The two spear goblins and one archer had finally approached, and upon noticing Merlin they immediately attacked him.
Merlin attempted to dodge another arrow while weaving through the two spears that were thrust at him, but he failed to dodge it fast enough and the arrow barely scratched his cheek.
Seemingly enraged by this, vines rushed out of Merlin's arms, one entangled the archer goblin while the other forcibly ripped the bow out of its hands and flung it into the forest.
Merlin received the notification for cleanse coming off cooldown, so he began chanting it as he dodged two more spears that were thrust at him. The goblins missed Merlin, but decided to slash at his vines instead, forcing them to retract into his body.
Cleanse had finished casting, and the filth was swiftly removed from his blades, just in time too, as the goblins both charged at him. Merlin pushed one spear to the side, forcing it to slide past him harmlessly as the goblin holding it stumbled forward.
Merlin hit the other spear with the handle of his blade and forced it into the ground, only for him to step on it once it had partially buried itself in the forest floor. The goblin holding that spear found it near impossible to dig out under Merlin's weight. Instead of having the brain to let go of the weapon and run, the goblin just stood there struggling as Merlin dug his daggers into its throat, killing it.
The other goblin had regained its footing, but once it turned to face Merlin, it too received a pair of daggers to the throat.
Merlin sheathed his blades before he grabbed the goblin's spear. He saw the archer goblin running towards where he threw the bow, and it seemed to have found it. With all his remaining strength, he threw the spear at the goblin. The spear arced through the air before embedding itself in the goblin's back. The force behind the throw transmitted to the goblin, causing it to be flung face-first into the forest soil.
Merlin picked up the other spear that was partially buried in the dirt before he started walking towards the goblin. The goblin was slowly crawling towards the bow, but Merlin made it to the goblin first, and while standing over the helpless creature, he thrust the spear into its neck, killing it.
"That was exhausting." Merlin huffed as he ripped the spears out of the goblin's corpse.
Fortunately no other groups had closed in on his position yet, so he pulled a dagger out and began chopping ears off. He made sure to go back and grab the ears from the other groups too, such as the shield goblin he killed first. He threw everything in his inventory before casting cleanse on himself once more.
「Goblin Ears Collected: 70/140」
"We're half way there." Merlin mumbled to himself, he seemed to have found himself a moment of respite.
Merlin climbed a large tree and sat on one of the lower branches while he caught his breath. If a group wandered around his location, not only would he be able to see them better, but he'd have the option of a surprise attack if they got too close. Unless of course one of the goblins just so happened to spot him up in a tree, and it seemed that only the archers were perceptive enough for that sort of thing.
A few minutes later, Merlin's breathing had returned to normal, and he could feel energy run through his body once more.
Another group slowly wandered into his area, and they noticed the corpses of their tribe scattered around the forest floor. There was one archer, two swordsmen one of which had a shield, and a spear wielder.
Merlin, who currently held two spears in his arms, was sitting up in the tree watching the goblins wander around the area. He wanted to deal with the shield bearer first, but the archer would also be an issue, and unfortunately the shield wielding goblin didn't have any intention of wandering under his tree branch.
The next fight started with the archer goblin being removed from combat immediately, two spears thrown in quick succession caused the archer to drop to the ground as a corpse. Merlin began chanting his heavy strike skill as the remaining three goblins turned to face him.
「Skill ⟪Heavy Strike⟫ Activated, your next attack will do an extra 30% damage, and has a 10% chance to trigger the stagger effect.」
Merlin leapt off the tree branch in the direction of the shield bearer. The spear goblin got prepared to intercept him, but Merlin quickly sent his vines out to hook around another tree branch, allowing him to safely swing outside of the spear's reach.
The shield bearer braced himself behind the shield as Merlin quickly closed the distance. Merlin's next swing increased his momentum greatly, allowing him to put as much power into his next attack. Instead of landing on the ground, Merlin stomped down on the shield. He heard the jingle of heavy strike trigger.
The shield goblin was pushed back several steps. Merlin landed and used this opportunity to rush at it, but the goblin quickly regained a defensive position behind its shield.
Two vines rushed out of Merlin's body and thrust towards the goblin. They barely avoided the goblin's sword strike as they latched onto the shield and tried ripping it away, but it seemed like the goblin didn't intend on letting go.
Fortunately, his vines trying to rip it away gave him enough of a gap in the goblin's defences that he could slip his blades past the shield. Merlin's blades quickly found their target, the goblin's throat, and it dropped dead moments later.
The other two goblins rushed him from behind, but Merlin dealt with them with ease. He received a notification after killing the last goblin.
「Congratulations, your soul "Class Soul: Fighter (Level 1)" has levelled up.」
"Well it's about time." He quietly remarked.
Fortunately, out of all the souls, the fighter soul was one of the least pickiest souls when it came to specific weapon requirements. All that mattered was that you were killing things or using the skills provided by it.
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Merlin checked his surroundings to see if there were any more enemies, and only after a second scan did he lower his guard somewhat to harvest more goblin ears.
「Goblin Ears Collected: 78/140」
While he was still relatively safe, he loaded up his fighter soul to check the stats.
┌───────────────────
Class Soul: Fighter • Level 2
Bonus Stats: +4 Strength, +2 Agility
Abilities: ⟪Heavy Strike⟫
Origin Soul Bonuses: +2 Strength, +3 Agility, ⟪Sucker-punch⟫
└───────────────────
Not only did the stats rise, albeit not by much, the soul's skills received buffs too. Heavy strike's extra damage and stagger chance were both increased by five percent.
After a short break to catch his breath, Merlin went back to hunting goblins, the process repeated itself several more times, with Merlin slaughtering his way through five more groups. Eventually he collected the last ear of his latest victim and threw it in his inventory.
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「Goblin Ears Collected: 116/140」
"Twelve goblins to go." He mumbled to himself.
Merlin threw a couple bows and quivers over his shoulder, he slid his arm through a shield and picked up a handful of spears. He carried everything back towards the treeline around the goblin camp.
As he stared in to the almost vacant goblin camp, he saw that there were only six goblins remaining. Four were the armour wearing guards, while the other two were the spellcaster and the hobgoblin leader.
He wasn't entirely sure, but Merlin was confident that he wiped out the rest of the camp.
It was six versus one, but unlike the army he had just slaughtered over the span of an hour, these six were clearly much stronger. Merlin's main target was the spellcaster, as it posed the greatest threat to him.
Merlin took his time spreading spears along the treeline and setting bows and quivers down around the area. He was hoping to fight it out from a distance, but if they approached him, he would at least want it to be in a situation where the spellcaster was dead.
Merlin rest the shield down on the ground and picked up one of the bows and quiver full of arrows. He had the spellcaster in his sights, he drew his bow back and let an arrow fly.
The arrow ripped through the air, and before the goblins noticed the arrow had been successfully embedded in the goblin spellcaster's chest. The goblins all turned to face Merlin, who had just nocked another arrow on his bow.
Small black sparks began coalescing around the tip of the spellcaster goblin's staff. Merlin saw this and realised he was dealing with black magic, meaning the goblin's identity was most likely a goblin hexer, one of the most annoying types.
Merlin let the arrow fly before he was forced to duck out of the way as a black bolt of energy flew past his head and hit the tree behind him.
Merlin hit the ground and quickly turned around, only to see that there was a deep eroded hole in the side of the tree where the bolt hit. It appeared as though the tree bark around the hole had corroded.
"Ahh, a corrosive bolt." Merlin sighed, "That's not fair."
Corrosion did increased damage against item durability, it did deal damage to people and left nasty looking wounds, but most people were concerned with what it would do to their items.
His attention was brought back to the camp as he heard metal clanking, the armoured goblins were approaching him. But looking past the armoured goblins, it seemed his second arrow had successfully hit the hexer in the chest.