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.”

…

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!