“Yes, the coward was refused to come out to fight. I heard he was strong and didn’t hesitate to raise up arms against my fellow Knights led by the Minister, but to think he would prefer to hide now in a real war.

  “Letting his people sacrifice themselves just so he can live. That is no King to me, just a coward.”

  It was the words of one of the Knight Commanders of Verdan that resounded in the room. Letting everyone know just how he felt about the so-called King of Goblins.

  “I understand how you feel, but I do think you’re judging these Goblins with human values and it would be wise to remember that these are not in fact, like us. For us a King or a Queen is usually the person who is the strongest or commands the strongest family in the kingdom or perhaps their family has ruled said kingdom for generations already, and they still maintain that strength.

  “It is not necessarily their right or God-given bloodline that has given them power. Now this may sound a bit like treason in the eyes of my own Queen, so I hope she can forgive me. Either way, from what history has told us regarding the King of Goblins then we know that position isn’t one that’s argued over.

  “There isn’t a debate nor is there a war to be had. The King of Goblins is the King of Goblins. They are the sole ruler of their people and every single Goblin will follow them with upmost loyalty, and dedication. That is what we’re going up against.

  “Now all of us have received the reports of the very same battle you spoke of Knight Commander, and through those reports, we learned that your Minister nearly killed the very same Goblin we are here to kill. So with that being said, I highly doubt the Goblins would want him running around the battlefield while we unleash all manner of skills to reap his life.

  “Which leaves me to believe the Goblins have chosen to hide their King in an effort to protect him from us and taken on the brunt of the pain instead. They cannot and do not want to lose him. It is important to remember that.

  “Of course, none of that changes our goal here. We came here to kill the King of Goblins, and that is what we will do. And it is time to reintroduce the Shadows of Verdan, and the Black Wolf Tribe back to the battle. We kept them at bay because an all out frontal assault isn’t really their forte, but their skills are needed once more.

  “We will use the battle that we will fight in the coming days as distraction for them to go behind enemy lines to find and potentially eliminate their King. I expect them to face heavy resistance but it is vital that they find the location of the King. We will move forward with the plan to slowly strangle them out, while those that work in the shadows conduct their business.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  As meeting of the GES Forces went on, the Goblins did the same and they were generally about the same thing, just a bit different. They talked about reorganizing and getting medical attention to those that needed it.

  Where they differentiated a bit, was that the Goblins weren’t necessarily concerned with going to find the leaders of their enemies, nor where they interested in going on the front foot and attacking them as a whole. No, they simply wanted to ensure that they continued to defend and come up with more ways to survive until their King returned.

  In fact there were even a few discussions about potentially sending a small contingent out to find and bring their King back, but the argument didn’t reach far, because of not only the trust they still had in him, but also the fact that they couldn’t afford to be without anyone of significant strength. Especially not with the loss of Chief Galgo.

  Instead of sending anyone out, they instead were forced to weaken the fronts even more than they already were. They had lost a lot of troops in that initial battle, and fighting against the humans with anything less would be setting themselves up for failure.

  Both the Goblins and the GES Force did what they had to do, and very quickly 5 days passed without anything at all happening. But eventually the war had to begin anew.

  This time while the goblins had individuals watching the forests, they didn’t see the same provocative march from the GES Force.

  This time, they saw them very late as they weren’t trying to be seen any longer and did their best to hide using a cloak of mana to hide their advance for as long as possible until the Goblins finally saw them and had no choice but to rush out and meet the advance of the force before they got any closer.

  What was similar from the previous battle though was the opening salvo of mana being flung from both sides, but of course this, both sides were similarly prepared to have to deal with it, and all it really did was delay the start of melee portion of the battle.

  The Knight Orders pushed forward slowly and methodically pushing the Goblins back as they did so, before the Goblins rooted themselves in and decided they weren’t going to go back much further than their current point if they could help it.

  They weren’t going to allow themselves to be pushed back all the way to where their clans were at some point they would stop and hold their ground and that is what they did with the Tier Seven Chiefs at the forefront of the group, taking on the brunt of the attacks.

  A battle where they were now pinned next to their fellow Goblins and therefore restricted in the abilities they could use ensued from that point. Of course the restricts only applied to abilities that would cause damage to everything that was around them. Goblins like Chief Rogur was still launching fire from blade to anyone who dared to stand before him, while Chiefess Jluug was still able to continuously try to drown the members of the GES Force.

  This began a grueling back and forth as one side tried to defend while the other did their best to kill.

  It was the moment when the Goblins were staring down the slope of a long and drawn out death that they would come to remember as beginning of their retribution…while the Humans and Demi-Humans would remember it is the last time they had a real chance of stopping the Goblins before the rise…