The group is in an incredibly precarious situation, if the goblin town people catch up while they’re escaping, they will have no hope in protecting the newly acquired Green Brook goblins. Looking into the distance, Jack can see the cloud of dust the wolves are kicking up as they’re running.

Jack can't see the new goblins yet but he can definitely hear them. A group of enemy goblin riders advanced ahead of the group but luckily followed the group of wolves rather than investigating the area.

The Green Brook Goblins are trying to hold on for their life, it’s a struggle for them to maintain balance and actually stay on the wolves. Actual goblins riders will have used a Profession Stele, this will cause them to have enhanced stats suited to riding wolves while also obtaining active and passive skills that help with it too.

None of the wolves they captured from the previous group were a king animal which means either the king wolf is still at the goblin town or it’s a special den that is able to summon this special type of wolf.

Jack attempts to speed up the group of goblins slightly but they all are still acting scared of him, not looking at him and not trying to understand what he’s saying. He can only sigh in frustration, swearing to himself to sort this language issue out as soon as possible. He has been lucky so far in that everyone he has tried to communicate with has spoken the same language.

The goblin leader is trying to maintain calm within his group by riding alongside people at times, pointing out what they’re doing wrong and how to fix their riding style. It seems like he has ridden before, either on a wolf or larger creature. Drakon is sticking to the side of Jack, he has a serious expression on while he keeps half an eye on the distance from where the noise is coming.

Their group has now travelled about 7km away from Green Brook village’s location, the group of wolves is about 15km away from them now and still running while kicking up a huge amount of dust. A few goblins try to guide their wolf away from the party, attempting to flee on their own, but Fafnir brings them back in line quickly.

This strengthens the hate that the goblins already have for Fafnir, if it was Jack alone, they'd have tried to kill him. Luckily for Jack he has a massive Hellfire Wolf as a body guard.

They’re now 15km away from where Green Brook village was located, the wolves are far in the distance now and barely visible. The group of enemy goblin riders can no longer be heard, it seems as though the plan of diversion worked out for them.

Jack doesn’t let them slow down though, he isn’t sure what else could be out there and he feels that it’s better for them to retreat to safety while they have the chance so they hurry along the grassy plains area.

He starts to consider his next move; he doesn’t want to let the Goblins go directly back to his village as the city has literally no defenses. It’d be a disaster if the group from the goblin town were to find it. He doesn’t feel it’s appropriate for the newly subdued goblins to go off on his own.

Jack watches while Fafnir continues to pull various wolves carrying goblins back into line and makes a decision, Fafnir seems to be able to manage them and if they don’t stop running then the Goblins shouldn’t be able to escape. He makes an attempt to communicate to the Goblin Leader what his plan is by making hand gestures that show they’ll split up and regroup later on. The Goblin leader nods his head as though he understands but Jack isn’t really sure.

“Fafnir, you take the wolves with the goblins and lead them away from our village. I need you to ensure they’re safe and we’ll meet by that hill over there when it’s safe” Jack says to the wolf pointing to a random hill. Fafnir lets out a yip and starts to change direction, the wolves follow him while the goblins watch as Jack and Drakon ride away on their horses.

The goblins seem to be panicked slightly but a quick growl from Fafnir causes them to shake in their saddles. Jack decides to lead Drakon to a hill not far from the one he pointed out so they can watch behind them. It takes them only a couple of minutes riding the swift Lightning Scaled Horse to reach the hill that upon getting closer is larger than expected.

There’s a lack of trees on this hill and a strange smell as they head to the crest. The ground is also rather soft causing their speed to slow down massively. Jack and Drakon dismount their horses while paying attention behind them as they approach the peak.

*SCRITTER SCRITTER*

A bunch of crunching noises can be heard coming from a pile of grass not too far from them, suddenly a giant black ant appears from the pile of grass. The ant is about 70cm long and 40cm tall with large pincers on the front.

Drakon steps forward to intercept the ant. He breaths in and a wave of fire breath appears before him as he roars, it hits the ant and quickly melts through the carapace. The fire quickly exits the rear of the ant, leaving a trail along the grass as it goes into the distance.

Jack steps forward to inspect this ant, he has played several games before that have chitin from insects as a good raw resource for various things. There is not much left of the ant, the spell of Drakon has been able to hollow the middle of the ant from where its mandibles are connected to its head. Jack inspects it:

[Black Army Ant Carapace] Grade: White Description: The body of a Black Army Ant, valuable source of raw materials. Can be used in forging and armor.

Tapping the carapace, Jack can feel that it’s solid even if most of it has disappeared. He looks around but can see no more ants, feeling more confident Jack signals for Drakon to proceed up the hill more. Another ant suddenly appears near Drakon, this time he intercepts it with a punch to its head. The ant tries to pincer Drakon’s fist with its mandibles but fails and crumples over dead, acidic water leaking from its mouth.

Just as Jack is about to inspect this new dead ant, one appears from not too far from him. Jack calms himself down and slices out with his sword.

*SHING*

There’s no fireball from this nor any sword light, it’s just a simple sword strike. It slices easily through the exoskeleton of the ant, slicing diagonally diving the head in half. Jack has a smile on his face after defeating this animal so easily. Jack looks towards the ground and can see some coins dropped from the ant, strangely they didn’t drop when Drakon killed them but when Jack killed it, did they drop.

Jack picks up the two copper coins and looks at them, they feel rather solid and Jack isn’t able to bend them within his fingers. Several more ants appear in the distance, Jack feels excited as this is a prime training opportunity. They need to waste some time while they wait to see what happens with the goblin group, this seems like a good place to train and earn some money.

Jack and Drakon quickly get stuck into killing the several ants that appear, just as soon as they finish up this group of several ant, several more appear from the ground. The two men quickly get stuck into it, not leaving too far from their horses. An ant will be met with a swift kick or a zap from lightning if they get too close to the horses.

Jessica is still peering over the land while her vision is shared with the Luan birds, they have returned to where Jack and Drakon were earlier but she is unable to see them. All she can see is a huge group of 200 or so goblins have entered where Green Brook village was located.

There is a group of shaman-looking Goblins, they have cast some strange spell that is able to sense where their wolves have gone. They point their group towards a certain direction, the direction where Jack’s group left and not where the distraction went.

The group of goblins quickly sets out after setting Green Brook village on fire. The friendly goblin riders have now loop around one hill and are getting rather antsy, they want to run away because this situation is far beyond their control. Fafnir quickly pulls them in line, one of the goblins has tried to jump off their wolf and escape on foot but it was quickly mauled to death.

*AWOOO*

The sound of wolves can be heard not too far away, it’s the sound of the friendly wolves. They have escaped they are still being pursued by the goblin riders, a few of the friendly wolves have been killed by the enemy goblin riders.

Fafnir is angry and starts to grow in size, his eyes slowly become the colour of fire. Fire starts to spurt out of its nose with each breath, it has a crazed look on its face as it rushes to intercept the enemy goblin riders.

All the friendly goblin riders see the change in the wolf that has terrorised them so far and they’re even more scared, some even pee themselves where they sit to the disgust of the wolf they’re riding.

A wall of fire suddenly appears in front of the enemy goblin riders, Fafnir the giant Hellfire Wolf jumps through the wall of fire and lunges at the first goblin rider. He is pissed and wants to taste the flesh and blood of the creatures in front of him.

Quickly the battlefield devolves into chaos, the goblins attempt to use their spears and knife to stop Fafnir’s rampage but to no avail. Wails and screams can be heard, blood and guts splash everywhere. Fafnir crushes the body of a goblin and throws it into another, he snorts fire on one attempting to spear him while he swipes out with one of his paws and knocks off three goblin riders.

A single giant wolf is up against over 50 goblin riders and the pitiful scene continues for some time. The goblin riders lose morale and start to flee after losing less than half but Fafnir is having none of that, he continues his massacre letting out a loud howl to signify that he’s going to be the end of these goblins.

Jessica’s vision turns away from Fafnir’s bloody scene and attempts to find Jack but she is unable to. The birds then fly off again, high in the sky where the vision below them is blocked by clouds not allowing Jessica to see anything. Letting out a sigh, she stops using the vision sharing ability and starts to just play the flute like normal.

Jack and Drakon have now killed countless ants, they are covered in juices and fluids but unhurt, they’re both panting covered with sweat. They also have big smiles on their faces as though they’re having a great time.

Another group of ants appears and they easily take them down, just as the last one is killed a loud high-pitched noise can be heard and a new ant appears. This one is much different, roughly 4m long and 3m tall with giant razor sharp and metallic looking pincers.

Jack looks towards Drakon who shakes his head, this ant is much tougher than any they previously faced. They make a split decision to run away from this ant, they jump straight onto the horses and push them as fast as they can on this terrain.

They run rapidly down the hill; the giant ant pursues them, pursued by countless other smaller ants in different colours. They seem to have awoken the nest, and angered it. The two of them are now running for their life because if they hesitate they'll be easily overwhelmed.

The two of them rush down the hill in a random direction not knowing where they’re going. This chase continues for several minutes with neither side getting away from the other. Drakon peers into the distance and signals for Jack to follow his direction.

The two of them are now running back towards Green Brook village, they get closer to it and can see a large squad of goblins walking in the direction they were originally running away in. Drakon makes a decision to get closer to this group of goblins.

The two horses are quite visible in the distance but the ants behind them are not, the goblin shamans are launching long range spells such as fireball and wind blades. The horses are able to dodge these shots, the two men get closer to the group and are now within archery range.

Hundreds of arrows rain down on the two of them, the horses are fine, Drakon is also fine but Jack gets struck by two arrows. One in the shoulder and the other in his thigh, he struggles to stay on the horse but they quickly blow past the goblins.

Just as the goblins are about to chase after them, some screams sound out. The ants are now upon them, several thousand ants against the 200 goblins. The ants quickly pincer the small goblins in half, ripping them apart fighting over the goblin meat and blood.

Jack and Drakon get away from both the ants and the goblins by leading them into each other as they proceed towards where they said they’d meet up with Fafnir. Jack is struggling tremendously to maintain his balance and remain on the horse, Drakon can't support him, he can only shoot the arrows.

They’re far away from the group they left behind when a new group of goblin appears near the group of ants, a large goblin stands out. He is roughly three times the size of a normal goblin with greyish brown skin instead of green.

He dismounts the horse that he is riding and looks towards the group of ants, he can see all the blood and ripped up body parts of the various goblins he sent ahead. The large ant rushes at this large goblin, the ant is just about to crush the large goblin with its giant pincers when the large goblin lets out a punch.

*BOOM*

A large collision sound resounds as the large ant is forced flying back a couple of metres unmoving.

The large goblin doesn’t even look at this as he signals to the rest of his group to just leave, ignoring the rest of the ants. His gaze lingers in the direction Jack and Drakon left, he walks over to a random piece of land not far away and bends down.

There’s some blood on the ground which he proceeds to taste, closing his eyes as though he’s inspecting the blood. His eyes go wide as his gaze flashes again towards where the two men left but ultimately, he still decides to leave back towards the Goblin Town.

Jack and Drakon are rushing to meet up with the friendly goblins again, they have no idea what they left behind. Jack can slowly feel his consciousness slipping as he falls down off the horse.