Chapter 94: Mutation

“Ding!”

Inside the dimly lit cave, sparks flew.

A finely crafted standard cleaver, flashing with cold light, suddenly chopped against the surface of the stone wall.

It only crushed a few scattered patches of moss.

He dodged the enemy’s attack in a sorry state.

Xia Nan rolled to his feet, the tip of the Decapitation Long Sword touching the ground.

Breathing heavily, the strands of hair on his forehead were clumped with sweat, and a few specks of mud still clung to his cheeks.

The outer side of his thigh-length trousers was cut open, faintly revealing the blood gradually seeping out beneath.

—This was a cut made just now in the battle, accidentally sliced open by a sharp-edged rock on the cave floor.

Fortunately, the wound was not very deep. With his constitution, it would soon scab over and recover on its own, with no need to worry about excessive bleeding.

And before him, the enemy he was now fighting.

Was a humanoid monster with an adult male build and reddish-brown skin.

“Earth Goblin!”

Like the Bugbear, this creature was also one of the Goblin subspecies.

Like two branches from the same piece of wood.

If the Bugbear’s evolutionary direction was body size and strength;

Then the Earth Goblin’s was wisdom and command ability.

With a challenge rating of “5,” an ordinary Earth Goblin without any other talents was basically no match for its burly cousin in a one-on-one fight.

But its intelligence, far surpassing its kin, granted it greater potential.

These natural leaders and commanders could easily become the Leader of a large Goblin settlement upon reaching adulthood, and by relying on plundering experience handed down from generation to generation, rapidly develop the tribe into a threat to other intelligent creatures.

In some extremely special cases, some elite individuals could even, under the protection of their Main God, grasp combat techniques, gain class levels, and even manipulate magic particles…

Of course, these had nothing to do with the one Xia Nan was facing right now.

“Roar!!!”

Viscous saliva dripped from the tips of its yellow-brown tusks.

The Earth Goblin brandished the cleaver in its hand, roaring in rage.

After its fierce clash with Xia Nan, it was naturally far from unscathed.

Its arms, waist, and calves were all covered in scars left by the sword blade.

And its gradually fading life and stamina made it increasingly irritable.

“Damn flea, I’ll chop off your head and feed your brains to the maggots in the latrine pit!”

However, this insult thick with tribal tone did not disrupt its opponent’s rhythm or cause him to lose control to surging emotions.

Xia Nan’s expression remained calm.

He even felt a little like laughing inside.

In his previous life he had hammered at his keyboard, waging forum wars night after night with experts from all over.

These threats from an Earth Goblin held no aggressiveness for him whatsoever.

If he really wanted to enrage the other side.

All he had to do was casually pick one or two lines from the countless retorts flashing unconsciously through his mind and say them out loud.

This “pure” tribal youth before him would probably break down on the spot and charge in to fight him recklessly.

There was no need.

Xia Nan had entered the cave of his own accord to make use of real combat as much as possible to speed up his learning of combat techniques.

Now that the enemy’s wounds were worsening, its combat ability was rapidly declining, and it had lost its value as a sparring partner.

He no longer wanted to waste time.

Kill it and be done.

“Clang!”

The iron-gray Decapitation Long Sword was held horizontally before Xia Nan’s chest, firmly blocking the downward cleaving strike from the Earth Goblin.

The sword body quivered slightly from the violent impact.

As if they were about to enter a sword-locking contest of strength, Xia Nan suddenly relaxed the arm gripping the sword hilt.

“Bang.”

His leather boots, rimed with ice crystals, ground against the filth and moss on the cave floor and exploded with force!

The scenery on both sides slid back; the air around him froze in an instant, as if submerged in deep water.

In his ears, some kind of beast’s cry seemed to be building and gathering.

And just as the beast’s howl grew louder and seemed about to erupt completely in the next second.

It suddenly stopped, cut short.

“Too bad, just a little short.”

The thought surfaced in his mind.

Under the effect of 【Fang Hunt】, Xia Nan should have blinked straight to the enemy’s rear.

Because the combat technique had not yet fully reached novice level, he only displaced to the Earth Goblin’s flank before his speed stalled.

But it was already enough.

Like a taut string, Xia Nan’s waist and abdomen exerted force, using the momentum of his forward rush to twist his body. The Decapitation Long Sword traced a perfect arc.

【Whirl Slash】!

Hum—

A crescent-shaped, iron-gray, razor-edged gleam flashed through the air and vanished in an instant.

【Cleave Master】’s five percent bonus to cleaving damage stacked with the long sword’s five percent decapitation affix.

On an upward diagonal,

Just one stroke.

And it sheared away the Earth Goblin’s left shoulder bone and half its head.

“Thud.”

The incomplete corpse collapsed limply. Xia Nan wiped away the obvious bloodstains from the sword body and slowly sheathed his blade.

At this moment, it had been exactly four days since he followed the Barbarian into the forest.

Tedious daily training, combined with a large amount of real combat tempering, had made his familiarity with 【Fang Hunt】 soar at an astonishing speed.

Now he was only one final push away from truly reaching novice level.

Perhaps… after one more high-quality battle, he could fully master it and have 【Fang Hunt】 appear on his status panel.

His dark pupils glanced at the Earth Goblin on the ground. Xia Nan subconsciously turned around and swept his gaze over the Goblin Cave, which was obviously cleaner and more spacious than the previous lairs.

A thoughtful look appeared on his face.

Having fought his way down all the way from the ground entrance, he knew it all too well.

This unusually spacious lair that resembled a small square.

In reality housed fewer than twenty Goblins.

The Earth Goblin was far from as powerful in combat as a Bugbear.

But in terms of how troublesome it was, it far surpassed the latter.

Its near-human intelligence and seemingly innate grasp of various military methods allowed it to use harsh measures to suppress the chaotic nature of its Goblin underlings.

Like an army, it made them obey orders and follow commands.

With just more than a dozen Goblins, under the leadership of an Earth Goblin, they had built the lair into an ant nest of interwoven passages, full of branches and narrow paths.

In some places they had even set up simple traps to guard against intruders.

And when facing Xia Nan’s intrusion into the lair, those Green Skins who were usually reckless and mad, rushing in swinging clubs without a thought.

Actually showed a bit of tactical sense under the Earth Goblin’s commands: attacking from front and back, flanking from left and right, and even keeping some in the rear of the team to throw stones at him.

If the Goblins had numbered a bit more, or had a few decent ranged weapons… no, even if they had simply been prepared for his incursion.

He would not have been able to hack his way through so cleanly and reach the Earth Goblin at the deepest part of the cave like this.

Xia Nan had estimated in his mind that if there had been 10 more Goblins, then even with dual swords in hand and fully armed, to be safe, he would have had to retreat for the time being.

“Awooo~”

From a corner of the cave came the whimpering sound of canine creatures.

They were two Direwolves as tall as an adult’s thigh, just having left their juvenile stage.

Yes,

Just like the other intelligent creatures on the Continent that had already formed civilizations.

Livestock that provided meat, cattle and horses that transported goods, birds and beasts that delivered letters…

In addition to a certain level of military capability, Earth Goblins possessed the ability to tame animals.

The techniques passed down in their tribes allowed them to raise Direwolves from young, making these equally vicious-natured creatures obey their masters’ commands.

When grown, paired with Goblins skilled in the corresponding techniques, they became a low-end version of “wolf cavalry.”

They too had fairly good intelligence.

Xia Nan even felt these two Direwolves were quite a bit smarter than ordinary Goblin minions.

He had merely taken two steps toward them.

The two Direwolves whimpered, lowered their bodies, and lay on the ground.

At the stretch of a hand, they rolled over with tongues lolling, exposing the soft bellies beneath their gray-black fur.

Completely unconcerned that he had just slaughtered their master, utterly docile.

One slightly cleverer one even wagged its tail, picked up that half Earth Goblin skull, and laid it flatteringly at his feet.

Xia Nan could not help but click his tongue in amazement.

But before he could make a move, in the next second, accompanied by the slow footsteps from behind him, an icy cold wind suddenly swept past.

In the blink of an eye, the Direwolves before him turned into two crystal ice sculptures, completely devoid of life.

They even retained their previous tail-wagging, fawning posture.

“Cannot be properly tamed. Don’t touch them.”

The Obsidian Axe swayed lightly at his waist as Foggon spoke slowly.

Normally, if they were just ordinary beasts, there was no such thing as good or evil; everything they did was driven purely by survival instinct.

But Direwolves were different.

Their intelligence was very high, almost reaching that of a human child.

Some individuals even understood simple Common Tongue and Goblin Language.

Under such circumstances, with their innately vicious and cunning nature, they undoubtedly belonged to the evil alignment.

Wild Direwolves often roamed the wilderness in packs, stealing livestock raised by humans, killing lone farmers, and attacking passing caravans.

Even toward the Green Skins who had raised them from young, the slightest dissatisfaction could, under the urge of hunting instinct, make them bite through throats and turn them into dinner.

Their temperament was fickle and unpredictable; in the truest sense, they “could not be properly tamed.”

Only those Druids who revered nature and walked with beasts could rely on their class abilities to live in harmony with them.

If Xia Nan kept these two Direwolves by his side, he would basically never be able to sleep again.

After all, no one knew whether one of these beasts might bear a grudge just because there was one less bone in its dinner than yesterday, and take the chance while he was resting to bite him to death.

Shrugging, Xia Nan stopped paying them attention.

He turned to collect the loot in the cave.

The Barbarian behind him, as always, stood where he was, summoning the Wolf Spirit and probing for something.

Previously, Xia Nan had wondered why, when the Misty Forest was so vast and full of countless monsters suitable for his real combat, they specifically targeted Green Skins as if there were some vendetta.

After these past few days, he had more or less figured out the reason.

The thing the other man was investigating should be related to Goblins.

He had simply taken on the commission to teach combat techniques, and incidentally let Xia Nan use the various Goblins in the lairs for practice.

After each battle, he even left Xia Nan half an hour to gather loot.

When they encountered elite individuals like Bugbears, he would even help freeze and preserve the parts that could be exchanged for bounty.

“He’s actually pretty nice.”

Xia Nan praised him inwardly.

At the same time, he guessed that the other man had probably done this line of work in his youth, and knew that low-level adventurers like Xia Nan did not earn money easily.

Although Xia Nan’s life was decent enough—even if he went ten days or half a month without any income and used all his time to study combat techniques, he could still rely on his deposits to maintain a certain quality of life.

But since the other party had taken the initiative to show goodwill, he had no reason to refuse.

Twenty minutes later.

Standing in the center of the cave, Xia Nan folded his arms across his chest, frowning.

“How strange.”

The Earth Goblin’s left ear had been chopped to pieces in battle and no longer functioned for bounty exchange.

In a fierce fight, if you had a chance to kill, you naturally could not worry about such details.

Losing a few gold coins of income was acceptable.

What felt strange to Xia Nan was that after searching the entire cave, he had not found even a single Copper Coin.

That was unusual.

Even in lairs of just a handful of Green Skins, the simplest kind, you could at least find a few Small Stones that could fetch a price.

Given the scale of this cave, he should have gained much more.

At the same time, the translucent Wolf Spirit wandering in midair, which usually circled once before returning to the Barbarian, had not stopped this time.

As if it had found some traces of something, it slowed and searched carefully.

Xia Nan’s gaze followed the circling Wolf Spirit, sweeping repeatedly through the cave.

And then paused.

In a corner of the cave, a half-man-tall piece of Broken Rock blocked the way.

Compared with the surroundings, the rock’s surface had little dust, and the ground nearby clearly showed many scraping marks, as if it were often moved.

Striding over, Xia Nan braced both hands against the rock and pushed hard.

Then, embedded in the inner stone wall, a pitch-black Small Wooden Box appeared in his line of sight.

Suppressing his excitement, he stayed cautious and backed a few steps toward the rear and side.

Then he drew his long sword and used the tip to hook the edge of the lid.

Gently pried it open.

“Hum…”

Silvery-white gleams, mixed with a substantial amount of golden light, reflected into view in the dimness.

“Whoa!”

Seeing that no mechanism had been triggered, Xia Nan hurried closer for a careful look.

He reached into the little chest and grabbed a handful, feeling the coins slip through his fingers.

He gauged the value in his heart.

At least thirty gold!

And that was just the income from the coins, not counting the dozen or so bright, glimmering Small Stones in the money box.

Cradling the Wooden Chest in his arms.

Xia Nan had just turned around.

Whoosh—

An unusual, bone-piercing cold wind, carrying an indescribably chilling aura, suddenly swept out from within the cave.

In Foggon’s ice-blue, pure eyes, crimson blood veins like cracks emerged; his throat swelled with a heavy, suffocatingly dangerous growl.

Foggon still stood in place, the wolf-pelt cloak with overlapping Wolf’s Maws on his shoulders like some pale cold flame rising from beneath the ice, scorching his body.

The Wolf Spirit stood on all fours, its body taut; its icicle-like tusks gleamed with cold light amidst a vigilant wolf howl.

Ahead was the Earth Goblin’s corpse with only half a head remaining.

At some unknown moment, its thickly haired finger had fused with a patch of moss on the damp ground.

Fine mycelium crept and spread.

Transforming into a pale green Mushroom swaying gently as if in the wind.

“The plan has changed.”

“We’re going back to the city.”