"Hiss!"
An iron-gray sword flash cut through the air.
Along with a sharp, agonized wail came the sluggish sound of metal piercing flesh.
Crimson bloodwater mixed with cold raindrops ran down the blade, seeped into the mud, and stained the green meadow a muddy red.
Xia Nan braced his right foot against the wooden fence ahead and pulled the Beheading Longsword back through the gap in the palisade.
The searing breath that still carried body heat condensed into mist in the air, and the loose black hair over his forehead had long since been soaked by the rain.
The villagers of Emerald Creek Village, under the effect of the Red-Maned Hobgoblin's "Taunt," no longer fled and had returned to the village to fight.
Aside from that, however, their minds had not been affected.
If anything, their fighting spirit had been roused instead; their heads were clear, and they fought even more bravely.
Facing the Goblin attack, under Adeline and the village chief's on-the-spot command, they completed a simple defensive arrangement at remarkable speed:
—the spiked hardwood fences prepared long ago were pushed by the villagers to the edge of the ditch around the village outskirts.
Emerald Creek Village's special location near the Thin Mist Forest brought it related benefits, but it also often forced the village to face savage Monsters that came out of the forest to forage.
Low-level Monsters like Goblins made up the majority of them.
Under these circumstances, they had also summarized a crude set of countermeasures and prepared the corresponding defensive facilities.
On the side of the village facing the forest, they had dug a deep trench and inserted sharpened wooden stakes into the bottom in advance.
Without an elite individual such as a "Hobgoblin" commanding them, a small Goblin group of fewer than twenty would