The Lantern’s light guided his fall. His feet stomped against the head of a goblin, cushioning his descend. No sooner had he fell, a dense pink cloud burst in a five meters range. The Scent of Bewitching sent these goblins in a mindless trance, and John unleashed his blade. A swift sound pierced through the cackling noises of the goblins as a single slash cut every goblin at his front in half.

Rather than rejoice, John knew it was going to be difficult. His blade and his strength weren’t equipped for a solo madness like this. ‘I can’t do this for too long.’

Two seconds were up, and the goblins came alive. Their murderous claws came swinging, while some threw themselves right at him, caring less about their own lives.

Once more, the pink mist made its reappearance. John hacked and slashed on whatever goblins that were close to him. There was no time to sheath his blade as he made use of those two seconds to his utmost.

‘Shit,’ he cursed. In a battle, it was easy to lose the track of time, and a goblin found that chance. It bit John right at the thigh, expecting blood to gush in its mouth. Yet there was none. A gel-like substance formed around John’s thigh, protecting John’s flesh from the likes of foes and goblins. At the same time, a window emerged.

Over that slight second of his waning attention, another goblin jumped on his back. Its teeth found their way right at John’s nape, yet the same thing happened. Numbers kept decreasing as their assaults continued.

“Scent of Bewitching!” for the first time he shouted his spell out loud, engulfing everything around him in a pink haze. Panic started to kick in as he grabbed the goblin on his back and threw it right at the ground, and it wasn’t over, the edge of his blade sunk right in the middle of its throat. It gurgled for its breath as blood clogged its airway.

John pulled back his sword, and blood spurted in the air. He aimed his sword at the goblin that still had its jaw around his thigh. The cold steel pierced right through its ear to the other end. He kicked it away and dislodged his bloody sword. Two seconds were up, and the goblins advanced like madmen.

‘Shit, this is crazy…why the fuck did I try to be a hero again?’ a bit too late to realize the magnitude of going up against a horde. John kept unleashing his pink mist as he paved a path with his steel sword. His speed sent numerous cuts over the goblins around him, and all of them were random swings. Yet everything hit. It was too jam-packed, not leaving even an open space to dodge or to run. For both John and the goblins.

Right, left, upswing, downswing, and even a blind backslash, John swung so fast that goblins were falling like flies. They were no retaliation as his pink mist was his biggest arsenal in this crazy battle.

Good news came, but it wasn’t the time for a smile. He quickly reviewed it and found the duration had been extended to three seconds, but no improvement on the distance.

Beyond those five meters, goblins kept rushing in at him. They rushed and plunged into the mist falling into a trance the same as their kins. But with numbers growing, the goblins piled up against each other, clueless about their actions. Each time the three seconds were up, they sprang for the attack, but John countered with the same tactic. It was like an endless loop. John lost count of how many goblins he killed but kept swinging his blade while the whole horde kept converging at him, step by step, second by second.

‘Shit, this is bad,’ John realized the danger of his situation. He could feel his breath turning heavier and at the corner of his eyes, his SP was dwindling.

The numbers were dropping at a frightening rate as John had never stopped moving. He continuously swung his blade, abandoning every lesson his Sensei taught him. Deep down, he asked for forgiveness as the techniques he learned were not meant for an all-out battle like this.

By the stroke of luck, he received a blessing over his effort.

Immediately, he made his decision. ‘Three points to vitality and three points to strength,’ a newfound strength welled within John. His heavy breath abated for the moment and a slight increase in strength in his arms plowed through those goblins like cutting down tall reeds. It was like a light that pushed him forward to the other end.

However, a big shadow loomed over him. His hunch made him turned, and his eyes widened. John leaped to the side and something crashed against the ground where he once was. John got up, unleashing another burst of mist, trancing these goblins around him. Yet his sword didn’t go for the kill. His line of sight fell upon the creature that almost smashed him into a pulp.

‘Damn, it’s big,’ he cast another Lantern’s Light and threw it over to the hulking mass of shadow. There he saw it in a different light. Its height exceeded even John’s five feet nine, and from where John stood, the gobtroll’s height was more or less similar to Shaq O'Neal. And how did he know it? Well, let’s just said that John accidentally met him in some Texas ribs restaurant.

Yet its height wasn’t the only thing that amazed John. Its width was broad and its limbs thick and plump. Whoever goblin that fathered this gobtroll, John had to pay his respect, his determination brought forth a monstrosity, and now it was up to John to take it down.

The gobtroll growled, scaring the goblins around its feet. It paved a path towards John, crushing and kicking any goblins that were too slow on their feet. The gobtroll was one of them yet at the same time, it wasn’t. It flung away the goblins that hindered its path as John was a slippery prey that it couldn’t let him be.

‘It’s coming,’ John thought. The three seconds were about to end and just as he was about to unleash another, a window opened.

His jaw dropped. John was so focused on the enemies he forgot about the heavy strain it put on his mana pool, and without it, he was wide open.

The goblins jumped on him from all sides even before the gobtroll could reach him. Bites and claws went for his flesh. He tried to retaliate, swinging his sword. But he barely cut the flesh of a goblin. Right at that moment, a blue window appeared.

‘Seriously?’ His facial muscles twitched, out of all the time he had, the system just had to grant it to him while he was being gang-banged from all sides. Then the sound of shattering mirror echoed through the cackling festival.

No sooner had John’s last line of defense shattered, he finally felt the pain of being swarmed by tiny disgusting men.

“Ahhh!” he screamed as those rotten teeth sunk through his flesh, cutting over his beige skin. In an instant, he uttered those words in his thought, ‘King Lilium Metamorphosis!’

The heart core embedded in his heart glowed in verdant light. Veins of green spread through his heart and his blood vessels, reaching every corner of his body. While outside, his body started to change.

His brown eyes shifted into a different shade, a glowing golden that was as bright as the sun. The hair on his head turned to vine with prickly thorns while wooden plates of armor emerged from under his skin, ripping his blazer and his pants into shreds as his body grew taller reaching up to two feet in height. Then a crown formed on his head, made of bocote-like wood, completing his overall look.

John swatted away the goblins that still clung to his body. They flew, helpless against the might of an Alraune King. His feet stood on the ground and John felt amazing.

‘I can see,’ within his view, every goblin was visible as under daylight. It wasn’t thermal vision or night vision, the pulsating lights within these goblins showed that he was looking at their very vitality, and the brightest was none other than the gobtroll.

It growled at the appearance of a threatening enemy. Its stubby feet rushed over, coming at John with a battle cry.

Yet John was still in a state of being amazed. His feet were like roots on the ground as he sensed every blade of grass within a hundred feet of his vicinity. ‘This is amazing,’ he thought, grinning like an idiot. But at the corner of his eyes, he saw the countdown that just reached fourteen seconds.

‘Shit, I don’t have time for this,’ he snapped out of it and noticed the incoming gobtroll. ‘Hmm? What are these goblins doing?’ John noticed the goblins around his feet, trying their best clawing and biting against his wooden exterior.

‘One thing good about them is their guts,’ John remembered the effect of his bloodline spell and he had an idea in mind.

‘Plant manipulation,’ he thrusted his hands on the ground, and immediately, the grasses within five meters grew and spiked the goblins around him like skewers. He transformed the grass into the shape of a cactus needle. But the range was too short even after being amplified.

‘Note to self, I need to grind my skills after this,’ John didn’t linger and moved on with his enhanced Scent of Bewitching. It was like a pink typhoon engulfing everything around him in a twenty-five meters range. Every goblin fell into a trance including the gobtroll.

Yet time was ticking. John snapped the spear-like needle grass and lunged at the gobtroll. The distance was close and his enhanced speed made it closer. In a blink of an eye, John pierced the gobtroll right through its chest. The momentum of his attack brought the gobtroll fell on its back. It struggled on its last breath, but in the end, its lumbering hands fell lifeless. He pulled out the huge needle, and blood started to pool underneath the corpse of a rare gobtroll. Blood dripped at the end of his needle as he stared at the gobtroll that finally fell.

‘Five seconds left!’ yet it wasn’t the end. There was still a horde that needed to be finished. John stomped his foot like root against the ground and spikes of grass needle emerged, impaling every goblin in the vicinity. He continued to unleash his wrath, killing every goblin near him until the time was up.

What left of the goblins fled to where they came from as John receded in size, slowly turning back to his human state, naked without a thread of clothes. His brown eyes gazed at the many small figures, running away from the town. Smiling, he said, “I did it.”

“What?” His eyelids grew heavy, and his body slowly turning limp. Yet seconds before falling unconscious John saw a glimpse of another blue window.