path to power was becoming clearer with every slain monster, with every hard-won coin. The ghosts of his past were still out there, waiting. But he was no longer just preparing for them. He was growing. He was evolving. He was becoming the weapon he needed to be. And the thought, for the first ti, did not feel like a burden. It felt… like a promise.
---
The final encampnts of the Shadowfen goblin tribe were a grim, bloody affair. They were clustered around the base of a dark, craggy hill, their warrens dug into the rock like a festering wound. These were the elite of the tribe, the chieftain’s personal guard. They were larger, more heavily armored in scraps of stolen steel, and they fought with a desperate, suicidal ferocity. The air was thick with the scent of their foul bodies, the clang of their rusty blades against Lloyd’s manifested steel, and the sharp, clean crackle of Fang Fairy’s lightning.
The grind had lost all its earlier tedium, replaced by the sharp, cold focus of genuine, life-or-death combat. These goblins were not just fodder; they were a threat. They worked in coordinated squads, their shamans casting crude but effective curses that sought to sap his strength, their heavily armored brutes trying to pin Fang Fairy down with sheer, overwhelming force.
It was here that the true, terrifying synergy between Lloyd and his Transcended partner ca into its own. He beca the battlefield controller, his mind a nexus of strategy. His Steel Chains were no longer just tools of binding or attack; they were an extension of the terrain itself. He would weave them into complex, shimring webs between the trees, creating invisible barriers that would trip charging brutes and funnel the smaller skirmishers into kill zones. He would use his Black Ring Eyes to place fleeting, disorienting seals on the shamans, causing their curses to fizzle and fail at the critical mont.
And Fang Fairy… she was the storm. She was the executioner. She moved through the battlefield like a vengeful goddess, a blur of silver-grey and azure light. She was no longer just a weapon he wielded; she was a partner who anticipated his every thought, his every move. She would exploit the openings he created with a ruthless, breathtaking precision. A goblin champion, his balance montarily broken by one of Lloyd’s invisible tripwires, would find his world dissolving into a flash of white-hot lightning as her claws tore through his throat. A shaman, his curse fizzling from a well-tid sensory seal, would look up in confusion just in ti to see a shimring Lightning Dart materialize and punch through his chest.
They were a perfect, deadly duet of mind and storm, of strategy and overwhelming force.
Finally, after what felt like another long, grueling day of subjective ti, they stood before the entrance to the chieftain’s cave, the last of his elite guard lying silent and steaming on the mossy ground around them. The final objective was at hand.
They cleared the quest, amassing enough Farming Coins to push his total to a deeply, profoundly satisfying number.
[Quest Complete: Goblin Suppression]
[Farming Coin Harvest Calculated...]
[Total Farming Coins Acquired from Session: 100 FC]
[Current Farming Coins: 200 (Previous) 100 (Reward) = 300 FC]
He stood there, in the silent, bloody clearing at the heart of the Shadowfen, his mind a whirlwind of triumphant calculation. He felt drained, his reserves scraped to the very bottom, but the sense of accomplishnt was a potent, invigorating balm. He had faced the grind, had endured the monotony and the danger, and he had erged victorious, his coffers full, his power honed, his path forward clear.
It was ti to go back. Ti to rest, to recover, to plan the next phase of his secret, accelerated evolution. He closed his eyes, the familiar, weary ache behind them a testant to his long, hard work. He focused his will on the shimring, translucent gateway at the edge of his perception, the portal back to the real world, back to his quiet study at the manufactory.
He was just about to will himself through, to leave this private world of blood and coins behind, when it happened.
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