Chapter 67: Mountain Walker (1)
"G-Gramps!" Misha’s voice cracked. "Why are you here?!"
He did not answer immediately. His gaze remained fixed on the Goblin King dragging itself through the breach, on the goblins swarming behind it, and on the defenders breaking apart around the thing’s shadow.
Then, very calmly, he said, "I had hoped old age would let me retire in peace."
A goblin darted toward him from the left.
An arrow took it through the neck before it reached him.
Kylo dropped from the roofline nearby in a quick, controlled slide, boots hitting the stone hard enough to splash blood. Another arrow was already in his hand before the first goblin even finished falling.
The usual smirk was gone from his face, gone so completely that for a moment Misha almost did not recognize him.
"Old man!" Kylo shot a second goblin through the eye without even looking at it. "What the hell are you doing here?! Get out of here!"
Tobias finally glanced toward him, something softened in his face. "Take care of the little ones."
Kylo’s jaw tightened. "What are you talking about?! Don’t say that like you’re going somewhere!"
"I am," Tobias replied.
Another goblin leaped from a wrecked cart, Misha’s dagger hit its throat before it could land.
「 You have killed a Goblin!
EXP +3 」
Kylo looked at her for half a second, startled to find her standing.
Ahead of them, the Goblin King finally pulled itself fully into Genesis.
The street groaned beneath its weight, the defenders nearest it broke almost at once. Some ran, some died trying not to.
Even from this distance, Misha could feel the pressure of its presence, the certainty that ordinary people were not meant to stand before creatures like that and survive.
That thing was instantly killed by Nameless...
Tobias stepped forward, the street shook once under his cane.
The ground beneath the Goblin King bulged upward. The earth beneath the street split with a roar loud enough to cut through even the battle. A slab of rock bigger than a carriage rose from below in one brutal motion. Tobias lifted his free hand and the boulder obeyed.
The mass of stone tore itself free of the street as though gravity had simply decided to stop arguing with him. Dust and debris rained off it in curtains. For one impossible moment it hung above the ruined road, enormous and solid.
Then Tobias swung his arm, the boulder shot forward.
It smashed into the Goblin King with a force that made the entire district jump.
The monster staggered backward, one foot tearing a trench through the stone. Goblins around it were crushed instantly beneath the shockwave or flung aside like broken toys. A section of the already-ruined wall caved outward with a sound like a mountain coughing.
Kylo stared in disbelief and Misha forgot how to breathe.
King, floating beside her shoulder now, gave a smug little sniff.
[About time nya.]
Tobias did not even look at them. His cane struck the street once more. This time the ground answered everywhere.
Stone buckled beneath the feet of the monsters. Whole portions of the road lifted, folded, and slammed outward. Goblins screamed as the earth itself shoved them back toward the breach. Chieftains lost footings, Hobgoblins tried to brace and were thrown sideways when the street beneath them tilted like a living thing shrugging them off.
He struck the ground with his cane again, the street exploded upward.
What kind of merchant does that?
The answer came to Misha before she wanted it to. No, he was not a merchant, never just a merchant.
The Goblin King roared and came forward anyway. It was fast, far too fast for something that size.
It tore through the broken street in a blur of green flesh, iron scraps, and brute force. Tobias answered by driving his cane into the stone again.
Earth surged up around him like armor. The street climbed over his body in layers, sealing around his shoulders, his chest, his arms, until a giant of stone stood where an old merchant had been a second earlier. The shape was rough and crude and enormous, a towering earth golem with Tobias hidden inside it like the heart of a mountain.
The Goblin King slammed into it and the impact cracked half the street.
Stone shattered from Tobias’ outer shell, but the golem did not fall. It planted one foot, drove both hands forward, and shoved back. The sound of monster against stone rolled down like thunder trapped between buildings.
Behind the Goblin King, the Hobgoblin Commanders came through. Broad-shouldered, armored in scavenged iron, faster than the others and smart enough to spread out the second they saw Tobias occupied.
"Fuck!" Kylo swore. "They’re going around him!"
Misha’s breath sharpened. Right. The big one wasn’t the only problem.
She slid her daggers back to the sides of her legs, reached into her storage, and pulled out the Stormpiercier. The familiar weight of the spear settled into her hands awkwardly for only a second.
A blue window flashed before her eyes.
「 Constellation Soul within the Taurus Chamber Requesting Authorization. 」
Misha tightened her grip.
"Gerbaut," she whispered, then louder with her breathing rough and unsteady, "I need you."
「 Authorization Accepted. 」
「 Possession Initializing... 」
It was never pleasant, having her soul ripped from her body. The street dropped away beneath her feet. Her stomach flipped and her vision swam.
Then Misha was no longer standing in her body. She floated just outside it.
「 Control Transfer Complete.
Possession Time Remaining: 00:15:00 」
Her body lifted its head, amber light burned in her eyes.
Her shoulders squared, her breathing lowered into her chest, and Stormpiercer spun once in her hand with such clean control.
Gerbaut took one step forward and pointed the spear toward the nearest Commander.
The first Hobgoblin Commander came in low and quick, blade aimed for Tobias’ exposed flank while the old man kept hammering his stone fists across the Goblin King’s face.
Gerbaut met it head-on as he thrust Stormpiercer. The spear ripped through the Commander’s shoulder and drove it sideways into a collapsed wagon with enough force to crack the wood behind it.
Misha noticed it immediately. He was faster and stronger.
The difference struck her so hard she forgot the battlefield for half a second.
When he was alive, Gerbaut had always fought like a wall with a spear in its hands, calm and direct. But this, this felt sharper than before, more complete somehow. As if death had stripped him down to only the parts of him that mattered in battle and honed those parts further.
"You’re stronger." She couldn’t help but say.
"Yes." The reply came at once.
That was it. Just yes. Of course that was how he answered.
Misha almost wanted to laugh, tears welled up in her eyes. She quickly wiped it off and instead, she stared at her own body in amazement.
Kylo’s arrow hit the Commander through the wrist, its weapon dipped.
Gerbaut stepped in and drove the spear through its throat.
「 You have killed a Hobgoblin Commander!
EXP +75 」
Misha hovered nearby, stunned.
That would have taken everything from him before. Timing, strength, and a perfect opening.
Two more came at once. One from the left and one from the rubble pile.
"Down!" Kylo shouted.
Gerbaut dropped a fraction before the arrow passed over her head and buried itself in one Commander’s eye. He pivoted her body, planted Stormpiercer, and swept the other’s legs out from under it before finishing it through the jaw in the same motion.
The corpse hit the street hard.
「 You have killed a Hobgoblin Commander!
EXP +75 」
Around them, monsters kept pouring through the broken district. Students and defenders still alive tried to regroup around the new line Tobias’ rising earth had forced into existence. Some fought, some bled on their knees, and some dragged the wounded backward and did not look up again.
But here, in the cracked street beneath the shadow of the stone giant and a king, the battle narrowed.
Tobias and the Goblin King.
Gerbaut and Kylo against anything that got through.
And Misha, outside herself, watching it happen with the helpless clarity of a passenger finally allowed to see the road.
A fourth Commander came in with a roar, blade raised for her neck. Stormpiercer met it with a hard metallic crack.
Kylo put three arrows into its chest before it could press harder. The Commander still kept coming.
Gerbaut twisted her body, let its strength pass, then drove the spear into the gap under its arm.
It died coughing.
「 You have killed a Hobgoblin Commander!
EXP +75 」
A fifth tried to circle behind Tobias while the Goblin King battered the golem’s shoulder hard enough to crack half its outer shell away.
Kylo loosed one arrow, then another, then a third in such quick succession they sounded like one. The Commander jerked sideways, staggered, and Gerbaut used the moment to hurl Stormpiercer straight through its chest.
The Commander dropped.
「 You have killed a Hobgoblin Commander!
EXP +75 」
The spear vanished from where it had landed and reappeared in her hand with a flash of inventory light.
For one strange second, it almost felt natural.
Misha stared, her chest tightened. It really was him. The way he moved, the way he planted her feet, and the way he guarded Tobias’ flank without once looking frantic or rushed. Gerbaut had always been dependable.
"Gerbaut... If I had gotten stronger sooner–"
"No." He cut her off before she could finish her sentence.
The force of it made her go still. "No?"
"Don’t start."
For a moment, she could only stare at him.
Even now he knew where her mind was going. Even now, after death, after becoming a soul in her inventory, Gerbaut still sounded exactly like Gerbaut.
Misha almost smiled despite the blood and screaming around them.
The Goblin King roared and slammed both fists into Tobias’ chest once more. Stone exploded outward and the earth golem staggered.
"That thing just won’t go down!" Kylo said through gritted teeth.
Gerbaut did not answer him.
His attention remained where it always should have been, on gaps, the angles, the next thing trying to get past them.
A goblin lunged. He killed it.
「 You have killed a Goblin!
EXP +3 」
A Chieftain climbed over rubble with a bent spear. He broke its knee first, then drove the spear through its mouth.
「 You have killed a Goblin Chieftain!
EXP +20 」
A warg tried to dart low through the broken side street. Kylo caught it in the ribs, and Gerbaut finished it before it hit the ground.
「 You have killed a Warg!
EXP +15 」
Kylo shot like a bastard who enjoyed being irritatingly competent. Gerbaut fought like a fortress given motion.
And between them, nothing got through.
Misha watched them and felt something twist inside her chest.
"You two are disgusting."
Kylo, of course, heard none of that.
Gerbaut did. "Yes."
Misha let out an incredulous laugh. "You agree?"
"Efficient."
She rolled her eyes as a small laugh escaped her lips.
Ahead of them, Tobias’ stone shell cracked again. This time blood showed through the fracture.
Misha’s laughter died. "No..."
Then Tobias’ voice came from inside the earth golem, deeper now, carried through layers of stone.
"That’s enough."
The words rolled through the broken street like a command spoken by the ground itself.