The goblins had passed over the valley and they soon reached Tiluso. Seeing the kingdom before them, they smiled and were ready to invade. The hydra attack had caused them lots of casualties but they easily restored their numbers after a week.

Out of the crowd of goblins, Stake came out. Stake was no longer thin with muscle. He was greener with thicker muscle and his stats gave him a perfect ratio. During their March he had killed many creatures and absorbed their mana core. Currently, Stake was at peak rank 1. Stake did not know what he would become after reaching rank 2 since he was the first of his kind, but he hoped it was some strong.

Looking into the distance at the quiet city Stake smelled something wrong. He could feel it. He felt something bad would happen if he went towards the city. The goblin emperor came up to his side and spoke.

"Something wrong Stake?"

Stake nods and answers. "I feel like they have a trapped laid out for us in that quiet city."

Glote who was by his side spoke. "We expected this and knew they would have traps so how bad do you think this trap is?"

"If they had men fortifying the city getting ready for the invasion I might have ordered us to attack but it seems they have something in that city that will wipe out a huge chunk of us. Before we take over that city I'll go in as a scout at night. For now, everyone should rest."

Glote and the emperor listened to Stake's words and nods. Orders were quickly spread around the hordes of goblins and they all started resting. They didn't know why they were resting but they trusted their leaders.

Soon nighttime came and Stake went out hidden into the night. He went through the forest instead of the road leading to Tiluso. He made sure to not make any noise. After a while of traveling, he soon reached Tiluso.

At the walls of Tiluso, he scaled it with his claws till he reached the top. Looking around the city he spotted no one. He went from rooftops to rooftops searching for where the trap is but he could find none. Looking at the castle in the middle of the city he went towards it.

After reaching the castle he still found no one and sneaked in. Stake searched everywhere in the castle but he could find nothing. Getting a little mad that his search was leading to nothing he roamed around the castle more till he still found nothing. In the darkness, he spoke silently.

"If I was a human how would I take out the goblin army. What if the goblin army was instead Jill. How would I take her out."

In the silence, he thought and after a while, he spoke silently. "Mana core."

Stake moved down the castle in the dark silently scaling walls and ceiling as he did in the caverns of the goblin kingdoms. Soon he reached the stairs that led to the basement of the castle. He could smell the stenches of humans everywhere around the stairs.

Stake did not know how to proceed on without alerting them. He tried to think of a spell. He remembered a time where Jill went invisible after he almost killed her. He silently tried that spell out a few times over and over till it finally worked. The spell made wind rose around him and soon he became transparent.

Moving down the stairs of the basement with a spear in his hand, he looked at every detail with the night vision a goblin had. Soon he reached the bottom of the basement and saw four humans playing cards around a lamp. They had no armor since it wasn't comfortable to wear armor all the time but they did have swords by their side.

Slowly he crept upon them. He felt them out and saw they were all low rank 1. His presence was silent and he went close by them with his spear. He did not kill them and just watched them talk. He hoped for them to fall asleep so that he could kill them silently. His mana affinity made it so that he could sustain the invisibility for a while. One of the men spoke whiling drinking and smiling.

"Why do you think the goblins aren't invading yet?"

"They're probably going to scout things out first but they won't find anything. This basement has a magic enchantment that blocks the sense of goblins of up high rank 1."

Stake felt lucky but kept silent. He looked into the fire while the humans kept talking and thought about his life. What was the point of him fighting? To live so that he can keep fighting? Stake saw that everything in this world was born fighting or they died not fighting. But why fight though Stake wondered. What was the point of fighting to just keep living?

Stake didn't like his thoughts but they kept invading him. Everything about fighting to live just seems pointless. Why not just lay on the ground and wait for death. Stake knew he was going to die one day and accepted that. But why not just die now Stake thought. What was the point of all of this? Did there need to be a reason though?

But without reason, it simply seems like madness. Useless, useless, useless thoughts. He had useless thoughts and he didn't like it. Stake didn't want to think about these thoughts and to just go back to fighting and killing. He kept trying to make the thought go away but they wouldn't. He wanted to ignore them but he couldn't.

After thinking for a while he decided he should ask the person who he has fought the most about it. Jill seems to always keep fighting him even when there was no point in it. Maybe she had the answer to his questions. After thinking about this his thoughts went away.

Looking around him he saw that time had passed by a long time and the humans were all asleep. He crept up by their side and slowly drained the heat from their body using his mana. They slowly felt cold but did not know it.

Soon all four humans died of hypothermia. Stake looked at their cold body. They looked peaceful in their sleep. Stake felt something in his body then and there. He felt his mana flowed coldly all over him and towards his mind. When the mana hits his mind he felt his mind became cold. Everything became clear.

Everything about Stake became cold. He closed his eyes and felt the coldness. When he opened his eyes again he was at low rank 2. Looking at the gates the four men were guarding Stake opened it. After opening it he saw mana cores upon waves of mana cores.

The mana core here was enough to send someone towards low rank 3 if they were to absorb all of it. Stake did not smile and simply breathed in the mana around him. Mana around him went into his mouth and spread to his body.

Stake mana capacity slowly increased and his heart was about to burst. He clenched his heart tightly and kept absorbing mana. Waves upon waves of mana entered his body but his mind kept clear. His body was in pain and it was trying to catch up with his mana growth capacity. All over his body cracks started to form.

Stake's body slowly started breaking down. He did not care if this was the end, it was all or nothing. Slowly Stake's knees fell to the ground and he looked at the waves of mana cores that were half absorbed. Knowing that he couldn't absorb more and that he shouldn't he still proceeded to do so.

Stake had made a mistake. After he killed all four of those humans outside a timer was set off. Soon this whole place would blow and the mana poisoning would reach far enough that the goblins wouldn't realize it and simply die of it.

Slowly the mana cores all disappeared and the only thing left was Stake withering dried corpse. Perhaps this might be the end for Stake. Luckily it's not the end for Stake. In the depths of Stake's mind in the darkness where there was nothing, a man with purple hair and a chain in his hand woke to Stake up.

Stake saw him and he immediately attack. His punches flew in the air towards his opponent's face. His opponent simply grabbed his punch and pulled his arm throwing him away. Stake didn't land on his face and did a backflip.

"Cool backflip bro."

"Who are you?"

"Who am I? you don't need to know that."

Stake growled and charged sending a flurry of punches. His punches didn't land at all and the man seemed bored. Stake did a low kick but before the kick could land the man punched his face faster than the eye could see and sent Stake flying.

"Your going to have to do better than that, if you wanna beat me." The man smiled at Stake.

Stake got up and charged towards him again. He tried to land a single hit on the man but he couldn't. The man would punch him in the face after he attacked sending him flying. Stake would always get up after that and went in charging again.

Time passed for a long time and Stake still had not landed a single punch but slowly he was improving his capabilities of dodging the man’s punches. More time passed and now the two were punching each other without a single punch landing on each other.

Time kept passing on with the two doing the same thing until finally, Stake landed a punch. The punch froze Stake because he succeeded and the man smiled at him.

"Fighting is fun, you don't need a reason besides that. Living life and fighting for it in itself is also fun. If life wasn't fun you wouldn't have stayed would you?"

The man faded away and the corpse of Stake opened his eyes. He looked around and heard his kind walking through the basement door behind him. Slowly Stake tried to stand up and ashes fell off of him.

His kind saw him stand up and they saw the ashes fade away from his body. The color of his skin was no longer dark green and was instead cyan. Stake was no longer 3 meters tall and was now 4 meters tall. His eyes were a cold blue. On his head, one could see two short blue horns. His mohawk though was still red.

Stake was no longer a low rank 2 goblin. He was now a mid-rank 2 goblin with mental pressure and a force field around him. In his head or mind, he had extra storage of mana. Stake was no longer a killer goblin, he was now a cold goblin. Far away from Stake in a log cabin inside Jill's head, Jelly spoke.

"Looks like the experiment succeeded. Now let's check your stats. If it's good you will be the perfect vessel for us to reach rank 6 in."

-

Stake - Mid Rank 2

Age: 5

Strength: 4500

Endurance: 4500

Agility: 4500

Mana: 4500 (9000) - 450-meter range

Total Might: 22500

Passive: Mental Pressure, Force Field, Perfect Ratio, Cold Eater, Mind Mana, Cold Affinity, ...

Spells: Cold Breath, Cold Skin, Cold Eyes, ...

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