The Obsidian Goblin (5)
Ugh...
It looked like I’d blacked out for a moment.
“Mi-Miho! Are you with me?”
“...Lady Haneul.”
“Thank god, thank god…! Hic, I really thought you were dead…!”
Before I could even thank Lee Ha-neul, I asked for the situation.
“Lady Haneul, what’s happening?”
“...Look over there.”
The Taoist master, Hojun, was holding the line against the Force Arts users. But the enemy wasn’t three of them anymore. There were five. Two more had shown up while I was unconscious.
“This is bad. They must have slipped in secretly, those weird spiral-shaped things… goblins? Whatever they are. I tried to ambush that one, but every time I did, the other Force Arts users threw themselves in the way like ghosts to protect it. I can’t attack fellow Force Arts users, so… haa. If only my master would show up, a goblin like that would be nothing! …Wait, if Master comes, that might be its own kind of disaster…? What if the goblin brainwashes him too…? Ugh.”
“...You can see the goblin too, Lady Haneul?”
“Yeah. I don’t know why, but I can. It looks disgusting… I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
It seemed the goblin club Lee Ha-neul carried let her perceive the creature.
“Cough… ugh…”
“Don’t talk. Your wounds are serious.”
“The other… why are the other Force Arts users…”
“The protection spell doesn’t seem to work on them anymore.”
Once someone fell under the incantation, the protective Taoist Arts apparently lost their effect. The goblin kept its spiraling form trained on us, staring. Yet it never moved to kill us directly.
It was clear now. This goblin couldn’t launch physical attacks on anyone its words couldn’t control. If it could have, it would have ended me long ago.
The path to victory was simple. The goblin was secondary. First we had to peel away those Force Arts users. Then we could kill it. Without them, the goblin itself probably didn’t have much raw power.
I glanced sideways and watched Hojun fight in a daze.
...Hojun, huh. He was even more monstrous than I’d thought.
Even though he had no spiritual power left, those three Force Arts users had beaten me like a dog on a sweltering summer day. That was how strong they were. Yet unlike me, who had been utterly helpless, Hojun didn’t have a single scratch on him. And he was handling five of them, not three.
Still, just like Lee Ha-neul said, the situation wasn’t good. Hojun looked visibly exhausted. That was understandable. The Force Arts users under the goblin’s incantation were attacking with lethal sincerity, as if they would kill him any second. Hojun couldn’t strike back at them, so he could only use defensive Taoist Arts to block their assaults.
If a rumor spread that a Taoist master had killed Force Arts users… that would be its own catastrophe.
Anyway. Everything else aside, I had to help Hojun…
“Cough.”
“Mi-Miho!”
One cough brought up a horrifying amount of dark blood.
...My body felt completely wrecked. Luckily my spiritual power had recovered a little while I was out. I used just enough to heal myself to the point where I could barely move.
I couldn’t waste any more spiritual power on my own injuries. I focused on fixing my mangled internal organs first and left my right leg, twisted at a grotesque angle, exactly as it was. Every step sent hellish pain screaming through me, but I endured it. I clenched my teeth and endured. And endured.
My precious spiritual power had to be saved to shatter that goblin’s spiral.
“So. You think you can jump into that mess? With a body like that?”
“...”
“Honestly, I’m not confident. I burned through almost all my energy using the club.”
I wasn’t confident either. The battle between five Force Arts users and Hojun was so intense that even if I’d been in perfect condition, I would have needed real resolve to join. The ground shook every time the Force Arts users struck, and Hojun deflected the shockwaves with defensive Taoist Arts. If I crawled into the middle of that with this broken body, I might as well have been holding up a sign that said please kill me.
I’d only become dead weight that interfered with Hojun’s fight.
But I couldn’t just sit here waiting for my spiritual power to recover. Like Lee Ha-neul said, if her master arrived and got brainwashed by the goblin, it would be over.
What could I do? The excruciating pain from my leg made clear thinking impossible. All I could manage was groan in agony…
“Ah, that’s it!”
Suddenly Lee Ha-neul clapped her hands together like she’d had a brilliant idea. Then she turned to me.
“Miho, I feel awful asking this when you’re so badly hurt… but can you heal me a little?”
The moment she finished speaking, I poured what little spiritual power I had left into her without even asking why. It wasn’t just anyone. It was Lee Ha-neul asking.
Once her energy returned, she grabbed her club.
"The spiritual beast is."
"The ally of humans."
⟨ INCANTATION ⟩
"The light of the world."
Right after she swung the club, Lee Ha-neul collapsed. The targets of her incantation were obviously the five Force Arts users. Whether it had worked properly or not, the Force Arts users faltered for a brief moment. In that short window Hojun bound all five of their feet.
I dragged my shredded leg and charged straight at the goblin. Its spiral thrashed wildly. It was panicking.
It swung its club again, but it was already too late. I poured the last faint traces of my spiritual power into my claws and slashed the goblin diagonally.
With a sharp shrrrrk!, the spiral began losing its rotational force.
Damn… I didn’t cut deep enough.
The Taoist master and the spiritual beast are
the enemy of all.
The darkness of the world.
The once-in-a-lifetime chance Lee Ha-neul had created vanished in vain. The Force Arts users, now under the goblin’s incantation, charged at Hojun with reckless abandon, not caring if they destroyed themselves. Lee Ha-neul was down. I no longer had the strength to move even a single finger.
But.
“Heh… heheheh.”
I laughed. I sneered at the goblin’s spiral.
Thanks to Lee Ha-neul, my mind was finally working again. The fact that her incantation had affected them meant other forms of mental domination might work too.
I couldn’t be certain, but there was no other option anyway. I used to think this ability was completely useless. Maybe the gods had given it to me precisely for a moment like this.
Truly, divine insight was not something a mere yokai could hope to measure.
I released the Charm I had been suppressing and began pouring pheromones wildly toward the five Force Arts users.
Whether Charm was stronger or the incantation was stronger… we’d just have to see.
The following is a fragment from the vanished annals of the Shang Dynasty in ancient China, from the fifty-sixth cycle of the sexagenary calendar.
A being wrapped in countless spirals. The goblin of Chi among the Imemangryang opened its mouth as it gazed at the woman lounging seductively upon the throne. No… at the fox with eight tails.
[I am the goblin of Chi among the Imemangryang. You who toy with the Shang Dynasty, your deception ends today.]
The woman, half-naked, looked at the goblin with a bored expression. It was the arrogant gaze one might give to an inferior. At her feet, a man wearing a royal crown wore an ecstatic expression. It was King Zhou.
An abnormal sight: the king of an entire nation kneeling at the feet of his favored concubine.
“Haaaaaaaawn.”
The woman yawned and spoke.
“Consider it heavenly fortune that this lady is in a good mood today and feel free to brag about it to your comrades. Now begone, nameless goblin.”
[...Did you not hear me? Your deception ends today.]
At the goblin’s reply, the eight-tailed fox woman laughed with seductive grace.
“Stop pretending to be refined. Do you truly believe this lady cannot see through a goblin’s hypocrisy?”
“This lady is fated to become a heavenly god.”
“Do you imagine a mere goblin could possibly dictate this lady’s destiny?”
At the fox woman’s arrogant attitude of treating it as a lesser being, the goblin burned with rage. Its spiral spun faster.
[...This is an insult.]
[I shall return that insult to you in kind.]
Clack. The goblin lifted its club.
Seeing this, the eight-tailed fox woman merely looked intrigued. She made no move to defend herself.
The goblin swung its club.
Thud. Crack. Thud-crack.
"King Zhou of the Shang Dynasty shall"
"be freed from the binding of the bewitching fox yokai."
⟨ INCANTATION ⟩
The incantation the goblin fired manifested in the material world and pierced King Zhou. He raised his head, stared blankly at the goblin for a moment, then asked his favored concubine.
“Dalki, what is that sick cow?”
[Wh-what…!]
The moment King Zhou finished speaking, Dalki burst into mad laughter.
“Ahahahahahahahaha! Your Majesty sees that thing as a cow!”
“It does appear that way… Hehehe, seeing you laugh puts me in a wonderful mood.”
[Wh-what have you done, you bewitching fox yokai!]
The spiral trembled. It spun neither clockwise nor counterclockwise, but in a third, impossible direction.
Dalki, still laughing with her bare breasts shamelessly exposed to the world, soon gazed steadily at the sick cow… no, at the goblin, and continued.
“A goblin’s liver isn’t very tasty. Instead of fodder, I shall feed your liver to the cow.”