Frostfire Legacy

A wave of mana rushed forward, and sliced the unmoving goblins in half, taking dozens of lives in a flash. Kali\'s revolver was also able to take the lives of a few more, but not to the same amount as Aster did.

"Woah! We cleared almost half of them before we even entered melee distance!" Aster cheered, seeing how effective Lory\'s skill was.

Soon, the liquefied ground started to return to normal. The goblins who got pulled into it ended up stuck inside solid ground, further limiting their movements.

"Alright, let\'s finish them up!"

Aster commanded as he rushed forward, the rest following right behind.

However, with the goblins stuck in the ground, literally, they weren\'t able to provide any proper counterattacks. Their clubs, swords, and bows ended up mostly half-stuck in the ground too, so they weren\'t even able to wield their weapons!

The group of 100+ goblins ended up being wiped out in less than a minute!

More than the hunt, collecting the loot actually took more time, as they had to pull the dead goblins out of the ground first, to check out all the accessories they had, including anklets, bracelets, belts, and piercings.

After collecting the loot, Aster turned to Lorelai and smiled. "I\'d say that\'s a 10/10 performance. You did great, Lory!"

"Thanks! I\'m happy to be of help." She replied while being humble.

There\'s a drawback to her skill, however. Although it did manage to shorten their hunting speed, the added time they needed to extract the goblins out of the ground made the total time they spent, including the gathering of loot, mostly the same, if not slower, than before.

Still, it couldn\'t be denied that they spent less energy, which means they could face multiple hordes of that size with no problem.

\'But as expected, we\'d need more long-range attacks.\'

The only "proper" long-range attackers in the party were Aster and Kali. The rest didn\'t even have guns to use, so they were practically unable to participate in the initial clearing after the swamp was cast.

\'If only she had AOE spells too, then it\'d be beyond perfect.\' Aster sighed inside his head.

Lorelai was a Witch, a spellcaster specializing in debuffs and curses. Although they are a great asset in group battles, they were completely unable to hunt by themselves. Their class lacks offensive abilities and spells, after all.

Aster turned to look at the back of his right hand and considered his situation.

\'If I can use my Frostfire Legacy, then it\'d be a perfect combination.\'

Slowing down the enemies, before mowing them down with flames of extreme heat. Or, he could even freeze them solid in one go. As long as the enemy was caught in the initial swamp, there\'s a near 100% chance that the ability will hit!

After that, they moved around, hunting a few more goblin settlements, until they tried out all of Lorelai\'s debuffs and curses. She has several varieties of spells, from Level 1 to 3, with the strength and range completely variable at will.

She could slow down enemies, decrease their defense, restrict their movements, blind them, and finally, even charm them for a short while, inducing friendly fire within their midst. With the variety of spells she could command, the tactics that they could use increased by a hundredfold!

*Rustle!* *Rustle!*

"Huh?"

But just as they were collecting the loot from another goblin settlement, they heard the sounds of footsteps and the rustling of bushes from behind.

Almost automatically, they went into battle formation, with Tina and Liz up front, Aster right behind them, Cassy and Lory behind Aster, and Kali at the back. It was a formation where the debuffer and healer remained protected at all times.

The sound started to get louder, as everyone prepared their weapons, ready to attack at any moment. A short moment later, a figure walked out of the shadows and saw Aster\'s party, raising his hand immediately.

"Woah! Chill, man!"

The one who came out was another adventurer! Of course, he wasn\'t alone, as his party also followed shortly, coming out of the cover of trees and bushes and entering the visible range.

"We\'re just passing by, heading to the Crypt!" The man, who looked like a scout with his light armor, declared immediately. "Don\'t worry, we wouldn\'t dare steal your loot. Then, we\'ll go this way, alright?"

He pointed in the direction, moving away from Aster\'s team and the goblin corpses, before moving toward where he indicated slowly. His party also followed his lead and sheathed their weapons, showing that they had no intention to fight.

"... Alright. Sorry about that," Aster smiled, sheathing his sword too. "I thought the goblins had reinforcements, so we entered battle formation. We didn\'t mean to scare you."

"Argh! Really? Shoot, man! I thought we were goners, seeing you have a dragonkin in your party!"

The scout, hearing Aster\'s short apology and excuse, quickly changed his attitude and smiled a friendly smile.

"Well, seeing that you have the ability to hunt a goblin settlement stably, I guess we\'d be dead if a skirmish broke out." He shrugged, estimating Aster\'s strength from the scene.

As the atmosphere started to loosen, his party also loosened their tense shoulders and sighed, laughing lightly afterward. Aster, however, decided to take advantage of the situation.

"You\'re all heading to the Crypt, right? Do you mind if we tag along?" Aster asked. "We can pay you with a few goblins\' accessories for the trouble."

He showed about six accessories in his hands. Each one of them could be worth around 10 to 20 thousand Tels each, a pretty large sum for simply allowing someone to tag along.

"Really?! Sweet!" The scout rejoiced. "We don\'t mind! Rather, do you need help in gathering the goblins\' loot? We can do it as a bonus service, you know?"

"Haha, then maybe I\'ll ask for your help."

After that, the other party, composed of 8 members—5 girls and 3 men—helped Aster and the others gather the goblins\' accessories. While they were busy, they ended up talking about each other.

"So your party is called the Hollow Knights?" Aster repeated it, thinking that he had heard of it before—something like a game title.

"No, not hollow, but hallowed!" The scout, named Cedric, corrected. "We\'re the Hallowed Knights, which means Holy Knights!"

From his talk, it seems that half of their members were lucky enough to get some holy-level uncommon classes. Holy Knight, Holy Priest, Holy Spearman, and Holy Assassin. Other than the last one, which sounded contradictory, Aster could understand the first three classes.

"Sounds powerful," he commented.

A few minutes after that, they finished gathering all the accessories from the goblins.

"Well then." The Holy Assassin, Cedric, smiled at Aster and spoke. "Follow me!"

With his lead, the two parties started on their way toward the Crypt.