Black Online

Chapter 263: Attack of the Players

With big pearly eyes, one of the summoned Ice Goblins stared directly at the golden bell.

It showed its reflection. Big head, pointy ears, generally ugly. The summon didn’t seem to care. It only had one thought going inside its mind.

Taking the bell!

It reached out its tiny hand towards the bell, and it ripped the bell off the pole, careful not to accidentally ring it.

"Uragah!"

"Gurama?"

In that moment.

Several Ice Goblins noticed what it did and asked questions from the summon, but it just didn’t answer to anything.

The three summoned Ice Goblins then turned around and started walking back to the gate.

But before they reached it, the Ice Goblins slid down the guard tower with icicle weapons in hands.

"Aragah!"

"Uruka!"

Ice Goblins angrily spoke to the summons, but they still didn’t answer, and they had enough of that.

They pointed their icicle weapons at the summons and roared angrily.

Over at the towers, several Ice Goblins pulled on their bows and aimed them at the summons—they were surrounded from all sides.

"...Your summons are in trouble!"

A player whispered.

"Let’s move. Remember the plan of attack. Know your rules. No matter what, do not go on your solo adventure just because you want to kill some Ice Goblins.

"Do not act solo!"

Fang Raon shouted.

"Yes!"

The players shouted in unison.

"ATTACK!"

Fang Raon screamed.

"Haaaaaaaaa!"

Loudly, the Warriors sprinted out of the tunnel, waving their weapons in the air, and they weren’t being stealthy at all.

That was fine.

Fang Raon wanted the players to attract the Ice Goblins’ attention elsewhere so that his summons could escape.

One by one, the Ice Goblins heard the screaming, and they became alerted, and then they saw armed players rushing straight at them.

"ARAGH!"

Ice Goblins shouted, and soon, all of them ran back inside the fortress.

While the Ice Goblins were distracted, the summons, using their short legs, ran to the back entrance and fled the fortress.

They ran up the hill, and soon, they arrived back at Fang Raon, and one of the summons offered the golden bell to him.

The summoned Ice Goblin looked proud. A smile on its ugly face. Almost like it was asking for praises.

"Good job."

Fang Raon smiled, took the golden bell from the summon, and took a quick look at it.

In that moment, his eyes started burning, and a flaming beam shot out of his eyes and bore a hole through the golden bell.

Crack~! The golden bell cracked and then shattered.

"Haah..."

Fang Raon closed his eyes, which were still smoking, and after a while, he opened them again, his eyes back to normal.

’It looks like the Ice Goblins are doing defensive strategy. Good idea, since they’re heavily undermanned.

’They probably planned to ring the bell and hold on while the reinforcements come, but unfortunately for them, that won’t work.’

Fang Raon thought.

Inside the fortress, the leader of the Ice Goblins was getting screaming orders to its troops, and it was getting increasingly angry.

"Aragh! URUGUAH!"

It was telling the Ice Goblins to ring the bell, but the confused Ice Goblins looked for the bell everywhere and couldn’t find it.

At that moment...

CRASH~! The gate crashed down, and the players stormed in, and with their swords, they sliced through the goblins like a hot knife through butter.

Assassins jumped over the walls and killed off the archers at the towers. Screams filled the air as chaos ensued.

It was a massacre.

Ice Goblins fell dead to the ground. Even when dead on the ground, players still stabbed them one more time to ensure that they were truly dead.

The fight was over in less than a minute.

"Whoo!"

"Let’s go, everybody!"

"That was smooth!"

While the players celebrated, Fang Raon walked through the destroyed gate with his hands behind his back.

"Rangers, go scout the tunnel ahead!"

He shouted.

Rangers, who were in the middle of looting, turned to him, nodded, and headed straight for the tunnel.

’Can’t be too careful. There might be goblins nearby over at the tunnel who might’ve seen the fight or heard it.’

Fang Raon thought.

After a short moment, the Rangers came back and told him that they didn’t see or sense anybody close.

"We are close to the heart of the colony. You smell the air? It’s very damp and humid, even for this place.

"There must be a lot of goblins somewhere near."

Fang Raon said.

After the players heard that, they turned serious. They quickly finished looting the fortress and came back to the gate.

"The smell is also disgusting here. Sure, it can be because of all these dead goblins, but it might also be the root cause of the Ice Goblin colony being nearby."

A female player said.

"Right. Just like in those sewers at the First City. The stench is worse the closer to the heart of the Angry Rat Kingdom you get."

A player said.

"We cannot get distracted now. Let’s keep moving. Be extremely vigilant. Since we are this close, we cannot afford to make a single mistake."

Fang Raon said with a serious look on his face.

And without further ado, he made his way to the tunnel—his summoned Ice Goblins leading the way—and every player followed closely behind.

The tunnel was more lit than before. There were more ice crystals on the walls. The smell was also getting much worse with every step.

It was like they were standing next to a garbage pile with ripped-open garbage bags.

In that moment.

Light in the distance. An exit of the tunnel. It was leading somewhere spacious, and they began hearing a lot of noises.

It was like there were hundreds of people talking over each other. The sound of a hammer striking metal. Creaking and groaning.

They were about to walk over to the exit, but then they froze like a person who had turned to statue from Medusa’s gaze.

At the exit, there was an Ice Goblin—it’s back turned on them—and it was swaying like a tree suffering from heavy winds.

It had a bottle of strange liquor in hand. Probably alcohol. But it wasn’t man-made alcohol. It was a product of the Ice Goblins’ own creation.

The infamous Goblin Beer.

Once at a time, the player had tried it for fun, and within five seconds, he started bleeding from every orifice and then died.

"..."

Fang Raon stayed quiet, and then he turned to one of the Assassins—to the stoic and serious one—and signaled him.

Assassin knew what he meant.

He slowly pulled out a dagger from its sheath.

With quiet and slow steps, he activated Stealth and slowly approached the drunken Ice Goblin.

Players held their breath.

"...Urug... Garah..."

The drunken Ice Goblins waved the bottle, noticed that there wasn’t even a drop left, and then nonchalantly tossed it behind him.

Shatter~! The bottle happened to land straight on the Assassin’s face, and it shattered on impact, and the glass sliced his face open.

"Argh, fuck!"

Assassin screamed, but then his eyes opened in shock, and he saw the Ice Goblin slowly turn his head around.

Ice Goblin looked at him with a blank look.

It then also noticed the players over at the distance. It turned silent. No one moved an inch or a muscle.

In that moment...

Ice Goblin’s eyes opened wide in shock, and it opened its mouth, about to scream, but then the Assassin lunged forward.

He lifted the dagger and stabbed it through the Ice Goblin’s bottom jaw and straight into its mouth.

"Ugh... ugh... ugh... ugh..."

Gurgling in its own blood, Ice Goblin tried to reach towards its weapon, but the Assassin didn’t let it.

"Heart Snatch!"

Assassin stabbed his hand through the chest of the Ice Goblin, grabbed the rapidly beating heart, and then ripped it out of the body.

Ice Goblin fell to the ground, lifeless.

"Huff... huff... huff..."

Assassin looked at the heart, dropped to the ground, and then took a towel from his inventory and quickly cleaned himself.

He was breathing heavily and was in somewhat of a panic.

While he’d been acting all stoic and serious, he had actually been very nervous during all this time.

He had been trying to act like a seasoned veteran, but in actuality, he was also a new player, and this was one of his first raids ever.

And it was such an important one too.

He was scared of death. He didn’t want to die. He couldn’t afford another game card, so he didn’t want to die.

’Shit... shit...’

Assassin cursed inside his mind, as he almost blew it for everyone, especially with the stakes being so high.

"You alright?"

At that moment, Fang Raon approached him and noticed that the Assassin was actually quite shaken.

"Yeah, of course."

Assassin quickly hid his panicked expression and put on a fake expression ofconfidence.

"..."

Fang Raon just looked at his bleeding face in silence.

He didn’t need Read to know that the Assassin was afraid. It wasn’t something to be ashamed of.

Every player in this group was afraid and nervous. None of them wanted to die. Fang Raon included.

"Heal."

At that moment, one of the Helpers cast a healing spell on the Assassin, as his face had been cut by the glass.

It soon was back to normal.

’Let’s see what awaits us.’

Fang Raon approached the exit slowly and carefully and then peeked outside, and what he saw made him completely shocked.

’...Just how long has the Ice Goblins been here? It can’t have been just a few days or a week. They must’ve been here for months.

’Years maybe.

’Otherwise, there is no way they could’ve built all of this...’