Stray Soul

As the goblins marched towards my bodies, I quickly counted how many there were.

14 Goblins and 12 undead were headed to my left flank, and my lizard body, while 7 goblins and 6 undead were headed for my right flank, and my bear body, but no goblins were headed to me from the centre.

Well, the goblin necromancer was stood there menacingly, looking at my turtle body, so it was probably safe to assume it had some kind of plan to deal with it, but the Centurian Turtle was my biggest weapon so I was hoping that it could deal with the necromancer.

After assessing my situation for a few more moments, I made a quick and simple battle plan.

My turtle body would go forwards and thwart whatever plan the necromancer had, while my other 2 bodies would slowly kill the undead and coil the goblins in branches and bushes when they had the opportunity to do so.

My bear body would have a hard time incapacitating goblins and coiling them with branches, but thanks to my sceptre, my lizard body should not have that much of a problem with it, and after I dealt with the mace guy, which now had a spear, and the other goblins, I’d go ahed and help the bear.

Though the goblin with a... machete or some kind of sword next to the mace guy looked kind of threatening, I was not sure if they were as strong as the mace guy, so while I’d be watching them, I was not planning on focusing on them much unless they proved to be a problem.

Then, I started my plan by ordering my turtle body to just start marching forwards, and I started charging at the nearest undeads with my other 2 bodies, normally, without using any mana.

And the first confrontation went pretty well for both sides. A goblin, who was as strong as the bear made themselves know by trying to dash forwards and stab the bear with its spear, which would’ve been bad if it was coming for the spine or any of the other bones, but either from inexperience, or just a unluckiness, the spear hit the stomach of the bear and got stuck in the soft tissue and the organs, and thanks to that momentary fluke I was able to take out a—wait a second... wait, I remember this goblin! It’s the fucker who destroyed the head of my deer body!

Oh, you are getting it son!

Quickly changing targets, I made my bear body hurl a fist at the face of the goblin and made sure that the claws wouldn’t take out the poor guy’s face and would only cause him to get a bit concussed at best.

But the undead that I spared sacrificed its life and jumped in front of the goblin, and I repaid it by ripping its crippled soul out of its body.

Sadly though, in the time it took my bear body to rip the soul out of the undead, the goblin had already managed to retreat back, and while the necromancer yelled towards the goblin from a distance, I took the chance to snap the spear that was stuck in my body.

*crack~*

A soft cracking sound resounded from my body, and I pushed both the tip of the spear, and its handle inside my body to not even give the goblins a chance to reclaim them while we fought.

And the battle on the eastern flank developed from there, but the battle with my main body started and developed a bit differently as the mace guy did not try to defend or get a cheeky hit on me as he probably saw it as a useless endeavour.

But the sword guy who I had been eyeing tried to charge forwards and attack my legs, but I didn’t allow him and swinging my tail at him, and tried to hit him with the mace, which he managed to block, but while he was blocking that, I moved on with my main body to grab him but was stopped by the mace guy and the other goblins.

And, though it surprized me that the goblins this time were willing to risk their weaker warriors, it also made sense seeing that Rifu-san said them that I wouldn’t be killing any of them—I mean, technically I said that, and while I wasn’t planning on killing anyone, I felt kinda cheated honestly.

But—enough of that.

The battle on my side evolved into a stalemate after that. I’d fight with the sword and mace guys, goblins and the undead would come near, I’d try to grab a goblin or kill an undead, and either the sword guy would stop me while the mace guy tried to aim for my head or my important bones, like the spine, pelvis, etc.

Though, not the battle on the right flank as my bear body had killed a few more undead but was having a hard time capturing the goblins and started to just break their weapons and try and incapacitate them by punching them and charging at the spear throwing goblin on that side.

And my turtle body was... being peppered by stone bullets. The goblin necromancer was, other than being a necromancer, an earth mage or something similar, and was casting stone bullets and changing the terrain ever so slightly to make my turtle body, which was moving quite slowly, move even slower.

Though the necromancer was also focused on something else which I did not feel good about, so I just ordered my turtle body to advance faster and incapacitate the necromancer.

And as it did so, the necromancer started to pay a little bit more attention to the turtle, but it was still focused on something else.

On my lizard body’s side, the goblins started throwing something at me and looking at it...

“Wait is this rope?” I muttered before a few goblins pulled on the rope that they threw over my claws and pulled them, and as they did so an opening opened in my defence and the sword guy immediately exploited it by cutting through my branches and scales, and right into my flesh. Stopped only by bone.

I then quickly pulled on my arm, forced the goblins to let go of it, and immediately counter attacked the sword guy, but I wasn’t able to do much because of the mace guy.

And on the bear’s side, the same thing happened, but because I had seen it on the lizard’s side before, I was able to avoid it with the smaller bear body and use the opportunity to kill the last of the undead on that side.

Then the goblins tried a few more times to catch me and the bear with ropes and chop my bodies to pieces, and while the mace and sword guy proved to be a bit of a challenge, the right flank was quickly falling and the only goblin that could keep up with the bear, the spear throwing goblin, was not able to keep that flank stable... well, after all the goblins were incapacitated, and only the spear throwing goblin and my bear body remained, the flank would inevitably become stable for the next few minutes as the bear would need some time to overcome the goblin, but it seemed like everything would go fine!

After all, the turtle was nearly on top of the necromancer, and this seemed like it would be a fast battle.

With heavy emphasis on seemed like as moments before the turtle could do something, the goblin suddenly smirked, and a black magic circle appeared on the ground.

And while I was scared, because this circle seemed like a dark magic circle, and could potentially fuck my soul up, after a few moments of the magic circle being activated the necromancer’s face went from a smirk to confusion to surprize, mixed with a bit of anger.

And I felt my lesser soul detach from the Centurian Turtle’s body and being flung to my “main” Pale Lizard body, and as it flew through the sky, a brilliant light emanated from around it because of the mana in the air it was colliding with.

After it entered my body, I could only describe my feelings with one word, pain.

An absolute and piercing pain that reverberated through my very soul.

For a moment I was glad that my lesser soul didn’t disappear the moment it touched air, but my feelings didn’t continue to be so bright as the pain I felt from a part of my soul nearly deteriorating fully was just so overwhelming.

And while the goblin necromancer, and the ones from both flanks were flash banged for a few seconds, I charged at the goblin necromancer with both of my bodies, pushing dozens upon dozens of points of mana into my legs in an attempt to get to it faster because, while the pain I felt made thinking hard, I was still conscious enough to see the necromancer for the threat it really was.

As the goblins started opening their eyes, all 3 of the strongest goblins realized my bodies were charging at the necromancer, and so did it.

But I did not care, if I could touch the turtle for even a moment, I could make it move again.

Hell, I didn’t even need to touch it, I just needed to get close enough, and then while the turtle quickly dealt with those 3 my other 2 bodies could beat, or at least occupy the necromancer, and stop it from casting whatever spell it casted that threw my soul outside of my body.

The necromancer, instead of immediately casting whatever that speel was, resorted to launching stone bullets at both of the charging undead.

Though I did not know if that was because it couldn’t cast the spell due to a lack of mana or something else, I was more than happy to accept the reality for what it was and continued my charge at the necromancer.

While I did that, the mace and sword guys of course did not allow me to continue uncontested, and I started having a small battle with the sword guy using my tail, but we were interrupted by the mace guy who took a jab at one of my hind legs, and I could feel a few bones shatter, and just for a moment my movement slowed down, and though I was able to fix it after a second, the sword guy had made its move and had cut my tail, and was moving forwards, for the rest of my body.

Sadly for it, my tail was quite alive and was more than happy to hit him in the back with a mace donated by a special someone who shall go unnamed.

As the mace hit the back of the goblin, I was sure at least 1 or 2 bones were broken. Hell, I might’ve even broken his spine but... I’d be asking help from Rifu-san in fixing that later!

For now, I needed to reach the necromancer, now.

And with a kick of my hind leg, I caused the mace guy to go on defence and stay in place for a few moments and continued on.

While the stone bullets were an annoyance to my lizard body, they were doing quite the work against my bear body, so thanks to the constant barrage of bullets and the spear throwing goblin, my bear body was quite damaged with a few broken bones and had to stay back and focus on the spear throwing goblin.

But my lizard body was close enough to the necromancer so there wasn’t a problem—is what I’d say but the moment the bear stopped to fight against the spear throwing goblin, the necromancer, who was starting to seem a bit exhausted, stopped casting stone bullets at me, and instead casted something for a second, and while I could hear it saying something, and its hands moving and creating magic circles, I did not know what it was—until a gigantic wall of dirt rose from the earth and blocked my path.

Acting quickly, I hardened my body, increased my speed, and jumped at the earthen wall, and broke through it.

But as I rolled on the ground, the mace guy managed to come next to my head, and was about to pierce my brain, and basically all of my mana reserves.

And the necromancer had a smirk on his face, happy that he had defeated a god—that is until the turtle grabbed him in its jaws and started shaking him like a chew toy.