The Evolution Of A Goblin To The Peak

Chapter 1269: Battle at Aqua Iron City I

Wavey went silent. Then her arm snapped upward, and her voice tore across the battlefield like a war horn.

”People of Aqua Iron City!! A vile force has come to erase us from existence! Will you let them?!”

Her eyes burned.

”We fight!!”

The city answered and power erupted.

It wasn’t just energy. It was fury, fear, desperation made manifest. The air behind her twisted violently as hundreds of auras ignited all at once. Figures shot upward, ripping through the sky, gathering behind her like a rising storm.

”The city is on the brink of collapse!” Wavey shouted, her voice hoarse but unyielding. ”Stand with me and tear them apart!!”

She could feel it, the tightening noose.

At the frontline, their forces were already grinding against the Bodam Kingdom in a merciless clash of blood and steel. Now another blade had been driven into their side. This unknown group had cut off their escape, sealing them inside a battlefield that was quickly becoming a grave.

Across from her, Franklin smiled.

Hundreds of auras pressed toward him, heavy enough to suffocate ordinary warriors. To him... it felt like anticipation.

”In the end...” he muttered, stepping forward, ”...it all comes down to violence.”

His gaze sharpened, something feral flickering within it.

”Entertain me.”

He moved and the ground beneath him cracked. His mana erupted. A violent eruption burst from his body, distorting the air and dragging heat and pressure with it. His arm twisted grotesquely, bones cracking, flesh writhing as it reshaped into a jagged, blade-like limb, uneven, serrated, dripping with raw, unstable energy.

Whoosh!!

A defender lunged from Wavey’s side, cutting through the air with killing intent.

They met in an instant.

BOOM!!

The collision resulted in a massive explosion.

Air screamed. Space buckled. The shockwave slammed outward, flattening the ground below and sending weaker fighters reeling.

Then, something cracked.

The sound was sickening.

The defender’s face twisted in horror.

The moment their attacks met, he felt it, an overwhelming force that didn’t just oppose him... it crushed him. It tore through his energy, shattered his stance, and drove straight into his body.

His bones screamed, his vision blurred, and then he was gone.

Launched like a broken projectile, his body carving through the air before crashing into the earth hundreds of meters away, leaving a violent trench in his wake.

Silence flickered.

Franklin hovered where they had collided. He slowly lowered his arm, staring down at the distant figure with a faint, disappointed smile.

”...Too fragile.”

Behind Wavey, the atmosphere shifted.

”That was a Seventh Shackle Realm expert...”

”And he got blown away... instantly...”

Even among their ranks, that man stood near the peak.

And he hadn’t lasted a single breath before he was blasted away.

Wavey’s pupils shrank.

”...His foundation is monstrous,” she said under her breath, voice tight. ”And his enhancements... they’re not normal.”

That wasn’t just strength. That was something refined. Tempered. Perfected to an unnatural degree.

She snapped her head toward her forces, her hesitation vanishing.

”MOVE!!”

Her voice cracked like thunder.

”We outnumber them, overwhelm them! Tear them down before they can breathe!!”

The response was immediate.

The army surged.

Hundreds of figures exploded forward, their combined momentum shaking the battlefield. A tidal wave of power crashed outward, layer upon layer of Shackle Realm pressure bearing down, heavy enough to crush the air itself.

The ground trembled and the water dimmed.

Facing it, Franklin laughed.

A low, thrilled sound.

He raised his hand, fingers curling slightly.

”Come,” he said.

Then his voice sharpened, slicing through the chaos: ”Kill them all.”

He stepped forward, no hesitation and no caution, straight into the flood.

To him, they weren’t enemies.

They were flesh. They were screams. They were something to break.

Swoosh!!

Behind him, his forces moved.

Not in chaos but with terrifying intent.

The elites of the Everlasting Kingdom.

The monsters of the Blood Realm.

Barely over a hundred.

Dwarfed, outnumbered, and surrounded.

And yet, their eyes didn’t waver. Their auras didn’t falter. Like blades drawn from darkness, they surged forward, meeting the oncoming tide head-on. Not to resist it but to carve straight through it.

BOOM!!

The two groups fiercely collided.

Not as armies, but as two raging forces tearing into each other.

Franklin became a streak of violence.

He tore straight through the enemy formation, his grotesque blade-arm ripping bodies apart in a spray of blood and shattered defenses.

Flesh split and bones cracked.

Dozens fell in his wake before they could even react, cut down like brittle husks.

Screams filled the air.

But the momentum didn’t last.

Three figures surged forward at once. They were Seventh Shackle Realm experts.

They didn’t hesitate as they intercepted him head-on.

BOOM!!

The impact detonated like a thunderclap, shockwaves blasting outward and forcing nearby fighters to stagger back. The ground beneath them fractured, unable to withstand the sheer pressure of the clash.

Franklin’s advance halted.

For the first time, he was stopped.

Above the battlefield, Wavey watched.

A cold sneer curled across her lips.

”Fool...”

She didn’t deny his strength, anyone who could bulldoze through that many experts so effortlessly was a monster in his own right.

But monsters could bleed.

And numbers... numbers crushed even monsters.

On her side alone, five Seventh Shackle Realm experts remained under her command. The rest were already locked in a brutal struggle against the Bodam Kingdom but even this fragment of her force was enough to tip the scale.

Franklin and his group?

Too few.

Far too few.

Wavey’s gaze shifted.

Slowly... deliberately... she looked past the chaos—past the clashing bodies and exploding auras, to the rear of the enemy line.

And her expression hardened.

There was a reason she hadn’t moved.

A reason she hadn’t joined the slaughter.

Because something was waiting and watching.

A presence that didn’t join the battle yet controlled it simply by existing.

Her breath grew shallow.

From that distant point, a dense, suffocating aura pressed against her senses. It didn’t surge wildly like the others, it loomed. Heavy. Patient. Like a nightmare coiled in flesh.

A humanoid figure stood there.

Still.

And yet, it felt as though the entire battlefield revolved around it. A monster that could bring ruin to Aqua Iron City.

Nightmare Conjurer.

Wavey’s fingers twitched.

Her instincts screamed at her not to look away.

The moment she moved, he would move.

The two remained locked in a silent standoff, their awareness wrapped tightly around each other. No words. No signals. Just tension stretched to its breaking point.

One step.

That was all it would take.

’I can’t defeat him alone...’

Wavey’s jaw tightened.

Her eyes never left the figure.

’The best I can do... is stall him.’

She forced herself to stay still, suppressing the unease clawing at her chest.

From the density and refinement of that aura, she could already tell... An advanced fifth-stage monster.

Not something a single expert could handle. Not something she could gamble against.

To subdue it...

She would need multiple fighters of equal standing or stronger. Until then, she could only hold the line and pray the battlefield didn’t collapse before help arrived.

’Buy time...’ Wavey whispered inwardly, the words scraping against her thoughts. Her fingers curled slightly, betraying the tension she refused to show.

No matter how strong she was... no matter how many battles she had endured, she knew the truth.

Against an advanced fifth-stage monster...

She wouldn’t last.

Not alone.

Her gaze remained locked forward, unblinking, as if even the slightest lapse would invite disaster.

’Send word to the Supreme Council... wait for reinforcements...’

Her jaw clenched.

That’s the only way to turn this around.

Anything else was suicide.

The battlefield roared beneath her, but all of it felt distant, drowned out by the suffocating pressure of the being watching from afar. Every second stretched thin, taut like a thread ready to snap.

At the frontline, the Bodam Kingdom pressed relentlessly, grinding her forces down inch by inch in a merciless tide of war.

At the flank, the unknown group carved into their formation, tearing apart any attempt to stabilize their lines.

They were being crushed.

Aqua Iron City wasn’t just under attack, it was being caged and if nothing changed...

It would fall.

...

Meanwhile,

Franklin was locked in combat against three Seventh Shackle Realm experts.

He was laughing like a madman.

”HAHAHA!! There really are plenty of strong ones here!!”

His voice tore through the battlefield, wild and unrestrained.

The water around him convulsed violently, churned into chaos by the sheer force of his movements. Currents twisted, pressure spiked, and bubbles burst outward in frenzied streams as his presence distorted everything in his vicinity.

Then, he moved without warning. He shot forward like a spear, tearing through the water with explosive speed. The grotesque blade that was once his arm blurred, its jagged edge humming with lethal intent as it carved a straight path toward his target’s throat.

The Seventh Shackle Realm expert’s instincts screamed.

Death... He saw it and felt it for a moment.

His body reacted before thought could catch up, he staggered back, both hands snapping upward as layers upon layers of barriers materialized in front of him, each one reinforced with desperate urgency.

Too late.

Crack!

The first barrier shattered on contact.

Then the next and the next.

Each one broke apart like fragile glass, splintering under the monstrous force behind Franklin’s strike.