A ruffle of leaves gave me away seconds before I sprung my attack. Dropping 2 ESS between the goblins and their allies, using [Remote Rune Activation] to detonate them simultaneously.

  The two small wood blocks swiftly changed form as they erupted with spikes of all kinds, various elements channeled through each spike as they skewered the nearby tamers and the shaman leading them. The shaman, the only goblin with green skin, marking him as a member of the Gale faction, Conjured a wind barrier to slow down the electrified spike that slammed into the wall.

  The nearby Fang goblins were not quite as lucky, Spikes protruding from their abdomens, chests, legs, and the occasional ankle stabbing had all of them pressured with debuffs as they were chilled, burnt, shocked or melted by the elemental combinations. Poor guys, Sending my chain out to make staccato stabs through their skulls while I focused on beating the shaman with my fists.

  A golden aura appearing around me as i channeled mana , feeling my strength and speed magnify to levels closer to an iron rank adventurer than a bronze rank. The shaman blasted off wind scythes while dancing rhythmically, the slow, building chants i recognized as the summoning ritual for the wind elementals. I needed to end this fast.

  Dashing in a zig zag pattern, making sure my chain didn’t get out of range from the fang goblins, 10 still alive and fighting it off. I couldn’t avoid the few wind slashes that appeared right next to me, nicking my shoulder and another cutting my sleeve, but i managed to dodge enough to get in range.

  Throwing a flame encased punch, I found the barrier still held strong in front of me, the chanting growing louder and his movements more erratic by the second. I needed to be faster, Imbuing my legs with mana, i sidestepped around the barrier, sending a full powered kick using the momentum.

  A hit! The goblin sputtered, his summoning spell interrupted. Before i could finish him off, I recalled the mana backlash that follows a failed spell activation, be it card or monster.

  Leaping backwards, I barely managed to avoid the body exploding from mana overflow, clearly he hadn’t trained proper mana channeling.

  Groaning, I turned to face the remaining fang goblins. The 6 Goblins looked at me in fear, seeing the loss of a shaman was seemingly something big in the tribe. A shame I can’t use the Body parts for the Disguise rune, mana charged flesh seems to counteract the effect of it.

  “What do you want!” the strongest of the remaining goblins asked, trembling in pain as his foot was continually singed by the flame spike that pinned him to the ground.

  “Nothing much, just to get home, help my family, and grow strong.” Deciding to take the rare opportunity to talk, finally having the upper hand in a fight against the goblins without worrying about the shaman.

  “You can just go if you want, we can tell the Patriarch you quit the forest and killed yourself for good.” The voice was pleading, as if he himself hadn’t contributed to my death dozens of times.

  “I wish, I really wish i could just go. But i can’t leave till i eliminate Gustav.” Deciding to keep my quest to kill the Spirits of Gale and Fang from the tribe, figuring it wouldn’t go well if they knew.

  The goblin seemed pensive about that information, craning his neck to speak to the others in the guttural language of the goblins.

  They seemed to be deep in conversation, with one of the goblins in immense outrage about whatever they were talking about. Pointing and grunting at the goblin who had spoken to me, the goblin tongue still foreign to me. they argued as the other 4 stood anxiously, eyes darting between the arguing goblins and me.

  The one who had spoken to me changed to speaking the common tongue instead of goblin, seemingly trying to let me in on the conversation.

  “Welk, you need to see our options!” He spat at the offended goblin, “The human will let us live if we help him kill Gustav. We need to think about our selves, our families, and not the Spirits for once in our abyssal damned lives!”

  The goblin, apparently named Welk, did not like that point of view. Teeth gnashing, he rebutted. “Rukk! You heretic bastard! You want to betray the Patriarch? The very spirits who granted us our skills? You have gone mad!” The voice of Welk was hard to make out, sounding more like hisses than actual words.

  “Mad? You call me mad? Gustav has all of our families locked in the shrine for spirits sake! He’s sent out more scout parties than ever before! Something’s not right with him right now!”

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  “They’re in the shrine to be protected from this guy!” Welk jabbed a finger in my direction. “He’s killed at least half of us, he killed your brother! How can you try to help him betray the Patriarch after all he’s done!”

  Watching idly, I activated the runes on my cloak again, blending into the background while the goblins were distracted. This was my chance to learn the workings of the camp before I infiltrated.

  The goblins continued arguing, with the one named Rukk seeming to lose more composure by the second.

  “Don’t you see it, Welk?” Snarling, reaching for his dartblower at his side, “The Patriarch doesn’t care about us anymore. He just cares for the spirits, and those Abyss damned eggs!” Yelling the last words, I could see a thread of brown mana swirl from behind Rukk, starting to go into the forest as if in the search for a connection.

  “How peculiar.” I mumbled to myself, this could be getting interesting. Deciding to let the goblins continue to argue, i watched, learning whatever i could from their discussion.

  “Rukk, If you attack, the spirits will kill your family.” Welk threatened, changing his course of action, “They will slaughter your mate, cull your herd, and string up your daughter.”

  At the mention of his daughter, I could see Rukk tense up. Like a cornered animal who knew the stakes were life or death.

  Welk continued the attack, “Do you want little Vekkra to be killed? Right after she awakened a contract skill, you want to snuff like a bright flame with your blasphemy?”

  oh he shouldn’t have done that, letting out a low whistle as i observed the mana coming from Rukk suddenly grow agitated. The tendril seeming to snap into place as i heard a small rustle coming from the woods.

  My mana senses were tingling, as if grazing over multiple other mana signatures. It kind of tickled. Activiting Mana sight, I saw a large number of earth aligned auras. The noise growing louder as a dust cloud surrounded them.

  Turning back to the goblins, I saw Welk with a blowdart sticking out of his arm, it seemed i had missed a pivotal part of the encounter. The other dang goblins, seeing who initiated the fight, joined up alongside welk and were preparing various abilities, weapons brandished and fangs bared.

  That was when the Horned Rabbits appeared, 15 small brown rabbits came charging out of the forest, looks of fury on their face as they leaped at the 5 goblins who were challenging Rukk.

  “He’s a bunny tamer?” I couldn’t hide the incredulous tone in my voice, this scene was just too much to maintain seriousness for. It was too abyssal funny.

  The bunnies, on the other hand, were taking this very seriously. Small squeaks of fury came funneling from the bunny horde as they rammed the already debilitated goblins, their small horns leaving only bruises on the earth attuned goblins. The same affinity dealing significantly less damage.

  Deciding, I ran over to Rukk and removed the flaming stake from his foot, trying not to draw attention to myself while doing so. Rukk spotted me anyway.

  “Human? What are you doing?” his face was contorted into a look of exhaustion, his mana being spent freely and wildly throughout his tamed creatures.

  “I’m getting you out of here! We can discuss everything later.” I semi shouted at him, the stake held between my gauntlets as i imbued more fire affinity mana into them, quickly turning the wood to ash.

  The fang goblins behind use were mounting a counter attack, 8 of the rabbits lay dead from various attacks as the other 7 attacked the remaining 3 goblins. Both sides having taken about half of the other.

  Once Rukk was free and patched up, some tree sap and an odd healing ability one of the rabbits seemed to have getting him back into fighting form. The golden glow coming from his foot as the skin stitched itself together and healed from its burnt state.

  “Should we kill them?” I asked the goblin, sure he knew more about the tribe than I did. Nodding his head, I saw a flicker of sadness on his face before he let out a sharp whistle. The mana connecting him to the rabbits flared as their horns lit up different colors.

  Sending my chain to kill Welk, I was blinded by the 7 glowing horns, each one radiating an ability as they charged the final goblins. As they ran closer I could see the abilities impacting them differently, some growing bulging muscles, the one with the healing skills horn turned an emerald green as it elongated into a sharp saber, and another two turning grey as their skin hardened into steel.

  The Goblins were slaughtered, a brutal sight as they tried to fight against the rabbits, the betrayal evident on their faces. If i wasn’t already numb to death, i’m not sure how i would e handled seeing their faces like this. The previous timeline me would never have been able to see this before the rift war.

  Shaking my head again, clearing my thoughts. I turned to Rukk to see his face pale, clearly he wasn’t used to the death of comrades yet, even if he betrayed them first.

  “We need to go.” I started making my way back to my cave, the recent raids removing another 2 scouting parties before this one. Looking back, I saw Rukk burying his dead rabbits, small tears in his eyes.

  Walking back to him, i couldn’t help but ask “So you’re a rabbit tamer?”

  “Yes-“ He cut himself off with another sob as he buried the smallest looking one. “They are my closest friends, my family away from family.” The 4 remaining Rabbits came to him with their eyes watery, nuzzling him in an effort to cheer the goblin up.

  Watching the somber sight, staying silent as to not disturb the grieving goblin. Even if we were just tenuous allies, everyone should be allowed to grieve the fallen. Memories flashing of my past again, burying friends and family as the world fell to rifts and ash, the small team of survivors needing to bury entire kingdoms worth of bodies.

  An hour later, when all the bodies had been buried and all the ceremonies complete, Rukk turned to me. “You better have a plan.” He grumbled, “Spirits know what’s happening to my family and daughter right now.” Hearing mention of his daughter, I remember Welk mentioning her earlier, something about a Contract skill?

  “What’s your daughter’s skill?” A blunt question, but given our circumstances the fastest one, “Welk said it was something related to a contract?”

  He seemed uncomfortable sharing the information, but eventually Rukk gave in. “Her skill, Contract of The Fang, bound a fang spirit to her soul, she can use the contract to summon it at will and it grows alongside her.” His composure cracked a little as he continued, “She’s the only Fang goblin to gain a contract skill, all the others come from the Gale shaman. They took her to the shrine immediately, and that was before you even appeared in our forest. She’s my little girl, I need to get her and my mate out of the shrine.”

  Staring at me with fire in his eyes, “You’re going to help me, right?” Remembering how hard it was for me and my family when i awakened my original formation card and was whisked away to the capital for training, i couldn’t let that happen to these goblins, even if they’re just a part of the tutorial and not real. Everyone deserves help, even if they were once enemies.

  “Of course, Well get her out after Gustav is taken care of, okay?” Reminding the goblin of the reason i was still here.

  “Fine Fine, as long as she isn’t hurt I don’t care what we need to do.”

  “Then let’s head back to my shelter and make a new plan, My current one won’t work with a second person as of right now.”

  Leading the way, Rukk and I began the slow walk back to my cave. The wind felt heavier on the way back, the earth jsut a little harder to walk through