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 corpses within a dug-out hole 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 this information 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.

“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 Raraak absorbed 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 the thick and heavy cousin 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 be Raraak’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 who was 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 needle than 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 it didn'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. The ants 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 naïve 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 it teleport 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 was purely 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 the roar 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’t necessarily 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 felt an intense tearing 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 down upon 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 him towards the truth.

He had wanted power, but not like this.

No one, not even a heinous evil-doer, deserved a terrible power like this…