Eleonora reacted on instinct alone.

  She knew Lucien was in no state to protect himself after exhausting so much mana from his spell, especially when combined with the lingering effects of mana poisoning from the excessive ambient mana saturating the tunnel.

  She didn’t need to look back to know he was swaying on his feet, pale and glassy-eyed, fighting just to stay lucid.

  Most people required an absurd amount of ambient mana exposure before they developed true mana poisoning.

  For laborers, soldiers, or common citizens, the body usually rejected excess mana the way it rejected spoiled food as an unpleasant, but survivable experience that usually involved headaches, nausea, and if got really bad tremors.

  Mages however were different from the rest of the population.

  They were trained, deliberately and by necessity to be more sensitive to mana.

  Without this training they would not be able to develop and expand the natural mana pathways inside of themselves. Therefore, it was that sensitivity which is what allowed them to cast spells with precision and power.

  It was also what made environments like the current sewer tunnel dangerous and possibly lethal to mages.

  A mage needed far less exposure to ambient mana in order to suffer from acute mana poisoning. therefore, what might leave a normal person completely fine could make a trained mage experience vomiting and shaking. in addition to making them unable to focus enough to form even the simplest spell formations.

  At higher concentrations, it could scramble their senses, disrupt muscle control, or trigger violent feedback in their internal mana channels that could lead to mana burnout.

  Lucien was already somewhat past the safe threshold for the average mage. Eleonora could tell from the way he was breathing which was too shallow and too fast as if he couldn't get enough air. In addition, he trembled slightly both from the fear locking him in place and the aforementioned muscle control disruption which mana poisoning caused.

  There was a cruel irony to it for mages, the need to channel mana also made you more susceptible to it.

  Therefore, the more talented the mage, the worse it could be. Some of the most gifted casters in the Empire were practically confined to major cities, where mana levels were artificially stabilized by magitech and the large number of people absorbing and circulating the ambient mana.

  Outside those controlled environments, the natural fluctuations of wild mana could overwhelm some mages cursing death in extreme cases.

  Lucien had pushed himself hard to save them from the spiders and now he was paying for it which meant protecting him fell to Eleonora. Since both Isadora and Kavisha were too far away to react in time.

  The roar had barely finished echoing when Eleonora's body began moving as her training that had been drilled into her until it was pure instinct, shoved the fear she felt aside before her mind could even catch up. Lucien was behind her.

  That was all that mattered. Not the smell. Not the size of the thing. Not the sound of its footsteps shaking the sewer stone.

  She remembered the other day her job was to be the bulwark and make sure no one else got hurt the same job a knight was supposed to do.

  So, gathering her courage she stepped forward, planting her boots hard enough she felt the vibration through the soles and placing herself firmly between lucien and the hobgoblin.

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  Her shield came up automatically as she angled it just right to catch a downward strike.

  The massive hobgoblin closed the distance in massive thunderous strides.

  Up close, it looked even worse than it had afar. It was eight feet tall with corded muscle and scar tissue covering its grayish green skin. The scars clearly marked it as an alpha beast with old scars criss crossing its body in pale white stripes.

  In fact, one of its ears was even half missing. While its yellow eyes burned with a feral, focused hatred as it swung a fist the size of a smith’s hammer straight toward Eleonora who now stood in front of the brutish beast.

  Eleonora intercepted the strike perfectly.

  Even so her shield rang like a struck bell as the blow landed, except the impact didn’t stop their as the force drove through her arm and into her shoulder before travelling down her spine.

  Her boots skidded half an inch across wet stone as the impact pushed her back despite the weight of herself and her armor.

  Then the creature’s other hand shot forward, fingers clamping over the rim of her shield which was now dented.

  For a split second she thought she could hold it. Training told her to anchor herself by locking her elbow and slightly shifting her stance.

  However, this was not a human opponent and even though her form was perfect it was entirely wrong move the situation.

  As the beast yanked the shield from her grip the force was so violent it ripped the shield from her and wrenched her arm with it. She felt something in her shoulder tear loose with a wet, internal pop that she felt more than heard as her arm went numb instantly.

  The shield yeeted across the tunnel, clattering uselessly against stone before coming to a stop in the filthy water.

  Pain flared white-hot in her left arm, but adrenaline drowned it, turning it into distant hum in the background of her world. So focused was she that Eleonora didn’t even realize she screamed in rage at the beast.

  Instead of backing away, she stepped in, driven by a certainty that felt deeper than thought. If she stayed back, Lucien would die. If she closed the distance—if she made herself the target—then maybe, just maybe, he would live.

  Never once did it cross her mind that there was no realistic way she could bring down something this large alone.

  The smarter move would have been to grab Lucien, drag him bodily down the tunnel, and regroup with the others.

  But training, instinct, and raw, stubborn loyalty overrode any caution and common sense she had. After all, Knights did not abandon the vulnerable at least not while they could still stand and had breath in their lungs.

  So, she drove her sword forward. Locking her right hand around the grip so tightly her knuckles ached inside her gauntlet and went white. She put her whole weight behind the desperate thrust as she braced her legs and drove her shoulder forward into a perfect thrust, made with textbook perfection.

  Her blade punched right into the hobgoblin’s exposed stomach and for a single terrifying moment, it felt like she was trying to strike a tree trunk as the creature's thick hide resisted at first.

  But then it began to stretch as it gave way before finally splitting beneath the blade sharpened point. As the sword sank deeper it encountered dense, corded muscle that fought every inch of steel blade that slide deeper into the beast belly.

  However, she couldn't give up so she pushed harder with all her strength.

  Finally, after what felt like an eternity but was only a few seconds came a wet, tearing sound as the thick muscle gave way to the creature’s abdominal wall which was finally pierced under the combined force of her momentum and body weight.

  The sword slid deeper, biting further into the abdominal cavity beneath while she began attempting to widen the cut with a saw-like motion of her sword.

  All the while hot blood surged out over her gauntlets, slick and shockingly warm. Being almost hot enough to steam in the sewer’s cool, damp air.

  It was followed by a metallic smell that hit her a split second later, mixing with sewers' already pungent smell until it became something nauseatingly thick and worse.

  The creature howled not in pain but in rage.

  The sound of its howl vibrated through her armor and through her bones.

  Meanwhile, the beast's body barely faltered even as blood poured from the wound in its stomach. While its strength didn’t even seem to lessen in the slightest.

  However, the injury was catastrophic in the long term and was exactly the kind of wound that, left untreated, would almost certainly lead to death through blood loss alone.

  The abdomen housed too many vital vessels and too much soft tissue to close or clot cleanly after a deep penetration like that.

  Every movement the creature made would only worsen the internal damage, tearing muscle further and widening the channels through which blood escaped.

  Abdominal wounds were among the worst ways to die.

  Even if the initial blood loss didn’t finish the job, what followed often did.

  The gut was filled with bacteria and partially digested matter; thus, once the abdominal wall was breached, infection was almost inevitable.

  Fever, swelling, and internal rot; it was a slow, miserable process that could take hours or days to kill someone and was rarely survivable even with skilled healing magic and powerful healing potions.

  For something like the hobgoblin, with its size and endurance, the timeline might be longer than a human’s.

  It could still fight, move, and even kill for quite some time before the weakness caused by the wound truly set in. But the outcome was already written in the stars.

  But in that moment, it did almost nothing for Eleonora except make the beast angrier.