There was a crunching sound as the goblin ripped out the guardian's heart and tossed the entire organ into his mouth.

Everyone was shocked to see this play out. Initially, perhaps some of them thought that the goblin was mostly harmless because it seemed like the only thing it could do was bite. They were wrong. The grotesque scene they just witnessed made the goblin seem like a threat that was equal to Somnus. What kind of monster can punch through plate armor?

The goblin shrieked, a sound that was between a monstrous roar and a banshee's wail. The goblin clawed at his face for some unknown reason, sc.r.a.ping off flesh and muscle with each swipe.

The other surviving guardian had already been in motion, attempting to help his fallen comrade. Of course, the guardian was too late to provide a.s.sistance, but at least he could still avenge his fallen brother in arms.

The guardian was still several meters away when he lunged forwards and drove his sword through the goblin's chest. The goblin shrieked again, standing up despite the guardian trying to force the monster down onto the ground. The goblin grasped the blade of the sword, just above the hilt, and the blade rumbled as the goblin applied force.

A sound not too dissimilar to that of gla.s.s breaking filled the room as the blade practically exploded at the hilt, sending the guardian tumbling to the ground because he was putting his entire weight onto the blade.

The guardian fell to the ground and rolled to his side, attempting to avoid the incoming attack that he guessed would follow, but it was to no avail. Just as the guardian rolled onto his back, the remaining half of the sword that used to be inside the goblin was now inside his chest. The blade impaled the guardian to the stone underneath him, the tip of the blade piercing even stone itself.

The goblin was also harmed from handling a sharp blade like that—there was blood all over his hands—but the goblin did not seem to mind.

Fascinating. The subject does not appear to feel pain or fear. Conditions of death status are altered, as it can function without a heart.

Of course, Somnus was not one to judge after being stabbed in the vitals twice. As long as one had the health points, it generally did not matter where one got stabbed, as long as it wasn't a critical hit with permanent injuries. Wounds would heal over time at a normal rate, unless one of the miraculous healing items was used. However, permanent injuries could not be removed naturally; if one was to lose an arm they would be forever crippled. Losing a head or heart, permanently, would be instant death.

The interesting part about the situation was that, to Somnus, the guardian's attack looked like a critical hit to the goblin's heart, yet the creature was still alive.

The guardian twitched, his muscles spasming as he too received a critical hit to the heart. Unlike the goblin, the guardian could not shrug off that kind of damage, and moments after receiving it, he expired.

Somnus took several steps back, gaining distance from both the remaining enemy adventurers, and the goblin.

Strategically, this was a battle of attrition before the goblin joined. It was meaningless. There was nothing to gain, and everything to lose. Somnus now understood a few things that he did not before. He was human. He was truly human, blood and flesh all the way through. It was perhaps conceit and hubris that prevented him from realizing this, but he could no longer vaporize the carbon lifeforms like it was nothing. Perhaps there are some out there that would have posed a threat to him even when he was still a machine. As far as lessons go, usually people learn it when they are about to die. Somnus was lucky to keep his life.

The other lesson he learned was that he could no longer afford to do everything by himself. The adventurers, at least the ones here, had superb small-unit tactics. They effortlessly worked together, supported by Telepathy. Somnus once cla.s.sified Telepathy as a level 10 threat, equal to his own existence. There was a reason for that. Instantaneous, untraceable and unjammable, long-range communication was an incredibly powerful tool for a commander. Without it, Somnus wondered, would the enemy still be able to fight so effectively? He had no way to test that theory.

Finally, the enemy threat level. Adventurers were far more powerful than Somnus a.s.sumed. The girl with the phoenix spirit, the invisible skirmisher, the graceful archer… everyone had powers far outside Somnus's expectations. The phoenix was an anomaly among anomalies. Still, Somnus underestimated his enemy, fought without proper information, and this was the result. He got lazy—no doubt a side-effect of his human brain—and thought he could just experiment in peace and then, one day, go outside the dungeon and effortlessly crush all opposition. He was foolish. Once again, he made a human-like error. It was unforgivable.

Normally, Somnus would retreat from this battle now that the way back was clear, but another anomaly among anomalies had joined the battle. The goblin was a creature that was no longer a goblin, Somnus knew that for sure.

Above all, this was a humiliation. Somnus had not suffered significant damage from human hands in hundreds of years, all throughout a war that saw nearly the entire human race destroyed.

"Ultimate Limit Break," Somnus said, pointing a finger at the goblin. Magical circles appeared around Somnus; this time he was holding nothing back. He may not have his machine body anymore, nor weapons forged in another world's future crucible of war, but he still had the ability to not only create something of equal destructive potential but also exceed it. This goblin would be the first weapon of many.

The magical circles slowly rotated in the air, like a malevolent wheel, and then imprinted themselves on the goblin's back. The goblin roared, the scrawny thing managing to look imposing and threatening.

"Harbinger of Ruin," Somnus said, targetting another spell at the goblin. If [Ultimate Limit Break] exhausted a large reserve of his mana, [Harbinger of Ruin] doubled the expenditure. Both spells were designed to empower an individual above and beyond their natural potential, resulting in a lengthy recovery time if only one was used. Using both meant almost certain death. The goblin was already dead, so it didn't matter to Somnus anyway.

He may no longer have his machine body, or his weapons; however, he had an army of goblins that he could empower to mind-boggling threat levels. With Magitech, he could create the means to remove the mana costs on casting these spells on all of them.

"Codename "Hadron"," Somnus said, his finger pointing towards the enemy. "Exterminate." Just as he spoke those words, the spell completed and imprinted another Formation on the goblin's back.

s.h.i.+mmering light settled on the goblin's skin, like a translucent armor. He was sheathed in a luminous mist extending only a few centimeters over his skin.