Goblin King: My Innate Skill Is OP

Zarah’s voice rang out, sharp with panic, but the shaman was already down. His body slumped sideways, staff slipping from his grasp as consciousness fled him.

Amon didn’t spare him another glance.

The crimson aura writhed more violently around his body as he advanced, each step deliberate, his focus locked solely on the fallen shaman.

It was clear what he intended.

He would finish Narg first before turning to the rest.

Zarah moved without thinking.

Her bowstring snapped back, and she loosed arrow after arrow while running to close the distance. One shaft struck Amon square in the head, snapping against his skull with a wet crack.

He grunted, his head jerking from the impact, but his stride never broke.

His glare deepened, frustration flaring, and still he pressed forward.

”Don’t ignore me,” Zarah hissed through clenched teeth, pulling back another arrow, her arms taut with strain.

But she never loosed it.

In the space of a heartbeat, Amon blurred.

One instant he was several strides away, the next he was directly before her, red haze trailing his movements like a smear across the air.

His hand lashed out, fingers clamping around her throat.

The grip was iron, lifting her clear off her feet with a single jerk.

Her bow slipped from her grasp as her legs kicked helplessly in the air, her eyes wide with shock and fury.

Amon’s grip tightened with bone-crushing strength.

Zarah gagged, as her nails scraped helplessly against his wrist, desperate to pry herself free.

Her legs kicked violently, boots thudding against his body, but his hold was unyielding, as if her throat had been locked in iron.

”Let her go!”

Snibb, Zrosh, and Zok roared together, blades flashing as they charged headlong at him, their faces set with reckless determination.

Amon turned his head slightly, eyes narrowing in disdain. Then, with a single heave of his arm, he hurled Zarah into them.

Her body slammed into the trio, knocking them off balance in a tangle of limbs, their blades clattering against the dirt as they scrambled to catch her before she hit the ground too hard.

The corrupted shaman’s grin widened—until the ground shook behind him.

A shadow loomed.

Something massive leapt onto his back, arms thick as tree trunks wrapping around his neck in a crushing grip. The troll.

He had been missing since the start of the chaos, laid out cold after Flogga had forced him under with a concoction strong enough to sedate even his monstrous bulk.

She had needed his blood, siphoned for her crude healing brews—an act that would have been impossible if the beast were awake.

For a time, he had been nothing more than an unconscious hulk sprawled in the dirt.

But now his eyes were open.

He had woken to see Zarah in danger, her body flung through the air like broken prey. Instinct, raw and primal, surged before thought could catch up.

His roar tore through the battlefield as he clamped down on Amon’s throat, his teeth gnashing with fury, his massive frame driving the corrupted shaman half a step to the side.

He was moving on pure instinct, and it was aimed entirely at the threat that had dared to harm what his beast’s mind recognized as kin.

But the troll’s fury was nothing against Amon’s monstrous strength.

With a snarl, Amon reached back, his fingers locking around the beast’s thick arm.

He heaved once, muscles straining, and then slammed the troll into the ground with bone-cracking force.

The earth shook with the impact. Again and again, he lifted and smashed, each strike tearing gouges into the dirt until the troll’s massive body went limp.

The final blow left the creature’s arm twisted at an unnatural angle, bone and sinew ruined beyond recognition.

His breath rattled once, then stilled.

The troll was finished.

Amon flung him aside like refuse, the massive corpse tumbling across the battlefield until it landed in a broken heap.

Breathing heavily, the corrupted shaman bent and snatched a fallen blade from the ground, crimson aura crawling over its steel as though claiming it for his own. His gaze swept forward, cold and merciless, before fixing on the group ahead.

Snibb, Zrosh, and Zok—the same three who had charged so bravely moments before—hesitated. Their blades trembled in their grips, their bodies rigid, fear cutting into their resolve after witnessing the troll’s brutal defeat.

Amon stepped towards them, his shadow stretching long over Zarah and the trio. Blood welled up his arm in twisting rivulets, coiling upward until it hardened into the crude shape of an axe. The weapon pulsed faintly, as if alive, its edges dripping scarlet mist.

With a guttural snarl, he raised it high and swung downward, the blow carrying all the weight of slaughter.

But then—

CLANG!

The strike didn’t land.

The axe shuddered to a halt against something unseen. Not stone, not steel—a barrier. A figure stood in its way, calm and immovable, the red weapon grinding uselessly against the air around him.

Eli Cross.

He had arrived, silent and unannounced, and placed himself between Amon and the goblins who had fought to the edge of death. The invisible ward that wrapped around him shimmered faintly as the corrupted axe pressed against it, sparks of red and black energy snapping at the edges. Yet Eli stood as if nothing was happening.

His gaze didn’t linger on Amon. Instead, his eyes swept across the battlefield, sharp and assessing, taking in the state of his clan.

Dribb was down, his shield cracked and his face battered to a ruin. Thok knelt nearby, daggers still in hand but his body trembling from exhaustion. Gobbo and Zonk bore cuts and bruises that marked them as barely able to stand, their weapons hanging heavy at their sides.

And then there was Narg.

The shaman lay pale and broken, his chest barely rising, while Flogga knelt over him, fumbling desperately with vials and herbs, her hands slick with blood as she did everything she could to keep him tethered to life.

Eli shut his eyes, dragging in a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling with the weight of it. A bitter curse flickered in his mind, sharp and unrestrained.

Why was it always like this? Why did disaster strike the moment his back was turned? What kind of cursed luck dragged him into scenes like this, again and again?

He exhaled slowly, his breath a low hiss between clenched teeth.

Then he opened his eyes.

And everything about him changed.

The faint weariness vanished, replaced by a coldness that seemed to drain the air around him.

His gaze locked on Amon, and in that instant, the corrupted shaman felt it—an oppressive weight that slithered into his bones. His body stiffened, and for the first time since the ritual, he hesitated.

A shiver ran through him, primal and involuntary.

Instinct screamed.

He tried to step back.

But Eli moved first.

In a blur too fast for the eye to follow, Amon’s arm—the one still gripping the blood-forged axe—was severed clean at the elbow, and his limb fell, the weapon he had formed dissolving into a wet spray of crimson mist before it even touched the ground.

Amon staggered, his grin faltering, the first flash of fear dawning in his crimson eyes.