New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Chapter 1006: "Charge!"

In the tunnel under him, trying to strike at his underside as he blasted past them, nine out of ten enemies appeared to his mana vision as almost translucent. Their bodies were barely sending back an echo as the mana had to traverse a liquid-like state, barely bouncing back.

And there, at last, he found it: the elusive source of the magic phenomenon.

Far behind the kobold tide, two different creatures stood, their mouths open as a soft melody escaped their lungs.

Two lanky harpies were chained to larger kobolds, their necks and hands held by heavy manacles, as they sang a magical tune.

The tune washed over the advancing kobolds, which went from one kobold to a unit of ten or twelve, all bearing more than just a passing resemblance to each other.

The harpies were singing a song, conjuring spectral copies of their target, making a single monster into so many more, and letting it advance to deal with the human intruders.

It was an insidious way of battling a foe they already outnumbered and much too shrewd a tactic for it to come from the tiny brains of the kobold. Yet, it was precisely what they were doing.

And Alex was about to put an abrupt end to it.

Flashing past the kobold tide entirely, ignoring the small fry, Alex dashed directly for the two singing harpies and flashed past them before the large kobolds guarding them could even react, landing in a skid behind them.

*Thump thump*

Two dull thuds followed his skid to a stop, and Alex grinned as the soft melody stopped. Two more thumps echoed behind him, immediately followed by the guttural roar of two extremely angry kobolds, who were now looking at him with intense blood lust.

Behind them, still chained to their guard or captives, the bodies of the two harpies, their heads rolled to a stop between Alex and them.

Along with their death, the phenomenon that had been pushing constantly on Alex and his allies vanished. And what had seemed like an interminable tide of kobolds suddenly turned to no more than a couple of dozen enemies.

\'Morpheus, we\'re swapping. White, you\'re up,\' Alex commanded in his head as the mana inside him changed along with his body.

His body, now accustomed to switching forms, practised by the many times it had before, changed in the blink of an eye.

His black skin reverted to normal, white hair growing on his arms and cheeks as his hair turned snow white.

With his feral look changing from looking like an apparition of the night to a mirage in the moonlight, Alex grinned at the kobolds with his sharp teeth.

*Awwoooooo!*

His howl reverberated across the tunnel, reaching his allies almost instantly and sending shivers down their spines.

They knew it was time to move.

"Charge!" Kary shouted, seeing the kobolds dissipate before their group, one after another until barely one in ten remained.

Winston, whose up-to-now absolute control of an enemy line that vastly outnumbered him, was suddenly thrust into an inverse situation.

The undead kobolds around him, remnants of what David had managed to bring back from the grave, now vastly outnumbered their foes, and a feeling of joy filled the young boy.

"Oh yeah! Now it\'s my turn to slam into your ranks!" he shouted before the stone cracked under his feet.

Kary didn\'t bother calling him back, since she had just given a charge order. Instead, she pushed out of the casters; her form igniting into flames, and bolted after him around the tunnel bend.

Jonathan, who took flight with a powerful gust of wind, his face resolute and icy, immediately followed her.

Everyone ran after them, not wanting to be left behind, and Killian hooked the bow to his shoulder, pulling out the two short swords he\'d been given. There was no more time for ranged attacks if he couldn\'t follow the group from behind.

He might as well push himself and dash to the front to confront enemies in a melee.

What remained of the kobold army was quickly plowed through by the party, while Alex dealt with the two kobolds in the back.

Even though they were quite stronger than their smaller counterparts and towered over Alex by a solid two feet in height, their beefy bodies putting bodybuilders to shame, Alex made quick work of them.

Every time they swung their massive meat cleavers at him, he would be gone before the weapon reached him, and it would smash into the stone, throwing rubble everywhere. But vicious cuts would appear all over their bodies with every missed strike.

Alex couldn\'t cut through them as he had done with the smaller kobolds, but that didn\'t deter him. His blade was still cutting through enough of their flesh for the wounds to stack up.

In the time it took the party to reach the back of the kobold tide, he was slashing the throat of the second enormous kobold colossi, and it dropped to the ground with a loud thump.

He turned around, looking at the ones that had reached him first, and wasn\'t surprised to see Kary and Jonathan. He was surprised, though, to see Winston at their side, assuming he would be slower with his smaller frame, but he was proved wrong.

"Sorry. The fun is over already," Alex mocked, pointing at the two dead monsters. Their size, although gigantic compared to the regular kobolds, was not that impressive compared to the much larger monsters they had already fought in the past.

But their bodies still left the rest of the party in slight shock. Instead of lizards, these two kobolds resembled something closer to giant, bipedal alligators, and it was an impressive sight to behold, even when seeping blood from dozens of wounds and lying still on the

ground.

That\'s when Kary noticed the chained and headless feathered bodies to the side, crumpled at the foot of the tunnel wall, with clear impact marks over them.

"These the troublemakers that were making our life complicated?" she asked, thumbing in

their direction.

"Mhm," Alex hummed.

"But something was strange about them," he added.

Kary tilted her head to the side a bit, confused.

"Like what?"

Alex pursed his lips, looking at them with a slight frown.

"Like they weren\'t doing this of their own will. Almost like they were slaves to the kobold."