《Heinous - The tale of an unusual necromancer (dropped)》 Prologue: The lives of many felled by one Paul Ellsworth- Captain of the vindictive force A scene of madness, simply unbelievable that this had transitioned from a scene of proper order, power and peace. I had been delighted when ex-General Stine had ordered me to head this force, as it represented to all who lusted his position that he had chosen me to be his successor. It meant that I would soon inherit his position as head of forces in Rossford, the leading town in the region, and even better; it meant that I had a chance to be recommended to his past comrades if I shined enough. It made perfect sense as my quick wit in warfare had quickly set me apart from others in training and even now from the other Captains of the Guard. All in all, it was my ticket for greatness, the first step that would be recorded down in my legacy as the move that would quickly rise me to become the 3rd GLORY in the kingdom. So someone explain to me whythe fuckthis was happening?! We were meant to be the vindictive force who would clear the bandits who had recently began targeting our patrols as the fat cats to rob. And yet the villains in front of me most definitely were not bandits, nor humans, nor alive for that matter. The fact they were dead should have been the end to the problem, and yet right now it seemed to be the root of the problem. What had ambushed us along the route were skeletons. As if to taunt us, they wore the gear of our dead brothers. The skeletons themselves were in extremely bad quality, some were fractured while others looked as if they were crumbling away. And yet that attested to the fact that they clearly had been reinforced by magic, else they would have just broken down right in front of us. Well that and the fact that they were moving with a motive. Some held our shields, only in much worse quality as most were dented and showed clear weathering of recent battle. The paint showing the insignia of the Rossford Guard had been scratched and smashed. Some wore metal caps while others were fashioned with metal greaves and hard soled boots. Upon a second look, I could see only the skeletons at the front wore Armor as the ones at the back of their company were not human skeletons. Some had smaller statures while others had completely different anatomy shape, such as those of wild cats. They looked older, more broken down and a lot dirtier, stained dark with mud and blood. Any fool could figure out from the clues but mostly common sense that these weren¡¯t just random pillaging bandit skeletons, which meaning that the enemy had a person with skills in dark arts or worse, in necromancy. The cleaner skeletons upfront wearing our Armor for protection were most likely the skeletons of my dead comrades, while the ones at the back were most likely the ones the villain had used to kill my comrades with. Sadly it looked like my former brothers were only too eager to start fighting and I immediately stopped my wandering thoughts. I needed to figure out whether these skeletons were created through necromancy or controlled through dark arts, because while both had the similar end results of skeleton warriors, their weaknesses and strengths were different.
John - Apprentice Shield-bearer of the vindictive force I squirmed as I saw walking, armed skeletons in front of us, clearly showing hostility and eagerness for battle. Worse still, some wore our Armor, basically identifying this force as the one who attacked our patrols, which only meant that we could not run from this battle. I didn''t want to show fear but my body betrayed me in the worst of times as I began shaking, the sounds only amplified from my metal Armor clanging together. Though it seemed ok as I was in the safe due to the sounds of swords being drawn and shouts being shouted, blanketing the noise. I was only 18, the only reason why I was in Captain Paul company was due to excellent results in training. Only that was against human targets who I could predict and understand, these were eerie skeletons, the skeletons of the dead patrols: how do you even kill the dead in the first place? The men around me started shoving ways as some tried to push to the front, God knows why, but it was perfect as I used that force to push myself backwards while not looking like I was retreating. If I made it to the back, I had a chance to run if it started going wrong. "ALL SHIELD-BEARERS TO THE FRONT. SET UP A DEFENSIVE LINE IMMEDIATLY!" Shit. Captain Ellsworth shout sounded like a death sentence... But I guess I couldn''t run so I might as well try my luck, gamble my life, though the chance of winning nor the winnings themselves looked very appealing. Pushing my way to the front, I took the massive shield of my back and sheathed my sword. The shield itself was a double-handed tower shield which stood at a massive 1.4m and better still was the fact that it was about 13cm thick. This meant the chances of getting broken was extremly low but it didn''t come without bad points. The shield was double-handed meaning I had to trust my life to the men around me and it weighed around 45kg and that was despite the fact that it was made out of magically reinforced wood instead of steel. It was essentially impractical in all but large collisions. And yet it seemed my saving grace here; as long as I lowered my body, my shield would protect my whole body.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. And yet it looked like the skeletons were too thirsty for bloody as they instantly charged, just before I had clenched onto the enarmes in prerperation.Gritting my teeth, I stood my ground as the pressure against the shield kept building up. It would have been just my luck if enemies had charged us with no formation what-so-ever and yet their numbers of around 100 compared to our 30 seemed to completly negate the rules of warfare. Worse still, I could hear their otherwordly shrill roars as they fearlessly pushed, with no concern whatsoever about their barely passable lives. Shit. All thought stopped as I became solely reliant on the adrenaline rush and my training. Nevertheless it seemed quite to fall short compared to the pain I felt on both my back and my arms. My arms were about to snap, but just not before Captain Paul shouted the words for immediate retreat. Or not... ¡°PUSH!¡± The second the Captain shouted, I felt the force of multiple men pushing together on my back. ¡°PUSH!¡± Tears started to make their way out as the pain fully overcame my adrenaline. ¡°PUSH!¡± And yet it seemed it wouldn¡¯t stop as both sides kept pushing with all their might. ¡°PUSH!¡± And yet when my brothers pushed me this time, I found no purchase on the skeletons to push. Instead it was as I fell, I saw that the skeleton line had suddenly jumped back in coordination. Coincidentally it was also then when I saw a shadow leap onto my body, just before feeling intense pain on the back of my neck which instantly dissipated but along with it went my life.
Paul Ellsworth- Captain of the vindictive force Unbeknownst to us, the skeletons was actually in a formation, only it was formed to give the initial impression of lack of order. The skeletons seemed harmonious in fact if you watched from a bird¡¯s angle as you could tell that none of them actually stumbled at all over each other. But it was clear to me when they jumped in co-ordanation that someone was controlling them. I was 90% sure now that they were being controlled via dark arts as it was dark arts where someone controlled the skeletons while necromancy created barely sentient skeletons that would not be able to manage such teamwork. It seemed as though, despite the loss of 3 shield-bearers out of the 8 due to the big cat skeletons leaping at the exact moment the shield bearers fell in order to rip apart their neck, it was also our saving grace as that exact teamwork told me exactly what I needed to know. ¡°PROTECTION OF LUCI, STRENGHT OF LUCI, AGILITY OF LUCI¡± Light escaped my body as I began to shine a dark golden hue. I quickly bellowed my 3 skills, it was the reason why ex-General Stine selected my as his successor despite my younger age compared to the other captains since I had the blessing of the God Luci. After all , while any wayward plebeian with enough training could create a skill, it was a whole different matter when someone had skills given by an actual God. My shouts seem to have increased morale after the initial loss in morale due to our first causalities. My men knew I only activated my skills once I knew exactly what to due to their low active time-frames. With all my buffs activated, I contracted my legs and exploded into the air. While an ordinary man could jump around 50cm of the ground, I could achieve 2m with just my body from a stationary stance which became a massive 4m when combined with the buffs. Time seemed to slow as my feet floated above the shield bearers and finally over the skeletons. The wind seemed to single onto me as I unsheathed my sword, an amazing 2 times magically enhanced sword. It had dark golden handle that smoothed off into a pure gold line that fell down the crest of the sword. The whole sword gave off golden light, which amped up as I injected more mana into it, turning into the Sun coming down onto Earth. Time seemed to slow as my feet reachedtheir destination: the skull of a skeleton, which I smashed through before rolling across the ground. Others might have been scared when surrounded by so many deadly monstersand yet I felt it was natural for one with power like me to be doing this. I clenched my sword as I did a wide slash to the right, releasing a wave of mana. The golden arc released smashed into 6 skeletons, slicing them in two before moving onto the next group of skeletons. I shouted out ¡°MEN GO FOR BIG STRIKES¡± as I continued my onslaught. The reason why dark arts users could control skeletons was because they maintained connection with the skeletons themselves. Since they controlled the skeletons themselves instead of giving them life, this meant that the dead skeletons had sensitivity, which in turn meant a portion of the pain a human would feel from an attack would be felt by the dark arts mage if the skeletons were attacked. Despite being a portion, it was enough as big attacks made it so that low level mages could not take in all that pain as they would instinctively break their link with the skeleton to stop the pain being transmitted over. It was no surprise that the skeletons struck down stayed down; they became simple skeletons due to the released links. My men, upon seeing I had cleared around 20 of the skeletons in an instant, instantly regained their whole morale as they began to release big attacks while roaring. And yet all seemed to go wrong as behind my men came an even louder, more fearsome, guttural roar¡­ This is where the story went wrong. I was meant to clear all these skeletons, find their source who I would capture and take to Roswell for public execution. Ex-General Stine would promote me to Major and set me as the head of Roswell Guard after seeing my capability, knowing that he can rest easy now that someone of my standards came through. My world that had shone golden immediately came to an abrupt end. Around me were the bones of around 50 skeletons, enough to change the battle around even by the strictest standards. And yet my face was filled with anger, humiliation and just the tinge of fear as the body of my strongest Lieutenant broke mortal limits and flew over me. What followed him was his entrails and a flood of blood that sprinkled onto us like a light, warm drizzle. Something had launched the second strongest in my force through the sky for about 12 meters with a hit¡­ Reality dawned on me very quick as I began to run back to my men. I heard the guttural roar once more and screams of my men for the first time since forever. I feared with my whole body that I would see another flying corpse of another brother but it seems as if Lady Luck decided to shine on me for all my good deeds. Instead of facing the caved in body of another Lieutenant, all I saw was the dirty ground. I had tripped due to fear. Shit. My ankle was in pain as I tried to get up but I didn¡¯t care as I kept pushing. I had a responsibility to my men as their Captain, I would protect them and they would praise me. I would clear this mission and Stine would fucking promote me. I would keep advancing up the motherfucking world as people realised how fucking amazing I was compared to their shitty selves. But it seemed the world wasn¡¯t a place of justice since I felt the pain increase. A low yelp escaped my mouth as I gritted my teeth, but they instantly opened into a beastlike scream. In front of me the skeleton I had cut down had re-arranged his backbone and stood back up. He looked worse than ever and yet he frightened me so much. I turned my head, only to find out I hadn¡¯t tripped up and instead was held down by a dirty, bony hand. It was clenched around my ankle, but I could still move. But I didn¡¯t. I couldn¡¯t¡­ Around me all the cut down skeletons were standing back up and picking up their weapons and their skeleton body parts. My body seemed to be no longer mine as I lost all sense of it. It was like I was outside my body. The cold spread to my mind making thought stop. I could hear screams around me, screams I would have attributed to my brothers if I could have thought, and yet my mind couldn¡¯t. My pants felt sickeningly warm and wet¡­ If only I could think, I might have said something witty like ¡°Ha-ha, I guess I won¡¯t be getting a legacy after all¡±. But I couldn¡¯t.
The only path onwards is upwards The cave mouth dribbled rain as a light drizzle rudely imposed itself on the forest, despite it being nearly 12 at night. Sitting at the mouth of the cave was a goblin. He stood at around 70 cm with a humanoid shape, and thus in turn looked like he had the body of a small human child. Though no one would be fooled as placed on his face was two beady yellow eyes which was followed by a large nose and a small, cavernous mouth that housed lots of pointy teeth and a set of intimidating fangs at the front. But the bigger give away was his light green skin colour. He sat on a wayside rock, shaving a small rod of white oak. It was obvious at first glance that the little goblin had no practise in said action, as you could quite easily see quite a few small cuts littered over his hand, which looked cute as his fingers were tree stumps, short and thick, which were rooted on a small, dark green palm. His skin was not smooth like a humans, instead closer to reptile skin as his skin was similar to tanned leather, yet his leathery skin could put up no resistance against the small blade-like rock which continued to cut his hands. ¡°Ragh¡± He let out a noise of satisfaction as he looked at the rod, the staff/weapon of mass destruction that he himself had crafted, with pride. The simpleness of the rough wood seemed to hide within it his path to greatness. Perhaps he would become a chieftain of a tribe, perhaps even a war chieftain. He had worked on it for about 2 hours now, since the rest had put him on guard duty, and the cuts he had at the start had begun to scab. Goblins and nearly all species in the forest had quick regeneration, not enough to even come close to a troll but enough to be able to survive in such a violent wilderness. And thus with grand aspirations clouding his mind, he stood from the rock and began practising with it. It wasn¡¯t elaborate moves, nor was it a sight to see: just simple jabs, swings and smashes but he was sure it was how he would grow into a weapon of death. His hands felt dull from the pain and slight blood loss while his muscles ached, an hour into his training. He was eventually replaced as guard, very much to his delight, as he desperately needed to sleep. Sore from training and tired from the day, he found himself walking half-asleep already into the stomach of the cave, where lay 17 other goblins with no protection from the elements. All seemed in deep sleep as you could hear very nasally snores, but he seemed not to mind as he found an empty spot in which he half dived, half collapsed onto, where he instantly fell into deep sleep, but not before hugging his rod.
Morning came around quickly, too quickly as he woke up extremely drowsy and with still aching muscles. A certain goblin seemed to be shouting at all of them in order to wake them up, much to his annoyance. But food wouldn¡¯t deliver itself to his stomach as he had found out on the first day but he guessed life had only gotten better since then. After all lying next to him right now was his trusty rod, something no other goblin here had. As he walked out, he noticed the goblin who had replaced him had taken the sharp stone and copied his rod, though clearly not as smooth nor intimidating as his. It would have been much more effective if there was dedicated people to get food and others who focused on other jobs, like humans would do. So could goblins, only they needed a clearer authoritative figure. One who was either clearly bigger than them or proven his strength. Of course the 19 odd goblins here could hold a brawl to find the strongest, but they had already seen the effects of that. After all today was the 20th day after their birth and the 14th since the 30 odd younglings had been thrown out of the tribe and told to establish their own. There were some goblins bigger than our rod bearing one, but none so much that the other goblins felt fear nor intimidation. Walking ways, the goblins split up in order to reach their favourite hunting spots. At the start, they had ran with vigour to get there first but now, the harshness of the forest seemed to have chipped at their eagerness. Not our goblin though, he lightly skipped through, eager at trying out his new weapon. In fact yesterday, he and the other guard had actually gone to Blood valley. It was a valley around 1km away from their cave, it was around 3km long and 90m wide. Despite being short, the area had something peculiar about it as it had attracted thunder hawks to make it their home. These predator birds were around 2m tall and had wingspans of 4m and above. They got their name due to the way they flew since their flaps created loud noises but it was nothing compared to their scream. They would swipe down from the skies, picking up prey much heavier than goblins before screaming in their ears a very loud and explosive call, usually stunning the prey long enough to get some height. From there they would drop their prey in order to damage them before picking them once more in order to eat them at their home. They were natural predators so high up the chain that they didn¡¯t even consider scrawny goblin as prey but rather bugs to squash, and yet just yesterday he and other goblin had seen a human, just around 1m taller than him, fight 3 hawks off with a massive staff¡­ The hawks were messy eaters and thus the valley was always dyed red with blood and had heaps of flesh and bones littered around. Perhaps this was the reason why the plants there were different than others, as they were much redder and the fruit was juicier. There were also weird herbs that grew, which for most likely why the human had come. And yet the same animal as the one their parent tribe had slaved in their cave, was somehow able to fight these apex predators with just a big staff. It was majestic to say the least, and was also the reason why the two little goblins had made pseudo-staffs. Maybe it was the way the two goblins walked, clearly with excitement, or maybe it was the crude sticks they were carrying but it clearly interested some of the others as around 7 of the others decided to follow behind. It made not much difference to the 1km journey though as all were still quite on edge and wary, even the other guard goblin. But not our goblin though, he was excited and felt confidence. He made his weapon and trained his heart and soul out, what would stop him from beating a thunder hawk if a mere human could. While the sun was still low in its arc, the goblins made their way into the valley. The entrance and surroundings had random pickings of flesh and splattered blood. But it was nothing compared to what was deep in the valley. The valley wasn¡¯t barren, but the goblins were most likely the second biggest animal species in the valley due to the terror of the hawks. In fact even the following goblins seemed to linger at the entrance for a bit due to what was in front of them, before they saw the still chipper rod-holding goblin walk in. The fleshy rubbish they saw grew exponentially as they walked in, as there were bones and rotting flesh decorating most of the surfaces. In fact this was the reason why the 2 goblins were entranced in yesterday, due to the meat they saw. It might be random bone pickings to the hawks but it was a whole meat meal to the little goblins who couldn¡¯t even kill the hares in the forest, due to their age and size. It also become quite prominent that the greenery here wasn¡¯t very green, instead the herds and plants seemed more redder as leaves and stalks seemed to be dyed in blood. In fact none of the goblins strutted in, rather they weaved through the random shrubbery, finding bushes to hide themselves in, due to fear. The bushes, which were quite soft at the start, had gradually become tougher and sharper the deeper they walked in, so much so that most of the goblins now had some kind of shallow cuts despite their leathery skin. It seemed to hurt the group morale as some of the followers stopped looking at the rod wielding goblins and instead at the flesh around them. A good meal, a filling one, a bloody one: it was all that they wanted. They started to move towards the flesh, away from the bushes, but not before they heard a loud snicker of joy. They immediately ran forward to find the rod wielders, now both chuckling away, as they saw bigger prey. In fact the rod wielders were also like the others yesterday, as they ate the flesh while walking through. But it was also yesterday where they found the prey up ahead: a tree. They had carried on in to see what else was there but were too scared to come back here after they watched the human fight, after all what would they do if he was thirsty for some goblin blood afterwards. But that was yesterday, today they weren¡¯t scared. After all, he wasn¡¯t here today.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. It stood at around 4m tall, with a maroon trunk and reddish leaves. But both paled in colour compared to the blood red fruit hanging down. Each fruit seemed the size of a goblin torso, so around 30cm. There were a few splattered on the floor from which you could tell that these fruits were extremely juicy, as the fruits lay dead in a pool of their own juices. While the other goblins stood inspecting the tree, our goblin had already ran up to it. It was just before he had put down his rod and started to climb it that a bird call of anger sounded out. The sound echoed through the cave at the side of valley before reaching the goblins. It sounded nothing like thunder, not yet at least, but it scared all the goblins very much. The other guard dropped his rod and ran back to the retreating goblins while our goblin stood next to the tree, clenching the rod in fear. Baby-thunder hawks could barely fly, which was why they had caves on the floor of the valley. It was a sign of adulthood and strength when they could fly high enough to make a cave at the top of the valley. The caves at the end of the valley were the homes of the strongest birds while the baby caves started at around the 1km border. In fact, this cave was around 400m before all the others for a reason- this bird was weak. It was a weakling, which had been heavily ostracized and beaten up from the other baby birds. It had in luck found this blood berry tree , all alone taken by no other animal since the other baby birds didn¡¯t leave the cluster as it would considered shameful and a sign of weakness. Thus the bird here had taken care of it, because the blood berries were one of the only things the baby birds ate. The babies would either eat blood berries that grew from the orchard near the cluster or pickings from the corpses of adult¡¯s food. The baby bird hadn¡¯t acted yesterday as it had saw the human who gave a presence of strength, strength beyond what it could contest, but it was another question when little bugs lusted after its food. It quickly followed its cry and ran outside, flapping when outside the cave which lifted it about 1m of the ground. All the goblins had already fled to the bushes, around 40m away from the tree, but our goblin was too late as he saw the screaming truck charging at him. The fear broke as adrenaline kicked in and the goblin rolled over towards the tree, while the bird was 3m away. The trunk, which was about 70cm thick seemed to provide mental protection for him as he had instinctively rolled towards it without thinking. Perhaps it was this that helped him but it was more the fact the bird was a weakling; it had a major shortcoming when it had fought with the other thunder hawk nestlings: it was too dumb. It would randomly charge at others and also found it hard to control its limbs the way it wanted, both which were most likely effects from some kind of mental disorder. The bird instinctively followed its prey with its head and wings as it turned to where the goblin would roll to. It was a pity it didn¡¯t actually look where the goblin would roll to as it smashed its head into the tree, shaking it heavily as several blood berries fell down. The bird seemed dizzy as it stumbled backwards, unable to control its body. It was also the first time all the goblins further away got a clear look at the bird as they realised they weren¡¯t in danger. It stood at around 1.3m so should have been a titan to the goblins which it was, just that it was a very fluffy round titan with an elongated head. It looked nothing like the adults the 2 goblins had seen yesterday and upon further inspection, they noticed several peck and claw wounds over the bird. The beak also seemed broken which would explain why the bird had charged instead of pecking, but the charge turned into its downfall as it couldn¡¯t stand up due to the force scrambling its brain. The second the thud sounded, the rod-wielder still high with adrenaline, remembered the image of the man with the staff, striking the birds. It seemed to heavily affect him as his lust for power overcame his fear. He gripped his rod as he ran around the tree, jumping as he came over to the bird in fear it might peck him. It was his luck it couldn¡¯t as the jump was a feeble 20cm of the ground and would have helped with nothing, but it mattered not as he followed it with the practised actions of yesterday, putting the rod above his head before moving it down in an arc, smashing the bird on its head. It seemed to cause damage to the now-very confused bird as it suddenly bit out with its beak, despite the pain it would cause. It bit into the retreating rod, only to feel intense pain as it screamed upwards in pain. It then slumped its head downwards as the pain joined alongside its dizziness, which fully broke its ability to move the way it wanted. The goblin seeing the bird collapse, did a very crude roll to the side before it began to swing the rod towards the body of the bird. The bite into the rod seemed to cause double damage to the bird as not only did it cause itself pain, it also splintered the end of the rod. This meant that nearly all the goblin¡¯s weak swings and smashes penetrated its skin lightly. The blows towards the scabs produced proper damage, due the to lack of skin and the strong layer of muscles, which the goblin realised as it began whacking with all its might into the scabs. The bird instinctively reacted strongly at first as it tried to whack its head against the goblin but none of its attacks worked due to goblin jumping away in fear after every attack. The pain seemed to build up as the bird started squirming and then its muscles started spasming. After about 10 mins of continuous attacks, the bird had nearly stopped moving altogether despite not being dead. When 3 whacks to the head earned him no response, the goblin suddenly gained superficial courage as it began to stop running and instead did dedicated quick and heavy blows to its head. Seeing that his now splintered rod couldn¡¯t even scratch its skull, his rod found a new target in its eyes. He began gouging into one before full on pushing it through. After about more 3 minutes of this and now a full puddle of brain matter and blood at his feet and all over him, his body responded to him being somewhat safe by withdrawing his high. The rod, now broken stick, helped him in the last moments as he managed to balance on it before collapsing just like his birdy friend. His body responded to the exhaustion as a thundering noise rumbled from his stomach. The figure of the goblin fighting had at first frightened the other goblins, not for the noblest of reasons but rather because they were scared they would be next targets once he inevitably died. But as he fought, the fear turned into reverence as they saw the qualities of a leader. And now that he had finished, now that he was covered in the blood of his enemy, now that there was no danger, they decided to run over and support him. The primitive creatures didn¡¯t care much about the blood or gore, it was a staple part of their life afterall, but just before they were about to pick him up and carry him back home, he told them to stop. Words for a goblin meant a lot, it wasn¡¯t that they couldn¡¯t speak but rather that they found not need to. They didn¡¯t need to talk much as they all understood each other from actions anyway since they were all similar body and mind like. They rarely had anything complex enough that they couldn¡¯t show it through action. Something must have cracked in his brain as he suddenly got a great idea, an idea so dumb that it was great. He told them to check the thunderbird baby¡¯s cave, which made the others send the smallest but very reluctant goblin to check. He was overjoyed to find no lurking predators in there which seemed to overjoy the others just as much but not before he put their mood down by telling them to take him there. They might be primitive but they weren¡¯t without brains, they knew that he was declaring the bird¡¯s territory and home as his own. Perhaps primitive creatures understood this better than educated ones. They felt pride as they walked him over to the birds cave, quite a bit bigger than their old one. After settling him down, the 8 goblins decided to first pick up all the fruits that had fallen down onto the ground from the bird¡¯s initial charge. They would have stripped the tree bare as well, only the multiple fruits on the floor was enough to last them quite a while. After hoarding the fruits inside the cave, they set down to taking their leader¡¯s prize into the cave: the body of the thunder-hawk baby. It took all 8 of them to carry 1.3m animal, which might seem like a joke until you thought back to the fact that all these goblins were still children who stood at around 70cm. Add to that fact that all of them were scrawny and quite malnourished. All of this added to the magic of how a goblin had managed to kill such a monstrous bird. This was a quality of a leader: having the same circumstances as others but managing to do more, much more than they could. The move to the thunder bird baby¡¯s cave would be stupid and insignificant to others, something the goblins themselves thought once sober from the adrenaline from fighting/running for their life/lives, but in fact it was the first step which led to causing a racial usurping in the blood valley!
Power is more than just strength Vision slipping away, the now elected chieftain sat inside the cave staring at the corpse of the thunder-bird as his yawns became more frequent. In contrast to the intenseness and brutality of the fight, the corpse was actually well kept as the only actual injuries it had were small wounds where the scabs once were and the now caved in eyeholes. Humans had started a classing system for monsters, on it simple goblins were in the first tier whereas thunder-birds were all the way up in the third tier. This might not seem like much at all but it wasn¡¯t actually based on just fighting strength. Instead it was based on what that animal preyed and what it could prey on, which although did rely on fighting strength had also other variables to consider. This in turn meant that thunder-birds didn¡¯t even prey on 1st tiers like goblins due to have weak and scrawny they were. Their prey were usually 2nd tier and rarely 3rd, this was as they were only at the middle stage of 3rd tier so would need to fight a life/death battle just to kill another 3rd tier. This showed in the fight as the goblin couldn¡¯t even cause any serious injuries to the thunder-bird as his attacks barely scratched its body. The only way he had won was due to it being a mentally disabled bird, alongside the fact that it had already been weakened by the other baby thunderbirds. Otherwise his spine would have been snapped from a bite before he got anywhere close the eyes. Despite his exhaustion, he had stayed awake by staring at the corpse. It brought up feelings of pride and confidence in him, something he had never experienced before as it made his body feel lighter and stronger. It felt like the control over his body had exponentially increased as the scrawny arm of yesterday felt like an object of power in his eyes now. Nevertheless the losing battle against sleep came to an end as he collapsed onto the now- shattered rod.
He had volunteered as guard while the other goblins slept alongside the chieftain. He had been the other goblin the now-chieftain had been with when they had visited the blood-valley for the first time in desperation for food. They had been the same then, two weak goblins and yet in the space of a day the chieftain had distinguished himself from the others through bravery to fight such a monster while he had ran away alongside the rest of the goblins despite having a rod. The guard didn¡¯t understand the feeling in his heart but it felt bad, his attention kept wavering as he constantly though back on the moment when he had chosen to run instead of face the monster. If the other goblin could do it, how could he not have done the same? And yet he had ran away from his path to glory while his counterpart had rushed up it. The more he thought about his choice, the worse he felt about it and yet he couldn¡¯t just ignore it. His lamenting came to an abrupt close as he heard a loud monstrous roar, from inside the cave¡­ It was as if God had been reading the guard¡¯s mind as a similar situation was repeated, he was once again given the choice. His feet staggered, his hand clenched the rod with fear, but he still walked towards the cave. ¡°Wragggh!¡± What came next was a groan of pain: more specifically a goblin¡¯s groan of pain. It seemed to consolidate the guard¡¯s will as he broke off into run into the cave. The monster he saw was something he had never expected: nothing. There was no massive monster roaring like he expected, instead all he saw was the other 7 goblins groaning in pain, as if in a chorus, while the chieftain roared in pain. It was also the first time he experienced it, that is to say the ¡°pressure¡±. Several blood vessels expanded and exploded around the guard¡¯s body as he felt something pull at his heart. Nevertheless the fear and trepidation he should have felt turned into something else as he ran towards the chieftain, unwilling to cry in pain as he gritted teeth. But the steps that started fast slowed down even faster as he felt the ¡°pressure¡± increase the closer he got near the sleeping goblins. Inside the cave were the roars and the echoes of cries of pain, and yet none of this entered the guard¡¯s ears as his collapsed onto the floor, unable to control his body as it twitched rapidly in pain. He joined the chorus of cries with the chieftain as the choir leader, roaring as others cried. Only the gods knew how long this continued on for as all the goblins felt their minds overwhelmed.
The chieftain opened his heavy eyes in fear as all his body could feel was pain, a pain he hadn¡¯t gone to sleep with. An overwhelming desire crashed into the pain in his mind, and it seemed to consume it as all the pain he felt was suddenly replaced by an intense desire of food. Thunder rumbled out of his stomach as his body instinctively leaped at the body of the thunder-bird before he could even think, though his leap must have been too powerful as he smashed into the wall of the cave instead. Nevertheless the wall did little to deter him as he instead ran this time, only to find himself head-butting the floor. The balance over his two feet seemed completely wrong as he couldn¡¯t even walk, and thus instead crawled towards the delicious food. Previously in the fight even his splintered rod could do little to damage the thunder-birds skin, and yet now it just seemed barely tough as his claws ripped through the skin after 2 tries at tearing it apart. They say hunger is the best spice, perhaps too good a spice as the chieftain felt a pleasure so strong he groaned in happiness the second he ate the bloody flesh. Nothing else mattered as he went into a parallel to a drug-induced rampage; swimming through the flesh with his teeth before swallowing all the blood and meat without even chewing. The minutes felt like seconds as the chieftain quickly found his lust for flesh sated. What he seemed to ignore was the fact that he had eaten several kilograms of meat during that loss of control, enough meat to last his goblin-self around a week previously. Though he could ignore the mental changes, it was impossible to ignore the physical changes. The previously 70cm goblin was now 1.5m, dwarfing the baby thunder-bird body that had towered him previously. His stick like legs had become tree trunks, wide and muscular while his skin seemed closer to a reptiles than ever before as it essentially became tanned leather, though green. His arms had been elongated as they were no longer stubs on his torso, and instead were so long that he could reach his knees while standing tall. Only the torso in question didn¡¯t fit the body as the well-defined upper torso followed onto a bulging out stomach, filled with his recent superfluous meal. With his own body and its needs checked for, he decided to finally look at the bloodbath that had a few hours ago been just a few goblins sleeping. All of them had veins protruding out, though some had deflated of blood after bursting. He was sure they were dead, after all he had woken up in a literal bath of blood, though he had been too hungry to care. He even saw the one that had lied closest to him had actually had more than just his veins explode, his corpse looked like it belonged on a trampled over war field rather than in a cave. It looked like the ones closest to him looked the deadest, thus he decided to check the ones on the edges in case any of them had luckily survived.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. It wasn¡¯t all gloom as it turned out 4 goblins had survived the ordeal, including the goblin who had been guarding. Perhaps survived was an overestimation as most of them were barely identifiable as alive. Confusion was painted all over the chieftain¡¯s face as he thought of ways to heal them. The confusion wasn¡¯t from lack of ideas but rather from an extremely prominent one that he couldn¡¯t understand: to feed the goblins with the bird meat. It was as if his body had reacted with something while he had eaten it, since his mind now valued the bird meat well above the blood-berries. Thus he ripped some of flesh the off and fed it to each of the goblins that had ¡°survived¡± and it seemed to work as it alleviated their conditions. Mostly anyway, as one of them passed away even despite the meat, perhaps he should have felt sad or powerless but the chieftain felt nothing as he saw the goblin slowly pass away. It was just simply another process of life to him but perhaps the bigger point was that goblins didn¡¯t have the same amount of sympathy a human had. Though no longer in danger of death, he doubted any of the injured goblins could move for a while. Thus after putting the recovering goblins to the side, through which he noticed how light and short these scrawny goblins were, he piled the dead goblins alongside the dead bird as food. Goblins didn¡¯t do this due to religion or superstition, they did it because their bodies functioned as food so it would be a waste to not eat the corpses. Since the messy business was done, he decided to walk outside the cave only to notice a full moon was out. He looked over the day¡¯s event to discover it must have been either the blood-berries he had eaten or the fight with the bird that had caused his body to change. After all he couldn¡¯t eat any of the bird¡¯s flesh after the fight and rest of the things he had done that day was nothing of importance. Confusion seemed to be the only answer he received as he couldn¡¯t discover the origin of his change, furthermore the confusion only grew when he thought at why the other goblins had been injured. It was clearly his change that had caused them harm, after all the closer ones had worse injuries but no matter how much he thought, he couldn¡¯t figure out the reason for either of the day¡¯s mysteries. A piece, it¡¯s what he felt he lacked, a piece that could connect all the mysteries together. Eventually giving up, he decided to walk further into the valley. Most the birds were sleeping, this wasn¡¯t because they couldn¡¯t hunt at night or such as they had great nocturnal vision, but rather because during the night they would no longer be the predators. Thus they preferred to conserve their life at night, when the forest became the playground of proper monsters. He walked all the way to the cluster of caves in around 25 minutes, this was how far he had come last time with the other goblin and it was here where they had watched the human fight several adult thunder-birds. Deciding the risk wasn¡¯t worth it, he walked backwards to the cave, but not the one he stayed in. In fact the bird they had killed wasn¡¯t the only weak one, just that it was the weakest of the bunch, thus the furthest away from the others. On the way he had seen a few a caves which piqued his interest. After all, he knew his changes had made him powerful now, but how powerful? His feet whispered as he began to tip-toe his way into the cave. It was wider than the cave he currently stayed in but not by much. Echoes rang from inside which made the soft snores sound more like a song, not a very beautiful one mind that. His eyes adapted to the darkness as he saw a fluff ball curled up in the corner, though this one also had a few feathers near its head, showing it was close to maturity. It was clear that he had underestimated his own abilities as he suddenly found himself next to the fluff ball¡¯s head without getting mauled, though it wasn¡¯t a flawless journey as it turned out the bird wasn¡¯t a very still sleeper. Standing near the helm of the ship, the big birdy fleshy ship, he felt the urge to kill it. Although not a strong urge, the goblin embraced it as he reached out to the ¡°pressure¡± in his body. He had first noticed after killing the first baby thunderbird that his body felt lighter but stronger despite looking the same. He had no answers then but now he had a vague guess. This ¡°pressure¡± wasn¡¯t the same as the other pressure, where your body felt stifled and locked up due to the anxiety and stress. Rather this one was much better as his body fully embraced it. The only reason why he called it a ¡°pressure¡± was because the more he focused it on a body part, the more fatigue that body part would feel afterwards. His arms, more specifically his claws and muscles, seemed to grow as he focused the ¡°pressure¡± into them. Sweat dripped down as his concentration grew, alongside the size of his arms. In fact it felt like the air itself seemed to part as his claws sliced through it, almost like water as he could now feel the fluidity of air. ¡°CRAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!¡± Nothing like thunder yet, but the echoes amplified the noise making the goblin stumble backwards. His mind seemed in disarray as his ears still rang but the bird seemed not to care as it pecked forwards. The goblin knew the danger of his arms when ¡°pressurised¡±, and so instead of blocking his ringing ears, he had actually put them in front of him in an x shape. After all, one doesn¡¯t simply scratch their nose when holding a chainsaw. The peck aimed at the claws did damage, big damage but not at a low cost. It had met one claw and went through it like a hot knife through butter, leaving a bleeding stump but the other claw had actually stabbed towards the beak during the time and somehow penetrated it to stab the bird¡¯s tongue. Imminent death disappeared from the goblins view as the bird slightly retreated and screamed in pain. Ignoring the sliced through arm, he instantly jumped at the bird stabbing towards the bird¡¯s head once more. He had focused all the ¡°pressure¡± into the remaining arm instantly, though it would turn out to be a double edged sword. Due to the pressure in the arm, it easily smashed through the brain¡¯s skull, ramming into its brain just before the arm itself exploded in the bird¡¯s head due to the overwhelming ¡°pressure¡± inside of it. It was further unlucky that the bird had a post-mortem spasm, a violent one as it smashed its whole body into the goblin just as it died. While both were similar heights, the bird weighed about double and had quite a bit of momentum due to the small charge, resulting in the goblin being driven into the wall. The strain on the wall was clear as cracked lines now decorated it. It was said that sometimes people breakthrough in times of pressure, due to how hard they strain in order to succeed. It was certainly true in this situation as the pain he felt completely blanked his brain of any thought or action but his body instinctively sent ¡°pressure¡± over, cooling it down and maximizing performance. It was a few seconds later his head was cool enough to think, and suddenly realised the severity of his situation. Turns out that the bird didn¡¯t just have one post-mortem spasm but many as it kept bashing against the walls, spreading the cracks even further. Increasing the amount of ¡°pressure¡± over his whole body which in turn lowered the pain, he contracted his legs before leaping out of the cave, leaving behind his embedded image on the cave wall and a dead bird. The run, which should have been about 7 minutes, somehow felt like eternity as he kept forcing ¡°pressure¡± into his legs in order to keep them moving, in fear that a thunderbird hearing the commotion would come outside its cave just in time to see a very suspicious bug running away. And yet he didn¡¯t release the ¡°pressure¡± even when inside his cave as he foreboded the debilitating hunger he would feel afterwards, and thus gorged on some of the dead corpse of the thunder bird. It was then that he finally released his grip over the ¡°pressure¡±, though the second he did was the second he crumpled onto the ground, collapsing within a second due to the amount of strain he had put on both his mind and body. Not a chapter, just need help getting ideas So I actually write without a plan, without organisation or anything like it what so ever. I just sit down and write this on my laptop in about 2 hours, which will can quickly turn into 3-4 due to how much I edit. The reason I take 4 hours for 3000 words, the reason I only upload a chapter every 3 days due to the reason mentioned before, I don''t have a plan in my mind. But it''s still worked, up until now. I noticed recently I''m completly clean of any ideas what so ever, I''m stuck :''(.Stolen story; please report. And the point of this message: I hope any of you with any good ideas can PM me them. If you have any vague ones, just comment it. No matter how dumb/useless it might seem, it can easily root a much more concrete idea. Worst case scenario: I get no comments/ PM''s whatsoever and I cry Best case scenario: I get ideas and finally learn my lesson and will plan ahead from now on. End So this was my first time ever writing a novel, and i decided to do it without a plan which turned out to be a very bad idea. Basically I don''t like how the 3 chapters have progressed and how they now restrict me from some stuff. So I''m ending it, afterall it never got going and wasn''t that good anyway in my opinion.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I''l have a new novel out by this week, one which will be planned and have regular releases (hopefully). For anyone intrested, i''m currently thinking very similar themes as this novel, only it will have the plot this never had. Thank you for the 25 people who followed this novel, it''s a midget number but it meant a fucking lot, so much so that some of my days were made due to comments I got. Cheers!