Goblin King: My Innate Skill Is OP-Chapter 288: Baited

"In that case..."

I deliberately overcommitted.

I threw out a wide, reckless swing, too wide, too slow, letting the momentum carry me just a fraction off balance.

And the alpha ape took the bait.

The moment it sensed the opening, its eyes flared, and it lunged, claws arcing forward with murderous intent, aiming to rip straight through my torso and end the fight in one decisive blow.

I grinned using [Swap], and reality folded for an instant.

The second ape, the one still staggering from the earlier concussive blast, suddenly occupied my position, barely having time to register the change before the alpha’s claws tore through him.

There was no resistance as the rage-fueled talons ripped clean through flesh and bone, splitting the unfortunate creature in half from shoulder to hip.

Blood sprayed across the forest floor in a violent arc, steaming faintly as the two halves collapsed in opposite directions.

The alpha froze.

Its eyes widened, realization crashing into it a heartbeat too late as it understood exactly what had just happened.

I reappeared a short distance away, already re-centering my stance, Gravefang steady in my grip. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

I had used its own strength against its pack, its rage as a weapon.

That must be frustrating.

Enraged, it let out a deafening roar and charged, its body blurring as it crossed the distance in an instant.

Its speed had spiked so violently that even I couldn’t fully track it, and this time... it landed a hit.

But...

SKRANG!

[Fractured Existence] took the hit.

The impact rang out like metal being struck by a hammer, the force dispersing around me instead of through me, and before the alpha could react to that failure, I countered, driving a fist wreathed in flame straight toward its center mass.

Once again, it vanished.

My punch slammed into the ground instead, detonating on impact.

The earth exploded outward in a violent burst, the shockwave ripping through the forest floor and hurling debris in every direction.

The alpha was thrown back by the force, its body tumbling through the air before it caught itself mid-flight with its prehensile tail, anchoring onto a tree trunk to halt its momentum.

It looked up.

And that was when it saw them.

Dozens of Flame Orbs, already formed, already descending, their heat distorting the air as they locked onto it from above like falling stars.

"Escape this," I roared.

The orbs came down all at once.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

The Flame Orbs detonated the moment they struck the ground and surrounding trees, their explosions chaining together and turning the forest into a raging inferno.

Explosions tore through the forest canopy, fire and shockwaves swallowing the alpha’s position in a cascade of destruction, trees snapping and igniting as the ground cratered beneath the relentless bombardment.

I stood my ground, eyes fixed on the inferno, waiting to see if it could still crawl out of that.

And it did in fact crawl out of that, though not without scars; its fur was blackened and charred in places, one side of its body clearly having taken the brunt of a blast, but the alpha ape was still far from defeated.

The damage wasn’t anywhere near what I had expected.

It blitzed away, and for a split second, I thought it was retreating.

But then I realized the direction it was moving.

It wasn’t fleeing, it was heading straight for Narg.

The alpha leapt from tree to tree with terrifying speed, using the forest like a launch pad, each bound carrying it closer to where Narg was still stabilizing Deathroot.

So it had given up on killing me first.

Good choice.

I took off after it, my body surging forward as I closed the distance, weaving through the burning forest without slowing.

"Weren’t you going to kill me," I called out coldly as I chased it, "and then him?"

It didn’t respond.

I warped ahead of it, space folding as I appeared directly in its path, and unleashed a flurry of rift slashes meant to cut it down before it could react.

But then something unexpected happened.

The ape split.

Huh?

Multiple afterimages burst outward, overlapping mirages that my slashes tore straight through, each one dispersing like smoke the moment it was struck.

The void cut nothing but illusions.

And the real one...

The real one slipped past me.

I felt it rather than saw it, a rush of displaced air as the alpha surged by, already moving again, already accelerating toward Narg’s location.

"Damn it."

I warped beside it once more and swung, timing the strike perfectly this time, only to carve through more mirages.

They shattered instantly, dissolving into nothing, while the original had already blitzed past my flank, using the chaos to widen the distance.

My jaw tightened.

What kind of skill was this?

This wasn’t simple speed. This wasn’t raw agility.

This was some kind of displacement or mirage-based movement, a technique designed specifically to break targeting and punish pursuit.

Once again, I appeared beside it, but this time, I didn’t bother with rift slashes.

I went low and drove my fist straight into the ground.

The impact detonated instantly, a violent explosion of flame and force that erupted outward and swallowed the alpha ape whole. Trees were blasted apart, soil vaporized, and a ring of scorched earth expanded in every direction.

For a heartbeat, I thought that might finally slow it.

But when the fire cleared, I saw it didn’t.

The alpha burst from the explosion like a living projectile, its form reduced to a blazing blur as it accelerated even faster.

Alright.

This was serious.

Narg was just ahead.

I clenched my jaw and activated [Event Collapsing], reality warping as a compressed rift tore open directly in the alpha’s path, space folding inward like a collapsing wound.

It didn’t slow down.

It ran straight past it as if the rift didn’t exist.

But I smiled grimly.

Just because it passed didn’t mean it had escaped it.

I thrust both hands forward, pulled, and the rift responded instantly, space screaming as its power intensified.

With that surge came a sharper, more violent spatial pull, and the alpha’s forward momentum faltered, its body jerking as the rift’s gravity dug in and began dragging it backward inch by inch.

"Rrrgh!"

The alpha ape let out an animalistic strain as...