With a slight, arrogant flick of the Shaman's wrist, the static circle of the army finally broke. Fifteen goblins—ten G-rank goblins and five F-rank swordsmen—detached from the main force. They didn't charge in a mindless rush; they moved with calculated coordination, flanking him from every angle.
Mark swung his Blind Staff with savage precision, the wood whistling through the air as it connected with skulls. He triggered a sequence of Air Repulsion pulses, creating localized shockwaves to push back the encroaching blades. Simultaneously, his Multi-Sense array was screaming, tracking the trajectories of arrows launched by the archers in the rear. He twisted his body mid-air, dodging a projectile that would have pierced his neck, responding with a 360-degree sweep of his staff that shattered the knees of the nearest goblin.
The first wave fell, their broken bodies littering the dirt, but another fifteen immediately took their place. Mark was holding his own, but the curse was beginning to fray his edges. He was slightly slower, his reactions a fraction of a second behind. Small nicks and shallow cuts began to bloom across his arms and thighs.
Yet, amidst the pain, Mark's analytical mind began to find the silver lining. The Shaman was a narcissist. Instead of crushing him with the weight of all 150 units at once, it was sending them in small batches, acting like a Roman Emperor watching a lone gladiator fight for his life.
More importantly, the Shaman's arrogance had become its own weakness. By pouring the vast majority of its mana into the "Blindness" curse—a spell that was effectively useless against a man who was already blind—the secondary "Weakening" curse was far more manageable than it should have been. Mark could endure it. Sensing the Shaman through his Mana Sense, he saw the truth: the creature's mana pool was nearly depleted from preparing this grand stage and casting such a high-level curse. For now, the Shaman was a spent force, relegated to the role of a spectator.
Mark was in a dire state. The strain of maintaining Multi-Sense alongside the weakening curse was crushing his mind. A plan was beginning to take shape in his thoughts, but it was far from ideal; it wasn't even a good plan. It was a strategy riddled with "ifs" and heavy risks—a desperate gamble that relied entirely on the Shaman's arrogance. As the waves of enemies kept coming—the third, then the fourth—Mark was given no room to breathe. His movements grew heavy, his Air Repulsion failed him, and his reactions dulled. Finally, an arrow buried itself in his right shoulder, followed quickly by a blade twisting into his side.
By the end of the sixth wave, Mark could no longer hold himself up. His knees hit the dirt, his mana flickering at a dangerously low level. He deactivated Multi-Sense, clinging only to a fading Mana Sense. His Blind Staff lay several feet away, out of reach. He looked like a man refusing to die, yet dangling by a thread where every moment could be his last. However, the battlefield had thinned; his relentless Stone Bullets had wiped out all the goblin archers, leaving only a few swordsmen and G-rank goblins. Had his body been whole, escape would have been an easy task. But reality was cruel.
The Shaman, seeing this, was in an excellent mood. The "pest" who had shamed him by slaughtering his previous trap of four archers was finally broken. That past failure was a thorn in the Shaman's pride—a humiliating stain. Now that the pest had been sufficiently tortured, the Shaman felt he had to end him personally to wash away that shame. Flanked by his Goblin Guardians—mostly as protection against any final, desperate act—the Shaman began to approach. Seeing the bleeding, weaponless, and mana-depleted human filled him with a predatory joy.
As the Shaman drew a small dagger to deliver the final blow, a bloody and twisted grin spread across Mark's face. The Shaman sensed something was wrong with that smile, but before he could react, the "prey" lunged forward. The Guardians immediately blocked the path with their shields, their expressions shifting back to mockery. Was this it? This couldn't even be called an attack. However, what they failed to notice was that Mark's grin only intensified.
Mark was taller than the shields. Utilizing this height advantage, he thrust his palm over the barrier, aiming directly at the Shaman. A cloud of blue powder erupted from his hand, drifting straight into the Shaman's lungs. The creature inhaled it instinctively. As the Shaman attempted to command his guards to finish the job, he realized his body had turned to stone. His limbs refused to move; even his consciousness felt frozen. He couldn't even twitch a single finger.
In that moment of total paralysis, two swords materialized in the human's hands as if from out of nowhere, and he began to cut down the motionless Guardians. For the first time, the goblin shaman felt the cold shadow of death. Mark tried to mimic the Shaman's earlier mocking laugh, but his mangled facial muscles could only produce a terrifying, silent snarl.
Mark wasted no more time. He lunged at the Goblin Shaman instantly and plunged his sword into the creature. After a few brief tremors, the Shaman surrendered its life. At that moment, a "ding" echoed in Mark's mind, and a translucent panel materialized before him.
[Congratulations, Host.]
[You have defeated the First Floor Boss. The Second Floor is now open.]
[Through the gate in the Safe Zone, you may now access both the First and Second Floors. Additionally, upon the defeat of a boss, you are granted a one-time teleport to the Safe Zone if you wish.]
Relying on his memory of its location, Mark quickly found his Blind Staff and commanded the system: "System, return me to the Safe Zone." Immediately, a sensation of falling through a void washed over him. When the feeling subsided, he realized he was back on the familiar, smooth, and cold floor of the Safe Zone.