Narg’s warning never finished.
The dome shuddered once, twice, then split open with a violent crack.
The sound was like stone grinding against stone, followed by an eruption of force that blasted outward in a wave of heat and grit.
Every goblin threw up their arms, faces buried behind forearms and weapons as shards of blood-mist and raw energy sprayed across the clearing.
When the haze thinned enough to see, silence fell.
Amon stood at the center of it all.
He was hunched low, his body coiled like a predator about to spring, steam rising in threads from his shoulders. A crimson aura swirled about him, clinging to his flesh like a second skin. His once-green body bore patches of living red, the skin mottled and slick, as if his very flesh had been rewritten. Every trace of his earlier wounds was gone; no burns, no blood, no weakness.
And from his throat came a sound that was not quite a roar, not quite a growl—something feral, guttural, the cry of a beast that had clawed its way free of a cage.
Then his eyes lifted.
The shaman froze where he stood, his staff trembling faintly in his grip. His chest tightened as his heart thundered, the weight of that gaze pressing down on him.
This wasn’t the Amon he had battled only moments ago. This was something else.
Something born of the corpses, the ritual, and the blood.
The sheer pressure rolling off him warped the air itself, a force so alien and heavy that Narg could hardly breathe beneath it.
What... what the hell is this? The thought hammered through his mind.
Never in his years had he felt such raw, unrestrained malice.
This was not mana, not shamanic craft—this was power born of corruption.
For a breathless instant, no one moved.
Then Zarah’s fingers loosed.
Her arrow cut the air with a shrill hiss and buried itself straight into Amon’s skull.
Amon staggered back from the impact, his upper body snapping violently with the force of the arrow’s strike.
For a moment it looked as though he would collapse, but the lower half of his body refused to follow, jerking upright as if some invisible tether had anchored him in place.
The motion was unnatural, puppet-like, a grotesque parody of balance.
Then, slowly, his torso straightened.
An eerie grin spread across his face, wide and deliberate, the crimson haze curling tighter around him.
With one hand, he gripped the shaft of the arrow lodged in his skull and yanked it free in a single motion.
Blood sprayed across the dirt in a hot arc, but even as it fell, the wound knitted shut. Flesh pulled together, bone reformed, and the blood itself dissolved into the aura that writhed along his skin until nothing remained but smooth, unbroken flesh.
And then he went still.
The silence pressed against the goblins like a weight.
A blink later, he was gone.
The air cracked with displacement, and before anyone could process it, Amon was standing behind Narg, his shadow falling over the shaman’s back.
Narg barely had time to draw breath, let alone turn.
Instinct alone saved him, his staff flaring as he forced dredges of mana into a shield. A translucent barrier shimmered into existence just as Amon’s fist came crashing down.
The impact was apocalyptic.
Amon’s fist crashed through the shield as if it were paper, shards of light scattering like broken glass.
His knuckles buried themselves into Narg’s gut with such force that the sound of impact cracked across the clearing.
Narg’s body folded around the blow, the breath wrenched violently from his lungs, before he was hurled downward.
Amon’s foot slammed into his ribs, the strike precise and merciless, launching him like a ragdoll.
Narg tumbled through dirt and stone until his back collided with a tree hard enough to splinter bark. The trunk shuddered from the impact, and Narg slumped to the ground, gasping, blood flecking his lips.
Dribb’s roar tore across the clearing.
The bulky goblin charged with his shield raised high, slamming into Amon with the full weight of his body. The blow drove the corrupted shaman back a step, boots scraping across dirt, the momentum enough to push him several paces further.
The rest of Eli’s clan moved at once.
Thok vanished into the shadows, his form blurring and then disappearing entirely as stealth cloaked him. Zonk and Gobbo spread wide, circling in from opposite flanks, their weapons gleaming in the dim light.
But Amon only grinned.
He let Dribb push, let the massive goblin drive him back across the ground, the red aura still writhing along his body. Then, with a sudden stop, he planted his foot like an anchor, halting the momentum cold. Muscles bunched beneath his warped flesh as he lifted one hand and slammed it against the shield.
The strike rattled like thunder.
Dribb staggered as the shield was knocked aside, his balance thrown off.
In the same motion, Amon’s other fist came crashing forward, the blow catching the shield-bearer in the chest. The impact lifted Dribb clean off his feet, sending him flying backward.
He hit the ground hard, sliding through the dirt and leaving a deep furrow before finally skidding to a stop.
Zonk reached Amon, blade cutting down in a sharp arc.
Amon responded without hesitation, his fist snapping up to meet the attack.
The goblin warrior twisted, barely avoiding the direct strike, but the sheer force of the near miss was enough to send him staggering back. The shockwave of displaced air alone knocked him off balance, his boots dragging grooves into the ground before he managed to stop himself.
Gobbo crashed into him next, shield ramming into Amon’s chest with a heavy crack before the warrior swung his axe in a brutal follow-up.
But Amon did something that made those watching froze.
Instead, he caught the descending axe with his bare hand, and the blade bit deep into his forearm, splitting skin and muscle.
Blood spilled hot and fast—yet he held it there, stopping the weapon cold before it could carve through completely.
Gobbo’s eyes widened, but before...