Chapter 85: The Monster in the Mirror
The poison was a slow, insidious fire, and the Goblin King was a mountain beginning to crumble from within. The single drop of his dark, viscous blood that had fallen from the wound in his neck sizzled on the stone floor, a testament to the potent neurotoxin now coursing through his veins. His movements, once a blur of brutal speed, grew sluggish. His roars of fury, which had once shaken the very foundations of the cavern, turned to pained, confused grunts. He stumbled, his massive obsidian club falling from his grasp with a deafening clang that echoed through the silent, blood-soaked chamber.
He was wounded. He was dying.
This was our chance.
I surged forward again, my body a symphony of screaming muscles and fractured bones, but my mind was a cold, clear instrument of destruction. I was no longer a mage, no longer a strategist. I was a predator, and my prey was finally within reach.
Liora, her own arm hanging limp and useless at her side, moved with a grace that defied her injuries. She drew a small, silver dagger from her boot, its blade glowing with the faint, holy light of her dwindling mana, and threw herself at the King’s back, her attack a desperate, suicidal gambit. He roared and swatted at her, but his movements were slow, clumsy, his reactions delayed by the poison. Her blade found its mark, sinking deep into the thick muscle of his shoulder.
At the same time, Aurelia, her own body trembling with a profound exhaustion that went beyond simple mana depletion, summoned the last of her strength. She didn’t have enough power for a full-fledged lightning bolt, but she had enough for a spark. She slammed her hands against the King’s iron-plated greaves, a small, crackling arc of electricity grounding itself in the metal, sending a jolt of pure, unadulterated pain through his already ravaged system.
He screamed, a high, keening sound of agony, and fell to one knee.
And I was there to meet him.
I leaped onto his back, my legs wrapping around his thick, muscular neck, my hands clawing at his face, my teeth bared in a feral, inhuman snarl. He thrashed, his massive body a whirlwind of dying fury, trying to throw me off, but I held on, my own body a vessel of pure, unadulterated rage. I drove my thumbs into his eyes, a brutal, savage attack that was born not of skill, but of a deep, primal need to inflict pain, to make him suffer as he had made others suffer.
He roared, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony, and finally, with a great, shuddering groan that seemed to shake the very stones of the cavern, he collapsed, his massive body hitting the floor with a ground-shaking thud.