《A Goblin's Blade (dropped)》
Prologue: Malevolence is innate
???
It was done. They had actually succeeded¡
In front of them was a battle. No, if it was anything, it was a war; a fully-fledged war between two species, a war unlike the others before where mutual survival was possible.
An idea, that was all it had been in the mind of one, and yet it had grown and manifested in all their minds, taking root to only grow further. And here was their masterpiece in action.
Goblin Warrior
¡°WARRGHH¡±
An ear shattering roar was howled, nothing like anything he had heard before but what followed was several echoes of the same guttural roar from the people around him.
¡°GRAGGHH¡±
Losing control of his own body, his hands began to tremble as from the other side he could hear a scream that shook him to the core. It wasn¡¯t much louder than his brethren¡¯s, nor was it particularly shrill but the meaning behind it was much more terrifying. After all it was a challenge to his life, a roar that meant they were able to play a game where ¡°Game Over¡± meant one more life had been snuffed out. His heart rate exploded out of the graph as crowd mentality grew, the fear turning to anger and finally bloodlust¡
The sounds meant nothing anymore, all his brain could register were the Trolls in front of him. Only God would know who started, only God would care as well, but the intimidation came to an end. What followed was a crazed charge, a one way ticket to the afterlife as none of the troops had any type of effective protection nor plan. Perhaps it was a blessing that the Trolls lived in the same forest as them, after all they had the same trash for protection as them.
And they met.
Legs slipping, skulls splitting and blood splattering were the formality as the now mushy mud dyed itself red.
First step: His grip over the shoddy-axe grew exponentially as he clenched it.
Second step: His legs nearly slipped as grime and co. now completely covered his lower half, the green skin being splattered with explosions of red and flicks of brown.
Third step: His mind stopped all thought as the ugly fucker came into view, a 1.7m tall muscular monster. It was dressed completely in the mud as you could barely see the blue of its skin, though that did little to deter his eyes from the angular head which housed two protruding tusks, both crooked just like the beady yellow eyes that equally judged him.
Acting first, the troll dashed in before smashing its whole body weight into him, which was closely followed by a quick swing of its¡¯ own makeshift axe. He hadn¡¯t expected the troll to act so fast and was completely dumbfounded as it charged him, leaving him even more dazed than before. Nevertheless good habits prevented death as he reacted to the shiny gleam of the blade covering his view, buckling down before he fastened his arms around the troll¡¯s waist and pushed with all his might. This time it was the troll¡¯s turn to be surprised as it felt a truck smash into his abs, though its¡¯ grip didn¡¯t slip as it followed its arc downwards onto the goblin¡¯s back.
In fact such a strike would have been harmless if it had been made in a proper fight, but this wasn¡¯t a fight; it was a war where breathing space was limited nevertheless space to allow movement. The goblin felt an immense pain as the axe made contact, splitting a muscle on his back. Overcoming the pain quickly due to the adrenaline, he pushed the troll down as he unfastened his arms around its waist. He pulled his arm towards the sky before feeling the warm wind. Warm wind but no axe, which he had inconspicuously dropped during his tackle of the Troll.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Moving onto plan B, he jumped onto the felled Troll, though it was well out of its daze by thenas it was already quickly moving its armed arm as obstruction to the goblin¡¯s dive onto its body. But not quick enough as the goblin safely landed on the Troll¡¯s body, meat shielding another axe strike with his back as his open mouth housing two large fangs bit deep into the Troll¡¯s neck. Very deep, as he felt burning a metallic taste fill up his mouth very quick, though he instantly spewed it into the Troll¡¯s open mouth as his brain registered the last axe wound.
Hardening his will, the goblin had barely recovered his mind as he instantly wrestled the axe out of the Troll¡¯s twitching arms. The troll was squirming violently as it tried to clear its mouth of the bloody fluid which blocked its ability to breathe. It was met with little success as it was lying on its back, weighed down by a goblin. The goblin rose the stolen axe to the sky, with the sun watching, just as the troll fully pushed itself off the floor. The desperation was beautiful as the axe smashed into the Troll¡¯s head, cracking through the skull to leave the axe embedded in its brain.
His subconscious must have judged him out of immediate critical danger as it slightly alleviated the adrenaline he felt, only to have the goblin cringe over the mind crushing pain. The fight he had was special, but nothing special on the battlefield, as corpses of Troll¡¯s and Goblin¡¯s littered the place. In fact this certain goblin was in one of the better shapes out of the survivors, as most of them had collapsed under the mutual destructions that they had called a fight.
In response, his body once again increased his adrenaline. The pain seemed to subside as the bloodlust once again grew, it was a sick feeling to say the least and yet the only feeling that made any sense in a bloody hell like this.
In hindsight, perhaps it would have been better if he had never gotten back up¡
¡°WWRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!¡±
The roar was as primal as one could get, fully guttural and yet as loud as the sky itself crashing into the Earth. It felt like the air itself was against him as he felt the roar rob him of his balance as he staggered backwards. They were like rising suns in the background of his vision, and yet they got big so fast. They were clearly trolls, with blue skin covering the body while a pair of thick tusks imposed itself on the world through the mouth. But they weren¡¯t trolls; the monsters were around 2.5m tall but scarier was the fact of how muscular they were. Their bodies were literal meat mountains as the behemoths¡¯ muscles bulged outwards.
Perhaps it was pain, perhaps it was fear, perhaps someone had even stabbed him in the time he stood dazed out but his body could no longer handle the mental nor physical stress put on it. His body crumpled down, collapsing onto the troll as his back bled outwards onto it.
Some people say your life flashes in front of your eyes as you are about to die, but how that is possible when you are faced with such debilitating fear. Instead all that came out were tears, hot streams that quickly melted down his face. It wasn¡¯t a long wait before it came down, the constant newcomers¡¯ roars had completely broken his will to fight, though he doubted his body¡¯s ability to move even if he wanted to. It was a big foot, a pathetic death it was to be trampled to death, but it was another thing when you were crushed to death by a single foot. It found home on his chest as it crushed downwards, easily shattering his ribcage while mushing his organs into paste before it skipped along its path. He never even saw the face of his killer, all he had seen was a foot¡
The battle had taken place in a big clearing in the forest, though now it was a dump of dead bodies. To the north was the troll¡¯s home while to the east of the clearing was the goblin¡¯s home. To the West it was still the forest. Dark green covered all surfaces here, whether it be through leaves or moss. Barely any sunlight got through to the forest floor, meaning all the undergrowth had taken down ¡°different¡± routes to other plants as most were angular and dangerous looking. The canopy, usually filled to the brim with monsters making a sundry of noises, was completely silent.
There were two reasons for this: One being the intense battle taking place. The roars, squeals and cries seemed to capture all¡¯s attention as no noises were made. The other reason was due to the people directly below the dense canopy to the West of the clearing.
The people were not random passer-by¡¯s, nor any kind of adventurers. Rather they were third player of the game, just they had come slightly late, although that was no mistake. To their front were two dying armies, while behind and around each of them were perfectly rested and orderly soldiers. The fate of the trolls and goblins were decided with this move, as long as no surprises would pop up¡
¡°CrooooooOOOOO¡±
The battle-horn was blown...
Note to old readers. The edited version will catch up later than expected.
Keeping it succinct. The rewrite will not be done in 1 week, sorry to all of you but I can''t do it . I edited 2 chapters like I said i would do yesterday, and it took all my free time. And the problem with that is writing is just a hobby of mine, something that feels like work is not a hobby, I am not enjoying doing it so I''m going to slow down and just take away the pressure on me.
As for why the rewriting is so long to do? I thought at first it would just be an increase in quality, but on the second chapter i realised that I want actually change the plot. Which means the rewriting basically now feels like writing a chapter from scratch. I cannot write 2 chapters like that per day, it was completly my bad for overestimating myself but I felt like I would lose readers if the rewrite too long. But now 2 days later idgaf about that.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Cheers for reading the whole thing if you made it here ">.
Rewrite will take longer than expected. Read new prologue to see new quality.
Heey guys!
So I have got quite a few comments saying how quality seems to have decreased and yadda yadda yadda. At first I thought it was just because I had got down into my groove, my early chapters took way longer to write while I could do the latter ones consistently within not too long of a time.
But then my cheeky bastard of a writer friend, Alexis Keane, offered to edit one of my future chapters for quality check and that. I thought sure, why not mate? I''m not one to let go of such a magnanimous offer. Only later would I know the truly evil machinations he hid within that offer .
So what he did was he edited my prologue, and lord almightly was that good. In fact it was so good that I realised what I had been writing had been crap. Like don''t get me wrong, it wasn''t just good just because he had written it, rather because it seemed to have so much more thought into word order, vocabulary and phrase choice and all the good stuff. All stuff I can do just as well I assure you .If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
So why didn''t I?
I had just gone into the thinking this was alike web novel (like the chinese ones) where quantity ( which i''m clearly not great at) is more important than quality. But I''d rather read good crap than stuff shit crap down my throat.
So I have decided to rewrite my chapters. How long will that take, about a week ( since I can do 1-2 per day). So does this mean a whole week without any chapters? Kinda, I read through my redone prologue and it is so much more of ajoy to read than my old one. If you cba, dw I''ll write a summary of anything I have changed during the edits when I post my 13th chapter.
But just read the newprologue and tell me what you think of it? Cuz I think people are willing to read that, even if they do know the plot behind what will happen since the quality increase is just so much.
.
(1) The insignificant events in life can lead to the significant journeys.
Damon
Two fingers gripped one side of the rough wood while his thumb firmly held the other side of the handle. Bending the whole arm back, his wrist flicked towards a large oak tree, releasing the knife from its hold as the index finger guided it towards the centre of the tree.
¡°thump¡±
A hit but no kill.
Another knife was picked and once again thrown, which like before was a hit but no kill. The sun had gone down by the time he had finished, multiple knife wounds now littering the tree. Very few scratched the sides of the wide tree as most were concentrated around the centre where the trunk had even slightly caved in, due to the magnitude of knife wounds. Two years of hard work hadn''t gone to waste.
Collecting the knives back into his slight woven bag, the goblin set his way back to the Tribe. Training for social monsters was important as they were usually born with little to none innate skills and thus had to learn many through their life in order to survive. The importance of this was only multiplied when you lived in the Great Forest, a large forest range that was rumoured to be the entrance to somewhere else otherworldly.
And yet goblins had no dedicated training sessions; it was seen as a waste of goblin resources as it wouldn¡¯t have an immediate apparent increase in survival. Thus the older goblins preferred to allow the younglings free range and allowed them to do as they wished, after all only the strong and hardworking ones would survive all the way up to adulthood. The harsh calluses on the walking goblin¡¯s palm gave clear testament to his work ethic.
His mind seemed to run amok as he walked towards the tribe, it was visiting certain parts of his short life which had an effect on him, though in no particular order.
He had lived 3 long years, which although was extremely short when compared to some species, was actually congratulatory. After all a goblin grew to complete adult hood at the age of 5, though the average in the Great forest was a meagre 1 years, which was what made the goblin¡¯s age of 3 congratulatory.
Goblins were considered a spawn animals by other intelligent species; this being attributed due to their quick growth periods and high birth rates: a female goblin could give birth every 3 months, meaning a total of around 4 babies per year for each female goblin. This alongside their weak strength made sense why others considered goblins a spawn species, which only made it more confusing why such a species was in the Great forest, even if it was just the outskirts region. Goblins were generally found on the plains with foliage, though that was a different matter in the Great forest where the foliage itself was more of a shield than greenery.
He hadn¡¯t been named at birth, after all their survival rate was very low. He had named himself at his first anniversary, proof of his significance by living for so long, as Damon. It was also around that time Damon had seen Gregal, the strongest goblin in the village, kill an Alpha wolf with a single axe throw. It had sparked inspiration in the little goblin to learn throwing, which although wasn¡¯t a strong passion, was one he had continued for 2 years due to the consistent results.
Damon had already arrived at the village, unbeknownst to him, while still lost in his thoughts.
¡°CrroooOOOOOOOOOOO¡±
His stupor was quickly broken by a blaring horn-blow, which transformed his gentle walk into a rushed jog towards the centre of the village. The village itself was made of huts and a clearing. The huts were made out of mud and several strong plant materials. Each goblin used to make their own huts due to its simplicity but now most just used old unoccupied huts made by others due to their low survival rate. The countless huts surrounded a circular clearing in the middle, around 20m radius, which was now filled with several goblins.
Goblins anatomy-wise were not the most exciting creatures: they were humanoid creatures with distinguishing features being their fangs, above average nose sizes and angular eyes. Though the biggest give-away was their pasty green skin. The goblins in terms of size weren¡¯t too small but definitely not big either, the average males in the forest went up to 160cm while the average females reached 155cm. Damon himself was already 120cm, and would be taller than his counter-parts were it not for their early deaths. Instead he was up against goblins older than him, most reaching from 130-150cm.
This basic description agreed with around 90% of the goblins who kept on swarming into the clearing, ballooning the number of goblins in the clearing to around 80 by now. The 10% remaining were the goblins at the centre of the clearing, because surrounding the large blow horn was a well-aged goblin and several other large, muscular goblins.
¡°Quiet!¡± The aged goblin bellowed and it was quickly followed as the noisy rabble instantly quietened down.
¡°Over the last week, a warrior stumbled upon a cave which earned us a loss of life!¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
¡°Luckily the rest of his group escaped and the warriors have now investigated that area. We are now confident that what lies in that cave is a silverback bear. Know that the monster is a tier two, meaning a massacre on our side would be necessary if we wanted it. However the investigations have also shown that the monster is currently at maximum size, meaning no one here could ever hope to kill it. But that is also to our advantage, after all any monster at maximum size would want to evolve.¡±
The raspy voice continued onwards onto a few more details about minor matters before concluding the meeting.
¡°A silverback bear evolves into a moon bear by bathing in moonlight for a night,this means just as it is evolving, it will be weakened and we can kill it. Its next evolution''s strenght depends on the amount of moonlight it can absord in a night, so it will definitely wait for a full moon. It is just within our luck that the next full moon will be in 2 days, meaning we have enough time to prepare. Remember that as long as we get the bear¡¯s body, we can forcibly evolve ourselves!¡±
His speech ended on what the people actually cared about.
¡°We will be sending 10 warriors alongside with a few pack carriers in order to make sure the warriors are in best condition as they arrive.¡±
What proceeded was him choosing 10 of the strongest warriors standing near him, in which there were two notable ones: Raarak and Withil. Both were extremely strong warriors at the top of the pack but more importantly, both were vying for the next position as Chief. In truth the village¡¯s strongest Gregal could have solo finished this task, but it seemed he and the current aged Chief seemed to agree on using this task to indirectly test the two candidates. Whichever one succeeded would have an advantage over the other, enough so for one of the two to be chosen as the next Chieftain.
He was done within seconds, after which he began naming the pack carriers.
¡°¡., ¡.., ¡.., Damon,¡.¡±.
A smile bloomed widely on Damon¡¯s face as he heard the golden word. Although it instantly wilted within the next second.
¡°Chieftain, I desire a battle with Damon for his position!¡±.
¡°¡hmm¡ Accepted¡±.
The goblin who had requested to fight him wasn¡¯t after the extremely ¡°glorious¡± position of pack carrier but rather the baggage it came with (). The warriors would have monopoly over the beast¡¯s carcass as they brought it back and the pack carriers who came alongside with them would have second dibs. Having a better quality piece could exponentially increase chance of success, which in turn made perfect sense why the other goblin had wanted his place.
The reason for choosing Damon? He was the smallest of the bunch.
Within seconds an area had been cleared out as the warriors made the physical parameters for an arena. Across the circle stood the challenging goblin who was 130cm tall and quite a bit more muscular than Damon. The goblin had in his arms a small axe while his other arm edged towards his woven bag around his waist.
In truth it was a pathetic attempt, it was similar to standing in front of a football and pulling your foot completely backwards while in front of a professional footballer: they would know exactly what you were about to do and how to respond, due to experience and expertise.
The arm suddenly shot into the bag, grabbing a knife which the goblin instantly threw. It was simply unfortunate that Damon had already rolled backwards, causing the knife to fly overhead. Damon''s hand flowed like water as he shot towards his own bag, a well-practised action as what followed was extremely fluid: a straight throw towards the goblin¡¯s chest.
Clearly flustered by the lack of gaps between Damon¡¯s actions, the other goblin flinched before jumping backwards.
¡°RAARGH!¡±
The moment of hesitation revealed its dangers as the knife missed the kill but still hit, just as it had done on the tree. Blood streamed down the goblin¡¯s arm with the knife at the centre, akin to an overflowing volcano.
The warriors surrounding the two seemed amused due to the amateur attempt atfighting shown by the challenging goblin. He was well known in the tribe as a future goblin warrior candidate, and yet he was absolutely ruined when faced against an expert. In truth most goblin''s wouldn''t focus on knife throwing and certainly wouldn''t persist on it as long as Damon had. Damon was without a doubt the second best at knife throwing in the village, though that meant little when faced up against a few of the skillsthe warriors had.
Gritting his teeth, the challenging goblin clenched his jaw down although tears still escaped his eyes. Damon was about to throw another knife just as the other goblin dashed forward, ducking below the now-speeding knife as he reached close proximity.
The goblin was at least 4 years old and he hadn¡¯t just wasted 4 years, after all one couldn¡¯t survive here if one had done such. Instead he had well trained his close combat skills as nearly all other goblins did and it clearly showed as he used his only able hand to strike the axe downwards. Damon used another knife to clash the axe, though the strength difference was clear as day as Damon¡¯s wrist began to bend under the pressure.
It was also within that second Damon let go of the knife, though by no accident, as the downwards force meant the other goblin staggered forward, striking thin air. This was enough time as Damon jumped backwards while he threw another knife out. Missing at this range would be a joke for an amateur, nevertheless an expert at knife throwing. The knife blade met the goblin¡¯s eye as it pierced through, reaching the brain.
The goblin staggered forward once more just as he collapsed: an instant death.
???
He was born bigger than the rest. At the age of 1, he had already reached other 3 year olds. At the age of 15, he was already the biggest in his tribe and his growth had still not finished. It was at just a month after his 15th that the tribe lost their leader due to an attack. He had made himself a name in the tribe but his size was nothing when compared to the fame of a few of the elders. But none of that mattered not, it had been passed down their species that the strongest would be leader. This made perfect sense, after all which troll didn¡¯t love a good fight?
(2) Rising action
Goblins
The goblins had set off at night, in order to get to the bear¡¯s cave by first light. This was because the silverback bear was diurnal just like humans and goblins, and that only got emphasised by the fact that bear was planning to go into evolution that very day. All of this added up, basically meaning that the bear would be extremely aware of its surroundings during the day, due to its incoming self-induced period of weakness. Thus the goblins had decided to get to and campnear the bear''s cave during the night, meaning all unnecessary movement could be minimalised in order to not rise awareness in the bear before its evolution.
It was a good plan but it forgot one matter; the fact that the bear would be extremely aware during the day due to the dangers it could faceat night, dangers far more fearsome than a pack of goblins. The dark was the hunting period of the true monsters, monsters so strong that a silverback bearwasnothing but a fat cat to them. It was the reason why the bear wanted to evolve amongst many other reasons. Now this was all well and good for the bear but it was another thing when it came to the goblins, monsters who were top tier one at best and basically equivalent to plankton in a food chain at worst. The moving goblins looked like ants to some of the monsters, barely noticable, while others saw them as easy food.
Withil''s POV
It would explode anytime now, my god damnedear-drums that was! Fear was something I utterly despised, it was an emotion that would through all logic out of the window just to increase survivability, no matter the cost.
The pain in my legs were only increasing but I couldn¡¯t stop them, not now at least.
Why did the bumbling fool of a pack carrier have to step on an Acid worm, the god damned thing shone fluorescent and gave of a rancid odour!Who in this world would want to go near that thing and yet this retarded 3 year old ran straight to it like it was his toy or something. AND. THAT. WASN¡¯T. EVEN. THE. END. OF.THAT!
Of course it wouldn¡¯t be, a goblin of that size would barely act as an appetizer for such a disgusting monster.Now what would be perfect as afollow up main-mealwould be a grown up warrior goblin, but why did it have to be my fucking man instead that bastards''!?
¡°SKRAAAA¡±
I rolled to the side as I heard the deafening sound, though nothing seemed to go well today as I felt a scorching pain on my arm.
¡°ARGHH!¡±.
Fuck! I could see it coming, not really as my eyes were well blurred up by now but then again you didn¡¯t need the best vision to see such a bright hell hole heading your way.
¡°SKRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAA¡±
This time it screamed in pain, at what I didn¡¯t wonder or care about, as I instantly jumped backwards behind a thick tree that protected my body from immediate danger. Frantically searching, my hand finally stumbled upon the Black water in my waist satchel. It seemed to splatter more on the forest floor than my arms as my shivering hand tried to pour it onto the acid that continued to burn away at my arm.
Offense is the best defence and the best type of self-torture, especially when the water you are using is an extremely strong and effective disinfectant. The pain was unimaginable to say the least, I felt better having the arm scorching away than disinfecting it with black water.
¡°Garrgh!?¡±
Severe back pain quickly spread over my back in less than a second as I looked backwards, though all that entered my vision was a thick dark tree in contrast to a blindingly bright monster behind it, not at all unlike the sun peeking over the horizon. My vision seemed to blur further-still as my brain fully registered the pain on my back, added with pain over my arms and legs. I instantly bit into my able hand in an attempt to stay awake, I would be dead if I slept here after all but to it was to no avail¡
...
¡°Ugh huh hu uh hu uh¡±
My body was heaving violently, even after my eyes broke open their barriers. The whole place was an un-naturally dark, unlike midnight. At midnight, you had moonlight but right now I had no light. Though it didn¡¯t matter much as I was currently seeing with my night vision, I looked around and saw about a dozen or more goblins in this little enclosed space. It should have been a perfect 15, it should have been but it wasn¡¯t. My heart seemed to feel an incorporeal pain, one that I could sense but in no way fix at the loss of my man.
Had I been particularly close to him? No, he had followed me due to his belief in me but that was enough for me to look after him. Furthermore half my arm had been melted away, half my god-damned arm. Rot had started growing over the aftermath, although that wouldn¡¯t matter much as long we evolved. If we evolved that was. Anger bubbled inside my mind and only grew as I thought of it, why had we even brought pack carriers? Keep us in our best situation my ass, all of us here were mentally and physically exhausted due to their naivety.
It took quite a while for my mind to calm down, though we had an abundance of time since the attack on the bear would be at night; wewouldn''teven be able to move around today due to the chance of giving away our presence.
*sigh*
I edged over to one of men, perhaps my longest serving one. I could see the scumbag Raraak watching me, the bastard was big for sure though I doubt anything was happening up in his head.
¡°Ahh Withil, you are up!¡±
¡°Yes I am Roger, though not in the best conditions¡±
¡°Haha, of course not but which one of us here isn¡¯t exhausted due to that unlucky encounter¡±You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
My mouth soured downwards at that as my eyes grew more slanted. It seemed Roger got the cue not to talk about it as he dryly coughed it away. All of a sudden, something clicked in my mind as I wondered why I hadn¡¯t died? Thinking back, I had seen something shining bright green whack the tree I had been leaning on, which was clearly the acid worm. But why? It had 1000¡¯s of more effective attacks and yet it had decided to attack me by whacking itself into the tree? And why had I not died after fainting right in front of that disgusting monster?
It was like Roger could read my mind as he quickly changed topics to the very ones I had been thinking off.
¡°Ahh Withil you must be wondering what happened after you fainted. Yes?¡±
¡°No tell me even before that, I had been leaning on that tree but that worm decided to just whack me? What happened to it for it to do that?¡±
¡°Mmm, that was that pack carrier. What his name again?¡±
¡°Pack carrier?! He did what?¡±
¡°Of course, it was young Damon. You know, that goblin who was challenged for his position and killed the challenger with a knife. He did similar to the worm, a good battle sense on the boy, as he threw knives right into the worms sensors. It is granted that anyone can tellwhereits sensors are without ever seeing it before since they move around like crazy, sensing the air, but its another question to hit them both.¡±
Finally some gold uncovered from the shits.
¡°Tell me more about this Damon. Has Raraak already recruited him under his banner by any chance?¡±
¡°Not at all. You know what Raraak respects with that body of his, people alike him who fight fully frontal. In fact I believe Raraak actually belittles the boy for using knives, though I believe its more so because he saved your ass. Haha¡±
My face soured again, though this time he seemed to take no heed of the hint as he chuckled away.
He soon stopped and carried on about Damon. ¡°Right , about the boy. I¡¯m not entirely sure about his situation, though I heard he has been practising knife throwing for quite a long time. Now I¡¯m not sure but I reckon its due to Gregal, you know how he throws those axes of his. If I was a kid who saw him do ones of his throws, I too would be obsessed like young Damon.
Something seemed up in his mind as he stopped for a few seconds, before looking me right in the eye and saying "I think you should go and intimidate him into joining your banner, after all we just lost the two talents of Rodrick and Ragger. It wouldn¡¯t hurt to heal those injuries a bit, especially since Raraak has been acting a lot bolder after your losses. The boy Damon is still young and small, a goblin variant like you could easily shape his thoughts now so that he follows you later.¡±
He had a point that I couldn¡¯t refute, the boy had a good battle sense but that didn¡¯t get rid of his naivet¨¦, it was only something that disappeared after experience.
Damon
Damon sat huddled in a corner of the cave, he had hoped his prowess had set him apart from his fellow pack carriers and yet he did not see Raraak coming over. Raraak was with no doubt the biggest goblin he had seen, reaching 1.9m. The goblin was muscled to the toe and was seen by other goblins as the ideal image to aim for, and yet Raraak and his flagship avoided Damon like the plague, despite his performance. Instead Raraak talked to another pack carrier who had had also set himself apart from the crowd, although it was through being bigger and carrying a heavier load. Inside of him was a feeling of disappointment at his dashed hopes but worse still were the feelings festering within him: feelings of disdain for the mediocrity shown by the pack.
He had worked himself hard to increase his skill to such a high level and yet some fool had got all the favourable attention for just being big. *sigh*
It was at this moment Damon noticed a goblin edging towards him, someone he instantly identified as Withil. Withil was the most popular goblin against Raraak, which was a bit surprising since Withil did not have any notable physical features, such as bigger size, distinguishing himself from the other warriors.In fact Withil was almost the polar opposite of Raraak, since Raraak had distinguished himself through brawn while Withil had done it through his brain. It had been the reason why the Chieftain had banned direct conflict between the two, as both were invaluable for the tribe¡¯s prosperity.
¡°Hey Damon¡±
¡°Yes sir¡±
¡°Call me Withil boy. I¡¯m pleased to see another day boy, you saved my life. I have heard about how you did it from my man and I''m impressed by your skill on the knife. Enough so that I can offer you a chance under my name, you can be my man from hence onwards.¡±
Shock filled Damon¡¯s mind as he thought over what had been said. Of course he had saved Withil and had expected some kind of reward for it afterwards but surely going under Withil''s banner was too cheap of a gift. In fact it wasn¡¯t even a gift¡
Living up to his rumours, Withil easily read Damon¡¯s face as he saw the shock and disdain.
¡°Don¡¯t misunderstand me, coming under my banner isn¡¯t some random gift. It means when I get the beasts body, you will be able to get a higher quality part and be associated with me in the future when I become the chief. Perhaps you think me too ambitious and would rather Raraak, but have you ever considered all the people in his group. They are all big and strong with nothing else, who cares about your knife skills when you are close to half their size.¡±
¡°Just join me boy, believe me when I say you will not regret it¡±¡
The Trolls- ???
In front of him stood the Chief¡¯s hound, a pathetic troll that all trolls looked down upon. He was a troll who licked the previous Chief¡¯s feet in order to reach the top and then proceeded to flounder his false power.
I looked him down, his blue skin looked diseased as it was shaded a murky green. All troll¡¯s took care of their tusks and yet the troll in front of him had cracked tusks. His eyes were as beady as they got as he alike stared me down. Directly in front of me was a good old bludgeon, it wasn¡¯t fancy but did the job. The rough wood of the body led to a heavy top made out of iron metal, I was told it had been a weapon stolen from some dumb humans, a story I refused to believe as this bludgeon itself was 1.5m long and weighed 45kg. How could any of them wield this!?
Within an instant, the hound had contracted his body and ran forwards. It was a fast dash, one that was used to catch one of surprise, but I reacted just as quick as the cold metal of the bludgeon smacked the air as I lifted the weapon of the floor. I raised the weapon into a defensive position, though it was perhaps over the top as the hound suddenly slipped during his dash, whilst within my range. Foolish! My legs moved with pure instict as my pose changed in order to whack his diving head.
I was wrong. He mush have chuckled as he saw me follow his lead, just before he instantly straightened his body, flashing the cold glint of a short sword before my eyes: it had been a trap¡
My hands opened up as I reacted, dropping the bludgeon whilst punching one of myfists into his body. But it was too late, far too late as the short sword pierced through my ribcage, only centimetres away from my heart. His body flew onto the floor as my weakened-punch still did damage, bruising his arm.
I don¡¯t know what it was, no that was a lie. I knew what it was, a feeling of the past, the feeling of pure unadultered anger. It had its source deep within my confidence in my body, and yet it had only ever weakened me. After all it''s easier to deal with an angry monster than it is to deal with a crafty human hunter.
But I must have forgotten all the beatings I had gotten in the past for my stupid anger, I must have forgotten all the times I had come close to death due to it because I let it grow within me. What entered my head was the primate feeling of anger, and what exited was a pure roar of hatred¡
(3) A fight. Or is it just a slaughter?
Goblins
Moonlight embraced the forest as the Moon shone in all its glory, a pseudo-sun fighting away the darkness in the sun¡¯s absence.
All the goblins were still in the cave, around 100m away from where the bear should be. ¡°Should be¡± but not ¡°will be¡±, this because although the goblins would have loved to survey the area but they liked even more to keep their lives in tact.
It was in fear that the goblins actively minimised any actions they made in the bear¡¯s territory, limiting themselves to the cave until the full moon had reached the pinnacle of its fleeting usurpation of the sky. And it was exactly that time right now.
Damon sat in the darkness, his feet uncontrollably shaking as he thought of what was to happen tonight. He had seen 2 star monsters, even top tier 2 star monsters like the silverback bear. But now he was about to kill one! For the whole day he had thought of Withil¡¯s offer, there wasn¡¯t much else to do anyway, and now he had come to a decision. Perhaps it was the weight this decision would have over the future or maybe it was the upcoming fight, but he couldn¡¯t get up to tell Withil.
It was as he was battling his nerves that Withil called out towards the goblins.
¡°I don¡¯t know how long the bear¡¯s evolution will last but let¡¯s not take any chances. I think it¡¯s time¡±
Raraak instantly followed suit.
¡°Yes Withil is right, the time is right¡±
Raraak must have felt the compulsion to lead as he followed his sentence by walking out from the depths of the cave, into the moon¡¯s embrace. His troops followed him which after Withil led his men outside, though they were almost half Raraak¡¯s men. The pack carriers joined them afterwards, not desiring to have any type of allegiances at the moment due to the restriction it could cause in the future. Even the boy Raraak had approached walked with them, most likely wanting to show Withil he hadn¡¯t made a decision yet, though he most definitely had.
There was no howling wind, giving the Great forest a creepy serene theme when partnered with the moonlight, completely unbefitting of the forest. The silence was short-lived though, as the goblin warriors split up in order to go individual ways. Now feeling much lighter due to the lack of heavy equipment, the pack carriers also split apart.
Damon walked for a while, though he was not sure how long. Where he was now was deeper into the forest than their tribe was, and the forest itself showed it. Although the differences were marginal, it was still noticeable as the trunks of the trees where tougher looking while the branches were thicker.
From serenity followed calmness, and yet strangely enough Damon felt more ¡°powerful¡± here. It was a strange feeling as it was clearly a double edged sword, this was although his whole body felt fitter than ever, the power seemed to also push down onto his body, half suffocating it. It was similar to strengthening poison, he felt stronger in the moment but he could also feel it simultaneously breaking his body down. All in all, Damon wanted out of this place; the longer he stayed here, the worse he would feel.
The moon had already begun its planned descension back into the bowels of the sky by the time Damon found another goblin, Withil. Although his stomach instantly turned to butterflies, Withil had also noticed him quite easily and urged him to come closer. All he had planned to say in his mind disappeared as he walked in towards Withil, sweat beginning to drip down his forehead.
¡°Withil¡¡±
¡°Yes Damon. Have you decided perchance? It¡¯s best to choose fast you know, no leader likes a person who only follows them for benefits. I already sa..¡±
¡°I have decided. I will walk under your banner¡¡±
The silence that should have followed was rudely interrupted by a regular sound.
¡°crooooOOOOOOOO¡±
¡°RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!¡±
Wrack''s POV
Wrack followed his heart, he was certain no other goblin had his skill. It was strange, he had noticed from early on in his life that he was a lot more perceptive to the power. He had noticed both elation of the body as well as the increasing pressure on the body as you went deeper into the forest, something the Old Village chief had diagnosed as increased perception to mana. Apparently it was this ¡°mah-na¡± thing that made it so that the goblin tribe could only make themselves in the outskirts of the Great forest while other monsters could freely roam. It was that their bodies couldn¡¯t hold too much ¡°mah-na¡± inside of themselves while other monsters had greater capacities, which meant they could venture deeper into the forest where the ¡°mah-na¡± in the air only increased exponentially.
Anyhow what mattered was that Wrack was special, more special than any other goblin. In fact he was almost certain that he was even smarter than Withil, who was rumoured to be the smartest. After all he had been able to make a plan: the silverback bear surely needed the power/¡±mah-na¡± in order to evolve, so there must be a stronger concentration of ¡°mah-na¡± where the bear was hiding at. This in turn meant that Wrack could find the bear before anyone else due to his nose for the ¡°mah-na¡±, earning the reward for finding the monster.
He could feel it, the thicker concentration that was. In fact to his 4 year old body, the smallish pack carrier actually found the ¡°mah-na¡± quite difficult to walk through. His whole chest was heaving up and down for air, as it seemed to only become scarcer. The atmosphere itself was becoming more solid, as it currently felt like swimming through water since Wrack had to actively push himself deeper. He knew it, the bear was close.
In fact he almost suffocated as he saw the bear, the ¡°mah-na¡± around it was so thick. The monster was around 2.5m long and 1.5m tall. A full back of silver glittered in the moonlight as the bear lay almost embedded in the ground. Wrack immediately jumped back after his little peek, his body finally taking a well-needed, deep breath of air.
His fingers trembled for excitement as they grasped at his waist for his horn. The sweat on his hands dripped onto the deep, brown horn. Air filled his lungs as he fully breathed in and what followed was an explosion of sound, completely breaking the serenity of the forest.
¡°croooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO¡±
Mud was flicked into the sky as his feet instantly paced backwards, running away at his maximum speed away from the bear. He was almost sure that it would also awaken, though he had never seen an evolution before so he wasn¡¯t sure. What he would never know was how noble his sacrifice was.
He had blew into the horn with all his might, ensuring all the goblins knew where the bear was. But he had also blew into the horn with all his might, ensuring his eardrums had been temporally deafened.
Though he didn¡¯t need ears to see the huge shadow that instantly enveloped his body, nor did he need good ears to hear the thunderous roar.
¡°RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRR!!!!!¡±
Goblins
Withil laughed, a dirty laugh but a laugh nevertheless.
¡°Haha, hargh harghha. Boy remember to re-declare your allegiance to me once more if you survive this fight.¡±
He shot towards the pandemonium, giving no time for Damon to respond in. Regaining his bearings, Damon followed behind the tall goblin with one half acid-eaten arm: his new leader.
In truth Wrack had been talented, he had been able to follow the trail of mana to find the bear but one didn¡¯t need his sensitivity once you closed in enough. Damon¡¯s body could feel the pressure of the mana, in fact he could feel the power within him to run faster but decided not to after feeling the strain.
It wasn¡¯t a long run, perhaps 1-2 minutes. He eventually could see more goblins than just Withil in his scope, around 2 or 3 in total. But none of this mattered to any of the goblins as they heard the recurring roars, loud as the first one had been.
¡°RAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHRRGH¡±
¡
¡°RRRRRRAGH¡±
Damon¡¯s feet exploded outwards as he leapt, higher than he had ever leapt. Landing steadily, though his calves now hurting slightly, Damon looked over to the now- very real danger. His eyes tracked 3 fresh goblin corpses in front of him. There was no clearing here but he could see the bright red glimmering over the skin of the trees, showing clearly where the corpses were. There was even one corpse directly in front of him that was hard to identify; its whole body had been perfectly bisected down the middle while a layer of gore covered what was left of it.
It was then Damon saw what Wrack hadn¡¯t seen, a large amount of corpseswithin a dug-outhole in the corner of the small clearing. His stomach cramped as he managed to identify the corpses, all tier 2 from what he could see and yet all had been smashed apart. All of thisinformation entered Damon''s mind within an instant, an instant that suddenly drained all the elation from Damon¡¯s body. In fact within the next instant he almost lost all his energy as his eyes found their way onto the silverback.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
¡°RAGGGHHH¡±
Wrack had only seen its back but Damon now had a perfect front row seat to see its actual body, a mixture of fat and muscle stuck on top of four tree-trunk like legs. Its nails each were around the same size as Damon¡¯s fingers, though that was no surprise considering this was definitetly the biggest silverback bear he had seen.
His eyes next focused on the roaring goblins fighting the bear, which turned out to be Raraak and his gang. In fact Withil had arrived earlier than Damon but had decided to regroup with his group, instead of joining forces with Raraak. It was as Damon watched that he saw Withil and his gang quietly sneak towards the meat mountain¡¯s back while Raraakabsorbed all its rage.
It was to no surprise to any of the pack carriers that Raraak¡¯s weapon had been the biggest and heaviest weapon they had to carry. It was a heavy pole made out of old oak, a material that was extremely dense giving it properties of high weight load but also high toughness, which was attached onto a big axe like blade at the end of it. In essence it was thethick and heavycousin of the battle axe.
The 1.9m tall goblin took no precaution for his own life as he lifted his axe into sky before blasting it down. You could see the veins over Raraak¡¯s arm elongate and slither like snakes as the battle axe smashed into the silver bear¡¯s neck. It was now that Damon noticed that the silver bear was definetly weakened as it actually twitched even before Raraak had lifted the axe but its weakened body couldn''t match its mind which was still working at peak condition. The axe met the bear¡¯s flesh, ripping itself into the bear¡¯s neck. Raraak immediately stretched out his arms in order to retrieve his embedded axe, only to find it lodged within the bears thick neck.
Slow might have been what the bear¡¯s reactions had been but it no longer stayed that way after it felt the axe smash into its neck. It would seem the bear¡¯s internal system had finally regarded these ants as actual danger to its body and had maximised adrenaline release. Of course such a reckless reaction would lead to reckless actions from the bear, leading to a lower chance of evolution afterwards but it mattered not at the moment. The bear had instantly contracted its neck muscles after its rude awakening from hibernation mode, lodging the axe unmovable inside its neck.
In fact the whole action had been planned by the crafty bear within a second, as it knew Raraak, who was the biggest ant and thus biggest visually judged danger, would go forwards to take out his weapon. This was completely unbeknownst to Raraak as he tried once more, clenching his teeth as he pulled with all his force. Cunning was an under-statement of the silverback bear as it continued to act slow despite its current mental high, after all Raraak wouldn¡¯t have gone back for his weapon if he had seen a roaring bear. Instead he saw an injured bear, almost wincing in pain at his monstorous strike, which only made him more confident in himself.
It was at that second the bear exploded off its hind legs, swallowing up Raraak¡¯s vision.
Much to the bear''s anger, it turned out not to beRaraak¡¯s grave day as one of his goblins pushed him whole-heartdly out of the way, sacraficing himself in Raraak''s stead. It was fortunate that the goblins under Raraak idolised him as their perfect goblin, else no fool would jump into the claws of death. This was extremely true in this case as the momentum behind the trunk-like paw came into play, smashing the goblin into the floor, cracking most its bones. The goblin hadn¡¯t become a flesh pile, although it wasn''t far off either. He might have been whole-heartedly loyal but he wasn¡¯t just as compotent, since the bear carried on its attack with barely any difference. In fact, its claw had sliced past Raraak¡¯s chest as he had been pushed aside, causing a deep cut into his torso.
Despite almost taking two people out already, the bear didn¡¯t stop as it continued onwards with its momentum, striking a few more times at Raraak¡¯s crew.
Withil hadn¡¯t just stood around while this happened, although he would have loved to see Raraak¡¯s whole group massacared, he was also aware that that would cause this mission to be a failure.Instead he and his flagship had successfully flanked the beast whowas ignorant to its surroundings in its rage.
It was then that Damon saw Withil¡¯s weapon, a long thin spear made out of some kind of silver metal that gave off a bright sheen. In fact saying it was a spear was an over-statement as it was more long a long needlethan a spear.
Withil moved in front of the 3 other men around him as he grasped his spear tightly, rising it above his head just as he jumped, before striking it downwards into the bear¡¯s back. It was truly like a needle, the spear penetrated through all the bear¡¯s folds of fat and muscles before embedding itself through the other end, in the bloody soil.
¡°RAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRR¡±
In truth such a strike would be easy for the bear to dodge, however it had been too blinded by its rage over the ants in front of it that dared to attack it during its weakness, that it had lost care of its surroundings.
And the result? A fatal blow, after all the spear had dug itself through the bear¡¯s spine , shattering it. Note the bear wouldn¡¯t die instantly from that since its spine was nearly three times the width of a human spine. However a strike through the spine would definitely have an effect: if it choose to evolve, it would most likely die during the ardous process and if it didn¡¯t, it would most likely die due to its limited combat ability with a broken spine.
But itdidn''t matter now, in fact it would have the opposite effect. After all the bear was currently running on rage and adrenaline; such a life threatening strike would only further those effects, making it more reckless but also much more dangerous.
The silverback threw its head back as it roared once more, before it violently stuck towards Withil. Theants who had been in front of it meant little to it now as all of them were injured and could do little to attack it. But the ants behind it, the fucking ants behind it had actually stabbed it.
To be honest even Withil hadn¡¯t expected such a strong attack, he had thought the bear would move or something. But it hadn¡¯t and he had instead stabbed the bear through its spine. He hadn¡¯t any time to pull out his spear so it was still stuck in the bear, piercing it diagonally.
The bear¡¯s claws had massive momentum to them, espiceally now as it was striking with all its power and so Withil was forced to jump backwards in order to dodge certain death. But just as the bear had revealed to Raraak, it didn''t have a habit of just attacking once. Instead it followed up its strike with another, and another...
Within 3 seconds, the bear had already struck out 4 times while Withil had dodged 3 and been grazed across the stomach during the fourth one. He had thought this had been going well so far, so much better than the acid worm had been despite the bear being a higher rank. And yet it seemed he had been na?ve to think that a top 2nd tier would be weak when in fact it was an absolute monster.
It was the fifth strike that which would do him in as he saw itteleport across his vision,instantaneously appearing right in front of his face.
But it turned out just to be a tease as Roger smashed into the bear with his small-ish bludgeon, though it had quite the weight behind it. The bludgeon managed to tear the bear¡¯s skin and nothing else, but it seemed to take its effect as the other goblins had well broken out of their stupor and followed suit. A tidal wave of attacks ensued onwards onto the bear, which although none did critical damage like the spear had done still did well enough to distract the bear from killing any of them, after all there were too many targets attacking it and instantly retreating for it to choose one target.
The ranking system had been made centuries ago and was fairly accurate. Of course there were exceptions like if an extremely poisonous monster played its cards right, it could kill a higher ranked one. But on the whole that wasn¡¯t the case, and so it made no sense why the goblins would struggle with an acid worm and run away from it in such an earnest manner when they could fight a top 2-tier monster so well. Or at least it nearly made no sense until the bear got mad, REALLY MAD! When you corner an animal, it will either give up or more likely it will fight for its life. It was to no surprise as the bear choose the second option...
¡°RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRR!!¡±
It was like they had all been simultaneously smashed back with hammers, only it waspurely by sound. The roar still rang in the Goblins¡¯ ears, as most of them misplaced steps or a few even fainted. Thunderous would be an understatement for the shout, and bloody would be an understatement for what followed. In fact the bear had also weakened itself with theroar as you could see it moving at a slower pace than before, but that gave little comfort to the goblins warriors as the bear leaped upon them, and slashed their guts out.
The whole fight scene sounds like it was an eternity but it had actually only gone on for 40 seconds, and Damon had stood frozen watching it through-out the whole battle. Now this wasn¡¯tnecessarily a bad thing,since all the pack carriers were doing the same in order to not get in the way of the warriors. Though there was a slight problem: Damon had wanted to set himself apart in battle but had actually frozen himself the second he got into one.
He was visibly shaking as he tried to move himself, he might have fought before but it was nothing like the behemoth in front of him, massacring all the warriors his tribe had so well respected. His legs were frozen in the ground, but his mind was burning. It was the same anger the bear was currently running on, and now it flowed through Damon.
Committing himself into the Gods'' hands, his feet instantly shot outwards towards the bear, aching at the sudden movement. What followed was an extremely fluid motion, it had been done countless times before after all , as his hand slid into his waist satchel and snatched themselves 3 cold knives.
The bloody battle between the bear and goblin warriors had almost finished, and yet it wouldn''t even hold a candle up to what was to come next.
The Trolls-???
¡°RAGGH¡± ¡°ARGGGGGGGGGGGAH¡±
¡
¡°UGH HU UH HU UH¡±
Breathing heavily, his mind felt like it was splitting apart as he feltan intensetearing force within his mind.
¡°RAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH¡±
Another roar escaped his currently cavernous mouth, howling in madness as he grasped his head in pain. Down his face flowed quite the river of sweat, freefalling of his face onto the desiccated soil.
¡
It would be almost a whole minute before he could once again stand, a whole minute of intense pain. He felt emaciated, his body swaying from side to side as he could barely keep his balance, well at least until he properly saw his hands for the first time since his awakening. Covering them was red slime-like residue, covering the whole of his arm in fact. It was at this moment the troll looked down his own body and saw bloody abstract art covering the entirety of him.
And then the sound hit him, all this time he had been oblivious to it but surrounding him was thunderous applause and roars. He saw the other trolls surrounding an arena, wait, yes he had been in an arena. He looked over towards the audience for any other clues for what he had been doing until he caught the eyes of the leading elder of the tribe, the troll most likely to become chief. The elder¡¯s face scrunched up in scorn, wait, yes he had been fighting the hound in the competition for leadership.
The realisation hit like a hammer as all his missing memories returned, he had been fighting the hound in the competition before he fell into his trap. It was then he had felt an intense anger burn from within him and ¡ Oh no.
The towering troll looked downupon the ground stained with blood as he saw it, the corpse of the hound. Though it was hard to describe it as a corpse when it was clearly much less than that: the whole skull region had been smashed open as he saw brain matter leak out into the soil ; the stomach was caved in, so much so that the spine itself was bent backwards; the ribacage collapsed inwards due to its own weight, and of course some external help. He could have next described the hounds¡¯ arms, but they weren¡¯t on the body for him to see.
It was at this moment the troll looked at his arm and finally answered the first question he had when he awakened: what was the slime covering his arm?It was a mixture of blood and brain matter, alongside with shattered bone pieces jabbed into his palms.
He couldn¡¯t remember any of it but within his heart he knew what had transpired, after all the evidence in the arena pointed himtowards the truth.
He had wanted power, but not like this.
No one, not even a heinous evil-doer, deserved a terrible power like this¡
(4) First Evolution
Goblins
Slicing through the air, the knives struck their unmissable target. Damon had thrown 3 of them, not simultaneously but fast enough for the bear to have no time to protect its vitals. Two of the knives slid into the bear¡¯s flesh but were easily shaken off as the bear continued to attack the warrior goblins. In fact the bear didn¡¯t even notice those two knife strikes, they had been completely shadowed by the pain and high it was feeling from other sources. But it certainly felt the last knife he had thrown, it had found its home within the bear¡¯s eye cavity.
¡°RAWWWR¡±
The bear roared in pain but the goblins barely took notice as they had already been completelydesensitized to sound during the fight, after all the bear had battered them with roars throughout the whole thing.
Damon continued to throw knives at the bear, though none of them hit any vitals like the eyes. The fight had been going on for about 3 minutes now, the constant attacks on the bear had certainly worn it down as its movements were beginning to slow, even if they still had the same anger behind them. But this was even more evident for the goblins who had been on the defensive positions for the whole time, despite the fact that they were here to hunt the bear. Withil¡¯s other men had already fallen, either due to death or from exhaustion but it had been fine since Raraak¡¯s men had gotten back up to fight again. Though this did little to help considering most of them were also taken out, currently there was only Withil, Roger, Raraak and another goblin warrior under Raraak¡¯s flag fighting since all the others were downed.
Due to the major downtime in comparison to the first half of the fight, the bear finally had time to think as its immediate danger went down. It was then that the cunning bear realised that even if it beat the goblins, it would need to rest for months just to attempt to evolve again. It had been completely overwhelmed by anger at the goblins attacking it, it was as if a mouse starting attacking a lion: the mouse was even too small to be the lion¡¯s prey and yet it was the one attacking the king?! But why did the bear have to fight when it had no advantages to be won from such a fight?
Raraak wielded his large battle axe with one hand as he went in for another strike, his body already completely exhausted. All the fighters in this battle had been warriors, goblins used to long and hard battles. But that was against enemies of similar battle prowess, but here just blocking the bear¡¯s strikes made his joints creak as the massive pressure threatened to break through his limbs. At this moment, he and Roger were on one side of the bear while Withil was on the side. His man had already fallen to the ground and was struggling to get up.
Rising his axe once again, Raraak lumbered onwards as blood slipped down his body, targeting the bear who was hopefully just as tired. It was to his and all the goblins'' surprise when the bear suddenly exuded out energy as it actively bashed into them. Their mouths physically gaped at what followed: the bear ran away. It was almost like depression hit them as all of the remaining warriors fell onto the ground, after all the prey that they had sacrificed nearly all the goblin warriors for had just simply ran away. Worse still, they didn¡¯t even have any energy left, unlike the bear ,to chase it down.
Damon felt fire burn inside himself, he felt completely belittled by the world as he saw people he had looked up to all his life face such an embarrassing defeat all due to one monster. They had all come here with high hopes, hopes that dashed away as fast as it could. He felt indignant as he felt his legs moving before he even knew it, chasing down the bear, without giving any thought as to what he would do when he caught it.
The other pack carriers seemed to break out of their stupor as they saw Damon chase the bear. None of them had fought in fear of interfering, though that made little to no sense near the end of the fight when everything had slowed down. But none of them had gone out then after seeing the monster in action, a true beast earning the name monster as it crushed warriors under its claws. It was for this reason that none of them chased the monster despite all being well, after all what would they do to a beast that even their superiors couldn¡¯t kill? Nevertheless those worries and fears seemed to disappear as they saw Damon chase it: he was the smallest of them, how was it possible for him to have such courage when they didn''t !?Thus they followed Damon and bear, due to jealousy and a bit of recovered confidence.
Damon watched the bear run for about 30 seconds, before hiding behind a large rock. Perhaps hiding was the wrong word as the bear had collapsed upon its knees, exhausted due to the accumulation of wounds and fatigue. Damon instantly slowed his steps as he began to climb the boulder the bear was hiding behind, in order to get behind the bear.
In fact such a scene was almost like a retelling of the previous scene of Withil sneaking behind the bear; the bear would have easily been able to notice both if it payed a little attention to its surroundings. During the first time, it had been distracted by its battle-high whereas now it was so exhausted that it only focused onto the forest in front of it...
His legs reached the edge of the boulder as he took out his last knife from his bag: he had thrown all the others and hadn¡¯t the chance to recollect them. Taking a large breath he ran off the top of the boulder, freefalling on the resting bear. The knife slightly pierced the head but was stopped by the layers of flesh and the skull, in fact it was extremely unlikely a 40kg goblin would be able to kill such a muscular monster by using downwards force. Regardless it broke the bear out of its rest as it roared once more and leapt towards Damon who was now retreating backwards.
Not too behind, the other pack carriers arrived to see Damon running away from the once more enraged bear. They instantly charged towards it, unleashing their attacks upon the bear. Some might call their previous fear cowardice but in truth it was not dumbfounded. The warriors had been barely able to injure the bear, while the attacks the pack carriers unleashed did nothing but cut a bit into the fat layers. In fact the bear wasn¡¯t even the slight fazed by the attacks as it striked one of the pack carriers into the ground, crushing his bones under the bear¡¯s weight. It proceeded to leap onto another one, which his head it bit off¡
Seeing the futility, the other two pack carriers turned tail as they sprinted off for their lives, while Damon used this time to pick up the weapon of the first dead pack carrier: a short thick sword which looked like it hadseen much better days. The bear instantly relaxed its guard as it saw the goblins sprint for their lives, though it immediately turned around as it heard footsteps pacing towards it. But it was too late¡
The sword was pushed upwards into the bear¡¯s rectum, though the blade didn¡¯t go in very deep due to the immediate reaction from the bear. Nevertheless such a strike was enough to enrage the bear as it roared due to raw pain it felt since it didn¡¯t have folds of fat nor muscle to protect such an area. The roar of intense hatred was enough to wake Damon of his idiocy; what was he going to accomplish by himself that 12 warriors had failed to do?! Seeing the danger at his life, Damon also turned tail as he sprinted of alike to the other pack carriers. It was just his unfortunate luck that the bear most definitely would not let him get away, after all he had come back to attack it in such a place even after his previous chance to escape.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Damon POV
I jumped across the thick tree root that protruded above the ground, just fast enough to survive as I heard the sound of the root being smashed apart. I didn¡¯t need to turn my head to see it, I could hear the beast breathing heavily with the occasional thunderous roar.
It was truly a pity my feet couldn¡¯t run any faster as I feel my body fall out of control, as the pain overpowered my senses into oblivion. In my mind it made no sense how come the bear hadn¡¯t fallen yet, it had been stabbed everywhere we could have stabbed it and yet it still wasn¡¯t dead. At one point I had seen Raraak smash it across the head with his axe, and yet all he got out of that was a bite on the torso.
The pressure on me from the forest was building up, I could feel it push down on me as my feet dared not slow down despite the intense pain they were in. This was exactly why none of us came this deep into the forest, the pressure was so large that I was finding it hard to breathe at this point.
¡°RAWWWWWWWWWWWWWR¡±
Another earth shattering roar, but not aimed at me?! I feared what I would see but still whipped my head around as I saw the bear in battle with some kind of bug. I couldn¡¯t see it clearly due to the bear blocking its figure with the bear''s massive body but I was certain that it wasn¡¯t a tier 1 beast, perhaps not even a low tier 2 beast. After all I could feel the pressure pushing down on me making it hard to catch my breath but I was sure the bear wasn¡¯t having a jolly time this deep in the forest either, since the monsters here would start to become the ones that would be willing to fight the bear.
I had heard it during the briefing the old clan leader; the bear was a top tier 2 monster but it should actually be living around this deep in the forest, not in the cave way out where it had been hiding. It turns out this was due to it not wanting to get into fights with equal monsters in its territory before its evolution since the other tier 2s would tear it down during its weakened evolution state. I guessed that was what was happening right now, a monster had picked the bear as its prey after seeing how injured it was.
Inside of me I knew perhaps this was the only chance I would get to kill the bear, and thus decided to get closer. It would be perfect if they both killed each other, leaving with me the spoils that I could take to the chieftain but it seemed not to be the case as I saw the other monster take control. It turned out to be an extremely long centipede, one which was actually 3m long and had two large blade like limbs at its front and back. At the moment it had wrapped its needle-like feet around the bear¡¯s head and was dragging the struggling bear somewhere, using one set of the blades to stab into the bear while the other pair was used to pull itself across the ground to move.
The centipede was far too occupied with the struggling bear to notice me tailing it as it continued onwards, towards what turned out to be a deep cave within the wall of a ledge, next to where they had fought. I continued to follow the duo until they made themselves to the end of the cave where the centipede used its other pair of blades to try and stab the bear in the heart. It had been trying to strangle the weakened bear all this time but had ultimately failed and thus it chose instead to kill it another way.
It was unfortunate for the centipede that it had to loosen its stranglehold in order to use its other pair of blades to stab alongside the other, which gave the bear the opportunity to escape. The bear roared with pain as it pulled apart the stranglehold altogether before it bit deep into where the centipedes head should be. Reacting appropriately to the danger, the centipede went into a frenzy as it began to randomly stab the bear in random areas. What followed was such a dirty struggle that I struggled to comprehend some parts of it, as blades, teeth and claws ripped each other apart.
It was almost 2 minutes of struggling before both of the monsters eased up, not due to a clear winner but rather because both were nearly dead. Damon didn¡¯t dare to go up though, as what he had seen from the two still scared him deep inside. He waited 5 more minutes in which both of the monsters went completely still before he went towards the corpses. The bear had its whole torso ripped apart from the blades of the centipede, while the centipede had a crushed head. It certainly showed the power of the centipede as it had been able to pierce through so deep despite 12 warriors not being able to do it.
Damon made extra care to make sure the monsters were dead before directly touching them, first touching the centipede¡¯s blade. He didn¡¯t even notice it as he put his palm over it, but it was as he took it off he noticed his palm had been sliced through half the way. Damon wouldn¡¯t know but the monster was actually a beast named the Blade centipede by the humans, a low rank tier 3¡
That had been the reason why the monster had targeted the bear, since it knew it would come out on top. In fact if both were in prime conditions and the bear still had an able spine, it would have easily come out on top; this was because the bear was at the highest a tier two could be, and was awaiting evolution. If it had evolved, it would straight away become a mid-tier 3.
Damon hadn¡¯t noticed as he had watched the fight but the centipedes blades were actually coated in a toxin. The bear hadn¡¯t showed any external signs to the toxin due to its strong body but it was another matter for a mid-tier1 monster like Goblins. In fact Damon felt the effect straight after he noticed the cut, and persistent pain spreading across his body quickly. He felt his body burn up as it felt like he was actively losing his body to the world physically, as his body parts seemed to shrink. Despite in pain, Damon managed to jump into the bear¡¯s body where he found its bloody heart, split through the middle. Seeing what the chieftain had said had the highest chance of forced evolution, Damon instantly stuffed the 20cm heart into his mouth?
It was alike to pouring cold water over a hot item, he instantly felt his body feel better as he chewed the tough muscle down into nothing. Even though the pain hadn¡¯t died out, it certainly had subsided. Damon continued to eat the inside of the bear as he felt the pain slowly subsiding as he went further in, using his fingers to claw out the parts of the bear, although none of the meat cooled his body down like the heart had.
After battling the pain for about an hour, Damon noticed not only had he been filled bythe massive meat meal but the pain hadn¡¯t died out either! Instead he could feel it growing once more and yet the meat from the bear seemed to have little effect in subsiding it unlike the heart had. Not wanting to lose out to the pain, Damon turned his head towards the Centipedes body which was getting cold. He noticed the centipedes shell was crushed at certain points where the bear had bitten it, namely its head and halfway down its body. In hope ofthe Centipede''s heart, Damon began to dig through the centipede¡¯s meat which he also ate. It was then he noticed that this meat had a bigger counter-effect on the pain than the bear meat, which turned into a thing of joy as he felt the pain almost disappearing.
Almost 30cm through the centipede, he noticed a large bloody organ that gave off strong sense of power, alike the bear¡¯s heart had. Gulping down his saliva, he knew this was the centipede¡¯s heart and it was like a dream as he ate the heart, fully escaping the pain he had been in. In fact it turned out to have other side-effects as wellsince he almost felt like all the meat he had eaten suddenly entered his stomach, as he all of a sudden he felt his stomach fill up completely. Being in a cave with a full stomach, his body fully relaxed as the strains ofthe dayaccumulated, tiring him beyond exhaustion. It was only 2 minutes since he ate the heart that he fell into deep sleep, still surrounded by the cold, bloody corpses of the two monsters.
In fact forced evolution wasn¡¯t usually successful unless it was a higher tier monster and it was a good body part, and even then the evolved state wouldn''t be that strong. This was because it was forcing the body to change despite it not being ready, meaning the evolution was limited in a sense. This was only further emphasised since tier one monsters like goblins had limited perception of mana, meaning they wouldn¡¯t be able to collect much of it during an evolution which only limited their immediate evolved state''s strength even further.
Despite not knowing it, Damon had actually eaten the hearts, the body part most likely to cause a successful forced evolution, of a top tier 2 monster and a low tier 3 one. He had also eaten so much of the two monsters meat, which was strengthen by mana. This meant that he had a resource of mana inside of him for his evolution, and quite a hefty one at that. It seemed his luck wouldn''t stop as mana coursed inside the cave: being attracted by the dead bodies of the monsters. The higher the body, the stronger it acted like a magnet for mana, which would only intensify after the body¡¯s death. This was an unexplainable occurrence which was happening right now, acting as a catalyst for Damon''s evolution.
He hadn¡¯t known it as he had gone to sleep but he would wake up different, very different towhat even he thought he would become...
Update (Not a chapter)
So I said the next chapter would be done by Saturday, which it was...
However after I edited it, I noticed that I did not like it. It was my first proper chapter with the second MC, and I realised it was not working. There is no point in have multiple MCs if it adds nothing to the story, and mine added nothing. It was simply the stories of two MCs which I could have written 2 novels about. Thus that 4000 (around) word document went down the drain as I decided to start again from the fresh slate, only this time carrying on with Damon as my one and only MC.
I am also throwing the word aim per week out of the window, I feel as it was limiting my story as I was writing phrases that were quite frankly redundant, just to make sure the document was sizeable. Once again, that is useless considering that adds nothing to the story or the feelings you as a reader get since you could very well skip it and not miss anything.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
So the new chapter on Damon''s evolved state will be released by tommorow/ the day after that. Sorry for breaking my schedule, I just felt it better to not give myself more work than I could handle, which would end up with me burning out and quitting the story as I did the other one.
Cheers for reading this far!
(5) Overpowering Might
The Goblins
The moon was fully revelling in its glory as Damon searched over the scene of carnage outside the cave. He had woken up not too long ago and was searching for the knives he had thrown at the bear, which had lost its purchase on the bear¡¯s body as the bear had tangled with the centipede.
He was different now. In fact that was an over-simplification, after all his whole body had been changed by the evolution! From the moment he had awoken, he could tell something had happened since his skin was in utter pain the second he woke up. For some reason his skin''s sensitivity had increased a hundred-fold or so, since he could feel the cool air slicing into him. It was in the least an unpleasant experience, one that all the neighbours knew about due to the intensity of Damon¡¯s screams.
The next thing he had noticed had been the change in physique, he grown at least a solid 40cm leaving him at 160 cm. His whole walking experience had changed as well because he felt a difference in how his limbs actually moved, due to the new-found difficulty in actually orienteering his legs to walk normally. This could very well be due to inexperience in his new body, though a definite change was that he felt that he could explode out with his legs in mere milliseconds. It had just been a mere feeling but proved more than it¡¯s worth when he tried running out of the cave using all his force: what happened spontaneously was a cave in, due to the force he exerted on the centipede¡¯s home. It was a pity that Damon couldn¡¯t feel pure happiness at his new-found power as instead he felt his muscles rip apart under pain.
It was clear that this was a move he couldn¡¯t do often due to the massive strain they put on his legs!
Outside of his legs, he noticed that his torso and arms was much larger. He looked like a muscular human now, which although he wasn¡¯t chiselled to perfection was still an amazing transformation from a scrawny goblin child. Not that anyone would mistake him for a human though, no way! After all his skin did a very good job at distinguishing himself from humans since his skin was a murky mixture of red and brown, essentially a dark shade of maroon. This had been the colour of the centipede¡¯s shell and he had of silver hair growing over his skin, clearly the same colour as the bear¡¯s silverback. It was clear to any fool that he had been influenced by the monsters he used to forcibly evolve alongside many other factors.
A glint was shining in the moonlight, one that Damon walked towards to as he recognised his knife. It was on his way there he noticed a big puddle, one large enough to see a clear reflection in the moonlight. It was his first time looking at himself in the reflection and it showed as his face suddenly shone in joy. The maroon skin was plastered over his face, and only added to how demonic he looked. His eyes were the same shade of black as before, but their shape itself had elongated, creating a feeling of constant glaring. The overly large nose had stayed the same size but fitted in more snugly on his bigger face, alongside with the dark brown lips. His ears were pointed towards the sky and opposite to them was his very prominent jawline.
Overall the look created was creepy to say the least and scary to the say the most as he looked much more evil than before.
Moving on in glee, Damon picked up his old-knife which all of a sudden felt a lot smaller in his palms. You needed the weight of the knife to be right, otherwise it was like throwing a feather and this knife did not feel at all heavy enough in his hand. He gripped the shaft before he extended his arm backwards, before arcing it into a throw forwards while using his chest to propel it towards the centre of a tree.
The knife shot through the air, making a noise akin to a sonic boom albeit quieter. Within one second he had thrown the knife but in the next it was nowhere to be seen.
*Thump*
Confused, Damon walked towards the tree before looking closer to find out the knife had actually ripped through the edge of the tree, making a hole which started and ended on opposite ends. A hit and certainly a kill¡
Feeling ever the more pleased with his evolution, Damon found the knife quite a distance away from the tree before walking towards where he reckoned the tribe was. Now he wasn¡¯t to blame for getting lost, after all he had been chasing the silverback bear at the time and had for some reason ended up where he had never been before.
What Damon hadn¡¯t noticed was the pressure which had before been bearing down on him like a truck had completely disappeared. Instead what replaced it was a feeling of normalcy where he had been and a feeling of weaker air where he was walking towards. This was hard to explain but the weaker air made him feel like someone who had always carried around 50kg on their back, only to suddenly lose that and feel a lot more free, movement and energy wise. Although he felt better on the whole, he would have noticed if he tried to push his legs to the limit again, the result would be a lot more lacking here than it had been deeper in the forest.
It was as he was walking along that he began to use his new perception: his new sensitivity had left him excited as he followed his brain which registered in many new factors it had been unable to previously. To no surprise, he soon found a trace of the blood trail the silverback bear had bled out during its retreat. Looking at the blackened blood, Damon could tell that quite a while had occurred as he had evolved since the blood had fully dried up, crusting over itself alike to a scab.
What followed was simple but a long walk back to the tribe. Now Damon could have very well run the whole distance in around 3-4 hours in his new body, but he didn¡¯t feel any rush to get back home. Instead what fascinated him more was discovering the new functions of his body: right after his evolution all he could do was go from 0 to 100 at using his muscles but eventually as he got used to his new body as now he could use varying ranges of strength. It felt truly amazing as he left behind a trail of carnage, as the goblin which had walked that way before had been a low-down goblin not even fit to fight the silverback bear. But what walked back the trail was a machine made for war: his whole body felt optimised for battle.
Along the way back, he saw a small pack of Alpha wolves drinking from a small water source. He was quite a distance away from them, but could instantly tell what they were due to the memories he had of them. This made sense considering Damon had only began putting hard-work into training after watching Gregal kill an Alpha wolf with a single axe throw. The fact that Gregal did it in 1 strike was absolutely amazing but it was only so because of the opponent he had been against, the alpha wolf.
Now alpha wolves were mid-tier 2 monsters, weaker than the silverback bear, but the wolves fought in a pack unlike the solitary bear. In fact a pack of wolves would find it much easier to kill the bear than the goblins had, nevertheless the wolves wouldn¡¯t do it due to the price they would have to pay for quite a low reward. However in front of Damon right now was only 4 wolves, clearly scattered from the pack which was much larger.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Buckling down, Damon eyed the distance between them to be around 100m before he fully tensed his calves, getting ready to explode out the power into the ground. Now note that Damon couldn¡¯t use all his strength due to lack of mana in the air but he could still use around 70% of it at where he currently was and it proved to be more than enough as he exploded forwards. There was no sonic boom unlike his knife throw but it was unnecessary as the startled wolves had barely enough time to react anyway.
Out of fear, it instantly began running the other way. It was a pity for the wolf that Damon did the 100m in a bit less than 9 seconds, outpacing the wolf before it even got to properly accelerate. What followed was a swift knife stab downwards into the wolf''s back, though it turned out to be more than a stab as the knife melted through the wolf¡¯s torso.
"SKRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
The other wolves turned around, only to see a squealing wolf bleeding on the ground, although he became much less important in their eyes as what instead filled their vision was a maroon demon right in front of their eyes. In foresight, the wolves should have definitely just ran, although none of them would ever get the chance to think that...
It was close to around 40 seconds later that Damon felt the adrenaline fall a bit as he rested on his legs, surrounded by 4 dead bodies at varying distances. In fact most the time was spent chasing since 3 of the wolves just needed one strike to die. It was just for the last one that he had no time to retrieve his knife so had just instead jumped on the wolf and tried to pull its back apart with sheer strength. What followed was not what he had expected, as its back didn''t pull apart from his pressure: he was not strong enough. Instead he fell off its back and the spooked wolf ran off with all its might, it was this chase that took the majority of the time.
Damon had already gorged on the remaining bodies of the bear and the centipede as he had woken up and thus wasn¡¯t feeling very hungry at the moment. However in the end he decided to eat one anyway, before leaving 3 wolf corpses to rot in the rising sun.
...
The sun had already broken dawn around 4 hours ago by the time Damon saw the village, the same as always with the countless mud and plant houses. Instead of walking to his house, he walked over to the chieftain¡¯s home. It was to his luck that the chieftain was in and busy with some kind of medicine sort of thing he was creating.
¡
It was after much shock the chieftain recognised him.
¡°Ha-ha, I always knew we would get another evolved person in our tribe soon. I¡¯m not surprised it¡¯s you Damon, I always saw the potential in you ever since you took inspiration from Gregal.¡±
The aged chieftain continued to boot-lick a bit more before he realised how stiff Damon was to his compliments, mainly due to the fact he had never received it before that he was confused at how he was to react. Understanding the naivety of the boy, the chieftain immediately placed Damon¡¯s importance in his mind upwards as he realised how easy it was to control the boy. After all it would become beyond difficult once the evolved goblin realised his power, which was something the chieftain knew very well due to Gregal¡¯s evolution.
¡°Boy why don¡¯t you stick around a bit more with me. The fight for leadership between Withil and Raraak will be happening in the afternoon which I¡¯m sure you want to go to, but why don¡¯t we talk a bit before that?¡±
Surprised at what he heard, Damon responded ¡°Wait what?! How can Withil fight if he his arm is injured?¡±
¡°Oh that? Yes I heard that his arm only got worse even since fighting the bear. But that isn¡¯t necessarily a bad thing boy. I tried my best to make sure that the chieftain could be decided without a death since both of them are such talents but it will be at least another year before we find another opportunity like the bear. So second best would be if they fought and one won without any injuries, like Raraak would. After all Raraak has only gotten stronger after his failed evolution, he will certainly be able to beat Withil considering his arm is injured¡¡±
Within moments, Damon said his goodbyes to the chieftain, much to the chieftain¡¯s disappointment, before he began his walk to Withil¡¯s home.
There was a reason why Damon had been able to get so good at knife throwing despite all the other goblins quitting. He had strong dedication to anything he committed himself to, and he had committed himself to Withil. He had declared his allegiance to him, and he felt a bad taste in his mouth as he thought of such a staged fight for such a grand position. But most of all, he had evolved and enjoyed such power, why would he have to any longer follow anyone else¡¯s schemes?!
The Trolls-???
It was my second fight, this time against one of the elders. He was in fact one of the oldest trolls here, even in terms of the other elders. You could see the age everywhere on him, whether it be his hair or his wrinkles and yet his figure did not look aged at all. He was smaller than me, as was every troll here, but not by much.
In my hand I held my trusty bludgeon, though it felt much heavier than it had before. This wasn''t physical weight but rather the weight that bore down on my mind. I had to end this battle quick and clean, otherwise the worst case scenario would happen which was in essence my death
"RAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHH"
The elder screamed a war cry as he charged into me: a big mistake. You can scare big people by showing anger but you couldn''t do the same for angry big people.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
Even my head felt like exploding as my scream filled the air, showing visible worry on the elder''s face although he still ran onwards. I raised the bludgeon before striking it downwards. A strong fury burnt inside of me as cold fear ran through the elder, rushing to get out of my way.
Hot passionate red flowed onto the arena as the elder''s arm went flying. Following up, I dashed forwards before smashing my foot against his with a strong kick. It was to my surprise as the elder stood strong, before he stabbed his axe into my chest. I could feel the metallic taste fill my mouth as I punched him across the face. Just as my punch was about to make contact, the elder ducked before stabbing me once more.
The pain was overbearing but nothing like the anger I felt. Nothing at all like the power I felt. And certainly nothing close to the bloodlust I craved... Shit.
"WAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGHHHH"
The audience watched as the falling giant immediately rose again in anger. The shadow overcast by his body only seemed to get larger as he wrapped his arms around the elder, before lifting him. Struggling violently, the elder tried to grasp his freedom though to no effect. Perhaps if he knew he was struggling for his life instead, he would have been much more extreme. But he wasn''t...
The giant began to close his arms, beginning to squeeze the elder. Finally sensing the danger he was in, the elder began to truly struggle for his life as he began to kick and bite away at the giant. It was to his pity that the giant didn''t let go, in fact the giant didn''t even react to his protests as the massive troll only squeezed harder.
You could physically see the elder''s chest getting smaller as bones crashed into other bones, crushing up into a bloody pulp of gore. The elder''s blue skin was dyed red all over, but it was even more frightening as his still-blue head began to go red under the sheer pressure he was in. Losing all strength to struggle, he lost all sense of life as his mind shut down under the strain it was in.
That hadn''t stopped the giant from desecrating the hound''s body and it certainly wouldn''t stop him from desecrating the elder''s body. Instead the looming shadow began to extend its head downwards as the he released the pressure over the elder''s chest, revealing an open organ system, albeit a bit unclear due to all the blood and gore.
Closing in, the yellow teeth covered the scalp of the dead body''s head before biting in. Followed by another bite. And then another one...
It took a bit of time before the giant dropped the elder''s body which lifelessly fell to the ground. It was in better shape than the hound''s body, though it mattered not to the giant as he continued to chew away. The flesh was easy to do but the bones were a bit more difficult to digest...
Around him even the other trolls were shocked as they watched the behemoth do all of this, creating open dread upon their faces.
It was on that day a true monster had been created amongst their midst...
(6) Identity
Goblins
It was a house that clearly showed power, as the size alone was almost triple the size of a normal house. Continuously sounding out from within the house was a clear sound of a blade being sharpened.
*Shink ¡. Shink ¡. Shink*
Damon walked in to see Roger at the centre of the house, sharpening a spear upon a whetstone. This was clearly not the silver needle like spear Withil had before, as that one had been long broken within the fight with the bear. It had not been able to survive the countless blows it received from the bear after it had been retrieved from its spine. Instead the spear here was quite a bit thicker and shorter, though the blade was beginning to look just as sharp as the silver spear had.
Upon seeing Damon, Roger had quite a shock as he retreated backwards towards his little bludgeon, though he was stopped within his steps.
¡°Don¡¯t worry Roger, it¡¯s just Damon¡±
Damon turned his head around to the corner of the house to see Withil, sitting upon a stone with his arm stuck in a makeshift cast.
¡°How did you know it was me? Not even the Chieftain realised.¡±
Laughing his dirty laugh, Withil explained ¡° Hargh hargh ha har, of course I would recognise you when you still smell the same! Besides the features of your face aren¡¯t so different that I would mistake you for someone else.¡±
Having his question answered, Damon waited a while before starting once more.
¡°I heard you are going to fight Raraak tonight. ¡°
¡°That I am boy, even though I would love to fight him fully able it looks like I have no choice in this matter¡¡±
Withil carried on, though his face didn¡¯t match his speech as he actually looked content at fighting Raraak.
¡°¡ Don¡¯t get me wrong now, I know all about the chieftain¡¯s plans. I am not fool after all, it¡¯s obvious he didn¡¯t want to lose either of us but its second best if one of us goes without the other being affected much. And such a chance like this won¡¯t repeat itself so easily so I am without doubt that he will leave me no leeway. I¡¯ve seen Raraak after his failed evolution, I know I¡¯m not going to win this¡¡±
It was then that Withil properly smiled as he finished his sentence.
¡°¡ But I¡¯m still going to do to him as much damage as I can¡¡±
Once more Damon stood there in silence, unsure what to say. He had come here in order to encourage Withil not to fight with his injury, but he was shut down by what he had heard and seen right then. He was confused in his mind how to act; he had dedicated his allegiance to Withil only to have him die in front of his eyes.
He didn¡¯t want that¡
He had power now, so why couldn¡¯t he choose what he wanted to live through?!
Roger got back to his sharpening as Withil¡¯s eyes began to rove, alike those of a Deadman who no longer held any importance upon the world.
It was then Damon finally spoke, ¡° Withil ¡.¡±
His voice was loud and clear unlike before, and he waited until Withil looked him right in the eye to continue.
¡°¡ You told me to declare my allegiance to you after the fight. Well it¡¯s after the fight now so I shall do it here¡±
¡°Boy what are you saying? Who declares allegiance to a dead-man walking?!¡±
¡
¡°You aren¡¯t. I will be your champion, I will fight in your stead¡¡±
¡°Boy I could have asked Roger to be my champion. You know why I didn¡¯t? It¡¯s because he and I both won¡¯t win against Raraak, especially now that he has gotten stronger! So it¡¯s best for me to go, since I refuse to live under his rule: I am a leader, not a follower.
You might have evolved but you are still new to it, you aren¡¯t comfortable enough in your body to be able to use it to its maximum. Besides you ate the bear who was tier 2 so you are a tier 2 now, Raraak might have failed his evolution but he was also fully grown before he tried it unlike you, it means he is a lot better in his new body than you are in yours.¡±Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
¡
Damon once more looked at Withil in the eye, staring him for a few seconds before speaking once more, voice just as clear as before.
¡°I will be your champion and I will crush Raraak under my feet.¡±
This time Withil stood up from his seat, dropping the cast to reveal a ghastly looking arm before walking up to Damon. He stood there in front of him, both just staring each other in the eye as Roger watched both of them from a distance.
¡
A second passed
¡
A few seconds passed
Within an instant, Withil flashed his disabled arm right into Damon¡¯s face. He immediately pulled it away, only to go for a proper punch with his able hand, using all the strength within him to strike Damon. This sounds long to explain but it all happened with an instant as Withil followed up his fake with a real strike very easily.
Damon¡¯s mind instantly went into overdrive as he saw the arm zooming into his face, as his body was instantly pumped into battle mode. It was weird but it almost felt like Damon¡¯s mind sped up, as his mind started to process information much quicker. His eyes barely registered the incoming arm and yet he instantly linked it with it being broken and somehow understood that this strike wouldn¡¯t mean much, all of this despite half his brain screaming at him to flinch backwards in instinct.
Damon stood his ground as he let his eyes wander down, even as the first fist continued to home into his face, finally catching sight of the other arm aimed at his stomach blasting in. He judged the strength within his mind as he used around 20% of his leg strength to hop forwards, into both of the incoming strikes¡
Damon head-butted the disabled arm still hanging in the air, as he tensed his abs in order to absorb the second strike.
This wasn¡¯t through luck but rather because he understood that the disabled arm would go into pain if he smashed into it, and that the proper punch wouldn¡¯t be able to do much damage if it was stopped early. And it went exactly as he thought it would as both fists hit into Damon, causing much more pain to Withil than Damon.
Following up on this chance, Damon used half of his possible strength at this mana density to hook Withil around his head, causing Withil to fly up in the air due to the force, only to smash into his house¡¯s wall.
¡
Once more the whole thing took quite a while to explain but the whole event was started and finished within 2 seconds.
Withil took his time to stand up, crawling up from the floor before standing up straight. He then proceeded to spit out blood as you could see the side of his face had caved in slightly and was coloured bloody red as skin had been peeled off.
It took quite a while for him to regain his balance, though he eventually walked up to Damon and once more started staring him in the eyes. Only this time it did not take long as he put his arm onto Damon¡¯s shoulder and said:
¡°You are worthy of being my champion Damon. Know that I won¡¯t blame you even if you lose, but I still ask you to crush Raraak under your feet!¡±
Once more he laughed his dirty chuckle, ¡°Hargh hargh har hargh¡±.
Lost for words, Damon just watched as Roger also got up to congratulate him. He understood what had happened and why it had happened, and yet he had the feeling within him that this all felt unreal. This was in fact the first time he felt such intangible power in his life, the power over another¡¯s life¡ and it felt amazing!
Finally falling out of his stupor, Damon asked to the two older goblins about Raraak¡¯s evolution. It turned out that Raraak¡¯s camp actually had a lower tier 2 heart already, though they would have rather wanted the silverback¡¯s heart which is why they had come to fight it alongside other reasons.
Since they didn¡¯t get it, Raraak had decided to use the heart they had to evolve anyway, only it failed midway through¡ There were many differences between Damon¡¯s and Raraak¡¯s evolutions but the highlights were was that Raraak was fully grown, so a top tier 1 monster, but had used a low tier 2 heart to try and evolve. It was his luck that he hadn¡¯t died from such idiocy since failed evolutions could go very wrong, but instead his body had grown stronger and bigger.
Of course there was a drawback: an evolution was akin to resetting a monster, it allowed a monster growth even if it was fully grown already. But it was different for failed ones which¡¯s effect varied from death to being unable to ever grow. Raraak had been lucky to get the second, even though it would be worse later on as other goblins began to overtake him.
Damon had forgotten to ask the chieftain but from Withil he found out that he had been missing for a week. He had been hoping it had just been the next day as he had awoken but it sounded weird that so much had happened during 1 day. Though that made perfect sense if his evolution took a whole week!
What followed that was Roger searching the storage for weapons and armour for Damon to use. Armour wise, goblins didn¡¯t generally wear them due to how they restricted mobile movement but it was different in an arena challenge where there wasn¡¯t much space for movement anyway. Picking the one in best quality he could find, Roger brought back a heavy leather armour which perfectly fit Damon. It had gone from tanned brown to dark brown as it had aged but it still looked like it could absorb a few attacks, which was far more than the rest of the dying armours could do.
Withil proceeded to offer Damon his weapon though Damon instantly refused, after all he wasn¡¯t very good at using a spear. Instead he found a hardy short blade which still had a shine to it but more importantly a set of throwing knives. These were in better quality than the rest as you could still see the very clear sheen of the knives, threatening to stab the eyes of any that looked at them.
¡
It had been a good 2-3 hours since Damon had gone to Withil¡¯s home. The sun had gone past its peak long ago and was now beginning to set as dusk clouded the forest. That had also been the time set for the fight¡
It was fight time!
Are you worthy to lead?
Goblins
Surrounding a circle was the whole tribe: this included everyone from the very few elderly goblins to the very many still young goblins. However unlike the last meeting there were no tall muscular goblins creating an inner circle, after all how could they do that when they were so few of them left alive? 7 of the goblins that had gone had died, 10 if counted the pack carriers. This meant only 5 had made it out alive out of the original 15: Withil, Roger, Raraak, Damon and another pack carrier. This was the largest setback faced by the tribe so far, and yet instead of frowns, all the goblins were wearing smiles and talking excitedly. How could you be sad when a new chieftain was to be chosen in front of them through battle?
They were expecting a large fight, after all the two fighting were the tribe¡¯s superpowers: Withil and Raraak. To their ignorance, it was merely a fa?ade meant to cover up Raraak¡¯s rise to chieftain, since Withil would certainly die under his feet.
At the centre of the circle was a massive goblin squatting. His limbs were muscled to a t as he looked almost like a Greek god. It was a pity that the fur-like-hair over his body ruined it, nevertheless his frightening face. Before his evolution his face had been normal albeit a bit big, but now it looked like the face of a giant as all his features had been exaggerated, creating a face inciting fear.
In front of him rested a massive stone hammer, weighing at least 70kg and rising as high as 1m. Fearsome was too light of a word as the hammer was in essence an extremely tough, thick rod of wood attached to a monstrously sized rock. Both the materials had been chosen for their light weight and high strength, and yet it still weighed 70kg¡
The giant didn¡¯t worry, he didn¡¯t have to! The goblin he was to face was a goblin he had always respected, albeit also mixed with a bit of loathing. And now he would crush that goblin as it was weakened, giving him too much of an advantage to lose with.
The clatter of noises suddenly hushed as one side split apart, revealing a small group of not-so-distant goblins. At the vanguard was a goblin all knew, Withil, and he walked with his chest held high without the cast on, revealing the ghastly arm that looked like it was diseased and broken.
The current aged chieftain choked a bit on his chuckle as he watched the proud goblin walk over, walking over to his death that was. Following Withil was Withil¡¯s warriors who hadn¡¯t gone on the bear mission, walking alongside Roger.
Though this skipped all¡¯s minds as they watched an average warrior-sized goblin walk behind. The goblin did not hold his chest high, nor was he followed by a group of warriors; rather he was following. But he incited awe but also fear in to the audience¡¯s hearts since his skin was coloured a dirty red. His body slender, unlike Raraak¡¯s and yet all the goblins there knew that this goblin was evolved, after all the very feeling they got watching him was different to when looking at each other. He gave the feeling of strength, a feeling that they could follow this goblin, a feeling of leadership¡
Arriving just on time, Withil told his warriors to join Raraak¡¯s, barely creating a wide enough inner circle.
Raraak didn¡¯t stand but rather called out, ¡°Withil, are you ready to face death?¡±
His voice was much deeper and louder than before, and yet Withil responded with no loss in confidence.
¡°Of course I am ready. I am ready to show the tribe the truly worthy leader. But it is a pity that it won¡¯t be you Raraak.¡±
¡°HAHAHAHHA. You need to beat me to win the chair Withil, tell me how you will do that with a dead arm? Just learn your position and swear your allegiance to me; I will not treat you unfairly as long as you do that NOW!¡±
A smile creeped upon Withil¡¯s face before it infected all his warriors alike as they laughed in unison, as if Raraak was a joke before them. Clearly disturbed, Raraak was about to shout out once again just before Withil interrupted him, this time speaking with vigour and volume that he hadn¡¯t had before.
¡°I will show you what a leader is Raraak. A leader is a person who leads, he does not need to be the strongest, just the smartest. Dare you tell me you are better than me to lead! I was willing to let you live, but that mistake will cost you your life.
After all I won¡¯t be fighting you my bad friend. Instead it will be my champion doing it in my place, Damon!¡±
Almost as if rehearsed, Damon walked into the circle as Withil said his name, allowing no time for Raraak to respond. Words seemed to get stuck in Raraak¡¯s mouth as he almost wanted to taunt Withil for using such a young child as a champion, but gave up as he sensed the power from Damon. He exuded a feeling of strength, both reassuring the goblins surrounding them but also frightening them.
The current chieftain interrupted at this moment, his voice sounding out as he said ¡°Withil, you only have one chance at this. If your champion loses, so do you. Do you understand?¡±
Nodding swiftly, Withil returned his eyes to Damon¡¯s back. This 3 year old carried his life on his back, something he would not have believed if he had heard it a week ago. And yet it was so real now¡
Needing no words, Raraak stood up, towering over all his surroundings including Damon. The beast-like goblin stood at 2.2m tall, growing 30cm from his evolution, though he seemed to weigh a lot more than before, as his steps upon the ground left footprints on the rough ground. Lifting off the ground the hammer swung into Raraak¡¯s arm as he held it firmly, using the now-bulging veins on his arms to intimidate Damon.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
Almost as if juxtaposition to the scene, the chieftain softly said the word all had been waiting for:
¡°Go¡±.
Springing into action, Raraak leapt of the ground, rising into the air before landing right in front of where Damon had been. What followed was his hammer, smashing into the rough ground, creating many cracks. Damon had already leapt away in response to Raraak¡¯s jump but struggled to find time to think after that as Raraak followed up his singular strike with many more alike. Even one would crush the bones of a normal goblin and would most likely disable Damon.
It was alike to watching a struggle between an ogre and a panther as neither could find the opportunity to hurt each other due to their opposing strengths cancelling the others¡¯. Raraak created cracks all across the ground, spreading dust all over the arena. The dust only further pained the audience as they already struggled to hold view of Damon as he leapt from space to space, disappearing from a spot just before a crack formed over it.
¡
After seeing a chance, Raraak immediately once again charged Damon, hammer swinging in front as he attempted to make contact. Almost like swapping pleasantries, Damon repeated his action of jumping away. It was his pity though as Raraak felt compulsion to break formality, since what followed the swing was actually a throw: the 70kg hammer blasting towards Damon. It was like an eclipse, since dark completely filled Damon¡¯s vision, though he no longer flustered as he done with bear. Instead he stopped his leap short by falling onto the ground with his arms first, before rolling past the overhead hammer.
His hand proceeded to slide into his waist satchel, flashing out a deadly looking knife before flicking towards Raraak. He had used 60% of his strength at this mana density to do so, and it showed as the knife slid through Raraak as if he was melted butter. You could only see the wooden handle sticking out of Raraak¡¯s left arm since the whole blade had slid their way into his flesh.
Screaming in a combination of pain and anger, Raraak firmly grasped the knife before ripping it out of his wound, blood splattering over the ground . Before Damon could respond, Raraak had already thrown it at him with all his force. It was a pity that Raraak never really practiced knife throwing, as instead the knife went into the chest of a warrior goblin, making him collapse upon contact.
Raraak then charged Damon in a tackle, though he missed by quite a margin. This was fine as he instead gained the opportunity to pick up his fallen hammer, only not before another knife stabbed into his thick back. What followed was an enraged beast attempt to catch an agile mouse, as 3 other warrior goblins were injured as knives and hammers were thrown.
Having exhausted his whole knife collection, Damon took out his thick short sword. The weight seemed perfect in his arm as he eyed the red monster in front of him. Dyed in red now was Raraak, due to the blood both inside and outside him: inside as blood bubbled in rage, creating a red flush to his skin which was , to his bad luck, overpowered by the red crimson blood that now painted his whole body. His skin was pierced in 7 occurrences with 3 knives still in while 4 holes bled out, creating a bloody trail.
All the pain seemed to disappear as he saw Damon take out the sword, finally it was going to be a fair fight! Once again his hammer flew into the air as he rushed Damon who alike did the same. The scene seemed a joke as an earth encompassing hammer met a small sword, though the outcome was even more of a joke as Raraak felt a strong sting flow through his arms. Although he wasn¡¯t alone on this as Damon also felt the strain of his arms go over the limit: Raraak was still stronger than him, even in this bloody state.
Knowing he would only be in a disadvantage if he let Raraak make all the strikes, Damon thrusted forward with his short sword. Responding in time, Raraak rose the hammer¡¯s rod to block the strike, though not much use as another quick flick of the sword followed up, tearing through his shoulder muscle. Dropping the hammer in pain, Raraak once again attempted to pick it up before his shoulder muscle tore even more under the strain, earning him a full swing of the sword into his core as he roared in pain.
His knees felt weak as he kneeled forwards, head facing the ground now stained with blood. His legs had been stabbed long ago and now felt weaker than ever as his body began to lose hope.
Feeling a compulsion for a strong ending, Damon decided to use all of his strength possible as he dashed towards Raraak¡¯s head quicker than nearly all eyes could follow him. Within one second was a kneeling giant and dashing demon, within the next was a motionless demon holding up the whole head of the giant.
He had been executed under a single strike¡
Silence stilled the forest as if the whole world had frozen, no goblin willing to move or make noise as they watched the demon raise the bloody head, still frothing at the mouth. The beautiful dusk sun over the forest created a daunting image, something fully worthy to be in a nightmare. What followed though was thunderous applause, cheering and breakdowns¡
Sounds loud enough to crack one¡¯s eardrums surrounded the singular living goblin. It was all for him.
Warriors he had once respected and looked up to now applauded for him while others lost the strength in their knees as they collapsed like Raraak. It was all for him.
He watched as Withil roared in joy, quick to be congratulated by his surroundings. It was all for him, or had been and should have been!
He had been the star of the show: he had been all powerful and yet this other goblin earned praise for nothing. He didn¡¯t feel the senseless jealously building up within him as he was drunk on power, unwilling to accept any as worthy as him.
Unbeknownst to him, another evolved goblin watched from a distance, sneering as he saw the champion get jealous. It had been a decent fight, earning a 3 out of 5 from him but he held no true interest in it. Who cared who became chieftain? You needed power to hold that position, and if you used a hound for that, you needed enough power to control that hound. Otherwise¡
The evolved goblin got up, walking away once more away from the village. He did not know for certain what would follow this event but nor did he particularly care; his personal strength was enough for him¡
Withil walked over to Damon, all smiles and cheer. His face seemed much in difference with his ghastly arm, diseased looking while his face beamed in joy. Squinting his eyes, Damon watched Withil come over. It made sense since he was Withil¡¯s champion but it didn¡¯t¡
Why did he deserve the prize when he did fuckall? Why did he deserve such a position of power when his own power was insufficient?! Withil outreached his hand towards Raraak¡¯s bleeding head, unable to see the wrath building up deep inside Damon¡
He could kill Withil right here just like he had done to Raraak, a single slice with his sword and Withil¡¯s head would also be off. Then in his hands he would hold the heads of two tyrants, neither able to contest with him in strength. He could be the chieftain, fuck that, he could be king. The closer the arm got, the stronger his wrath became as his mind toiled on a decision, still drunk on power.
Should he execute Withil, right here right now?
(7) Are you worthy to lead?
Goblins
Surrounding a circle was the whole tribe: this included everyone from the very few elderly goblins to the very many still young goblins. However unlike the last meeting there were no tall muscular goblins creating an inner circle, after all how could they do that when they were so few of them left alive? 7 of the goblins that had gone had died, 10 if counted the pack carriers. This meant only 5 had made it out alive out of the original 15: Withil, Roger, Raraak, Damon and another pack carrier. This was the largest setback faced by the tribe so far, and yet instead of frowns, all the goblins were wearing smiles and talking excitedly. How could you be sad when a new chieftain was to be chosen in front of them through battle?
They were expecting a large fight, after all the two fighting were the tribe¡¯s superpowers: Withil and Raraak. To their ignorance, it was merely a fa?ade meant to cover up Raraak¡¯s rise to chieftain, since Withil would certainly die under his feet.
At the centre of the circle was a massive goblin squatting. His limbs were muscled to a t as he looked almost like a Greek god. It was a pity that the fur-like-hair over his body ruined it, nevertheless his frightening face. Before his evolution his face had been normal albeit a bit big, but now it looked like the face of a giant as all his features had been exaggerated, creating a face inciting fear.
In front of him rested a massive stone hammer, weighing at least 70kg and rising as high as 1m. Fearsome was too light of a word as the hammer was in essence an extremely tough, thick rod of wood attached to a monstrously sized rock. Both the materials had been chosen for their light weight and high strength, and yet it still weighed 70kg¡
The giant didn¡¯t worry, he didn¡¯t have to! The goblin he was to face was a goblin he had always respected, albeit also mixed with a bit of loathing. And now he would crush that goblin as it was weakened, giving him too much of an advantage to lose with.
The clatter of noises suddenly hushed as one side split apart, revealing a small group of not-so-distant goblins. At the vanguard was a goblin all knew, Withil, and he walked with his chest held high without the cast on, revealing the ghastly arm that looked like it was diseased and broken.
The current aged chieftain choked a bit on his chuckle as he watched the proud goblin walk over, walking over to his death that was. Following Withil was Withil¡¯s warriors who hadn¡¯t gone on the bear mission, walking alongside Roger.
Though this skipped all¡¯s minds as they watched an average warrior-sized goblin walk behind. The goblin did not hold his chest high, nor was he followed by a group of warriors; rather he was following. But he incited awe but also fear in to the audience¡¯s hearts since his skin was coloured a dirty red. His body slender, unlike Raraak¡¯s and yet all the goblins there knew that this goblin was evolved, after all the very feeling they got watching him was different to when looking at each other. He gave the feeling of strength, a feeling that they could follow this goblin, a feeling of leadership¡
Arriving just on time, Withil told his warriors to join Raraak¡¯s, barely creating a wide enough inner circle.
Raraak didn¡¯t stand but rather called out, ¡°Withil, are you ready to face death?¡±
His voice was much deeper and louder than before, and yet Withil responded with no loss in confidence.
¡°Of course I am ready. I am ready to show the tribe the truly worthy leader. But it is a pity that it won¡¯t be you Raraak.¡±
¡°HAHAHAHHA. You need to beat me to win the chair Withil, tell me how you will do that with a dead arm? Just learn your position and swear your allegiance to me; I will not treat you unfairly as long as you do that NOW!¡±
A smile creeped upon Withil¡¯s face before it infected all his warriors alike as they laughed in unison, as if Raraak was a joke before them. Clearly disturbed, Raraak was about to shout out once again just before Withil interrupted him, this time speaking with vigour and volume that he hadn¡¯t had before.
¡°I will show you what a leader is Raraak. A leader is a person who leads, he does not need to be the strongest, just the smartest. Dare you tell me you are better than me to lead! I was willing to let you live, but that mistake will cost you your life.
After all I won¡¯t be fighting you my bad friend. Instead it will be my champion doing it in my place, Damon!¡±
Almost as if rehearsed, Damon walked into the circle as Withil said his name, allowing no time for Raraak to respond. Words seemed to get stuck in Raraak¡¯s mouth as he almost wanted to taunt Withil for using such a young child as a champion, but gave up as he sensed the power from Damon. He exuded a feeling of strength, both reassuring the goblins surrounding them but also frightening them.
The current chieftain interrupted at this moment, his voice sounding out as he said ¡°Withil, you only have one chance at this. If your champion loses, so do you. Do you understand?¡±
Nodding swiftly, Withil returned his eyes to Damon¡¯s back. This 3 year old carried his life on his back, something he would not have believed if he had heard it a week ago. And yet it was so real now¡
Needing no words, Raraak stood up, towering over all his surroundings including Damon. The beast-like goblin stood at 2.2m tall, growing 30cm from his evolution, though he seemed to weigh a lot more than before, as his steps upon the ground left footprints on the rough ground. Lifting off the ground the hammer swung into Raraak¡¯s arm as he held it firmly, using the now-bulging veins on his arms to intimidate Damon.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Almost as if juxtaposition to the scene, the chieftain softly said the word all had been waiting for:
¡°Go¡±.
Springing into action, Raraak leapt of the ground, rising into the air before landing right in front of where Damon had been. What followed was his hammer, smashing into the rough ground, creating many cracks. Damon had already leapt away in response to Raraak¡¯s jump but struggled to find time to think after that as Raraak followed up his singular strike with many more alike. Even one would crush the bones of a normal goblin and would most likely disable Damon.
It was alike to watching a struggle between an ogre and a panther as neither could find the opportunity to hurt each other due to their opposing strengths cancelling the others¡¯. Raraak created cracks all across the ground, spreading dust all over the arena. The dust only further pained the audience as they already struggled to hold view of Damon as he leapt from space to space, disappearing from a spot just before a crack formed over it.
¡
After seeing a chance, Raraak immediately once again charged Damon, hammer swinging in front as he attempted to make contact. Almost like swapping pleasantries, Damon repeated his action of jumping away. It was his pity though as Raraak felt compulsion to break formality, since what followed the swing was actually a throw: the 70kg hammer blasting towards Damon. It was like an eclipse, since dark completely filled Damon¡¯s vision, though he no longer flustered as he done with bear. Instead he stopped his leap short by falling onto the ground with his arms first, before rolling past the overhead hammer.
His hand proceeded to slide into his waist satchel, flashing out a deadly looking knife before flicking towards Raraak. He had used 60% of his strength at this mana density to do so, and it showed as the knife slid through Raraak as if he was melted butter. You could only see the wooden handle sticking out of Raraak¡¯s left arm since the whole blade had slid their way into his flesh.
Screaming in a combination of pain and anger, Raraak firmly grasped the knife before ripping it out of his wound, blood splattering over the ground . Before Damon could respond, Raraak had already thrown it at him with all his force. It was a pity that Raraak never really practiced knife throwing, as instead the knife went into the chest of a warrior goblin, making him collapse upon contact.
Raraak then charged Damon in a tackle, though he missed by quite a margin. This was fine as he instead gained the opportunity to pick up his fallen hammer, only not before another knife stabbed into his thick back. What followed was an enraged beast attempt to catch an agile mouse, as 3 other warrior goblins were injured as knives and hammers were thrown.
Having exhausted his whole knife collection, Damon took out his thick short sword. The weight seemed perfect in his arm as he eyed the red monster in front of him. Dyed in red now was Raraak, due to the blood both inside and outside him: inside as blood bubbled in rage, creating a red flush to his skin which was , to his bad luck, overpowered by the red crimson blood that now painted his whole body. His skin was pierced in 7 occurrences with 3 knives still in while 4 holes bled out, creating a bloody trail.
All the pain seemed to disappear as he saw Damon take out the sword, finally it was going to be a fair fight! Once again his hammer flew into the air as he rushed Damon who alike did the same. The scene seemed a joke as an earth encompassing hammer met a small sword, though the outcome was even more of a joke as Raraak felt a strong sting flow through his arms. Although he wasn¡¯t alone on this as Damon also felt the strain of his arms go over the limit: Raraak was still stronger than him, even in this bloody state.
Knowing he would only be in a disadvantage if he let Raraak make all the strikes, Damon thrusted forward with his short sword. Responding in time, Raraak rose the hammer¡¯s rod to block the strike, though not much use as another quick flick of the sword followed up, tearing through his shoulder muscle. Dropping the hammer in pain, Raraak once again attempted to pick it up before his shoulder muscle tore even more under the strain, earning him a full swing of the sword into his core as he roared in pain.
His knees felt weak as he kneeled forwards, head facing the ground now stained with blood. His legs had been stabbed long ago and now felt weaker than ever as his body began to lose hope.
Feeling a compulsion for a strong ending, Damon decided to use all of his strength possible as he dashed towards Raraak¡¯s head quicker than nearly all eyes could follow him. Within one second was a kneeling giant and dashing demon, within the next was a motionless demon holding up the whole head of the giant.
He had been executed under a single strike¡
Silence stilled the forest as if the whole world had frozen, no goblin willing to move or make noise as they watched the demon raise the bloody head, still frothing at the mouth. The beautiful dusk sun over the forest created a daunting image, something fully worthy to be in a nightmare. What followed though was thunderous applause, cheering and breakdowns¡
Sounds loud enough to crack one¡¯s eardrums surrounded the singular living goblin. It was all for him.
Warriors he had once respected and looked up to now applauded for him while others lost the strength in their knees as they collapsed like Raraak. It was all for him.
He watched as Withil roared in joy, quick to be congratulated by his surroundings. It was all for him, or had been and should have been!
He had been the star of the show: he had been all powerful and yet this other goblin earned praise for nothing. He didn¡¯t feel the senseless jealously building up within him as he was drunk on power, unwilling to accept any as worthy as him.
Unbeknownst to him, another evolved goblin watched from a distance, sneering as he saw the champion get jealous. It had been a decent fight, earning a 3 out of 5 from him but he held no true interest in it. Who cared who became chieftain? You needed power to hold that position, and if you used a hound for that, you needed enough power to control that hound. Otherwise¡
The evolved goblin got up, walking away once more away from the village. He did not know for certain what would follow this event but nor did he particularly care; his personal strength was enough for him¡
Withil walked over to Damon, all smiles and cheer. His face seemed much in difference with his ghastly arm, diseased looking while his face beamed in joy. Squinting his eyes, Damon watched Withil come over. It made sense since he was Withil¡¯s champion but it didn¡¯t¡
Why did he deserve the prize when he did fuckall? Why did he deserve such a position of power when his own power was insufficient?! Withil outreached his hand towards Raraak¡¯s bleeding head, unable to see the wrath building up deep inside Damon¡
He could kill Withil right here just like he had done to Raraak, a single slice with his sword and Withil¡¯s head would also be off. Then in his hands he would hold the heads of two tyrants, neither able to contest with him in strength. He could be the chieftain, fuck that, he could be king. The closer the arm got, the stronger his wrath became as his mind toiled on a decision, still drunk on power.
Should he execute Withil, right here right now?
(8) Winner takes all - End of Arc 1
Goblins
Withil¡¯s arm was essentially on top of Raraak¡¯s head as Damon felt the anger inside of him bubble over. His body could no longer hold the anger in as he squeezed the flesh of the head so much that the flesh he held tore off, the head falling to the bloody ground.
Surprised by the sudden event, Withil looked up to see Damon smiling back at him, even if the smile looked a little strange. Still in the ecstasy of winning, Withil linked Damon¡¯s weird actions to him being tired after the fight and instead refocused his attention on the head as picked it up, and raised it overhead for all of the audience to see.
To his side stood Damon melting in cold sweat as his jealously induced anger ended, bringing him back to sobriety. He opened up his clenched fist, only to find up a flattened piece of bloody flesh.
The rest of the coronation for the new chieftain went almost like an ordeal for Damon, as he desperately searched for a chance to appropriately leave. It was to his bad luck that he was actually the main benefactor of Withil becoming chieftain and thus was wanted throughout most of the event. It wasn¡¯t until an hour after the fight had finished that Damon received his freedom, and desperately made an escape from the village within seconds.
After running as fast as he could for what seemed like a long time, Damon came to 5km away from the village. He collapsed upon a tree, using it as support as he rested both his mind and body. To be honest, he wasn¡¯t feeling very tired since the fight truly hadn¡¯t taken much out of him. But what he almost did while drunk on power tore at his mind, and he found no answers within him why he had wanted to do such a thing.
In fairness he hadn¡¯t been with Withil for long but Withil had always treated him well during that time. He had made the first move to invite Damon under his banner and yet Damon had felt a deep desire to kill him the second he felt powerful.
That would have been a stupid decision no matter which way you looked at it from. If he had killed Withil, he would have become chieftain but for what? He had no particular desire to when he was sober and he certainly would butcher the job if he did get it, after all he was only 3 years old and still very inexperienced in many things other than fighting.
Damon began to calm his mind; yes he had only thought such an idea because he was na?ve and was lost in the power for a moment. There was no underlying motive behind that, none at all. He felt as if he was shoving horse shit down his throat but it was fine for him since he could feel himself calming down.
Feeling his body once again become truly his, he opened up his clenched fists only to find the dried up blood on his palm. It paled in comparison to his dirty red skin but was still very apparent due to the very nature of the substance: it was blood, he had taken the life of another goblin.
At other times he would have found such a situation humorous, after all he had taken the lives of many other goblins without batting an eye, for whatever reason he had. And yet this impacted him so deeply in this moment of mental weakness as he continued to lean on the tree, staring directly at the bloodstain on his hand.
It felt like an eternity as he found the topic on his mind suddenly shift to another and another¡ It continued onwards over things he had done today, and last week and over his life. In the end his mind ended at one place, what did he want to do?
He vaguely knew he was still very na?ve about the world and yet on the other hand he felt wise coming up to such a conclusion by himself. In fact he felt proud deep in his heart that he had managed to break out of his anger-induced mind frame just before the climax of his stupidity. But that was left behind as the past as he looked at his own life in the current.
On the one hand he wanted to go and explore the world. He had felt this ever since evolving, he had felt so good breaking out of that shackling shell he had worn before and felt so liberated in his new one. He also knew that he would most likely not find any chances to evolve further if he stayed here without waiting to age to his elder years , after all the area of the great forest they were in was the outskirts region where the monsters were tier 3 at max.
And yet on the other hand he felt a duty to stay with the tribe, after all they were the people he was the champion of! This feeling was much stronger than the wanderlust he felt, and would have won easily any other day but it felt lacking today. He felt disappointment at the tribe: this wasn¡¯t because he felt a little stronger than the other goblins, but rather because Raraak and Withil had been the strongest in the village, they had been the peak! And yet one had died under his blade without much effort while the other visibly acknowledged him as much stronger. The feeling he got before was of looking after his tribe in which he fitted in with, but now it felt more like he was an adult taking care of children.
It wasn¡¯t an easy choice at all to make since the night had fallen and yet Damon was still by the tree. However in the end his dedication to the tribe seemed to win, as he walked back to the village with a firm resolve. Nevertheless seeds of deserting had already been planted within him ¡ and would only continue to grow as time went on¡
The day after his coronation, Withil came out with a few radical changes. He would first halve the 12 remaining warriors, although this included none of the strongest warriors who now occupied higher positions within the village or more likely dead. Half of the warriors would continue doing what they had done before, which was hunting food for the village, only at double the speed they had done before. The other half would starting teaching the normal goblins how to fight.
This might seem obvious to do but it was actually something that had not been done before, since goblins rather focused on their immediate kin rather than the whole community. In fact the retired chieftain laughed at what Withil was doing: he saw no point in changing ways when there was nothing wrong with the tried and tested route.
Hard was a word too easy for the training the normal goblins were put through, and it seemed to all that Withil was trying to evolve all the other goblins by speeding up their growth. Each warrior focused on teaching their strengths, leaving Damon to teach the normal goblins how to throw knives well.
In truth Damon was already strong enough to start throwing axes effectively like Gregal had done before but he chose not to after judging the strengths and weaknesses of the two weapons. Axes might pack a bigger punch but that came at the cost of ease of transport, after all Damon could only carry 2-3 throwing axes on him at once while he could carry 8-9 knives.
The training would last from morning till noon. Another big change Withil made was a specialisation in terms of occupation. Before each goblin lived their own lives, meaning their whole life was managed and controlled by them. But now each goblin had a specified occupation, meaning they were specialised in one thing which improved efficiency at a massive rate. The drawbacks of this method was that the goblins didn¡¯t really like having to specialise in one thing and would rather do everything in their day by themselves, although this was quickly fixed after a few deaths caused by ¡°mishaps¡±.
At first the ordinary goblins lived under the fear of their leader, though over time they would come to love and glorify him as they saw the effectiveness of this system, whether it be in fighting strength or the rate of advancement as a village. Within a few short years, the goblins would distinguish themselves in the area as the powerhouse.
The Trolls- ????Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
The giant continued to grind his teeth together as he finished up his meal: the skull of the elder troll. Blood, gore and splinters of bone was spewed all over the arena, disgusting and scaring the audience into silence as they just watched the giant much onwards.
Finished with his meal, the giant began to look around for another challenger. Seeing none challenging him, he started to feel awfully sleepy as his mind seemed to shut down. At the back of his mind was his alter ego, screaming at what it had seen as it came back in control. Last time it had been unconscious while its anger had taken over and yet for some reason it wasn¡¯t the same this time. Instead throughout the whole fight it had felt almost as if it was in the passenger seat, watching an awful horror movie occur right in front of him. The only twist was that the horror was all caused by him¡
He had long noticed his anger even as a child, only then it had been a dumb anger which was disadvantageous for him. For a long time that anger had slept after his mind had realised that the anger wasn¡¯t any use in a fight. That had also been the reason why the towering troll had gone meeker as he had grown older, using more of his brain in fights. In fact he hadn¡¯t fought any other troll in such a long time, mainly because all the others were terrified by his massive size and strength.
Perhaps that was what it had been, his meek personality had already began getting cockier deep within as he had seen none dared to fight him as he grew bigger than the rest. After all Trolls loved to fight but they weren¡¯t suicidal or dumb. If he had time to think, he would guess that this cockiness deep inside him had begun to revive his anger. It was a pity that in his fight with the hound his ego had been triggered: how dare such a low down troll in the society attempt to kill such a figure like him?! It had triggered his anger, and it had been a mistake¡
The anger had only fought twice since its awakening but it had won both times with extremely tyrannical strength. Furthermore he could only feel the anger growing, growing as personality as it began to take more life from him. Perhaps the only sanctuary he could be thankful for was that the anger was only triggered by fighting, it would lose all its power when its battle-high was over.
Thank goodness for that, the giant decided he would withdraw from this competition. Yes it was true he could become chieftain if he carried on with his heinous methods but it would be at the cost of his very own life, since the anger would become him while he would become just a deep feeling inside the anger than could get triggered into a moment of rationality and softness.
Last time it had been like waking up: not knowing what had happened in his sleep and being awoken abruptly. But this time it was more like he was already up and had already seen everything, he just needed enough strength to retake control of his body. And he was gaining that very strength.
He could feel the body become his as he clenched his fists in front of him, just to check his control. Good, it was all his! What followed next was the giant staring at all the carnage under and around him, it had been like watching a battlefield on a screen only to find it so much more terrifying when at it in person. He felt disgust and fear at his alter ego as he looked around, each piece of flesh telling their own story. It was no surprise that his eyes soon found themselves on the elder¡¯s headless body, its spine violently detached at the neck. Within the next second he felt sick as he heaved all the contents of his stomach out, the contents of course being the head of elder.
This was quite a scene for the trolls in the audience, as one second the beast had been eating their own brethren while in the next he was visibly sick at what he had done. It also seemed to shock some of the trolls out of their fear induced stupor as their minds finally recovered.
One such person was elder Nargo, the oldest elder in the audience. He had been the strongest under the old chieftain and favourite to win, in fact this whole competition was just a trick of the light for him to kill some of the other trolls who wielded power in the tribe without gathering too much hate for it. Right now he felt intense anger building up inside of him, the trolls meant to die in this competition was his competitors and yet the brain that had just been retched out belonged to his supporter¡
Before he had been shocked silly by the giant¡¯s cruelty but unable to stop him as such a demonstration of tyrannical power disabled his feet from moving. But he got the opposite feeling as he watched the giant heaving out the brain of his supporter: the giant was in a moment of weakness. What elder Nargo would do next would be something he would forever regret in his little remaining time, something all the trolls would regret not stopping but most importantly something that the giant would regret ever hearing. After all it would cause his death, causing him to become little less than a bitter memory for his dominating anger¡
¡°YOU EEEEEVVVVVVILDOER!¡±
The whole audience, including the mountain turned to face elder Nargo as he waited for effect.
¡°HOW DDDDAAAAAARE YOU EAT A FELLOW TROLL?! THIS MIGHT BE A FIGHT TO THE DDDEEATH BUT WE ARE NOT CANIBALS!!¡±
Elder Nargo was now shaking in anger as he proceeded to pick up his war axe, stepping out of the audience, into the arena.
¡°YOU ARE A BACKSTABBER. YOU ARE HENIOUS. YOU ARE NOT A TTTRRROLLLL, YOU ARE A DDDEEEVIL!!!¡±
Now standing 10m away from the giant, elder Nargo finished his soliloquy.
¡°I WILL END YOU MONSTER, WHO CRAWLED UNDER ONE OF OURS¡¯ SKIN TO RUIN US ALL! YOU SHALL DIE UNDER MY FEET TODAY!!!¡±
The giant felt himself die, only not underneath elder Nargo¡¯s feet but under his own alter ego. It was like a crazed demon let out of its cage, shaking and roaring in delight as it anticipated what was to come. The mountain tried to fight, he truly did for his life but he held no resistance before his own anger once it was triggered¡
The giant began violently twitching, gritting his teeth and clenching his nails as hard as he could as cold sweat dribbled down his head. But it was ok, within the next second he was liberated¡ from the world.
The anger raised both arms spontaneously, breathed in as hard as possible before roaring out the call of insanity.
¡°RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!¡±
Elder Nargo was prepared this time for the scream as he moved forwards regardless the terrifying roar, axe pulled back overhead in preparation for a strike. It was a pity that he never got the chance since Anger moved too quick, dashing forwards towards the elder Nargo before strongly gripping the pole of the axe with both hands.
Only the audience could see the terrifying strength of the giant as veins bulged over his arms, almost as if they were moving. Not one to be left out, Nargo would hear the strength milliseconds later as the pole snapped under the crushing pressure, creating a loud crunch sound. Nevertheless his mind never got the chance to register the sound as within the next second was a kiss between a tree-trunk like knee and his face.
Blood exploded out from Nargo¡¯s face as his crushed nose began to cry out rivers of blood. But there was no rest for the righteous as Nargo was then picked up by his shoulders, only to come face to face with the giant who firmly gripped him on both sides.
The face was something that was only worthy of being in the worst of nightmares due to the red-shot eyes, the bulging blue nose just above the monstrously sized yellow teeth but worst of all the skin coloured red by the amount of blood and gore splattered over it.
¡°WWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!¡±
Spittle shot onto elder Nargo¡¯s face as the giant screamed the song of devils.
¡°RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH¡±
Tears mixed with the spittle, only causing Nargo¡¯s face to melt under all the fluid on his face.
¡°GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRAGGGHHGHHH¡±
Not waiting for Nargo, the giant began to pull apart Nargo¡¯s body, using each side of the ribcage as handles.
¡°MRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAAHHH¡±
It was impossible for Nargo to feel any pain at this point as he had already fainted, and yet his body resisted through erratic convulsions and violent spasms.
¡°WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH¡±
The song of the devils was closing to an end as the previously invisible line of red soon became very prominent down Nargo¡¯s body.
¡°RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!¡±
The giant¡¯s whole body became red as Nargo¡¯s body split open, releasing with it explosions of red and gore which splattered over the audience who stood 9m away.
¡
Within giant¡¯s mind, he could feel his alter ego trying to reclaim control. It was a pity that it was too late as the anger felt in true control for once as he brushed his weakling alter ego off, left to die in the depths of his mind.
Instead Anger started walking, walking off the arena onto the podium at the end of the arena left for the winner. Slow heavy steps echoed in all of the trolls¡¯ ears as they watched the giant climb atop his throne.
It was the first time that any of them heard the anger speak, his voice as different as could to his alter ego¡¯s as what they heard wasn¡¯t deep or nasally but rather soft and yet filled with insanity since the pitch erratically changed.
¡°I am troll king. I am your king. I AM KIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG! None shall refer to me as any less and none shall regard me as any less!¡±
Every word was followed by a short pause before the next one, creating a sense of command as the trolls watched their new king with terrible fear.
He followed up his introduction asking the mandatory question, ¡°Does anyone think else?!¡±
But it looked like he had convinced the audience with his elaborate and silky speech as no troll dared to question him, nevertheless challenge him. Rather each one of them were so convinced by him that they felt weak at the knees which in turn was nothing compared to the nightmare their mind felt.
The nightmare they feared in their hearts then would become the nightmare they would live, until death did them apart from their King¡
(9) Three Apex Species - Start of Arc 2 ( Timeskip)
???????
When it had been formed it had been a spot to see one of the most beautiful scenes in the forest, but that was well in its past as the cliff-side was now just an eroded piece of rock covered in natural rubbish. Below the cliff-side to the left was the goblin village, which meant that this cliff used to be a popular spot for young goblins to play in, at least before the eroded-away cliff began to give away under their weight, ending up with bloody splatter decorating the cold rock 50m down. And yet currently lying on its chest on the very cliff-side was a reptilian type monster, uncaring of its dangers.
The reptilian monster was 1.7m tall and had brown, scaled skin all across its body. Plastered atop the scales was a soft cloth armour, which had no other practical use other than defence against the elements .The reptile had a humanoid figure and armour-like-scales at its major joints though, compensating for the uselessness of the cloth armour. Lying next to this reptile was a piece of thick grainy paper, atop it many letters in a weird language. The reptile had already been at this position for the whole day and the paper was nearly full: full of information about the very goblins below the cliff.
Seeing the paper almost full, the reptile decided that was enough for the day as it placed the paper into a leather bag around its waist before it set off, away from the goblin village. For the first few minutes it ran at a jogging pace, clearly trying to conserve it energy before it began sprinting at all its speed. The sprint rode the reptile past a large clearing and about 1km further before the reptilian once again slowed down to a jog. It was about an hour later when what filled the Reptilian¡¯s vision was no longer the countless greens of the forest but rather a muddy village.
No one paid any attention to the reptilian scout as it walked in, although this made perfect sense considering within that very hour many scouts had come back. The scout walked past the mud huts arranged in a simple design, as it imagined the stories it had heard as a child. The stories of the towns filled with massive stones homes and paved pathways. Furthermore the towns had had many areas for leisure and just as many for study. It sounded almost dreamlike considering how far of a cry the village he was walking through right now was.
At the centre of the village was a big dome like building, made out of tough wood instead of mud. The scout homed in to its target, as it walked through the wooden doors of the building. Emanating a rancid odour made it the opposite of the ideal building but it mattered not as the scout walked onwards, soon finding himself in front of another wooden door albeit smaller.
The scout walked inwards to find himself surrounded by stacks of thick pages filled with writing covering every possible surface in the room. In the middle of the smallish room was a similar reptilian albeit smaller, who was furiously writing up something. Finding the piece of paper from today, the scout handed it over to the scribe who only looked up then. Seeing the title of the page, the scribe immediately placed it upon another stack of paper, each of them containing little information individually but all combining together with half the other stacks in the room to make up a surplus of information about the goblins. The remaining stacks were the same, the only difference being that they all contained information on the trolls instead¡
Goblins
What had been before a largely barren village due to the low amount of goblins was now a thriving one with green mass everywhere you looked. The houses before built with mud and plants were now built out of pure wood, showing the prosperity of the village which was only furthered by the boisterous market near the centre.
It had been 3 years since the change in leadership, from the old village chieftain to Withil. A long three years at that though, since nothing had stayed the same. The old chieftain himself was no longer here to enjoy the sight; he had died mysteriously a little after publicly talking against Withil¡
But on the other hand the village had prospered for as far as the eye could see, with new houses popping up, extending the boundary of the village, every day. The population had risen all the way up to 500 goblins within the 3 years, which was excellent considering the death rate in the great forest.
What was even greater was the fact that 200 of those 500 goblins were variants, to be more specific goblin warriors. A monster was original at whatever tier they started at, and so for goblins it would be at low tier 1. Therefore they would become a variant if they broke past that boundary. This meant that evolved goblins were high variants, and the village currently had around 200 variants: all versed in the brutality of battle.
The current village held no resemblance to the old one, the difference being like night and day!
Goblins-Krakov POVSupport the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
It felt like the sun was baking the ground underneath my feet as I hoped from place to place, in a hurry to get to morning classes. Morning classes were made up of warming up and some sparring, it was nothing too difficult even though the bruises I was coming home with each day was only increasing. It was the afternoon classes I really hated! I had heard in the past before I was born that there had only been morning classes which used to be very different to the ones we had now, but now we had afternoon classes on top which were the terror of any sane goblin. That of course was just me, since all the others were insane!
I slid through the sea of green bobbling heads and violent jostling, only to find my place after bumping into too many goblins. Just in time as well as I watched the instructor for the day walk over to the fields.
While he walked over, the crowd around me quietened down very quick as soon as they saw who it was. The Goblin walking over was 1.8m tall and gave clear authority of power and strength. This was because of how the goblin¡¯s muscles were clearly oversized for his body, making him look monstrous although they also helped clearly distinguishing himself as a special high variant. Of course this was Captain Roger, who not only was a high variant but also part of the Karx which only made it more confusing why he was here right now.
The Karx were the most powerful goblins in the village, whether it be in authority or battle strength. The Karx consisted of: Captain Roger, who was stronger than any of the other high variants by miles but in fact the weakest of the Karx; Chieftain Withil, who was perhaps the most authoritive due to his command of the village; Absinthe, who was the only female goblin on the list but also the creepiest one; Demon Damon, who needed no explanation for why he was on the list and Gregal, the strongest goblin.
We started our routine while Captain Roger watched us, his eagle eyes unwilling to let any slip up get away. Although I doubted he would catch many errors at this stage, after all we have only been doing this training for every day for however many years we had been alive for.
In fact we had repeated these actions so many times that they were so ingrained within my mind that I couldn¡¯t help but losing my focus. Instead my mind wandered off onto a day that no one would be able to forget: the day Gregal returned.
I don¡¯t know much about it but I¡¯ve heard he was one of the forefathers of this village, which only makes the day he returned even more important. Apparently the goblins here had migrated from somewhere as a group of 10 which included Gregal and the old chieftain, although only Gregal survived till now. He had been one of the forefathers of the village but for some reason had left for such a long time. It wasn¡¯t till just a year ago that he returned, and what followed his return was a legendary fight with Damon¡
And Damon lost¡
Perhaps the goblins in the village had just forgotten Gregal¡¯s strength but Damon¡¯s loss caused a major upset in the crowd. I had watched the fight but was barely able to follow any of it, though what I did catch was Gregal¡¯s comment to Damon after the fight:
¡°Learn to use your mana kid. There are better ways of using it than just by powering up muscles¡¡±
No one saw the fights after that but I had heard Damon eventually beat Gregal. And this had all happened a year ago! I¡¯m sure only the other Karx know up to what stage of strength both Damon and Gregal were at by now!
Nowadays both of them were barely seen in the village. But when they did come back, it would cause a large commotion as they would always come with a tier 3 monster heart! This was how all the high variants in the village had evolved, meaning that they had brought back at least 20 tier-3 monster hearts back in the past year.
At this moment, all I could imagine was myself becoming a high variant and perhaps even entering the Karx. I felt ecstasy blossom inside even as I imagined it.
With morning training finished, I was about to go to afternoon training just as Captain Roger stopped everyone.
¡°Listen Up you lot, I¡¯ve got some good news for you guys¡±
¡
He paused for effect, clearly taking lessons for public speaking from Withil.
¡°I have seen all of you work very hard for such a long time now, with some even going the extra mile. Now I won¡¯t act like we don¡¯t reward that, after all you need to work hard to survive here. So I will be choosing the ones who stood out the most as the first people to try the new ¡°training¡± program made by Absinthe.
I had felt myself elevate for all of it until I fell back to Earth as I heard the word Absinthe. She never meant good news¡
I heard the names being called ¡
¡°¡.,¡..,¡., Krakov,¡¡±
... and I almost felt regret at imagining myself as one of the high variants. Why had such bad luck come my way?
The Trolls
The king ordered and we followed. Blood followed close behind, the blood of weaklings and of our enemies. Before we had been nothing in the system; now we were the tyrants ruling the forest.
The king was truly great, a blessing by a God for sure. He had ensured that we no longer some mediocre race but rather one meant to dominate.
The king had trained his own troops, each of them an elite. They had in turn created law and order for the King while he directed more of his time to greater deeds. No one dared to go against the elites and no one would want to, considering all the weaklings who went against the king were already dead.
In front of us right now was a true monster, the Bloody Tiger. Its stripes were the colour of blood and seeing one meant you would be bleeding to death within the next second. This was no surprise considering this monster was mid-tier 4.
Dragging it by its crushed skull was a greater monster, our King. His appearance after evolution was even more regal than it had been before, the exact image of death as any monster that saw him would be dead within the next second. This was no surprise considering that this monster was the troll king, OUR KING!
(10) The forgotten village - The Morgars
Morgar- Friss
Friss looked at all the organised papers in front of her, two stacks of them to be precise. One of the stacks contained all the information they had on the goblins while the other stack had the same for the trolls. The two of them were just too powerful¡ It had not been like this a few years back, but then again the Morgars then wouldn¡¯t have ever dreamed of fearing goblins and trolls. But the rebellion had been unstoppable in their nation, which had been the strongest nation¡ Why couldn¡¯t the other elders just accept that? Instead they still wished of living in the past¡
Friss felt anger bubble inside of her as she thought of the other elders, all stubborn mules with pride stuck up where the sun won¡¯t shine. Her scaled arms flipped through the countless pages while her bright yellow eyes scanned the pages. The trepidation deep inside of her mind only grew as she kept reading: the other two races were building power too quickly.
The goblins had 3 powerhouses: their leader figure who seemed to be the one behind the massive progress they had made, and was also evolved though he didn¡¯t seem to excel at fighting according to her scouts. The next one was the evolved bright green goblin who was apparently the largest goblin the scouts had seen, standing at 2.0m tall, and his body was fully ripped with muscles. The only comfort Friss had was that this goblin had only come back to the village a few short years ago, so it was possible that he would once again run away if he saw his chances at winning low.
But that wasn¡¯t the same for the third powerhouse, the dirty red demon-like one. At first the scouts hadn¡¯t even known he was a goblin until further investigation, but that had been terribly difficult as they had lost 5 scouts at the hands of this goblin. He was the most elusive but also the most dangerous, Friss felt this one was at the least a high tier 2 goblin due to what she could read, but then again she wouldn¡¯t be surprised if he turned out to be a high tier 3 goblin instead.
A thought wiggled into her brain that made her chuckle; it was the fact that all the powerhouses of the goblins were men. It was the opposite for the Morgar, a matriarchal reptilian race where the women decided everything. This wasn¡¯t for some kind of psychological reasoning, but rather because the females were much bigger and stronger than the males, meaning the males were much more suited to jobs to do with agility like scouting.
But her chuckle came to an abrupt stop as her eyes wandered upon the paper detailing powerhouses of the trolls: the elite and the king. The elite had been named such by the scouts just because they seemed to be on a different level compared to the rest of the trolls, since they were bigger, faster but most of all very strong. On the other hand, the king was¡
The king was a monster, a true monster!
He was a domineering tyrant, a monster that was definitely the peak in this area. Perhaps in the Morgar towns he would be just the average warrior, but he was something their village could not handle. The scouts had noted down how he had killed tier 4 monsters and worse still, how he had noticed the scouts¡ And yet he took no action, the madman took no action despite catching enemies watching him. It was almost like he wanted them to come at him¡
Friss looked upwards to see her hands shivering in fear; deep in her heart she hoped she would never have to see this monster. It wasn¡¯t until a few minutes had passed that she calmed down, she had to calm down. After all she was going to the village meeting between the elders, where she would convince those fucking bastards through whatever means necessary. After all they didn¡¯t have much time left¡
Goblins- Krackal
In front of Krackal was a massive stone structure, in fact the biggest one in the village as it dwarfed even the village hall. The stone from which it was made from were all yellow to brown, only varying shade from one to the next. The building was shaped in a box shape and had no air vents whatsoever including windows. This was Absinthe¡¯s lair¡
Krackal stared at the building in front of him, unable to do anything else as his legs refused to move. But move they did as his legs eventually gave way in the knowledge that Absinthe would come and get him either way. Opening the harsh wooden door was like walking into a new world, with the dirty outside of the building such a contrast to how clean it was inside. He immediately spotted Absinthe who was currently cutting up a plant or something.
Absinthe was fairly tall for a goblin female, reaching a height of 1.7m, but also very thin to the point that you could see her bones sticking out. Her hair was let loose behind her head, resulting in long messy strands all across her head. Prettiness was clearly something she cared little about as her face instead gave of a very sinister vibe as she cut through the plant with violent vigour. It wasn¡¯t until a bit later that Absinthe even noticed his presence.
¡°Ahh. You are here young goblin, why would you wait there silently?¡±
Her voice was high pitched and filled with a bubbliness that was definitely lacking everywhere else.
Absinthe immediately lost interest in Krackal as instead she started to rummage through some storage cupboards, before taking out a container which inside of it was a clear liquid. Within seconds she had opened the bottle, poured a mouthful and forced Krackal to drink it, clearly very practiced at the procedure.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
What followed was Absinthe walking through the building to another part of it, where stood another door. She let Krackal walk in first, although he stopped dead in his tracks as he saw in the room was just a stone bench, only it was surrounded by blood stains. Not allowing him to have too deep a though, Absinthe pushed him inwards and made him sit down. She then left the room once more, mumbling to herself in excitement about some kind of drug.
Krackal melted down as Absinthe left, sweat oozing out of all his pores as his body rushed to cool himself down. His heartbeat went like crazy every time she spoke, not in love though but fear. It was as he cooled down that he began to notice energy draining out of his body. In reaction, he instantly tried to jolt his leg out, only to notice he couldn¡¯t move it. The draining only carried on as Krackal even began to lose control of his body, making him feel almost like he was outside his own body.
It wasn¡¯t but 2 minutes later that Absinthe came back, not at all surprised by the physically frozen goblin on the bench. In her hands she held a container with crushed up herbs within, which she took some of before placing into Krackal¡¯s mouth. Knowing he was incapable of chewing, she forced him to swallow it instead by pushing his jaw upwards. Following this, Absinthe walked away from Krackal as she began to watch him from a distance.
The herb mixture had an instant effect as Krackal could straight away feel some kind of energy begin to rush into his body. This energy was mana and it seemed to hold back nothing as more and more bombarded into his body. If able to move, Krackal would have been at least twice as strong as usual and the multiplier was only increasing as further mana rushed in.
But this wasn¡¯t without side effects¡ Rather his muscles began to slowly bulge outwards as his whole body began to get bigger. The strain began to tear at his bones as he could feel his pectorals growing outwards, creating a rift in the middle of his chest and this was only one part of his body. If able to scream, he would have but the whimpers and violent noises made from his body jolting in pain did a good job of showing his wellbeing anyway. His muscles began to reach their peak as one actually exploded¡ followed by another and another. Within a second, half his body had disappeared from the other half as they had instead fled to the walls of the room.
Absinthe grimaced in annoyance as she looked at the scene, but it was not the least directed at gore that had been splattered all across the room or the extra pieces of flesh that stuck to her body. Rather she walked out, completely nonchalant about what had just happened as she instead mumbled to herself.
¡°That drug was clearly too powerful. I need to dilute it more, but then the effect won¡¯t be as great. What if that goblin was just too small of a medium to carry all that mana? Perhaps I should test one of those variants instead!¡±
She carried on her monologue as she walked out of the building. She would have to talk to Roger about sending the next trainee for the ¡°new training program¡±, the old one had been met with some unforeseeable circumstances meaning he could no longer attend.
Goblins - Damon
Damon lurked through the shadows of the trees with great patience as he slowly tailed a troll. The blue muscular monster was quite a lot taller than him, with it being around 2m compared to his 1.75cm. He had hunted trolls before and knew that they lived somewhere north of his village, but they hadn¡¯t been much of an interest for the goblins who saw the trolls as a poor source of food and vice versa. The trolls had been weak but that had changed¡
The Troll in front of him was completely different to the troll he would have seen before his evolution, as all the ones he saw in the past 3 years had only gotten bigger and stronger. This wasn¡¯t just size wise but Damon had watched a couple of them fight, only to see their viciousness and bloodlust increase as time went on. A bit after his evolution they had been like deer to him, who were easy to hunt, but now he would rather not even fight the trolls. But that wasn¡¯t much of an option he would make right now as the troll was actually tailing the same target: the giant boar.
The giant boar wasn¡¯t actually very strong since it was only a mid-tier 2 but it was a great source of food due to its size. Therefore Damon was currently just tailing the troll who was in turn tailing the boar, as he was waiting for moment when both were weakened to kill both of them.
His body moved so easily through the forest, nothing like he had been just after his evolution. He had even fought Gregal when Gregal had decided to come back to the village, which turned out to be because he saw that Withil was actually a decent leader. Damon had fought him then in front of the whole village, only to be trashed. It was also then he had been told by Gregal who had evolved years prior that there were others ways of using mana than just by strengthening your muscles.
What followed that was Damon actually trying to figure these out, as he would shame and disgrace if he was to ask Gregal. It had been extremely difficult due to the fact that the other applications were all unnatural but he had done it in the end. After that he had fought Gregal a few more times, in which he had gotten better each time until he walked all over Gregal.
Breaking out of his stupor, Damon focused himself as he prepared himself. The boar had stopped at a bush in order to munch on some berries, and he could see the troll edging around the side. Being only 15m away now from the boar, the troll exploded forwards, sprinting with all its power. Initially frightened at the sudden surprise, the boar¡¯s fear instead turned into anger when it saw that what was assaulting it was just a troll, who was smaller than the boar.
They seemed to clash as the boar jumped forwards with its tusks aimed at the troll while the trolls smashed his axe downwards. The boar pulled out of the confrontation in the end as it tilted its head in order to use its tusks to stop the axe whereas the troll had no intention of backing down.
It was at this moment that Damon moved from where he was hiding, a knife ready to throw in his hand already. Neither of the two monsters fighting noticed him due to their battle high, nor would the boar ever get that chance to, as within the next second there was a knife in its brain¡
Seeing the boar instantaneously collapse, the troll realised something was wrong as it flicked its head upwards only to see a red demon-like creature waving a sword at his neck. But this troll was trained, he was one of the elites the King had trained up and it showed as he instantly reacted to the glint of the sword before his brain even got a chance to register it fully. The sword brushed past the neck, barely missing it as the troll leaned its body backwards in order to dodge. But it was already done¡ Lopping off, the troll¡¯s head free-fell onto the floor with his face still in shock: he had been sure that he had dodged the sword but an intense pain embraced him within the next second with no care for his feelings.
Damon walked casually over towards the boar as he retrieved his throwing knife, which had incidentally melted through the boar¡¯s skull in order to reach its brain. After doing so, he cut of the best parts of the boar before he left the way he had come. The scene left behind was too clean to be called that of a fight inside the great forest, the sides had never been even to begin with.
He was Damon, he was the strongest goblin!
(11) Encounters between the powerful
The Morgars
Friss stood by a large mud house, larger than any of the surrounding houses. This was the home of Sikke, the strongest Morgar in the village. She needn¡¯t wait long as Sikke soon walked out, towering over Friss. As she was the biggest in the village, it was no big surprise that she led the soldiers in the village. What made her worse was that Friss had tamed Sikke¡¯s personality, adding cunningness to the 2.0m tall Morgar exploding with muscles, though not at all enough to even face Friss.
Neither said any pleasantries or such as both began walking to the village building where the meeting between the elders would be held. Friss was the first to break the silence as she said,
¡°Is it done?¡±
She received a quick but succinct answer just as she had desired,
¡°Yes. I took some women with me and we did it before daybreak¡±
Although Sikke didn¡¯t just end it at that as she carried on,
¡°Only you can lead the village forwards, and you now have that chance. Just don¡¯t fuck it up¡±.
Friss chuckled a bit as she heard this, Sikke had used to be so tamed but it looked like she was regaining her previous personality. Whether this was a good thing or a bad one was only for time to tell, though Friss had many ways of fixing it if it went badly.
This was the only conservation exchanged between the two as they walked the rest of the distance in silence, no need for empty words when both already understood each other well.
The village hall wasn¡¯t much bigger than Sikke¡¯s house but the quality was much better, acting like a sign for the prosperity of the past. It was in a dome shape and also the only building in the village made out of stone, after all this village had meant to be the vanguard of the invasion. It was a pity that the Morgars faced internal difficulties during that time and this village had just been forgotten.
Both the Morgar¡¯s entered the building to be faced with a large wooden table alongside with some furnishing. Around the table were 8 chairs, one for each of the elders, though only 5 of them were filled. Friss sat down at her seat while Sikke stood by her side, acting just like a bodyguard. The 2 seats missing were of the 2 elders most opposing of Friss; they would not be coming today or any other day, after all Sikke and her girls had made sure of that¡
The whole procession waited for a few more minutes before the other elders also figured out that the 2 remaining wouldn¡¯t be coming today. They had guesses of what could have happened but just let it stay in their minds as they had no proof nor the guts.
The oldest Morgar elder decided to start the meeting,
¡°This is the 107th meeting between the elders of the wolf village, officially known as the village 3 of the I plan under the great nation of Morgraz. Let it commence!¡±
Friss felt a bad taste fill her mouth as she heard this, these old cronies were still on about that. Well that was fine, after all none of them would no longer dare to say that after this meeting.
At first the table just talked of useless matters, every single one of them attempting to ignore the elephant in the room. After a while Friss just got sick of what was going on as she decided to bring it up anyway.
¡°Fellow elders, we were forgotten. Our village will only continue to deteriorate if we blindly put our faith in a nation that has already forgotten about us.¡±
Her voice was loud, her demeanour powerful and her speech honest. But it seemed to not get to the other elders as the rebutted her within seconds of finishing her sentence.
¡°How dare you say that elder Friss! You can be hanged for such a blasphemous comment about the nation.¡±
¡°Elder Friss you know that is not true. We are all daughters of the nation here, and the nation would never forget her daughters. We were sent here for a mission, we have a purpose and I will continue to live that very mission as long as I breathe.¡±
Slanting her eyes, Friss looked at each of the elders one by one. Each of them also had a bodyguard alike her for protection behind them, though none dared to keep eye contact for long.
¡°Fellow elders, you know what you are saying is a lie. We sent a scout months ago, and then another one, and another one¡ Why have we not heard of them then? Where are they? Why have we got no supplies nor support for over a year now, do you wish to live your dreams that much that you will ignore the reality?¡±
Friss carried on despite the ugly faces the other elders now made.
¡°I don¡¯t know what happened but something did. The I plan of invading the great forest has clearly failed, we were meant to be the first wave of villages set up to check whether Morgars could survive here. We are living proof we can so when will the second wave come? Let me answer that: never!
I refuse to allow you people continue to dwindle this village down to rubble as you prolong your dreams with excessive imagination. I refuse to allow you to kill each and every Morgar in a nightmare as you continue to daydream. I refuse you the right to live if you dare still cover up your eyes.
WHO¡ IS¡ WITH¡ ME?!¡±
The other elders were clearly triggered by the severity of the situation as they began to edge back on their chairs.
Friss had allowed them the easy way out earlier by killing her biggest opponents prior to this meeting. All the elders knew it was her who did it and the implications of such an extreme action, yet they still dared to blind themselves. It was about time that they faced the truth.
The other Morgar soldiers, body-guarding the elders, all tensed themselves as they prepared for the inevitable movement.
Friss had allowed them the easy way out before the meeting and now she gave them another chance. They could stand with her and live, or they could once again go against her and die. Perhaps other leaders would just massacre all who went against them with no thought, but these were Morgars brought up in a prosperous nation meaning they all knew the costs of doing such.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
1 of the elders stood up, sweating in anticipation of what could happen. She then proceeded to erratically stare at each of the other elders, hoping they would do the same so they were in it together. It was her bad luck that the other 4 elders stayed sitting, all confident in their numbers as they began to stare down Friss. Friss had made a massive leap by forcing them into such a serious situation, but did she even have the power to pull it off?
Sikke began to look at each of the bodyguards, although she was the strongest, she was also vastly out numbered.
In response the bodyguards behind the sitting Morgars all took out their blade as they prepared for the bloody mess that was going to commence.
Bringing her hand up to her neck, Sikke slashed her hand across her neck as she made the motion of death for the bodyguards.
Simultaneously blades sang and Morgars cried their last as 4 decapitated heads fell onto the wooden table. Each of the bodyguards nodded at Sikke as they once again sheathed their blades, now sticky with blood.
Friss looked at the last remaining elder apart from her, who was shocked beyond belief as she looked back at her bodyguard, before once again coming eye to eye with Friss.
Voice beaming with joy, almost an insult to the fallen elders, Friss finished off the meeting,
¡°Elder Zara, it looks like the other elder have fallen unforeseeable circumstances. Oh well I¡¯m sure our village will prosper without them anyway, eh?¡±
Goblins
Damon shot past the trees as he chased the Blood-horn deer, a top tier 3 monster. He had first made contact with the animal a few minutes ago and clashed with it alongside with Gregal, only for the beast to see the odds not in its favour and run with all its might. Currently following Damon was Gregal who was just as fast as Damon himself, which was surprising considering how much bigger he was.
For Damon, Gregal was decent company. It had been years since the wanderlust had first struck but he had managed to stay his feet then, after all he had a village to protect. After a while Gregal came which made life interesting for a short while until Damon truly got to know the goblin. Gregal was very solitary and at heart not worth trusting, he was too self-interested to trust your back with. This had been the reason why he had left when the previous chieftain had been in power and refused to come until he saw Withil do a good job.
And yet despite all of Gregal¡¯s misgivings, he was still better company to Damon than nearly all the other goblins. They others glorified him, they saw him on a whole different level never allowing them the conversations Damon so much desired. He had thought this would go away as time passed since they would get used to him but rather the opposite happened.
After all he had thought this when he had just evolved, after which he only got even stronger: achieving more and more amazing feats of strength which made even other high variants such as Withil to begin glorifying him. It was tiring but most of all boring, Damon did not feel any reason to carry on this lifestyle other than the kinship the goblins shared by blood.
In fact sometimes Damon would dream of the world outside the forest. There were in fact other races in the forest, especially here in the outskirts such as human adventurers and travellers. The lucky ones the goblins managed to beat would give them information about the outside world as long as Damon ¡°asked them nicely¡± and it sounded WONDERFUL
. The world sounded so fantastic, and yet he was stuck in this depressing pitch of the forest, shackled down by the blood he shared with the other goblins. Of course he could have dreamt of going further into the forest where no one could ever feel bored, but all the animals and people he saw go deep into the forest were true monsters. He dared not attack nor face them, after all he wasn¡¯t suicidal.
Damon flexed his hand before shooting forth a dagger, stabbing the blood-horn deer in the thigh as it still struggled forwards. Feeling the adrenaline of the fight come to a close, Damon once again felt himself fall from a peak to normal life as he realised the chase was over. On the other hand Gregal felt a peak in pleasure as he anticipated the kill¡
It was to his bad luck that he would not be getting it, instead his kill was stolen by a blood-horn wolf which leapt out the undergrowth before snapping the deer¡¯s neck with its jaws. The goblins had no time to react to the emergent tier 4 monster as what leapt out of the area opposite to the wolf was a massive troll?
The troll made no noise, nor any attempt to intimidate as it ran forward towards the wolf. The wolf acted aggressively as it realised that this troll wanted to steal its meal, as it tensed all its muscles before pouncing into the air.
What the goblins saw next would be something they would never forget: the troll caught the wolf by its gaping maw, before pulling its body apart¡ Thank the gods that the troll didn¡¯t bisect the body in one pull but it still scared the goblins to sweat as they saw that the wolf¡¯s body had been torn to the bottom of its ribs¡
Taking no notice of its bleeding fingers, the troll looked disappointed at the now-corpse of the wolf. It was no challenge.
This was the first time the goblins got a clear look of the troll: he stood at 2.6m tall, dwarfing even the 2.0m tall Gregal and his muscles looked anything but natural as they bulged out monstrously. The skin that should have been blue was tinted purple and all across the troll were hideous scars, ranging from finger size to life critical.
Perhaps in any other situation, the goblins would have thought no thought whatsoever of contesting such a monster but this was no other situation. Instead right now stood the monster in a stupor as it stared at its fresh kill. Damon met eyes with Gregal before he nodded. Both of them picked out their weapon of choice, knife and axe respectively, before taking their time to simultaneously smash them through the air.
And it was a success. Sort of at least¡
Both weapons had been thrown at full force and striked almost simultaneously, giving no time for the troll to react to the deadly ambush. But perhaps it didn¡¯t need that edge, as both weapons thrown at maximum force had pierced into the troll but certainly not deep enough to kill. This would have been fine if this was on the thighs or somewhere but instead the knife had hit just below the neck near the traps while the axe had struck the troll in the abs. And yet despite hitting the troll in critical areas, the weapons had still not gone through and instead got stuck in its muscles.
¡°RAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWR¡±
The troll roared in anger, turning to face his adversaries. It even had the luxury of being surprised as it looked up the goblins. Damon felt his insides melt as the dark red eyes looked through his soul, and he fared better than Gregal.
¡°HAAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAH¡±
A compulsory maniac laugh followed the roar as the troll casually pulled the bloody weapons out, not all cringing at the pain which followed.
¡°Goblins, eh? I¡¯ve heard about you red one, my trolls call you a real devil!¡±
It took their feelings into no consideration as it carried onwards, though Damon almost felt his eyes pop out as he saw the bleeding stop. These had been wounds in critical areas and yet the bleeding had stopped a few seconds later¡ This showed clear manipulation of mana, well and above both his and Gregal¡¯s understanding.
¡°Well now that I¡¯m here I might as well check you out reddy and friend. Hopefully you at least give me a challenge, just make sure you don¡¯t make me angry!¡±
The cheerful fa?ade was over as the troll¡¯s body began to grow, ending at a total peak of 2.75m as his massive muscles grew further, reaching disgusting levels.
¡°Oh I forgot to ask to introduce myself, got to make sure you remember me if you survive! My name is king, the troll King¡±¡
(12) Bloody fight
Goblins
Both Damon and Gregal quickly broke out of their fear, purely based on how seasoned they were towards said feeling. Being fearful would have an effect on their fighting prowess: too much of an effect if they wanted to survive this encounter.
Damon looked even closer at the Troll king only to notice that he actually didn¡¯t hold a weapon, after all he had killed the blood-horn wolf with just his arms. To be fair though it made sense that the troll king didn¡¯t have a weapon, he was a genuine meat mountain whose strikes were like hammers. But more importantly someone his size would not be able to find a suitable weapon in some place isolated like the great forest, yes he could steal the weapons the human adventurers brought with them but how many humans were 2.6m tall?
It was during this time Gregal thought the opposite to Damon: what was forcing them to fight this monster anyway? Clearly the odds were not in their favour against such an abnormal troll so why couldn¡¯t they run just like the deer had done for them? There was nothing shameful about that if you could wake up alive tomorrow. This thought only grew inside of him as he thought of how the big the troll was: yes that might aid his strength but it was an absolute liability to his agility whereas the goblins were the opposite.
Gregal quickly made a certain bird sound, quick communication for retreat.
Tensing his bear like legs, the troll exploded off the ground as he pounced at Damon, whose vision was completely filled up by said flying troll within a second. It was to the troll king¡¯s pity that both goblins just shot off opposite directions, clearly showing no interest in fighting him.
Perhaps others would be distracted by such a tactic designed to confuse but the troll king only had his eyes on Damon from the beginning anyway and thus he followed Damon, giving care to the wind about Gregal. But that gave him no useful edge in actually catching the fleeing goblin, who turned out to be at least double his speed.
Within a minute, Damon was fully out of the Troll king¡¯s eyesight and Gregal had already been forgotten.
¡°GRRRGGGGGAHHHH¡±
The king roared in anger as he felt frustration build up; no one dared to fight him anymore. He felt such a strong bloodlust, one that wasn¡¯t sated just by murdering the powerless. He needed someone powerful so he could crush them alike the powerless, it was a pity that the powerful ran before he even got a chance to do anything.
On top of his frustration, exhaustion was also building up as he had sustained his buffed self for about 2 minutes now. Similar to how Damon used mana to strengthen a certain muscle, the king used to do the same. However this changed when he evolved, letting him enjoy so much more mana than before. Thus he created this buff form of himself, which was done just by employing mana all over his body. If they had fought, he could have torn through their weapons if needed in this state. If they had fought that was¡
He began to release the mana from his body, which only revealed a truly nightmarish scene to the forest as the massive rage filled troll began to physically deflate, almost as if his pumped up muscles had all been simultaneously punctured.
*Seeeeeessssssssrrrrrrr*
A knife tore through the air, finding deep purchase within King¡¯s shoulder.
Finding no time to even scream, the king suddenly rolled across the ground as an axe shot to where he had been, causing a deep hole in the ground. It was clear that these throws were different from before: they were no longer just pure strength but also densely infused with mana.
To his left he heard the crack of branches and the shaking of the shrubbery, to which he quickly threw himself down once more. Pity for him that the sound he had heard was just a stone being thrown, rather the true danger came in the form of the axe that kissed his thigh better.
¡°ARRRRRGGHHA¡±
He could feel his anger building up; that wasn¡¯t good. If he got angry, he would definitely overburden his body to the point of injury¡
*KEKEKEKEKE¡
He heard continuous bird noises around him. He was certain this was the goblins, only they kept running around him in opposite directions making him very paranoid over which direction the next, inevitable strike was coming from.
¡KEKEKEKKE¡
This carried on for about 10 seconds as the king felt his nerves melt over, he so desperately wanted to actually see one of them so he could tear through their heads, crushing brain and gore into a bloody pulp and yet they dared not give him that opportunity.
¡KEKE-CRAA!
Hearing the clear change in note and actually registering it in your mind when your nerves have melted over were two different things. But the king¡¯s battle scars weren¡¯t just for show: he was battle hardened. He reacted within a second as he immediately dashed to where the sound had been. To his front were rustling sounds, clearly a goblin flustered and running away, while to his back landed another axe where he had just been.
But his bad luck hadn¡¯t ended just yet, in fact the singular second it took for him to react was already too much, and it showed as within his now-smashed shoulder blade was another knife. This was an attack unlike all the others; it was completely filled with mana to the point that the mana had actually created an extension of the blade that went deep into his ribs.
Perhaps he should have cried or collapsed at this, a good old roar wouldn¡¯t be anything out of the ordinary. But instead his rage had bubbled over, all of which now filled the king¡¯s head with pure unadulterated bloodlust to eat the goblins alive. He pushed his body over the edge as he forced vast amounts of mana into his feet as they rapidly speeded up, finishing at a speed even faster than Damon was at.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
It was no surprise that at this speed he quickly caught sight of the goblin as he ripped himself through the foliage, it turned out to be the normal, green goblin. But that did little to dampen his high-as-fuck spirits, after all he would act a good appetizer before the main meal!
¡°RRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWRRR¡±
Gregal dared not turn around as he only sped himself up after hearing the roar, he too filling his feet with mana to dangerous levels. But lady luck shines on any who work hard, and the troll king had certainly weathered through many hardships, which were in fact still sticking out of his body. He bolted over the 20m separating them within 2 seconds, creating a trail of destruction over both the forest and his feet. Once close enough, the king lunged to catch the fleeing goblin.
Gregal was a big goblin but the King was an even BIGGER troll, who cared not of the violent struggles made by the dwarfed goblin. Instead he began to do his favourite finisher: the bisector. The mana that had been tearing apart his legs suddenly found themselves in his arms as they bulged outwards before pulling Gregal outwards at his trap muscles.
¡°AAAAAAAAAARRGGHH¡±
¡°AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGGHH¡±
Gregal could feel his back tearing apart as he screamed and protested even more violently. His upper back had actually torn apart by the time intervention came, which came in the form of a knife. A knife that pierced through the cheek of the grinning troll before impaling through the cheek on the other side.
Just like before, the troll king once again made no roar nor scream, only this time it wasn¡¯t due to resistance to the pain but rather due to inability. His arms lost all their strength as he dropped Gregal swiftly, followed by him tearing the knife out of his mouth.
Finally the king saw the devil who had been torturing him, a murky red goblin standing at a fair distance staring right at him. Damon¡¯s black eyes felt like an abyss at that moment, as the troll king felt ¡ fear? No not fear, never fear! The fear all of a sudden twisted into a dirty rage, once again threatening to bubble over.
Unwilling to let his chance at freedom escape, Gregal got up despite the pain and sprinted, using all the mana possible, away from the king.
The king himself was bleeding all over with several holes on his body. Worse still were his overstrained limbs that were internally bleeding, as it felt like any of his muscles could snap at any moment.
This was an easy kill for Damon, or would have been if he had any knives left on him. But that wouldn¡¯t stop him from ending the life of such a monster.
Almost as if his mind had been read, the troll king got his weary body up, which now stood crooked at 2.5m, before he flashed his large bloody fangs. The mouth was torn at both sides, revealing every single bloody teeth and yet the maniac still smiled!
No.
Of course the king smiled, this was what he had been looking for¡ It made him as excited as his dead-like eyes began to flash brightly again: a bloody red colour.
This was enough for Damon to reconsider, after all he still had no chance of beating this injured behemoth in a close-range fight. And collecting the knives would be a worse idea; the king would just use that time to chase him down and tear him apart.
Damon said nothing nor showed no emotion as he turned around before sprinting off, unwilling to face off with such a monster again.
¡°HAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHH HAHAHAH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHARGGHHHHH¡±
Behind him came thunderous laughter, laughter that would shake any but the worst of people to tears.
¡
It was to Damon¡¯s great luck and to the King¡¯s great disappointment that neither would see each other until 2 months after that fight.
But it was to Damon¡¯s great misfortune and the King¡¯s great pleasure as to what would happen there, after all the champions of the two warring villages couldn¡¯t not fight, could they?
Morgars
Friss acted quickly after coming into full power. She effectively converted the whole village from a watch point for Morgaz into a military base as the Morgars, whether male or female, were conscripted into their army to learn formal fighting.
Granted they only had around 200 left in the village, meaning it was less than even the trolls who relied more on strength than numbers, but the Morgars would need all possible manpower if Friss¡¯s plan was going to work perfectly.
It was no surprise to anyone when Sikke got promoted to number 2 in the village, as she would oversee the training of all the soldiers alongside Friss, while elder Zare, who had once been one of the glorious elders, got demoted to just the overseer of everyday matters. Not that elder Zare cared though; she was awfully happy just by having her head where it should be.
All that remained for Friss¡¯s plan to go perfect was to get both the trolls and goblins fighting with desperate vigour, leaving no hope of mutual existence. This sounded difficult but it was doable, after all Morgaz hadn¡¯t just decided to invade the great forest for no reason.
Rather the great forest held within it ever so much valuable resources alongside the ever so dangerous terrors. One such resource was the golden crest Tare ¨C a root vegetable that held so much pure mana within in that it could cause a forced but higher evolution. This meant that despite the evolution being forced, it would still be to the same standard of a proper growth induced one, in spite of being forced. Of course the Tare only had enough mana in it to have such an effect up to tier 5.
This was the reason why there was a large clearing in the vegetation dense forest between the trolls, morgars and goblins, since the Tare had roots all across that region which prevented any other plant from growing there. The plant itself only became ripe every 5 years. The last one had been taken by the Morgaz nation, which was in fact the reason why they had set up village 3 in this spot as they wanted to be able to harvest it every 5 years. But now the Morgaz nation had forgotten about both village 3 and about the Tare, in fact it was highly probable that they had a much larger issue on their mind which made them disregard the two rather than forget.
Now it was true that neither of the other two races would fight to death over a singular plant which had that effect. But then again who said they needed to know the truth? After all the morgar village had many scouts who were dispensable; they could very easily feed the goblins and trolls the wrong information as long as the scouts themselves believed it.
On top of this the scouts had already been spying on said races for a long time now under Friss, she knew what both of the races wanted to death, which in turn would cause their deaths. The next Tare would be ripe in 2 months, the mana fluctuations would attract the races anyway but the right information could attract the full villages.
Friss had told the other elders this plan long ago but they had all opposed it, after all they would be putting the Tare at risk if they did this. The whole purpose of village 3 was to harvest the Tare safely every 5 years, they dared not go against the nation that definitely still remembered and cared about them.
But their cowardly opinions no longer mattered. Friss clasped her hand behind her as she thought this, she would be the one to take this village to new heights.
Fuck being village 3 for some large behemoth, she would rather be a small time village that strived to grow.
And that was exactly what they were now...
Just a message to old readers, I recommend reading from chapter 2 onwards
As the title says. In the previous message said I was changing the story and chapter 2 is basically where it starts. It starts off as minor(ish) changes in chapter 2 but they keep increasing every chapter. The latest chapter is quite different to the old one, although it still keep the general same story outline. But the next chapter out this weekend will just branch off so much that I recommend starting from chapter 2 to catch up.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.Filling up space.
Prologue: Malevolence is innate
???
It was done. They had actually succeeded¡
In front of them was a battle. No, if it was anything, it was a war; a fully-fledged war between two species, a war unlike any other where winning was only proved through the survival of the species.
An idea, that was all it had been in a single mind, and yet it had grown and manifested in all their minds, taking root to only grow and spread. And here was their masterpiece in action.
Goblin Warrior
¡°WARRGHH¡±
An ear shattering roar was bellowed out, not like anything he had heard before. What followed was a guttural cacophony as the same deafening roar was echoed by the warriors around him.
¡°GRAGGHH¡±
Losing control of his own body, his hands began to tremble as a harrowing scream emanated from the enemy ranks, shaking him to his core. It wasn¡¯t much louder than his brethren¡¯s, nor was it particularly shrill but the meaning behind it was so much more terrifying. After all it was a challenge to his life, a bone chilling screech that stated they were about to play a deadly game of life, where ¡°Game Over¡± meant one more existence had been snuffed out. His heart rate surged as he fully succumbed to the murderous emotions of his brethren, his fear turning to anger and finally bloodlust¡
The sounds meant nothing anymore, all his brain could register were the Trolls in front of him. Only God would know who moved first and truly only God would care, but the intimidation and posturing came to an end. What followed was a crazed charge: a one way ticket to the afterlife, since both sides were largely unarmoured and unprepared for the chaos of the pitched battle. Perhaps the only blessing the Goblins had was that the Trolls lived in the same forest, as it meant that they had the same frayed garbage for protection.
And they met¡
Legs slipping, skulls splitting and blood splattering was now the formality. A beautiful finale to the build-up only to the sickest of minds as hundreds of lives tainted the ground below them, creating a bloody bog which served only to swallow more¡
Taking his first step forward: his grip on the shoddy axe tightened exponentially as his fist clenched around the haft.
Second step: His legs nearly slipped out from under him; grime and gore now completely covering his lower half, as his green skin was continuously splattered with explosions of red and flicks of brown.
Third step: All thought stopped as the ugly fucker came into view, a 1.7m tall muscular monster. Its blue skin was barely visible through the dense coating of mud clinging to his body, though its unorthodox fashion choice did little to deter his gaze from its head. The head in question housed two protruding tusks, both crooked, just like the beady yellow eyes that equally appraised him in return.
Acting first, the Troll dashed in before smashing its whole body into him, closely followed by a quick swing of its¡¯ own makeshift axe. He hadn¡¯t expected the Troll to act so fast and was completely dumbstruck as it charged him, leaving him even more dazed than before. Nevertheless good habits prevented his approaching demise as he reacted to the shiny gleam of the blade that entered his view, buckling down before he fastened his arms around the Troll¡¯s waist and pushed with all his might. This time it was the Troll¡¯s turn to be surprised as it felt a figure built like a small tree smash into its abs, though its¡¯ grip didn¡¯t slip as the axe still followed the arc downwards into the Goblin¡¯s back.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
In fact such a strike would have been harmless if it had been made in a proper fight, but this wasn¡¯t a fight; it was a war where breathing space was limited, never mind space to allow free range of motion. The Goblin felt an immense pain as the axe made contact, biting into his muscled back.
As a heady rush of adrenaline dulled the pain, he pushed the Troll down while unfastening his arms from around its waist. He raised his arm towards the sky, feeling the warm wind¡ Warm wind but no axe, which he had inconspicuously dropped during the initial contact.
Moving onto plan B, he jumped on the felled Troll, though it was well out of its daze by then, already quickly moving its arm to obstruct the Goblin¡¯s dive onto its body. But not quick enough as the Goblin safely landed on the Troll¡¯s chest, although not without his back taking another blow of the axe within the next second. His mouth opening wide to expose two large fangs which buried themselves deep within the Troll¡¯s neck. Very deep, a burning metallic taste of acrid blood quickly filling up his mouth, though he instantly spewed it into the Troll¡¯s open mouth in shock as his brain finally registered the last axe wound.
Hardening his will, the Goblin had barely had any time to properly recover as he forced himself to wrestle the axe out of the Troll¡¯s twitching arms. The Troll was squirming violently as it tried to clear its mouth of the bloody fluid blocking its ability to effectively breathe. It was met with little success though, due to the fact that it was lying on its back, pinned down by a Goblin.
The Goblin raised the now-stolen axe to the sky, the sun glinting off its bloodied blade, just as the Troll fully pushed itself off the floor. The desperation in its face was beautiful as the axe smashed into the Troll¡¯s head, cracking through the skull to leave the axe embedded in its brain.
The Goblin¡¯s subconscious must have determined him to be out of immediate danger as the rush of adrenaline dissipated ever so slightly, only to have the Goblin whimper from the avalanche of released pain. The fight he had was special, but nothing unique to the battlefield, as Trolls¡¯ and Goblins¡¯ corpses littered the place. In fact this particular Goblin was one of the survivors who were in better shape, as most of them had been crushed by the reciprocated destruction that they called battle.
In response, his body once again increased his adrenaline. The pain seemed to subside as the bloodlust once again grew¡ It was a sickening feeling to say the least and yet the only feeling that made any sense in a bloody hell like this.
In hindsight, perhaps it would have been better if he had never gotten back up¡
¡°WWRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!¡±
The screech was as primal as one could get, fully guttural and yet as loud as the sky itself crashing down into the Earth. It felt like the air itself was against him as he felt the scream rob him of his balance as he staggered backwards. They were like black rising suns in the background of his vision, and yet they approached so quickly. They were clearly Trolls, with blue skin covering their bodies while a pair of thick tusks imposed themselves on the world through their mouths. But they weren¡¯t simply Trolls; these monsters were around 2.3m tall but scarier than they should be because of how muscular they were. The behemoths¡¯ bodies were literal bodies of blue flesh and muscle bulging outwards.
Perhaps it was pain, perhaps it was fear, and perhaps someone had even stabbed him while he was watching. He stood dazedly but his body could no longer handle the mental and physical stress put on it. His body crumpled down, collapsing onto the troll as the open wounds on his back bled onto it.
Some people say your life flashes in front of your eyes just as you are about to die. How is that possible when you are faced with such debilitating fear?
Instead all that came out were tears, hot streams that quickly ran down his face. It wasn¡¯t a long wait before it all came out, the constant roars of the newcomers had completely broken his will to fight, though he doubted his body¡¯s ability to move even if he had wanted to.
It was a big foot. Being trampled was a pathetic and humiliating way to die but it was another thing when you were crushed to death by a single foot. It found its home on his chest as it crushed downwards, easily shattering his ribcage while mushing his organs into paste before it continued along its path.
He never even saw the face of his killer; all he had seen was a foot¡
The battle had taken place in a big clearing in the forest, though now it was a dump full of dead bodies. To the north was the Troll¡¯s home while to the east of the clearing was the Goblin¡¯s home. To the West was only forest. Dark green covered all the surfaces here, whether it be through leaves or moss. Barely any sunlight got through to the forest floor, meaning all the undergrowth had gone down ¡°different¡± routes to other plants, as most were angular and dangerous looking. The canopy, usually filled to the brim with monsters making a sundry of noises, was completely silent.
There were two reasons for this: one being the intense battle taking place. The roars, squeals and cries seemed to capture the attention of the animals as none of them dared to make any noise in response.
The other reason was due to the people directly below the dense canopy, west of the clearing holding the ongoing war. These people were not random passers-by, nor any type of adventurers. Rather they were third player of the game, only they had come slightly late: although that was no mistake. To their front were two dying armies, while behind and around each of them were perfectly rested and orderly soldiers. The fate of the Trolls and Goblins was decided with this move, as long as no surprises would pop up¡
¡°CrooooooOOOOO¡±
The battle-horn was blown...
(1) The start of the descension
Goblins
His feet thundered past tree, stump and bush alike as he blasted through the great forest, not once pausing as he continued onwards before seeing the target stump. As he closed in, he tensed himself in anticipation as he leapt upon the stump before bracing himself for impact as he instantly followed it with a roll off. It was during this hectic action that a knife slid through his hand, his fingers acting as lubricant as the knife smoothly entered flight.
He pushed his legs off the ground once more as he jumped up from his curled position. Expectant eyes shot towards the tree in the distance which acted as the practise board, only to dim as they saw the scene. The tree was a good 20m and he had been rolling as he threw out the knife, and yet the knife had struck the trunk, piercing through the bark and cambium to reach the sapwood. In spite of this, he still walked over to the practise tree with eyes that drifted, not at all focusing at what he saw but rather thinking upon what he had done wrong.
Yes the knife had hit the trunk and it had pierced a good way through it, but it had missed the muddy circle he had painted on the tree prior to practising. Many of the other Goblins would feel ecstatic but it wasn¡¯t the same for him. Perhaps it was a na?ve way of thinking that practise would make perfect, and yet he still desired deep within himself he could reach there.
After a bit of thought, the Goblin collected the several knives that stuck out of the tree like spikes on a porcupine before walking back to the village. The Goblin didn¡¯t rush his way back: he had no need nor desire to, after all nothing awaited him at home.
Goblins had a fast birth rate meaning parents just could not look after children. This meant baby Goblins were brought up together by the tribe until the age of 1 where they were given liberty. With this liberty came a joy of being free but all good things comes with a catch, and the catch for their freedom was that they now had to take complete care of themselves. Never mind any other needs when just to feed yourself, you had to brave the forest and its dangers.
At the age of 1 they were given freedom but not allowed the right to a name. After all what is the point of a name if that Goblin would just die the next day? This was especially true as this village was in the great forest, a massive expanse of greenery which within hid dark secrets. Therefore it had quite the high death rate even for powerful adventurers, although the Goblins did just live in the outskirts which should have alleviated the death rate but that was mitigated by the fact that they were in general a weak race.
Therefore they were only allowed to name themselves on their 3rd birthday, which this Goblin had become a short while back which was when he had named himself Damon.
Damon had already arrived at the village while still lost in his thoughts.
¡°CrroooOOOOOOOOOOO¡±
His stupor was quickly broken by a blaring horn-blow, which transformed his gentle walk into a rushed jog towards the centre of the village. The village itself was made of huts, made from mud with plant material for structure, and a clearing in the middle that was used for village meetings. Each Goblin used to make their own huts due to its simplicity but now most just used old unoccupied huts made by others due to their low survival rate. The countless huts surrounded a circular clearing in the middle, around 20m radius, which was now filled with several Goblins.
Goblins anatomy-wise were not the most exciting creatures: they were humanoid creatures with distinguishing features being their fangs, above average nose sizes and angular eyes. Though the biggest give-away was their pasty green skin. The Goblins in terms of size weren¡¯t too small but definitely not big either, the average males in the forest went up to 160cm while the average females reached 155cm. Damon himself was already 120cm, and would be taller than his counter-parts were it not for their early deaths. Instead he was up against Goblins older than him, most reaching from 130-150cm.
This basic description agreed with around 90% of the Goblins who kept on swarming into the clearing, ballooning the number of Goblins in the clearing to around 80 by now. The 10% remaining were the Goblins at the centre of the clearing, because surrounding the large blow horn was a well-aged Goblin and several other large, muscular Goblins.
¡°Quiet!¡± The aged Goblin bellowed and it was quickly followed as the noisy rabble instantly quietened down.
¡°Over the last week, a warrior stumbled upon a cave which earned us a loss of life!¡±
¡°Luckily the rest of his group escaped and the warriors have now investigated that area. We are now confident that what lies in that cave is a silverback bear. Know that the monster is a tier two, meaning a massacre on our side would be necessary if we wanted it. However the investigations have also shown that the monster is currently at maximum size, meaning no one here could ever hope to kill it. But that is also to our advantage, after all any monster at maximum size would want to evolve.¡±Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
The raspy voice continued onwards onto a few more details about minor matters before concluding the meeting.
¡°A silverback bear evolves into a moon bear by bathing in moonlight for a night, this means just as it is evolving, it will be weakened and we can kill it. Its next evolution''s strength depends on the amount of moonlight it can absorb in a night, so it will definitely wait for a full moon. It is just within our luck that the next full moon will be in 2 days, meaning we have enough time to prepare. Remember that as long as we get the bear¡¯s body, we can forcibly evolve ourselves!¡±
His speech ended on what the people actually cared about.
¡°We will be sending 10 warriors alongside with a few pack carriers in order to make sure the warriors are in best condition as they arrive.¡±
What proceeded was him choosing 10 of the strongest warriors standing near him, in which there were two notable ones: Raarak and Withil. Both were extremely strong warriors at the top of the pack but more importantly, both were vying for the next position as Chief. In truth the village¡¯s strongest warrior Gregal could have solo finished this task, but it seemed he and the current aged Chief seemed to agree on using this task to indirectly test the two candidates. Whichever one succeeded would have an advantage over the other, enough so for one of the two to be chosen as the next Chieftain.
He was done within seconds, after which he began naming the pack carriers.
¡°¡., ¡.., ¡.., Damon,¡.¡±.
A smile bloomed widely on Damon¡¯s face as he heard the golden word. Although it instantly wilted within the next second.
¡°Chieftain, I desire a battle with Damon for his position!¡±
¡°¡hmm¡ Accepted¡±.
The Goblin who had requested to fight him wasn¡¯t after the extremely ¡°glorious¡± position of pack carrier but rather the baggage it came with (hehe). The warriors would have monopoly over the beast¡¯s carcass as they brought it back and the pack carriers who came alongside with them would have second dibs. Having a better quality piece could exponentially increase chance of success, which in turn made perfect sense why the other Goblin had wanted his place.
The reason for choosing Damon? He was the scrawniest and weakest of the bunch due to the fact that the other pack carriers chosen were older than him.
Within seconds an area had been cleared out as the warriors made the physical parameters for an arena. Across the makeshift arena stood the challenging Goblin who was 130cm tall and quite a bit more muscular than Damon. In his left arm he loosely held a small, wooden axe while his right hand edged towards the bag tied around his waist.
In an attempt to ruin Damon¡¯s focus, the Goblin greedily swallowed in air before he released it all at once in the form of a threatening, but childlike roar. His arm shot towards his waist-bag like a snake pouncing at a prey, before it almost ricocheted off the bag as it rebounded backwards, only within the hand was a shoddy knife. The knife sliced air as it closed in on Damon.
It was to the opponent¡¯s misfortune that Damon had seen such an attack come from a mile away and had already rolled backwards, causing the knife to harmlessly fly overhead. Despite not even being on his feet, Damon had already flicked out a knife that was in flight by the time he jumped back up.
Clearly flustered by the fluidity of Damon¡¯s actions, the other Goblin flinched before jumping backwards.
¡°RAARGH!¡±
The moment of hesitation revealed its danger as the knife found deep purchase within the Goblin¡¯s arm. Blood slid down the Goblin¡¯s arm with the knife at the centre, akin to an overflowing volcano.
The warriors surrounding the two seemed amused due to the amateur attempt at fighting shown by the challenging Goblin. It was almost as if they had watched a rookie do an action before being completely overshadowed by the expert who followed.
Gritting his teeth, the challenging Goblin clenched his jaw down although tears still escaped his eyes. Damon had already sent another knife flying towards the opponent Goblin, although it didn¡¯t cause any damage this time as the Goblin ducked beneath the incoming knife before rushing Damon.
Before one could even blink the Goblin was already in front of Damon, smashing his axe downwards while his face seethed out anger. Slightly flustered by the sudden change in scenario, Damon responded by using one of his knives to strike the axe blade upwards. Although this turned out to be very foolish as Damon¡¯s wrist began to bend under the pressure.
The pain must have helped Damon¡¯s brain finally catch up as he simply let go of the knife, although by no accident. The Goblin, who had been winning this battle of strength suddenly found no resistance whatsoever against him, causing his axe to strike thin air before his body lost balance and fell. This was enough time as Damon jumped backwards while he threw another knife out. Missing at this range would be a joke for an amateur, nevertheless an expert at knife throwing. The knife pierced through an eye before stabbing the brain, causing a fountain of blood to be expelled outwards.
The already downed Goblin lost all remaining energy in his body, crumpling down to the rough ground: an instant death.
???
He was born bigger than the rest. At the age of 1, he had already reached other 3 year olds. At the age of 15, he was already the biggest in his tribe and his growth had still not finished. It was at just a month after his 15th that the tribe lost their leader due to an attack. He had made himself a name in the tribe but his size was nothing when compared to the fame of a few of the elders. But none of that mattered as it had been passed down their species that the strongest would be leader. This made perfect sense, after all which troll didn¡¯t love a good fight?
(2) The journey
Goblins
The Goblins had set off at night in order to get to the bear¡¯s cave by first light. This was because the silverback bear was diurnal just like humans and Goblins, meaning that it was active during the day. On the following day though, it would be more active than ever as it scouted out its immediate area in preparation for the evolution where it would force itself into a self-induced weakened state. Thus the Goblins had decided to get to and camp near the bear''s cave during the night, meaning all unnecessary movement could be minimalised during the day.
This was a good plan, or would have been at least if they had remembered one massive factor¡ The fact that the bear was not going to have increased vigilance of its area during day due to fear of Goblins, rather it was due to the fear of much stronger monsters that came out at night. Many monsters were active during the dark instead of light, and most of them were stronger than the bear. This was one of the reasons why the silverback bear wanted to evolve so badly since it was quite low down the food web, needless to say that the Goblins were the effective vegetation of said food web.
Goblins-Withil''s POV
A rising feeling of pain stabbed at my mind, though my brain simply ignored it all as I continued my frantic sprint. At this point I couldn¡¯t even feel my calves anymore but the tearing pain at my thighs told me this wasn¡¯t a good thing, rather that the pain in my calves had grown to such a point that it had just numbed.
Chasing me right now was a Nightwolf, a middle tier 2 monster which usually didn¡¯t feast on Goblins. Though it seemed to throw all regard of taste to the wind as the salivating wolf hunted me in glee.
I could hear the wolf behind me, its constant growls and frightening howls had sadly not escaped my ears as I could feel fear build up inside of me. The wolf shadowed my every step, clearly intent on snacking on me before it chased the others, who had initially split up in an attempt to confuse the wolf.
My energy was rapidly dissipating, causing me to slow, and then even further. It was then I heard a loud howl right in my ear, which served as amazing motivation as all of a sudden my feet found their strength once again.
And it happened once more, my weary body slowed down just before finding hidden conserves of energy within my body once I heard the howl. Perhaps my mind had gone crazy but it almost felt like the wolf was playing with me¡
¡
Before it had been fear but that fear all of a sudden turned to anger as I felt my dignity trodden upon. I was the smartest Goblin, the one who would most definitely become the next chieftain and yet this fucking hairy mutt dared to play around with me.
This served as the best motivation so far as my legs thundered through the forest, escaping the biting-range of the gleeful wolf within seconds. I could hear the glee from the howls it made. It made sense that it was gleeful considering the fact that its food had decided to add further entertainment to its meal. But that mattered not as I finally caught sight of what I wanted: another Goblin.
I dashed towards the Goblin, who seemed to be a young pack carrier, before I leapt on his back and used my weight to throw him to the ground. The fearful Goblin who must have cried inside as he saw me bringing the wolf to him, but was completely lost for thought, nevertheless words as his head crashed into the ground, followed by his body.
It seemed the heavens were on my side for the first time today as the wolf followed my leap with one of its own, landing upon the felled Goblin. I could hear him scream¡Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
I could hear him scream, although that scream was cut short half-way through¡
I could hear his scream in my head once more, though it was fine because he had served his purpose for the better of the village by aiding my survival.
I used a tree to stabilise myself before I took out the axe attached to my waist with unsteady hands, rivers of sweat running down my body as I was forced to catch my breath. I needed it, I couldn¡¯t die here¡
¡°AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOO¡±
Bone-chilling. I felt myself shiver as I heard it, the hot sweat all of a sudden turn cold as I grinned like a maniac.
Next was a rapid pattering of feet, in fact several but only the close, heavy ones entered my mind. The ones of the wolf¡
Fuck. I felt the fear building up as I foresaw the future. I needed to make the first move, otherwise the fear would just keep building up as I stood here waiting.
And so I did, I ran against all the warnings in my head telling me to turn back, before I felt a surge in adrenaline pushing me faster than before as I forgot the pain.
I met eyes with the wolf, the Nightwolf donning 2 dark green, luminescent eyes with minuscule pupils that seemed to suck me inwards. I dared not break eye contact, although it turned out I didn¡¯t need to as the wolf did it in my stead, as it leapt towards me. I kept running towards the airborne wolf just before I collapsed my body, diving underneath the wolf as I took aim before shooting the axe into the wolf¡¯s stomach.
¡°RAGGRH¡±
The wolf screeched in pain. I knew it was coming after me as I used my hands to push my body back up from the ground. Though it seemed to be no help as I couldn¡¯t even get my body off the ground¡ It seemed my exhausted body had found sanctuary within the ground and no longer dared to get up¡
I could feel my face grimacing, my death was getting closer every second.
¡°ARRRRRRRRRRRGGHHHHHHH¡±
I could hear a Goblin battle-cry somewhere close, and it seemed to get closer.
I could next hear blood being shed as I heard the Goblin cry in pain, though that was instantly shadowed by a cacophony of Goblin roars that came from all around me.
About fucking time!
I wish I could have listened to the rest of it, even better if I could actually see more than the muddy ground but it seemed I had been granted too many wishes today as I succumbed to exhaustion, entering the cold embrace of sleep.
The Trolls- ???
In front of me stood the Chief¡¯s hound, a pathetic Troll that all Trolls looked down upon. He was a Troll who licked the previous Chief¡¯s feet in order to reach the top and then proceeded to flounder his false power.
I looked him down, his blue skin looked diseased as it was shaded a murky green. All Trolls took care of their tusks and yet the Troll in front of him had cracked tusks. His eyes were as beady as they got as he alike stared me down. Directly in front of me was a good old bludgeon, it wasn¡¯t fancy but did the job. The rough wood of the body led to a heavy top made out of iron metal, I was told it had been a weapon stolen from some dumb humans, a story I refused to believe as this bludgeon itself was 1.5m long and weighed 45kg. How could any of them wield this!?
Within an instant, the hound had contracted his body and ran forwards. It was a fast dash, one that was used to catch one of surprise, but I reacted just as quickly as the cold metal of the bludgeon smacked the air as I lifted the weapon of the floor. I raised the weapon into a defensive position, though it was perhaps over the top as the hound suddenly slipped during his dash, whilst within my range. Foolish! My legs moved with pure instinct as my pose changed in order to whack his diving head.
I was wrong. He must have chuckled as he saw me follow his lead, just before he instantly straightened his body, flashing the cold glint of a short sword before my eyes: it had been a trap¡
My hands opened up as I reacted, dropping the bludgeon whilst punching one of my fists into his body. But it was too late, far too late as the short sword pierced through my ribcage, only centimetres away from my heart. His body flew onto the floor as my weakened-punch still did damage, bruising his arm.
I don¡¯t know what it was, no that was a lie. I knew what it was, a feeling of the past, the feeling of pure unadultered anger. It had its source deep within the confidence of my body, yet it had only ever weakened me. After all it''s easier to deal with an angry monster than it is to deal with a crafty human hunter.
But I must have forgotten all the beatings I had gotten in the past for my stupid anger, I must have forgotten all the times I had come close to death due to it because I let it grow within me. What entered my head was the primal feeling of anger, and what exited was a pure roar of hatred¡
(3) A King is reborn
Goblins
Fuzzy echoes tickled the Goblins¡¯ ears as snippets of conversation jumped from wall to wall, several small factions talking in whispers as they camped in a sizeable cave. It had been a short but harsh journey, and it showed as in the cave were thirteen Goblins instead of the fifteen that had left at daybreak. They had been attacked several times through the arduous walk, the worst one being when the Nightwolf had attacked in the yearning of not food but rather entertainment. And entertainment it had got, it had chased one of the leader figures of the village, Withil, into a fear induced frenzy. Most of the Goblins didn¡¯t mind though, after all due to such attack they had wolf-meat to snack on during the tedious wait for nightfall.
After killing the Nightwolf, the Goblins had rushed to find comfort within a cave before they encountered another beast on a hunt for night snacks. It had been their luck that a befitting cave was found not far from where they had faced off the Nightwolf. The cave had a small passage way inwards, which explained why other beasts hadn¡¯t yet taken it as their home since even the Goblins had to crawl to get in, though the crawl was well worth it as what followed was a sizeable cavern. It had been 5 hours since they had arrived, and a further 17 hours to waste before they could leave.
In order to pass time, the Goblins had arranged themselves into a few factions in order to talk the day away. At the far end of the cave sat Withil¡¯s faction which consisted of Withil himself and 3 warriors, one being Roger who was Withil¡¯s right hand Goblin. At the moment the warriors were circled around Withil himself who was critically injured due to the Nightwolf. One of the warriors who had a bit of herb knowledge was applying different pastes over his injuries, which seemed to have worked well as the sickly green skin a few hours back had transformed into a more hearty green.
At the other far end camped Raraak¡¯s standard which included himself and 4 warriors. There were obvious differences between Raraak and Withil, which if were to be simplified would just be that Withil focused a lot more upon his brain while Raraak had sole focus on his brawn. And this showed upon his warriors who were on the whole more muscular and ferocious looking than Withil¡¯s group.
And near the entrance of the cave sat the 4 remaining pack carriers, including Damon, who purposely sat a fair distance away from both the competing factions. This was due to the fact that at this point it was unsure who would become Chieftain and none of the pack carriers wanted to ruin future chance by casting foolish allegiances now. Or that was how it had been¡
But it was different now that Withil was injured and unconscious whereas Raraak was fit and well. It was an open secret to nearly all the Goblins that this hunt for the bear was just a farce and instead just a competition between Raraak and Withil to see which one would get the edge to win leadership. And Withil¡¯s chances had only slimmed after such a disastrous start, which seemed to have quite an effect as 2 of the pack carriers had already edged closer to Raraak¡¯s banner¡
Not much happened till an hour later when Withil finally opened his crusted-over eyes, gasping in pain as he apprehended his situation. A few minutes later he and Roger were talking intensively about the fight with the Nightwolf, after all it made no sense to Withil that an unconscious Goblin stayed alive all throughout a fight with a beast. It was then that Roger explained him the situation which seemed to clarify the fog in Withil¡¯s head. A few minutes later Roger walked over to Damon before calling him over, all under the scrutinising eyes of Raraak and his lackeys¡
Goblins ¨C Damon POV
I awoke quickly from my daze as I saw Roger call me over, before walking over to their corner. I knew this could potentially ruin chances with Raraak in the future but this was too much of an opportunity to just throw away, after all Withil himself wanted to thank me. I could feel my heartbeat fasten in anticipation, what if this was my lucky chance?
I entered their little circle with a recovering Withil on the wall with Roger next to him, while the two other warriors flanked me in order to make sure Raraak didn¡¯t hear anything going on.
¡°Boy¡ I heard you saved me.¡±
It was very different to how I had imagined, that was talking to someone of power and influence directly. I knew he would thank me and I had already prepared a response but that seemed to get stuck in my throat. Should I act humble or accept his thanks?
¡°You know boy, I was confused when I awoke how I was still alive! Roger filled me in on how you gave cover to my men as they dragged me off the scene. You know I¡¯m impressed with your knife-throwing skills, I was amazed during that fight at the village but I feel in greater appreciation now that you saved me with those very skills¡±
Pride and joy rose inside of me. I deserved to get praised and I knew it, else I wouldn¡¯t have spent countless hours per week practising. But it felt so much better hearing it said to me, especially from someone so powerful.
¡°Let me offer you something as a reward boy. What do you think about coming under my banner, eh? I¡¯ll be perfectly honest with you and tell you that I will win the position of chieftain, that¡¯s a fact, not an assumption, ask any of my men. That Raraak is a meathead, nothing is in there other than muscle and we all know that he won¡¯t be rushing to recruit you anytime soon, after all he only picks the thickest and dumbest looking ones as his men¡¡±
I could hear the 2 warriors behind me chuckling as they heard this.
¡°¡ And you¡¯re not dumb boy, not at all. So how about you instead use your skills and talent to aid me and my boys during the hunt. I promise you I¡¯ll make sure you evolve, someone of your talent not evolving would just be a waste of resources. Don¡¯t you agree boy?¡±
Inside of me the pride and joy increased. I sneaked another glance at Raraak¡¯s camp before agreeing in my mind, all of them did look muscular and strong but Withil could beat them any day, couldn¡¯t he? And my talent would be just wasted if I kept waiting; I had trained for so long to get noticed, why was I hesitating now that I had that golden opportunity in front of me?
With a weak, faltering voice I answered: ¡°Yes Withil, I will join under you and help you win¡±. They seemed not to mind my voice though as he smiled before grasping my hands and pushing them up in the air in celebration. From a distance away I could hear a few grunts as Withil clearly showed what had transpired within that little meeting to Raraak¡¯s squad in great clarity.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
It was only a short while later I would learn that I had under-estimated Withil. Raraak was the strong one for sure but I had not fully understood at this moment what was meant by Withil being the smarter one¡
Goblins
The hours passed quick after that as most of the Goblins went to sleep. They awoke a short while before the moon reached its peak in the sky. At that time Withil spoke out to the whole company.
¡°Fellow Goblins, it is time to hunt the bear, eh? I¡¯ve been thirsty for some blood for quite a long time now¡±. His bedraggled appearance nor salves still on his injuries helped create an inspiring image but no Goblin challenged him.
Rather Raraak followed his lead, ¡°Yes fellow brothers. Just as Withil said, it is time for us to go and kill that bear! We will win this, after all we are just against a bear. FOR THE VILLAGE!¡± The contrast cast seemed to be like night and day, the tall, muscular Goblin creating bloodlust and courage within all the Goblins¡¯ hearts. He had done a good job at one upping Withil and he seemed proud as he and his group led the way out, eager to hunt the bear.
What had been inspired in the cave had been by no standard false bravado but even their true courage would do little in the fight against the bear, after all it would be a joke if a peak tier 2 monster crumbled to a few tier 1s, wouldn¡¯t it?
The Trolls-???
Blood surged through his veins, the giant Troll¡¯s blue skin being dyed dark purple as more and more hot blood surged. It was almost as if the giant¡¯s lungs were being pumped up as they ballooned up, air rushing in as his voracious appetite was shown in full.
¡°RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGRRHHH¡±
What followed was a harrowing bellow, the clamour surrounding the arena instantly silenced as all cheers stopped. The hound had used that time to retrieve an axe from the ground, he could sense something had changed in the giant Troll but was unwilling to be the first victim to the maddened beast¡¯s rampage.
But what followed was not a reckless charge or anything of the sort as the giant just smirked while thick blood continued to spurt out of his chest. Breaking all expectations the giant then cast his hands in front of himself before he clenched them hard, which was followed by an unnerving guffaw.
The whole procedure had frightened the hound who dared not move, not because he didn¡¯t want to but rather because he couldn¡¯t as his feet felt stuck to the ground.
It was almost like whatever had come over the giant was something completely foreign to his body as he finally noticed the blood flowing down his chest in streams. The giant Troll¡¯s full lower half was dyed in red and brown, and the flowing blood would only keep draining until the Troll died from blood loss. In response the Troll firmly placed his hand over his chest. Following that the Troll looked confused as he suddenly gritted his teeth, showing clear expenditure of energy as sweat formed all over his body. 10 seconds later the giant Troll began to madly grin before revealing the wound to the world, now fully patched up with light blue skin where the wound once was.
It was magic. None of the Trolls in the village had learnt magic, including the giant Troll who was currently taking in the scene around him¡
The hound had now long regained control of his body from fear but he still didn¡¯t make any moves against the giant Troll. There was something different about him, something sinister yet regal that made him unwilling to make a move. He somehow knew that he wouldn¡¯t win¡ The only reason why the hound had made it so high up the social ladder was because he could read situations very well, and deep inside him he felt the warning signs.
¡°Arggh. I give up, I know when I can¡¯t win a fight and I certainly can¡¯t win a fight against such a strong and brutal Troll!¡±
He made sure to emphasise the words ¡°give up¡± and more so the words ¡°strong and brutal Troll¡±, after all a good bit of boot-licking never hurt anyone, right?
The giant Troll¡¯s face lifted upwards, clearly amused at what had just happened. Though the Trolls in the audience didn¡¯t seem to be sharing in the same joke as they felt confused and lost as to why the Hound would suddenly bootlick the giant Troll that he had just been trampling over.
Taking a deep breath, the giant Troll talked out to the crowd. ¡°So who are the next ones to fight? I¡¯ll take you all at once¡±. The context alone of the speech was interesting but what was horrifying was the voice, as what had come out of the large, muscular troll was not a deep and growl-like voice but rather one that was shrill and pleasing to the ear but certainly not to the eye.
The Trolls in the audience at first all had their gazes upon the giant Troll but soon collectively transferred them onto the elders¡¯ area where all the elder Trolls stood. This cue was enough¡
Knowing something weird had happened, the elder¡¯s tensed their bodies as they stared down the giant Troll. The troll in question though seemed nonchalant about it as he slowly walked over to his dropped bludgeon before picking it up. He then tensed his muscles as they bulged out monstrously as he snapped the wooden hold off from the lump of metal at the end.
At the edge of the circle of Trolls stood the 6 elders, all confused as to why the giant Troll had just snapped his weapon in half. It wasn¡¯t smiles that filled their faces when they found out though, rather several faces of shock and fear and a single face of a lump of metal¡
The gore splattered all over the rest of them, the broken skull pieces acting like shrapnel as they stabbed into their surroundings. It was unfortunate that the elders had come to enjoy a fight and not fight themselves as their weapons lay a few metres away. But the feeling of the very real danger was enough for them to wake up, at once scrambling towards their metallic partners. But they couldn¡¯t¡
This wasn¡¯t due to fear like the hound had felt but rather due to some kind of force, chaining their feet up as all of them instead tripped over. Perhaps with time they could have broken it but they knew that was a luxury out of reach as they heard the thunderous steps rapidly close in.
Hearing the footsteps, one elder only had enough time to turn his head before a towering, thick foot smashed into his face, caving it in as blood splattered all over the foot. The next elder had enough time to get up but not enough to react as a stupidly fast and yet weighty knee slammed into his hip, ramming his lower body away from his upper half as the spine shattered.
Rather than awaiting his death, the next elder had struggled enough to break off the incorporeal chains over his feet, as instead he jumped into the air with his hands wrapped around each other in a hammer shape. Knowing this was potentially his only chance, the elder used all strength possible in his body as he struck downwards towards the giant Troll¡¯s head. It was a pity that his attack never made contact as he was stopped short by an arm with corded muscles seizing his neck. The giant Troll held the flying elder in the air with one hand for one dramatic second before he squeezed¡
The elder¡¯s eyes began to roll backwards, his clenched jaw loosening up to the point of releasing pathetic whimpers, his royal blue skin turning visibly paler.
*Crack*
The elder¡¯s body collapsed down without the arm to support it, crumpling into the bloody soil as the snapped head laid perpendicular to the rest of the body.
Knowing what would come next, the last two elders immediately surrendered as they prostrated themselves on the floor in front of the giant Troll. Their dignity meant nothing when compared to their lives.
Standing tall, taller than ever before, the giant Troll was covered in blood and sweat that continued to wash it off him. But he seemed not to care as he smiled once more. He was the new chieftain¡
(4) Battle is made
Goblins
Countless howls could be heard as the Goblins searched the area, they not only had to face the bear once they found it but it was also highly likely that other monsters would assault them during the fight. All in all this meant that every single Goblin was on edge right now¡ Perhaps Raraak¡¯s speech had inspired them in the cave but it did very little when countless, unnerving roars rang in their ears.
Damon ran alongside one of the warriors that followed Withil, though ran was more of an exaggeration as it was more of a slow scout. Due to Withil¡¯s injuries, it had already put him below Raraak in terms of winning leadership. Therefore he had decided he would let Raraak make first contact with the bear in order to wear his forces down a bit before Withil jumped in, and so Withil had just told his men to scout slowly as they let Raraak have the ¡°advantage¡± in terms of making contact with the target. Damon understood this, but he didn¡¯t truly in his heart; it made logical sense why Withil would do this but Damon was still confused as to why Withil would commit pseudo-betrayal in a mission for the tribe.
But that mattered not as he ignored his own conscience and went with the others, after all he had just made it to the top of the social hierarchy in the tribe. Why would he get rid of that for a little thing like this?
The Great forest became a sinister entity at night, but those who were experienced could still navigate the Great forest through the dark. And all of the Goblins had been living here for their entire lives! They kept their bodies low as they moved, careful not to trigger any hungry monsters¡¯ sensors, while also focusing on their hearing as much as possible. Sight was not very useful at night, the moonlight which would have provided sufficient light was instead blocked by the thick crowns of the largest trees, which in turn cast looming shadows over the rest of the forest.
A fair distance away from Damon and his low-key chaperone was Withil and Roger, his right hand Goblin. It had been Withil¡¯s luck that he had brought along the Goblin with skills in herbs in case someone had gotten injured as he had turned out to be first in line. Presently his body was a lot better than a few hours back as he could fully move his body, although even the herbs and salves couldn¡¯t take away the excruciating pain which now restricted his strength. On the other hand it allowed him to ¡°stab Raraak in the back¡± in order to equal out the playing grounds, otherwise he knew acting manipulative in front of his men would come back to bite him in the far future.
In his hands he held a long and slim spear which was in truth more of a long needle than a spear. This was to his advantage though as it made sure that his spear could pierce through anything, even the toughest of materials in the Great forest. It had a silver sheen to it which would have glowed in conjunction with the moonlight, although that wouldn¡¯t happen this night as he and Roger were trying their utmost to stick to the huge overcast shadows. Roger on the other hand held a cumbersome hammer which had an amazing rate of mangling up its prey into pulp, when it hit that was anyway. Although that shouldn¡¯t be much of a problem against the bear.
Both of them were variant Goblins since Goblins were originally low tier 1 monsters whereas all the warriors had undergone growth and training to reach high tier 1. This also gave them a slight increase in sensing mana, which was an almost air like substance that gave endless power according to the chieftain. This slight increase in perception wouldn¡¯t do much in finding the bear but it would help them know when they got close, and they were close!
Both Damon and Roger could feel almost a loss in the taste of air as they walked a bit further, it was obvious something major was happening near them which was causing the loss of mana in the area. Although the ultimate clue was given by the fact that a few meters in front of them was a small clearing without any large trees near it, meaning a large amount of moonlight got through to the ground floor; the silverback bear evolved naturally at peak size by absorbing the moonlight when the moon was full.
With all the clues in place, Withil and Roger creeped towards the side as they tried to sneak a glance at the bear. As the sight entered their eyes, all they could think of was how idyllic it looked¡ and also how terrifying that was¡.
Close to the centre of the clearing sat the bear on all fours as it showered its whole back in the moonlight. The bear itself was 2.5m long and around 1.6m tall, meaning it was colossal compared to the Goblins. As for in terms of weight, all the Goblins needed to know was that if the bear fell on them, they would be crushed to death just by the weight¡ The scene was truly beautiful due to how heavenly it looked as the moonlight rushed towards the bear as its body rapidly absorbed both the mana and the moonlight. It was divine!
However this did not cause beatific feelings within their hearts, rather they felt damned as they met eyes with the bright eyed bear. Even as they slowly edged away, they could feel the stare boring into them. Sweat oozed out of their backs as their slow walks turn into a ferocious sprints, before finding a small cave to camp in about 100m away from the bear.
They had known the bear would be more conscious of its surroundings due to fear and anticipation but not that much¡ Perhaps they would have been relaxed if they hadn¡¯t been caught by the bear but such event had fully put them into battle mode as adrenaline surged through their bodies, the fight or flight system working at its max.
¡°We are going to have to use it Roger¡¡±
¡°Are you sure Withil? You know we will be fucked afterwards! Especially if Raraak survives this battle, you will be hard-worn to win a fight with him afterwards.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll be fucked now by the bear if I don¡¯t use it. Just hand it over¡¡±
Roger couldn¡¯t argue with that logic as he opened up his waist bag, before taking out a wooden container which within held a bluish paste. Withil took out a small amount, about a fingers worth, before grimacing as he swallowed it down. Afterwards Roger did the same before putting it back into his bag.
Feeling the mood suddenly tense up due to his decision, Withil tried to crack a joke.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
¡°Hargh Hargh. That girl Absinthe put effort into this Roger. As her elders we couldn¡¯t not use it, could we now?¡±
In response Roger weakly laughed before genuinely smiling, he had decided to follow Withil due to many reasons but the biggest was due to the potential he saw within him. And he was even willing to swallow down this destructive poison as long as that potential stayed.
It wasn¡¯t until a few minutes that another Goblin found his way to the bear. The second he saw the colossal lying on the floor, he made some distance between them before taking out the pocket horn in his waist bag.
*CrooooOOOOOOOO*
The sound blared through the forest, causing terror within the smaller animals while it caused excitement and anticipation to build up within the Goblins. The prey was found, now it was just the killing. It was a pity that it wasn¡¯t just them attracted to the sound¡
The Goblin who had blown the horn was elated as he took his lips away from the mouthpiece, after all he had been the one to find the bear out of all the warriors. In his glee, he didn¡¯t notice the monstrous beast behind him as it got up before bolting though space as it charged at him.
¡°RAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWRRR¡±
His blissful imaginations were rudely broken through as a head-splitting sound exploded out from behind him, pushing him to the ground in shock. However to his luck it looked like the gods had mercy on him as his shock ended within a second, although it was with his skull smashed against the cold ground¡
The silverback bear licked its paw wet with blood for a few seconds before it braced its body once more. It knew something was wrong when the Goblin warrior had released the blaring sound that still rang in its ears. It seemed its reasoning had been right as from the shrubbery shot out Raraak and the rest of the warriors that followed him.
In Raraak¡¯s hands was a large battle axe that was half his size. He grinned as he focused on the bear, this would be the start of his path upwards. The now rage-filled silverback bear moved fast as it charged him, which created quite the nerve-racking scene as the one ton bear barrelled towards him. And yet Raraak didn¡¯t fluster under this dangerous pressure, instead the seasoned warrior charged forwards towards the bear with his axe in front.
It was as they reached each other, around 2m apart, that Raraak stabbed the eye of his axe into the ground before violently flicking mud into the bear¡¯s face. On the other side the bear had already leapt towards Raraak, claws extended in preparation for a strike. Instead what happened was a lump of mud splattered in its face, entering its eyes as the bear screamed in pain.
The eyes of any animal was sensitive and it showed as the bear caused carnage around where it stood as it slashed and smashed anything near it. Raraak who had foreseen such a scene had long jumped to the side as he watched the bear strike at nothing.
Giving the bear no time to recover, all the Goblin warriors rushed the bear as they struck out with their weapons. Raraak, being the biggest and strongest, used all his might as he slashed the axe into the bear¡¯s frontal shoulder, and yet still it felt like cutting through rock as it made contact with the bear. Surrounding the bear¡¯s body was a thick layer of fat which showed its use as only 1 or 2 of the 5 strikes made it through, and even the deepest wound which was caused by Raraak only made it to the bone.
No matter the result, the Goblins immediately retreated after their attack as they knew what would happen if they didn¡¯t. The bear clearly was distraught with pain and anger as it bawled out several ear-piercing roars.
Instead of being put off by such a frenzy, the Goblin warriors instead smiled as they saw the golden opportunity. The bear was momentarily blinded and currently very agitated: they could end the bear very quickly if they played their cards right. And if they didn¡¯t, it would be their chance to have fun as they would have to face off the countless beasts attracted by the roars of the dying.
Wanting to waste no time, Raraak pointed at one of the warriors before clenching his axe in preparation of a charge. The chosen Goblin began hollering out a thundering war cry as all once again charged the addled bear, only leaping backwards just before he made contact. The bear¡¯s full attention was on the loud Goblin and failed to sense the rest who once again struck it.
This time Raraak leaped in to the sky before using the downwards force in addition to his strength to slash the bear. And the result was spectacular, well sort off¡
Due to the large force, the axe slid through the bear¡¯s fatty flesh with ease before stabbing itself deep into bone but that was a mistake. Feeling the very real danger close in, the bear began to think upon its feet as it instinctively contracted the muscles surrounding the wound, effectively closing the axe into the wound. Raraak, unaware of this, pulled the axe out only to feel like a fool as it felt as like he was trying to uproot a tree by pulling.
Although due to adrenaline Raraak felt confident as he tried once again with greater force, only to reach the same conclusion. Needless to say the bear didn¡¯t just sit still during this and rather moved with violent vigour as it shot its razor-sharp jaws towards Raraak¡¯s neck. However the bear¡¯s actions didn¡¯t go unnoticed as one of the Goblin warriors had already jumped moments ago, and the airborne Goblin shoved Raraak out of the way as it instead took his place.
¡°AAAAAARRRGGHHHH¡±
*Crack*
¡°AARGGHH¡±¡ ¡°AARRRRR¡±¡ ¡°AAaaarr¡¡±
A cacophony of macabre sounds filled the clearing, the bear snapping its jaw with gusto as it snapped through flesh and bone alike. The dying Goblin wasn¡¯t even able to finish his last scream as his body shut down, unable to deal with the critical damage caused upon it.
Trepidation spread through the warriors alongside debilitating fear as morale dropped as fast as it had risen.
¡°AWWOOOOOO¡±
¡°AWWWWWWOOOOOO¡±
¡°AWOOOOO¡±
Several howls followed the screams as a small wolf pack walked out of from the trees. Perhaps them being a small pack would have helped the Goblins but it didn¡¯t matter... After all the wolves were all Nightwolves, mid-tier 2 monsters, and also the pack of the Nightwolf the Goblins had killed the night prior¡
From the opposite side of the wolves came out several Goblin warriors and a few trailing pack carriers. Withil held his needle-like spear as he led the group, pride overflowing as he thought of how great a call it had been to be so magnanimous by allowing Raraak to have a head start.
Damon stood with a few knives in his hands, all of them shining bright in the moonlight.
The bear messily ate away at the dead Goblin¡¯s body, as it used the blood that gushed out to wash the mud out of its eyes. The blood stung but not nearly as much as the mud had and the bear glared with anger as it watched the newcomers.
¡°SKRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEE¡±
From the ground tunnelled out a large, maroon centipede-like creature. It kept screeching as the sensors above its head waved madly, ecstatic at how this place gave a strong, fresh smell of the blood. This monster was a baby death maggot, currently a low tier 3¡
It was certain that this night wouldn¡¯t be quiet.
(5) Evolution
Goblins
The wolves, Goblins and the bear stood still, staring at each other while bracing themselves as they acknowledged the stalemate they were in. They knew whoever made the first move was also making the most risky move since everyone would have their attention on them. It was to their luck that one of the members of the stalemate could not care less about the very stalemate, who was of course the baby Death Maggot. Well it was either that it did not care or that it didn¡¯t even understand the situation in the first place considering how young it was.
The Death Maggot screeched once more before it dived deep into the ground. Its movement was easily tracked due to how every move it made would uproot soil and plants, meaning that it was tilling the ground as it moved. A Death maggot was in fact a monster that lived nearer the centre of the forest where everything was chaotic and extremely dangerous. This was just a weak, young one that had left the centre only to smell the deep scent of blood that it was physically addicted to. Therefore it was obvious who the Death Maggot went after: the bear, who was in fact the only one alive and bleeding.
Its movement certainly wasn¡¯t fast but nor was it slow as it closed in on the bear. The bear noticing the situation it was in went into a frenzy as it decided it would at least take the ones who brought all this trouble with it as it died. Therefore the bear scrambled across towards Raraak and his 3 remaining warriors who were in fact in the centre of the clearing. It didn¡¯t help them at all that most of their weapons were either stuck in the bear, like Raraak¡¯s battle-axe, or they were dropped somewhere in the clearing.
Withil at this moment could have very well called a charge for his men to save Raraak, but that would definitely not put them at a tactical advantage and the fact was that he wouldn¡¯t mind if Raraak did die here. And thus instead of going towards the centre of the small clearing, Withil charged towards the wolves who awoke from their stupor as they watched the few Goblins charge at them.
In total there were 6 wolves but only 4 Goblin warriors to face them. The others were just the pack carriers who trailed behind and Damon who had charged alongside the rest. The biggest wolf there seemed to be the leader as it howled before bolting towards Withil.
Seeing the sudden charge, Withil didn¡¯t fluster but rather trusted his needle-like spear as he gripped it tightly and placed it in between him and the Large Nightwolf. Now if all went well, the wolf would charge into his spear and die, but the wolf clearly had other plans as it instead leapt up into the sky, barely dodging the thrusted spear.
Noticing the dodge, Withil seemed to be playing against the laws of the world since time seemed to slow down as his mind cleared up due to the hormone releases. And yet it was such a cruel game as it didn¡¯t change his physical speed whatsoever as he struggled to pull the thrusted spear back into his hold. He could feel the strain breaking his muscles and yet he had no choice but to carry on as he then mustered up all his remaining strength before thrusting the spear upwards to where the wolf would land.
Note that such an attack could not cause major injury to anything, and at worst could bruise someone, due to the weak force behind it but that was without taking into account how sharp the spear actually was. Instead the wolf struggled but failed as it tried to change its trajectory and rather ended up tilting its body so that it was instead pierced across the back.
The wolf howled in pain as its dark fur was now wet with dark red blood. Ending its howl, the wolf returned its vision to its front only to find itself not seeing the battle in front of it, but rather a large, grey metal block that seemed to only fill up more of its vision as time passed.
A few seconds back Roger, seeing Withil in danger had instantly sped up only to reach him as the wolf landed. Not one to let such an opportunity escape, he raised his cumbersome hammer before swinging right into the wolf¡¯s head. Now it would be a joke if a tier 1 beat a tier 2 so easily, but such rules no longer applied once tampering had been done. And the drug taken before the fight seemed to take great effect as the wolf¡¯s spine fractured from such attack as the head flung off.
Another wolf seeing its leader die instantly leapt onto Roger before tightening its jaw as it bit deep into his shoulder. Instead of howling in pain, Roger smashed his head against its skull before following up with a hammer smash into its body as it fell off. Anyone could tell that Roger and Withil were not normal Goblins as they cleared 3 wolves within the first moments of the initial clash. In fact it was even obvious that they weren¡¯t even their normal selves, as muscles bulged out all across their bodies with snake-like veins growing across them.
Ignoring them, Damon instead stayed near the back of the charge as he threw knives. One of the wolves got through the Goblin barrier as it instead made its way towards the backline, towards Damon. It bolted across the last few metres before it tensed its muscles in preparation of leaping. Damon understand the cue prepared another knife that was thrown upwards to where the wolf would jump. The wolf must have sneered as instead of leaping, it used its tensed muscles to dive onto the ground before leaping the final jump, jaws open wide as it aimed towards Damon¡¯s head.
At this point his brain had no time to think whatsoever and it was instead his pure instincts that worked as he felt his body collapse to one side, dodging the open maws by a hairsbreadth but unable to do the same for the hind feet that followed as the claws tore into his shoulder before passing on. Fully knowing that it had no chance if it went backwards, the wolf instead kept running away from Damon towards the other pack carriers. Although it never got a chance to kill them as a few steps down the line, a rage-filled knife precisely pierced through its ear, causing the wolf to howl in pain as it turned its head to see Damon following hot on its heels.
A mistake that you should nevermakein a fightisgettingdistracted, although the wolf had no chance of learning this as in front of the Wolf stood a pack carrier Goblin who stabbed downwards with his sword. The blade slashed the wolf through the back of its neck but it was not strong enough to kill the wolf as the wolf once again turned its pain-filled face forwards. A repeat of such mistake wouldn¡¯t be forgiven as Damon used this chance to leap over the wolf before shooting a knife downwards, penetrating the wolf¡¯s skull.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
During this time, the warriors had managed to kill off one more wolf and the last one fled understanding that it stood no chance against the Goblins alone.
While the Goblins massacred the wolves, the rest of the monsters were still engrossed in a fight in the centre of the clearing. The centipede like Death Maggot was still in decent shape as it only had its shell cracked in a few regions. The bear on the other hand was bleeding from head to toe, fur heavy with blood, and yet the bear fought vigorously for its life as it continuously clawed and bit the Death Maggot. As for the Goblins¡ 3 new corpses lay mangled across the area, mashed up organs strewn away metres away from the actual corpses themselves. Only Raraak struggled onwards as it seemed he had forgotten the actual mission and instead continuously tore at the Death Maggot with his raw, bloody hands.
Withil felt a smile creep up his face, although it left as quick as it came as he instead on grimaced at the immense pain his body was currently feeling. Roger was feeling the same as it was due to the experimental drug the two had taken. Needless to say Withil still pointed his finger at the last battle as he managed to squeeze the words out of his mouth, ¡°LET¡¯S FIINISH THISS MEN!¡±
All but the pack carriers, who were shocked silly by the brutality that had ensued since the start of the fight, charged towards the centre of the clearing. Damon felt his meal hard to keep down in his stomach as he fully took in the scene he was looking at: it was horrible.
The only one who reacted to the pandemonium that closed in to them was the Death Maggot as the other two were far too gone in their battle highs to notice anything else. But instead of retreating, the Death Maggot seemed to relish at the fact it got more eager prey.
Both Withil and Roger reached the fight scene first and were the first ones to strike the Death Maggot. The bear and Raraak were next to them but it mattered not at the moment as they knew neither could be a danger anymore. In fact Withil and Roger had limited time left as both could feel their immense strength fleeting away, only to be replaced by an immobilizing pain which spread rapidly like an infection.
And thus in response Withil made one more leap as he stabbed the spear downwards which pierced through the Death Maggot¡¯s shell and deep into its flesh. This was then followed by him using his last ounces of strength to throw his body away from the fight as he knew he would be unable to move. As for Roger he flexed his arms before flinging the bulky hammer at the Death Maggot, which seemed to crush into its shell but no further. He too followed Withil¡¯s actions in preparation for his mental and physical collapse.
The Death Maggot, now getting attacked by everyone there, was suddenly assaulted by multiple pains that tore at its mind. It, in fear and anger, tore itself away from the bear and Raraak and instead charged towards the easy prey who stood in the distance. None of the pack carriers were experienced enough to be able to deal with such a monster, in fact they were so inexperienced against such situations that 2 of them actually found it hard to move their feet.
But this wasn¡¯t practise, this was real life and that cost them dearly as the Death Maggot exploded out of the ground before taking off the head of one before swiping its claws against the second one. The third and last pack carrier couldn¡¯t run very far at all before he also felt claws rip through his flesh and bones.
In the first place the Death Maggot had ran away from the fight to get away but the na?ve monster once again fell for its lust of blood after experiencing kill the pack carriers. Its confidence grew back and it was faced with intense lust as it sensed the bloody scene at the centre of the clearing, almost as if it had forgotten how it had already been part of it.
Succumbed by lust, the Death Maggot shot back as it went deep into the ground before exploding out from underneath the exhausted bear which had collapsed, taking the bear¡¯s body 30cm into the sky before falling back down under its weight. The last two warrior Goblins used this major mess up to assault the Death Maggot as they attacked the shell-less areas with axes.
Near this stood Damon who was completely sick of this the scene in front of him as he blanched before he purging the contents of his stomach onto the bloody ground. Unaware and completely delirious, the bloody Raraak stumbled away from the fight as he caught onto Damon¡¯s shoulders. He kept screaming words of help and screams of pain, sounds that heavily triggered the delirious Damon as he pushed Raraak down onto the ground. After which he took out his last knife before stabbing Raraak in the chest, followed by one in the shoulder followed by another and a final one into the face. A face of agony, fear, tears and blood would from then on come to haunt Damon as he remembered such a night in the future.
He had killed a fellow brother¡
He had killed a leader of the tribe¡
He had killed the strongest Goblin he knew¡
And he had done it for no reason¡
And they had cried tears of blood and yet he still wouldn¡¯t stop¡
And they had choked on their own blood while he continued to stab them¡
He was a monster.
To the side the Death Maggot collapsed with the body of one of the warriors snapped within its maw. Only one Goblin warriors remained awake of the whole company. Despite his exhaustion he knew he had stuff to do as he struggled to drag all the alive Goblins, who were Withil and Roger who were both collapsed and Damon who continued to cry for some reason, into a small empty cave a few metres away.
After which he grabbed his sword as he began to slowly cut open both the bear and the Death Maggot as he took out their vitals, which could be used to forcibly evolve. After placing that down into the cave, the Goblin warrior could no longer move as the cold embrace of sleep came over him.
To the side Damon still continued to cry, though those were beginning to dry out as his tear ducts stung in pain. Once his tears stopped, he felt his body go beyond cold as he lay there violently shivering. Following which came intense pangs of hunger, tearing at his stomach. It was just his luck that raw meat lay right next to him. Unknowingly, he tore into the heart of the Death Maggot, eating all of it before losing all the strength of his body.
The heart contained the most mana and was the best part of a monster to forcibly evolve with, and a higher rank monster held more mana within its body. The heart of the Death Maggot contained immense mana that quickly dissipated away into the atmosphere, but Damon eating it meant that it was now releasing that mana inside of him. That heart held more mana than a Goblin could hold, and thus a forced evolution was commenced.
None of the Goblins that had left on the trip would be coming back the same¡
(6) Development in the village
Goblins
Two days after the battle, Withil and Roger had finally awoken from their drug induced collapse. The toil on their bodies weren¡¯t small in the least and both found themselves unable to move due to how broken their bodies were. Ecstatic to finally see them awake, the Goblin warrior felt immense joy blossom inside him knowing that his leader had survived and would now become the Village chieftain. However he couldn¡¯t go back as a normal Goblin, no that would be too much of a joke considering the fact that they had all the components needed to forcibly evolve right here. And so he fed Withil and Roger the organs of the Silverback bear and the baby Death worm, before eating some himself.
Unlike the ignorant Damon, he knew how mana dense the parts were and thus made sure that they only ate little pieces, just enough to make sure they would evolve. Otherwise the effect could be catastrophic to the body, most likely leading to a quick death.
Around two days after that, all 3 Goblins had awoken from their evolution. Both Withil and Roger could finally move as the excess mana also had the effect of healing their broken bodies. All three of them had become tier 2 Goblins, now high-variants.
They had kept their unique features such as facial structure and such, but there were also differences. Each one of them had grown by around 20cm, leaving Roger as the tallest at 1.9m and Withil the shortest at 1.8m. Furthermore their torsos had gotten bigger, alongside all their muscles. Their skin was still dark green like the plants found in the forest. Overall they looked similar to how they did before their evolutions, just bigger and stronger looking.
Nevertheless this was to be expected as the jump from tier 1 to tier 2 wasn¡¯t big in terms of physical changes, rather the biggest change came in the form of perception. The reason why none of the warrior Goblins hadn¡¯t been able to naturally evolve despite being fully grown was because of the key element needed in any evolution: mana.
And tier 1s could barely sense mana, nevertheless actually affect it, which is why nearly every single tier 1 monster evolved through forced evolution, despite a forced evolution having worse effects than its counterpart. Needless to say the changes in their senses was paramount, it was like they had been opened up to a whole new sense: a new way of feeling.
For the next day the now-evolved Goblins tested and played around with their new capabilities while waiting for Damon to wake up, who they could tell was alive due to his breathing, and currently in evolution, due to the immense amount of mana breaking out of his body before escaping into the atmosphere.
The moon came up, and was then followed by the sun as a whole day passed. In the end Withil decided they had to move, the parts of the monsters they had collected kept on dissipating into the atmosphere as the mana escaped, meaning the effectiveness of the organs only dropped as time went on. Considering the fact it would take a good part of the day to get back to the village and that the organs would most likely completely expire within 1-2 days meant that they could no longer keep waiting for Damon as they had no idea how long it would take him.
They were received with immense festivity upon their return, the whole village breaking out into celebration in order to congratulate their success. The old-chieftain used this as an opportunity to commemorate Withil as the new chieftain. Withil¡¯s warriors and supporters left in the village revelled in his glory whereas the Raraak¡¯s used this chance to adulate Withil as they changed their allegiance. On the whole the mission ended exactly as the previous-Chieftain had hoped: only one leader coming back from a successful hunt.
Over the next few days, Withil effectively used his new found social powers to introduce new policies to the village. The whole village would experience an upheaval as the whole structure from base to top was re-organised.
For the first week, half the Goblins were made to collect food and resources surrounding the village while a quarter went hunting and the remaining quarter was forced to teach the children how to survive. At first such programmes was met with resistance and minor defiance, although that wasn¡¯t much for the reformed warriors to ¡°fix¡±.
After a week, half of the Goblins collecting resources were then made to create items with them while the other half was told to keep the input of resources stagnant. The Goblins experienced a change from laissez faire attitude to one centred about the village, it was no longer about them but rather about the village. At first they found such practise hard to adopt as they were simple creatures who had been following a simple system. However they quickly learnt to accept it under ¡°guidance¡± from the warriors.
It was a month later that the merits of the changes would begin to show as the village began to grow at an exponential rate. Within that short period, the Goblins had established themselves as the powerhouse in the region. This was partly due to the increase in Goblin warriors¡¯ quantity and quality after training, reaching a total of 30 well trained warriors.
However this was more due to the change of leadership in the warriors. Now two high-variant Goblins lead them! One of those leaders was Roger, who everyone in the village knew as Withil¡¯s right man. The second one was the warrior who had returned alongside Withil and Roger. Both of them lead 15 warriors each, and due to their leadership the villages overall fighting power grew.
In fact the village strength could have further increased if there were more high-variants, and there were, only the fact that they didn¡¯t focus on battle. One was Withil who now lead the village and thus didn¡¯t have time to do the actual fighting anymore. The other was Absinthe who acted as the druggist/healer/alchemist in the village. She had been the only Goblin to evolve after eating the rest of the organs as she had received the most potent parts, although even they were nearly expired by then. She was too engrossed with her research to care at all about fighting.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
There were two more high-variant Goblins suited for fighting, although neither were in the village. The first was Gregal, the strongest Goblin who had evolved years beforehand and rumoured to be as old as the old-chieftain. He rarely came to the village though, and when he did he only came to talk to the old-chieftain. As for the last high-variant Goblin, he was one that they weren¡¯t even sure about. He was Damon!
After the village had calmed down, Roger had tried to go back to the battle scene to check if Damon was still alive, only to be surprised as he worked out he couldn¡¯t walk a small range within the cave. The mana density surrounding the cave had increased to such an amount that his body threatened to physically break down if he dared walk in. It was with pity that Roger ran back and told Withil. Most likely Damon was dead and if not, only the Gods the old-chieftain rambled on about knew what had happened to him.
A while later Withil came to the conclusion Damon was dead, although not many cared as only Withil, Roger and the warrior Goblin remembered him nevertheless cared about his current status. Most were just joyous that the Goblin village had firmly established themselves in the outskirts of the Great Forest and all clues pointed to them only growing further as time went on¡
The further in the cave you got, the higher the density of mana. At its peak, the air was sticky with mana as the ethereal turned physical. The peak was the immediate area around Damon¡
Evolving from tier 1 to 2 was simple, the mana just upgraded the functions of your body. But Damon hadn¡¯t evoked a tier 2 evolution¡ And so mana tore at his body, fully tearing each patch of skin off, before it began its work at his body. It was an understatement to say he was eviscerated, as instead his whole body had been broken down into tiny particles that shone murky in the light. This had been the easy part as breaking was simple and thus this process only took 1 month.
Now came the difficult part: reforming the body. The reason why a tier 3 evolution took so much energy was due to this process, it was the reason why the silverback bear hadn¡¯t been able to commence its evolution until it collected up enough energy to start the destruction of its own body.
Amazingly enough the mana in the air become so thick that it began to form physical specks that shone bright compared to the ones that had made up Damon¡¯s body. Overtime the bright ones began to build up and in the end there were barely more of them than the murky specks. And then the specks began to merge, fusing their contents together into a larger parts as the specks started to become visible.
Damon had been very lucky with his evolution because if the bright specks didn¡¯t at the least equal the murky ones, he would have failed the evolution and faced severe drawbacks up to and including death. It was his luck that he was still a young Goblin as his body was still small compared to others.
Eventually the clumps of specks became as big as a Goblin¡¯s fist before they began to gain colour and tangibility. They layered one over another where Damon had lied, and eventually his body began to reform.
It was a total of 4 months before his body had fully reformed. His green skin was replaced by a murky-red one that seemed plastered over his flesh as there was no fat over his flesh. His muscles were not big but still seemed intimidating due to the high vascularity of his body. Overall his height hadn¡¯t increased much as he had only grown by 20cm to reach 1.5m, but that made sense considering that his evolution was barely a success. He still had the typical Goblin facial features: slanted eyes, large nose, a cavernous mouth filled with knife-like teeth and the pointy ears on the sides. However not all had stayed the same as instead of hair over his head, he had tattoos engraved into his skin. The tattoos themselves were in a tribal pattern as it was filled with swirls and circular shapes with no definitive image.
It wouldn¡¯t be long now till he awoke since his whole body had been reformed by now. Outside the cave waited a Goblin who knew this, as he waited for the mana density to go down. It wouldn¡¯t be too long till the only tier 3 Goblins in the Great Forest met¡
Trolls
The Troll chieftain sat in his home, head buried in his arms as his mind raced for an answer. He knew that it was in his body. It was foreign to his body and yet had taken control when his anger had risen. He had been forced to be a passenger in his own body as it fought, watching with his own eyes and yet unable to move whatsoever.
His stress only further exploded as he felt the tug at his soul, it wanted his body again¡ He somehow instinctively knew he couldn¡¯t fight it, he knew it was stronger than he was. The tugs only increased in frequency and strength as he felt more of himself slipping away from his control. Then the voices started¡
¡°Come on, just go to sleep. I¡¯ll make sure the Trolls prosper if you just let go¡¡±
¡°NEVER. GET OUT OF MY HEAD, SPIRIT!¡±
¡°Don¡¯t push your luck young one. You know you can¡¯t fight me, just let go and I¡¯ll you benefit¡±
¡°THIS IS MY BODY AND MINE ALONE. BANISH SPIRIT¡±
¡
The conversation within himself carried on, although the Troll could feel himself losing as the tugs only got more vigorous. He needed to take immediate action!
Using the last ounces of strength available to him, the Troll grabbed the sword that lay next to him, before forcing it into his neck. If he couldn¡¯t have his own body, nor could anyone else¡
And yet he felt his own other hand stop him, holding the sharp blade with force as blood slipped down it. His fear reached breakdown point as he realised that the spirit already had control over his body, he needed to end it quick!
He took the handle of the sword before stabbing the handle into the ground. Within the next second he prepared himself as he jumped, positioning his body so that his heart would be pierced through as he landed.
*thud*
His body fell. He could feel the darkness come over his mind as his life drained away. A last smile crept over his face as euphoria filled his mind, just before the darkness took him away. He had won!
And then the Troll got up¡
The spirit had taken control of the body during the flight and had made the Troll tilt. And although his ribs were stabbed through with a sword, he didn¡¯t care as the Troll¡¯s smile became his.
He had done it! A second life, it had actually worked¡
Next he focused his mind as he immersed himself, causing mana to rapidly speed towards his wound. Within moments it was closed off¡
They had usurped his throne¡
They had defamed him in front of his people¡
And they would feel his wrath!
(7) Goblin Arts (End of Arc 1)
Goblins- Damon POV
I felt trapped, chains wrapped tightly around my whole body, with only the darkness for company. The darkness wasn¡¯t great company to say the least¡ Instead I felt frightened as I foresaw a future with nothing, just darkness¡ I needed to break out!
And so I began my struggle as I forced my arm¡ My arm? My body? None of it, I couldn¡¯t feel anything. All I could sense were two shutters in front of me that blocked out all life. I ran over before I began to force them up, but to no effect. It felt like the shutters were chained to boulders as I tried once more, and again which finally proved itself as I could feel my surroundings changing. Now I could instinctively feel that the shutters were further away, and I would be a fool if this brought any joy to me.
It was almost like every time I tried to force up the shutters, the further they would be away and the more drained I would feel of energy. And then it came, it came for me that was. It had no form whatsoever but I could feel it behind me, chasing me as I tried my utmost to sprint away. From it I could feel the cold embrace of sleep, the deathly cold embrace¡
It must have been that desperation that gave birth to amount-less energy inside of me as I frantically heaved while lifting the shutters. And I could feel it slowly moving upwards as a rays of light penetrated the darkness, giving light to the despair that I had been in all this time. My eyes naturally followed the rays as I glanced back to see nothing, I had been in a dark space that had hidden nothing.
At least it wasn¡¯t dark anymore, but then I tilted my head a bit more to notice the looming thing getting closer. The rays of light had pierced through all the darkness that had filled this space until it had reached the thing, which would simply eradicate the light from existence. I guess that was my wake-up call as my head instantly returned facing forwards, as I re-continued my efforts on the shutters despite the pain that threatened to tear my arms apart. And they opened¡
Only I was met with more darkness, well not exactly, but wherever I lay was still dark. I could instantly feel myself waking up as the whole world began to get clearer: my vision all of a sudden clearing up as I could differentiate the shades of darkness; my sense of smell sharper as the musty odour of rotten flesh assaulted my nose; my sense of touch more sensitive as the cold from the stone penetrating my flesh, although I couldn¡¯t complain as it numbed the excruciating pangs of pain from my stomach¡
The cold may have numbed the pain but it wasn¡¯t enough as the pangs only grew, overcoming the cold as it lay siege to my brain which crumbled before it. All of a sudden I was no longer sensing the world but rather wincing at the pain of hunger. Perhaps my body would have squirmed was it not for the fact that I couldn¡¯t move them¡ I could feel them, they were there and yet I had no energy to move my effectively dead limbs and so I lay there, tears parting my face as they rolled down onto the freezing stone beneath.
And then I heard. A sound so crisp that it broke through the besieging pain and offered aid to my brain. It echoed through the cave, not once but several times as I heard it again and again. What was it? It was a short thump-like sound quickly followed by several echoes. But then the thought hit me, what if those weren¡¯t echoes? Rather just a sound being repeated, a sound that was getting louder, a sound almost like ¡ footsteps.
I could hear the footsteps getting closer, the besieging pain of hunger so overshadowed right now as all my focus went into the footsteps. That was a bad idea¡ What followed was my mind imagining what it was. No idea, but maybe my memory knew. And so my mind interrogated my drowsy memory, as it set to work to find out who or what the thing getting closer was.
¡
Had Ikilled Raraak?
The scene suddenly broke into my mind as it replayed the moment the knife entered his chest, followed by a beautiful dive into his arms, before the grand finale of the freefall into his head.
¡
Why did I kill Raraak?
¡
I forced my mind to move on as I knew deep down in my heart that I would get no answer, well no answer other than ones I didn¡¯t want to hear.
Next I saw myself in a cave which looked very similar to here. And I had felt the pangs of hunger assault me then, just like they had a few seconds ago. The thought alone seemed to revive the pain as it came back, though not as strong as before. At the time I had been exhausted from battle and thus was heavily affected by the pain, I had frantically searched the area for food only to find some lying next to me. I had bitten into it: chewy, tough and yet addictive as the desire for another bite grew within me. It was like a meal in one as it was succulent, filled with juice that sated my thirst alongside my hunger.
After I had eaten that, I felt satisfied, I felt at one with the world as my body had slumped onto the cold stone. And I had slept till now I guess¡
So who was this walking now? I had been with Withil, maybe it was him? The footsteps were loud enough by this point that I could even hear the person or thing scrape its feet over the stone.
¡°Argh. The density is still quite high in here, although nothing I can¡¯t handle¡±If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
It was a Goblin, I could tell from the accent. But not one I knew, certainly not Withil. He seemed to be talking to himself as I doubted he could see my body slumped by the side of the cave in this darkness.
¡°Ha-ha, there you are little one. I was shocked when I¡¯d heard about the little one that had been evolving for several days, only to ¡°die¡± the next time they came to check. Those idiots don¡¯t know anything!¡±
I guess he could see me after all, despite how dark it was. But more importantly, I¡¯d evolved?! I didn¡¯t feel like it, but then again I had no energy so that could be a reason why.
¡°Oh fucking hell, look at you boy. You barely survived that, I bet you can¡¯t even tilt your head now nevertheless move.¡±
Following that I had no time to think as the Goblin opened my mouth before dropping something in. He then lifted my jaw to make sure I chewed before swallowing. I¡¯m sure this went on for at least a few minutes before he poured water into my mouth. The Goblin then left me in the cave as he walked away. It would be a few more minutes until I could actually move my body as energy rushed to my limbs, I felt both great and terrible at the same time as I realised the food hadn¡¯t even been close to filling me up.
A while later the Goblin came back with a little bloody rabbit, which I was more than happy to vigorously feast on as blood and flesh splattered over my whole body.
The Goblin kept talking throughout, ¡°I¡¯ve seen a few evolutions gone bad when I was a kid but none as bad as this. You¡¯re really lucky to live, nevertheless succeed with that evolution. Look at yourself, you¡¯ve not got a layer of fat on you.¡±
It was at this moment I actually felt my new body, only to find that I couldn¡¯t even squeeze my skin. This was disastrous for any animal living in the Great Forest and I could instantly feel my stress increase.
¡°Looks like whatever you ate before had barely enough mana to complete your evolution which is why you only barely lived through it. A definite sub-par evolution to say it nicely, although I guess that doesn¡¯t matter much considering the fact that you have just jumped from tier 1 to tier 3¡±
I had felt my spirits dampen as he had talked off me being sub-par, although they had instantly rekindled hearing I was tier 3! Tier fucking 3, it was something I had never even imagined being, needless to say actually accomplishing it!¡±
Over the next hour the aged Goblin would ramble on some more as I restored my energy. I used it as a chance to discover my new body, focusing first on the most obvious change: how skinny I was. I was still well-built but the muscles felt as if they would rip out of my skin if I flexed due to how tight they were. I needed to fatten up! My face had on the whole stayed the same, other than the lack of hair over my head. Instead they were replaced with markings engraved on my skin, giving a weird feeling as I slid my hand over them.
After a bit, I finally regained enough energy as I began walking outside alongside the other Goblin. It was as we exited I clearly saw him in the light, the Goblin was aged as his hair was clearly losing colour. Other than that he was extremely well-built and reached 1.8m. I also noticed how he was green but not the normal shade, instead he was a blueish green mix that gave him a peculiar look. And then the thought struck my mind; there was only one Goblin shaded blue that I had ever heard off¡
¡°Finally I can introduce myself, Damon. I¡¯m Gregal, the first and only tier-3 Goblin in the whole Great forest until now.¡±
Gregal, the strongest Goblin in the village who for some reason didn¡¯t live in the village¡ He was like an elusive legend as there were more tales about him than sightings of him, but one thing was for sure, and that was that he was the strongest by a LARGE margin!
¡°Now being the only other tier-3 Goblin, I feel it is only right to teach you. After all it would be great pity if our Arts were simply forgotten due to the tides of War¡¡±
I felt a greater story behind this but I dared not speak as I felt the amiable Goblin all of a sudden turn cold and fierce as he spoke. He turned around to look at me, his eyes almost as if they had pierced through my soul as a mountain of pressure stacked upon me.
¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯re happy with becoming a tier 3. Well you¡¯re just crap compared to a true tier 3 Goblin, nevertheless the other tier 3 monsters. But that¡¯s something that can be changed, but you will have to sacrifice both time and sanity to gain it. Although it¡¯s not like you have a choice¡
Now can you feel the new flavour in the air, making it thicker and denser than before? That is mana, the source of all magic in our World. Now follow this breathing technique and take the mana from the air¡±
A deep breath, followed by 3 short rapid ones and a final deep breath where your whole mind forced its focus onto the mana.
I repeated the breathing pattern 3 times before I felt the energy draining from my body. It was after doing it for about 5 minutes I felt a change in my energy, instead of decreasing it was slowly increasing. It took around 10 minutes until I felt full of energy, my body no longer daring to take in anymore mana.
I turned around to Gregal who nodded before taking doing a single breathing pattern. After which he carried on his talk, ¡°Now force the mana into your arm and into your fingers. I heard you use knives so manipulate the mana from your arms into these knives¡±, after which he handed me a blunt, rusted knife while keeping another for himself.
It would be a further 30 minutes before I managed to trickle the mana into the knife, which was followed my Gregal doing within the time taken to breath. The knives seemed to glow brighter after infusing them with mana, especially Gregal¡¯s which shone bright compared to mine.
¡°Now throw the knife into that tree.¡±
This I could do well as I straightened my weary-body, followed by throwing my arm backwards before it slung back, causing the knife to slide out of my fingers as it pierced through the air.
*thump*
The rusty knife penetrated the thick trunk of the tree as it slid into it, disappearing from sight as it embedded itself in there. And this was a dull knife¡ I felt myself going euphoric as I imagined the potential of mana: I could instantly kill any monster with a single, accurate knife throw.
Gregal stood in a sloppy stance before he threw his knife towards the same tree, stabbing the trunk like mine had done before slipping into it. And yet instead of lying there, the mana in his knife burnt red hot as the knife exploded, causing daunting, clear blue fire to break out that incinerated the trunk within a single second. Within the next second the 40m tree keep tumbled down as it smashed into the ground, creating a booming thud. However that didn¡¯t even enter my mind as I watched the blue flames burn on, devouring the remaining trunk to the ground like a ghastly beast.
His voice thundered out louder than the thud, ¡°That is the Flaming bomb, the fearsome Art we Goblins were slaughtered for!¡±¡
(8) 3 Years later (Start of Arc 2)
???????
During its formation, it had been acted as a seat for anyone who wanted to view one of the most beautiful scenes in the Great forest, but the cliff-side was well past its best now. Right now it was just a large piece of eroded rock covered in natural rubbish. From the cliff-side you could see many things such as the golden setting sun, the army of trees that carried on past the horizon, and now a bustling village filled with little green humanoids. Due to how near the cliff was to the Goblin village, in the past it was swarmed with Goblin children who were fascinated with the view, although those times were gone by now due to how often the cliff had given way, the bloody silhouettes giving clear testament to that. And yet currently lying on its chest on that very cliff-side was a reptilian humanoid, uncaring of the danger it was in.
The reptile was 1.7m tall and had brown, scaled skin all across its body. Plastered atop its chest and legs were soft, cloth armour, which had no practical use other than defence against the wind. However the uselessness of the cloth armour was alleviated by the thick scales over its major joints and chest. Lying next to this reptile was a thick piece of grainy paper, atop it many letters in a weird language. The reptile had already been at this position for the whole day and the paper was nearly full: full of information about the very Goblins below the cliff.
Seeing the paper almost full, the reptile decided that was enough for the day as it placed the paper into a leather bag around its waist before it set off, away from the goblin village. For the first few minutes it ran at a jogging pace, clearly trying to conserve its energy before it began sprinting at all its speed. The sprint rode the reptile past a large clearing about 1km wide, before the reptile once again slowed down to a jog. It was about an hour later when the reptile reached its destination, as what filled its vision was no longer the gloomy greenery but rather countless mud huts with the odd wooden ones.
The first thing anyone would notice about this village was how sombre the atmosphere was, as all whispers were muffled and the reptiles walked with slow, lethargic gaits. No one paid any attention to the scout as it walked in, although this made perfect sense considering how many scouts left and returned to the village in a day. The scout walked slow as it caught its breath, all the while imagining the stories it had heard as a child. There were towns, villages so large that they could no longer be classified as villages anymore, filled with large houses and stone pathways. The people walked with their heads up, relishing in life as the towns offered everything one could desire. The streets lit up at night and the army brought blood-curdling fear to their enemies. It sounded almost like a dream, too good to be true especially when in contrast to this village.
Eventually the scout reached the centre of the village where lay a big dome like building made out of tough wood instead of mud. Inside, the building emanated a rancid odour due to the little care it had been given in the past years. In a few seconds the scout had navigated the building before finding himself in front of a small wooden door, which he knocked on before walking in.
The scout walked inwards to find himself surrounded by stacks of thick pages, filled with writing, covering every possible surface in the room. In the middle of the smallish room was a similar reptilian, albeit smaller, who was furiously writing up something. Searching for his very own page inside his bag, the scout handed it over to the scribe who looked up only then. Seeing the title of the page, the scribe immediately placed it upon another stack of paper.
Each page didn¡¯t contain much information, but that built up, especially when half the pages in the room was dedicated to one subject: Goblins. The rest of the pages were the same, the only difference being that they contained information on the Trolls instead¡
Goblins
It had been 3 years since Withil had become Chieftain, and in those 3 years the small village had transformed into a bustling mess of buildings that took up over double the space the old village had. Everywhere you looked you would be met with crowds of Goblins who moved from place to place as they rushed to do their jobs. In the centre of the village was now a large market that divided the village in two, the market filled with several vendors selling from weapons to clothes. There was even blatant endorsement by the village as several arrows on the streets guided you to Absinthe¡¯s herb shop: specialising in healing and poisons.
Just next to the market was the largest building in the whole village, the town hall. It had been built about a year ago, and now acted as the place where all the Goblins would meet when something came up. The town hall was made out of wood, with stone decorating the outside. Inside, it could fit in around 200 goblins and squeeze in 300. The clearing that they had previously used for such purpose was now filled with countless little huts, in order to accommodate the growing population.
The population had sky-rocketed in the past 3 years. In the past, the number had stayed stagnant at around 100 due to the death-rate of Goblins in the Great forest. And yet now the population was well over 500 and close to 600. Of course this had a lot to do with the fact that Goblins had a very large birth rate but it had more to do with how they now lived. In the past they had been cowering at the fear of monsters, while acting as a good snack for any hungry beasts. However ever since Withil¡¯s coronation, they had only increased in power and were only increasing the area they were in control over. The death rate had decreased massively as the Goblins had finally fully accepted the hive mind-frame, rather than a selfish one.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
As for the ever-growing army, they had gone from 20 Goblin warriors who were all variants to 200 warriors. Nearly every Goblin was eager to be a warrior as a life of violence was glorified in such a place like the Great forest. Leading the 200 Goblin variants were 19 Goblin high-variants (Goblins who had evolved). Many Goblins had evolved in the past 3 years as the amount of monster they hunted increased, meaning more Goblins were able to forcibly evolve. All this power meant that the Goblin village could now face up a tier-4 monster, although no one wished to fight such a thing for very obvious reasons.
Damon could feel countless needles stabbing into him as he crawled underneath a bush. He now had a layer of fat covering his body, and his skin had only toughened in 3 years, meaning that the needles could only scratch him despite how sharp they were. Right now he was hunting a mid-tier 3, to be more specific his first mid-tier 3 monster.
At first he had been over-joyous at becoming a tier-3 Goblin, although his joy was quickly broken down. This was mainly due to Gregal who not only acted as his trainer, but also as a cruel mentor who would use any mistake he made to illustrate why he was just a sub-par tier 3. Damon felt a strong desire to just run and travel, as he learnt of the world and magic, and yet he knew that he would be hunted down by Gregal within a few days at max. After all that was his record so far!
It didn¡¯t help that the people at the village now glorified him, acting unnatural around him as if he was something they were not allowed to talk to. Gregal might be brutal, but at least he talked normally to Damon.
In his heart, Damon knew that the other Goblins, including his previous leader Withil, now treated him like this as they were both in fear and awe of his status and power as a tier-3 Goblin. On the other hand Damon hated it as he felt like he wasn¡¯t a part of the Goblins anymore, he no longer felt the kinship with them that he once had. On the other hand he felt great fascination for the world as Gregal would often tell him off outside the forest, although Gregal always edged away from why he had been travelling in the first place.
Apparently there were other Goblins outside the forest, and they had once had a great City. Gregal refused to say more than that, but Damon had guessed that he had once been part of that City, before it became just a glorious past to relish in. Other than that, Damon learnt of large towns made out of stone and countless materials, filled with countless items and species. It sounded exactly like the world Damon wanted to go into as he desperately wanted to test his power against them, and yet the fact that he didn¡¯t know the way out of the forest and the looming Gregal behind him always stopped him.
But this was a chance to prove himself, after all he was sure Gregal would allow him to leave if he could kill a peak-tier 3 by himself. In the past 3 years he had been practising on his mana control and on Flaming bombs, and both had come a long way by now. Gregal had also trained him in the way of countless other melee weapons such as sword, axe and hammer, although Damon still preferred his knives.
His musings came to an end as he struggled his way through the last part of the bush before setting his eyes upon the mid-tier 3 monster in question, the bronze Tiger. The bronze tiger looked like a normal big cat other than the striped skin and the long whiskers. Oh and how muscular the monster was, it looked like one foot was enough to crush Damon due to how thick they were. It was around 2.5m long and 1.5m tall, so around the same size as the silverback Bear, but anyone who thought the two would be of similar danger would be in for a deadly surprise.
It was Damon¡¯s luck the tiger was currently sleeping in a small clearing, in between a few bushes that surrounded it. Damon took out a sharp knife as he began to slowly raise his body, trying his best to stay quiet. He could see the tiger¡¯s whiskers moving around, as if disturbed by something, before they were followed by the tiger¡¯s ears twitching. He would have to move fast!
And so he gave stealth to the wind as he shot up, before propelling his knife towards the tiger¡¯s head. The tiger had instinctively twitched, before raising its body from the ground despite how drowsy the tiger felt. Damon¡¯s knife acted as a miracle cure as it stabbed deep into the tiger¡¯s shoulder, the mana making quick work of the skin¡¯s defences, causing countless hormones to be shot to the tiger¡¯s brain as it instantly felt its drowsiness disappear.
In anger the tiger tilted its head before roaring at full force in order to intimidate its foe.
¡°---aaaaaaRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAWWWWWW-¡°
The roar was stopped half-way through as another knife quickly slid into tiger¡¯s upper back, followed by one that just managed to embed itself into the tiger¡¯s lower back. Unlike a tier 2, a tier 3 monster could feel mana a lot better with particular clarity and the tiger quickly noticed how the knives had mana remaining in them, despite the fact that they were no longer in flight. This meant that their role in the fight hadn¡¯t finished¡
Knowing this the tiger immediately leapt at Damon, unwilling to let him carry on this slaughter. Damon was caught half-in surprise as he had hoped the tiger would just go down, although he responded within seconds as he turned around before jumping away. He would have dodged the tiger as well, was it not for the fact that the tiger caught the cloth armour he was wearing with its claw, before flinging him backwards.
Damon¡¯s mind seemed to know that he was in deep shit as his battle instincts took over, rolling backwards before the tiger got the chance to splatter him. In the moment the tiger only managed to claw Damon with a swipe before the Goblin started scrambling up the closest tree, although it wouldn¡¯t do him much good as the tiger too could climb trees¡
However this provided Damon with enough time as he activated the bombs in his mind.
¡°AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGHHHHH¡±
The tiger shrieked in pain as all 3 knives exploded, not only devastating its body but also causing red-hot fires made out of mana that devoured its flesh. Perhaps the tiger could have survived, was it not for the fact that the knives had been stabbed in a diagonal line across its back; all of them exploding meant that its spine had been effectively broken, leaving it immobile to move as the fire carried on its feast.
It took a full minute before the tiger collapsed, causing barely any bloodstains as the fire continued to scorch the ground. Atop the tree branch Damon felt the adrenaline-rush die down, as terror at what had just happened broke out. He could feel that his back was bleeding out, the simple claw swipe doing enough damage to tear of his flesh!
He wouldn¡¯t be challenging any mid-tier-3s for a while now¡
(9) The Forgotten Village
Morgars - Gehena
Gehena opened her eyes to a mud roof, before lying awake on her stone bed as she stared upwards. The hut was cold inside as there were holes in the roof where the mud had cracked and fallen, allowing chilly drafts to sneak in during the night. After a while, she heard her stomach rumble loudly, which acted as an alarm as she forced herself to get up to get some food to eat. Most of the mud that made the hut had cracked years back, and the plants used as foundation showed through.
She always began the day the same way: training her body. She did a few pushes, followed by pullups and finally some tail ups. Most of her scales were cracked across her body, showing clear weathering to battle. But she preferred to show them to people as other warriors did with scars, showing that she was a veteran at battle. Although most people would be able to tell that just by her thick muscles¡
Finished with her training, she mused what it would be like to have a proper home as she cooled down, one without the multiple cracks that made her freeze over at night. In all truth she could just go over to another Morgar and take their home, and yet she couldn¡¯t as she felt sentimental affection for this broken hut. It had been where her mother had raised her and her sister when they had first come to the Great forest with hopes. Those hopes had been quickly broken, not by the forest but rather by her own people¡
Thoughts of her sister brought a bitter taste to her mouth. Only the Gods themselves knew why her sister had decided to do that. She had betrayed her beliefs for a bit of fake glory¡ She quickly felt her mood sour the more she thought about it. Best not to think about it.
Instead she searched the containers for some grub she could stuff down, after all the sun was already at its peak by now. It would be a few minutes later that Gehena stumbled out of her small and not-so-cosy hut, before strolling towards the town hall.
The massive town hall made out of wood showed the ambition they once had for this village, and yet all of that had been forgotten through time. Now the wood had rotted, giving the place a putrid smell that caused Gehena to cringe every time she had to walk in there. But today was a special day¡
She guided herself through the maze-like building before she reached a large door that she walked through. Inside sat Friss, a Morgar smaller than Gehena, who sat reading through the stacks of paper the scribes had written out. Gehena walked closer as Friss stayed engrossed in her papers, before whacking Friss across the back which caused her to drop her page and turn around in horror.
¡°Gehena?! What the hell are you doing?¡±
¡°Friss girl. Drop the papers, you already know everything you need to. All you have to do now is go to the meeting and convince those cronies. Not too hard, eh?¡±
¡°Oh shut up. I just need a bit more information in case any of them asks questions. What if they do actually have a change of heart?¡±
¡°HAHAHA. You know that isn¡¯t happening. This shit village will only get shitter the longer they stay in power. Don¡¯t worry though, I¡¯ll make sure you win either way!¡±
The two shared friendly banter despite the severity of the topic they were talking about. There were 8 elders in total, including Friss. All of them were the oldest and ¡°wisest¡± Morgars, and thus the 8 guided the direction the village would be going down. It would be later this day that Friss would hold a public meeting to discuss the truth that they had been avoiding all along, the truth that their village had been abandoned and then forgotten by the nation¡
Goblins - Absinthe
Rummaging through her drawer, a smile broke across Absinthe¡¯s face as she found the herb she was looking for. She picked it up before walking over to the chair with a small fire started next to it. By her side were multiple containers with herbs, crushed grains and liquids, alongside a small knife. She looked over at it, it was sitting on a wooden board which had chains across the side of it. The chains across it were so tight that it couldn¡¯t move, nevertheless struggle in the least.
Absinthe picked up her knife before bringing it over to its arm. She slowly stabbed the knife in, before piercing across in a line, followed by one upwards, then another backwards, and the final slice downwards. Afterwards she used her fingers to tear the block of flesh out of its arm. It had tears staining its face, small streams that grew wider every second. You could see its chest heaving up and down as it struggled against the chains in terrible pain.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Absinthe looked it in the eye before softly slapping it across the cheek.
¡°Oh don¡¯t worry silly. You¡¯ll leave just the way you came in, I swear!¡±
The words didn¡¯t give it any reassurance or comfort to it, as it kept crying and heaving, although Absinthe didn¡¯t care as she picked up a liquid that glowed green. She poured a few drops into its mouth before she stepped back to enjoy the show. Where the flesh had been cut off, blood had been spurting like crazy. And yet when it drank the green liquid, the flesh stopped bleeding and instead began to grow back at a visible rate. Within 2 minutes, the whole block of flesh had grown back!
¡°Hahaha. My healing potion is a success, aren¡¯t you happy?¡± said Absinthe as she booped it on the nose.
It looked at Absinthe in terror as it sat there in confusion. It didn¡¯t know what had happened but it didn¡¯t want to know anyway. All it wanted to do was get away from this lunatic of a bitch.
Absinthe gave a toothy smile to it before wiping the blood off the knife, she then put it over the fire. The knife slowly got hotter, and as it did the blade got redder, and as it did it strained its eyes to signal many pleas to Absinthe. She seemed to not see or not care as she picked the red hot knife off the fire before quickly whacking it against its other arm.
*sssssssssszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*
You could hear the flesh getting roasted, you could see it violently struggle against the chains, and you could smell the acrid smell of burning flesh¡ It seemed to half collapse as it stopped all struggle and instead lay on the wooden block still as still can be. But there is no rest for the weak as it awoke in the next second to notice Absinthe applying a herb mixture across its burns. It was an understatement to say that it stung, as the herbs were forced against the sensitive burnt flesh¡ This time they had to wait 30 agonising minutes until Absinthe saw the skin growing back.
¡°Oh goodie, Nice one!¡±
It was frothing at the mouth, happily unconscious, away from all the torture Absinthe would put it through over 2 hours, although its body still had to take the damage.
It was two hours later that Absinthe felt satisfied with her progress today. Well, almost satisfied. She had one more experiment to do.
¡°Sorry, its nearly done I swear!¡±
She picked up her final set of herb granules that she herself had grinded together. She spoon fed it two spoons before she stood a metre away.
Its muscles began to inflate like crazy, causing great strain against the chains as they stabbed into its body. Countless rivers of blood began to originate from the chains as they flowed down its body. It took only a few seconds until it reached maximum size, about double the size of before. Although that wasn¡¯t much use to it right now, as its muscles had grown so large that the chains had simply ripped through, causing massive cuts all across its body which slowly drained all blood out. There was no potion to reverse this, it was dead.
¡°Oh dear, the strengthening pellet v2 didn¡¯t work exactly as I thought it would. My bad, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll forgive me brother¡±
It had been Absinthe¡¯s twin brother, who had so willingly decided to help her out. She was sure that he would be happy for her if he could see her now¡
Trolls- King
The Troll king sat brooding in his home. For the past 3 years he had been training his new body up, although there had been a few difficulties that had risen up. A while back he had decided it would be a great idea if he taught the Trolls magic, which would definitely put the Trolls even higher than they already were in the food chains. But they were too dumb¡
Too fucking dumb to get a word of what he was saying, nevertheless understand and follow¡
The anger in him only rose as he thought of how wrong he had been. At first he had been joyous to receive second life, to have another chance at life. And yet the Gods seemed to have cursed his revenge as they had forced him to start in the fucking Great Forest with idiots for company¡ He would have left this shithole, was it nor for the fact that he needed an army to cause carnage to the usurpers. And no one would willingly follow a Troll outside of other Trolls, they had their reputation for a reason.
And then he thought of the Morgars he had slaughtered for spying on the village. They had been half the reason why he had lost his throne, otherwise the cowards would have never thought to make a move against him. But then the thought struck him, why were there Morgars in the Great forest? They had their own nation, Morgarn, and yet they had set scouts to spy out a little Troll village? He had caught the first scout a year back, meaning those dirty lizards hadn¡¯t dared to make a move all this time¡
That made no sense considering how strong Morgarn was¡ And then he remembered the stories he had heard in his court, at how there were rumours that the Morgars were planning to take over the Great Forest. He had first laughed at those tales when he heard them. Within the next month the civil war in Morgarn had broken out, and he had laughed even harder at that. But now thinking about it, the nation wouldn¡¯t have the time, resources nor care to support their invasion plan during the civil war. That most likely meant that the Morgars he caught came from just a village, and not Morgarn. If they had been spying for so long, it only made sense if they were to make a move soon. And he needed to know what the hell they were planning.
The Troll king started chuckling, causing terror to tingle down every Troll¡¯s spine. He then called over a few trolls, before sending the large, bulking trolls onto scout missions¡
New fiction out.
Hey guys!
So my new fiction has now officially rolled out.
Check it out if you have some free time to spend.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
For this week, I will be releasing 2 chapters per day to get things rolling, one at 9am (UTC/GMT) and another 3pm (UTC/GMT). Can''t be certain about the timings but there will be 2 per day, around those times anyway.
Cheers!
Edit: Forgot to say this but if there''s anyone who is good at proof-reading and has a couple of spare minutes per day, could you pm me your e-mail. Cheers once again!