Nevertheless, Vaan had never seen well-equipped goblins before.
Not only did the Rank 1 Green Goblins wear full-body black leather armor, one of them even wore a set of full black iron armor.
Furthermore, their black iron spears appeared to be around rank 2 in quality.
‘These armored goblins look stronger than the normal Rank 1 Green Goblins…’ Vaan silently thought as he observed the goblin patrols with Omni-Sense.
Kreuk!
Suddenly, the leading black iron armored goblin stopped and glanced around as if it had detected something with its nose.
Shortly after, it fixed its gaze in Vaan’s direction and approached the huge boulder he was hiding behind to investigate with the other goblins.
Vaan’s eyes glinted.
In that instance, he quickly determined the goblin had somehow smelt his scent despite it being erased beforehand.
The moment the goblins drew close, he immediately shot out from behind the huge boulder like a blurred shadow and swiftly slashed each of their necks with his gunblades.
Keuk!
All six goblins were quickly felled in a short instance.
No matter how well-equipped they were, they couldn’t make up for the absolute difference in power between him and them.
Even so, the goblins had revealed much sharper senses and faster reactions than the average Rank 1 Green Goblins.
Just like hobgoblins, they had been enhanced or evolved, but to an even greater degree than the hobgoblins.
‘This pocket realm is hiding many secrets,’ Vaan mused.
Shortly after checking the goblins’ equipment, he tossed everything into the Heaven-Swallowing Space, their corpses included.
Furthermore, he also eliminated the traces of their blood, burying everything under patches of red soil with Earth Manipulation.
Vaan quickly left the area shortly after, heading north.
Along the way, he found the pocket realm’s environment to be quite unique, unlike anything he had seen in the human world.
There was no consistency in the formation of its land. While there were barren areas, there were also thriving plants from both the human world and Gehenna in one place. Some grew on the ground, while others grew over rocks and boulders.
Overall, it painted a rather surreal and unnatural scene.
‘If this environment was artificially cultivated, then was it actually a result of the two worlds colliding?’ Vaan wondered.
As he ventured further north, he also found some small insects that thrived on the flowers of Gehenna.
However, the insects didn’t seem recognizable—or rather, they possessed multiple recognizable traits of different monsters, beasts, and insects, all mixed together.
None of the monster, beast, or insect books he had read in the libraries had recorded such a kind of creature.
For example, the insect in front of him looked like a honey bee. But besides its head, which was the only thing that looked like a honey bee, it had sharp scythe-like arms of a praying mantis for its legs, wings of a black bat, and a scorpion tail-like stinger.
Failing to find a name that matched the description in his memories, he could only call it a chimera bee.
As if Vaan had got too close, he had attracted the chimera bee’s attention.
The moment it spotted him, it immediately revealed its highly hostile and aggressive nature as it flew at him with its stinger out.
Vaan’s brow furrowed.
In the same instance, a picked up a pebble on the ground with Earth Manipulation and flicked it at the attacking chimera bee, easily splattering it upon impact.
Chimera bee was extremely weak, around the lowest level of Rank 0 beings. Even ordinary humans could have killed it with a regular fly swatter.
But when the chimera bee’s green blood splattered on the ground, it easily eroded some of the soil.
Even the pebble he used to kill the chimera bee had lost half its shape before it struck a boulder and scattered into countless tinier fragments.
‘Such corrosive power!’ Vaan frowned as doubt sprouted in his heart.
As he continued forward, he found more chimera insects. And like the chimera bee, they were all highly aggressive when he entered their line of sight.
A stronger feeling of doubt sprouted in his heart.
Sometime later, Vaan encountered another group of goblins patrols. However, they were too preoccupied with hunting down another group of chimera insects to notice him.
None of the chimera insects he had seen were bigger than the size of two fingers. They were all small and weak, yet highly dangerous at the same time.
Vaan quickly understood the reason for his suspicions.
While the unnatural environment itself could be said to be naturally formed from the collision of the human world and Gehenna, the chimera insects were not native creatures of said environment.
‘These chimera insects are the products of body transmutation experiments!’ Vaan quickly realized.
However, body transmutation experiments were considered forbidden research as they tampered with life and created horrid existences.
It was especially forbidden from being conducted on humans as the Transcendent Witches did not want the purity of the human race from mixing with other creatures in the pursuit of power.
If they had allowed such a trend to grow, a day would come when no one could be considered fully human.
‘I smell an evil witch’s lair,’ Vaan thought.
Once he came to that conclusion, many things became clear to him. But, at the same time, it also gave him more questions.
From the changes in the goblins’ intelligence and basic abilities to their disciplined training and equipment, even the existence of the chimera insects, it could all be explained as the work of a Fallen Witch.
The undiscovered pocket realm provided the perfect environment for the Fallen Witch’s experiments.
However, it would still be difficult for a Fallen Witch to command hordes of goblins on her own.
‘Is the Fallen Witch working with a higher-ranking goblin blessed with greater intelligence? Or has the Fallen Witch conducted body transmutation experiments on herself and fused with a high-ranking goblin to become one of them?’ Vaan speculated.
He wouldn’t be surprised if it were the latter, as Fallen Witches have abandoned their humanity.
However, blind speculations wouldn’t get him anywhere.
‘I need to investigate further,’ Vaan decided.
If it was the evil lair of a powerful Fallen Witch, there was a good chance that even the Plant-type Abomination may have been captured and held captive somewhere for research purposes.