Novel Blood Virtuoso: a goblin story

Synopsis: A single weak monster would evolve to become the catalyst behind the biggest calamity the world would face, earning himself the position as the most henious monster alive. But what actually happened?

Genre:Original, Action, Fantasy, LitRPG, Psychological ,Anti-Hero Lead, Magic,Male Lead ,Multiple Lead Characters, Non-Human lead, Strategy ,Strong Lead,Supernatural
Contains Gore and violence

Authors note:

An evolution story about a goblin. This is under lit-rpg but I'm focusing more on the plot/characters instead of the usual features of such stories such as the blue tables that take ages to make or the stat screens. In essence it's closer to high fantasy than lit-rpg. Expect around 9k words per week.

Much appreciated if you read the Prologue to see whether you like it or not.

Cover image is "Evolution" taken from art done by WhoAmI01
Also posted at Wattpad and Royalroadl.

Chapters:
Prologue: Malevolence is innate
(1) The insignificant events in life can lead to the significant journeys.
(2) Rising action
(3) A fight. Or is it just a slaughter?
(4) First Evolution
(5) Overpowering Might
(6) Identity
(7) Are you worthy to lead?
(8) Winner takes all - End of Arc 1
(9) Three Apex Species - Start of Arc 2 ( Timeskip)

 

Prologue: Malevolence is innate

Spoiler

???

It was done. They had actually succeeded…

In front of them was a battle. No, if it was anything, it was a war; a fully-fledged war between two species, a war unlike the others before where mutual survival was possible.

An idea, that was all it had been in the mind of one, and yet it had grown and manifested in all their minds, taking root to only grow further. And here was their masterpiece in action.




Goblin Warrior


“WARRGHH”

An ear shattering roar was howled, nothing like anything he had heard before but what followed was several echoes of the same guttural roar from the people around him.

Spoiler

“GRAGGHH”

Losing control of his own body, his hands began to tremble as from the other side he could hear a scream that shook him to the core. It wasn’t much louder than his brethren’s, nor was it particularly shrill but the meaning behind it was much more terrifying. After all it was a challenge to his life, a roar that meant they were able to play a game where “Game Over” meant one more life had been snuffed out. His heart rate exploded out of the graph as crowd mentality grew, the fear turning to anger and finally bloodlust…

The sounds meant nothing anymore, all his brain could register were the Trolls in front of him. Only God would know who started, only God would care as well, but the intimidation came to an end. What followed was a crazed charge, a one way ticket to the afterlife as none of the troops had any type of effective protection nor plan. Perhaps it was a blessing that the Trolls lived in the same forest as them, after all they had the same trash for protection as them.

And they met.

Legs slipping, skulls splitting and blood splattering were the formality as the now mushy mud dyed itself red.

First step: His grip over the shoddy-axe grew exponentially as he clenched it.

Second step: His legs nearly slipped as grime and co. now completely covered his lower half, the green skin being splattered with explosions of red and flicks of brown.

Third step: His mind stopped all thought as the ugly fucker came into view, a 1.7m tall muscular monster. It was dressed completely in the mud as you could barely see the blue of its skin, though that did little to deter his eyes from the angular head which housed two protruding tusks, both crooked just like the beady yellow eyes that equally judged him.

Acting first, the troll dashed in before smashing its whole body weight into him, which was closely followed by a quick swing of its’ own makeshift axe. He hadn’t expected the troll to act so fast and was completely dumbfounded as it charged him, leaving him even more dazed than before. Nevertheless good habits prevented death as he reacted to the shiny gleam of the blade covering his view, buckling down before he fastened his arms around the troll’s waist and pushed with all his might. This time it was the troll’s turn to be surprised as it felt a truck smash into his abs, though its’ grip didn’t slip as it followed its arc downwards onto the goblin’s back.

In fact such a strike would have been harmless if it had been made in a proper fight, but this wasn’t a fight; it was a war where breathing space was limited nevertheless space to allow movement. The goblin felt an immense pain as the axe made contact, splitting a muscle on his back. Overcoming the pain quickly due to the adrenaline, he pushed the troll down as he unfastened his arms around its waist. He pulled his arm towards the sky before feeling the warm wind. Warm wind but no axe, which he had inconspicuously dropped during his tackle of the Troll.

Moving onto plan B, he jumped onto the felled Troll, though it was well out of its daze by then as it was already quickly moving its armed arm as obstruction to the goblin’s dive onto its body. But not quick enough as the goblin safely landed on the Troll’s body, meat shielding another axe strike with his back as his open mouth housing two large fangs bit deep into the Troll’s neck. Very deep, as he felt burning a metallic taste fill up his mouth very quick, though he instantly spewed it into the Troll’s open mouth as his brain registered the last axe wound.

Hardening his will, the goblin had barely recovered his mind as he instantly wrestled the axe out of the Troll’s twitching arms. The troll was squirming violently as it tried to clear its mouth of the bloody fluid which blocked its ability to breathe. It was met with little success as it was lying on its back, weighed down by a goblin. The goblin rose the stolen axe to the sky, with the sun watching, just as the troll fully pushed itself off the floor. The desperation was beautiful as the axe smashed into the Troll’s head, cracking through the skull to leave the axe embedded in its brain.

His subconscious must have judged him out of immediate critical danger as it slightly alleviated the adrenaline he felt, only to have the goblin cringe over the mind crushing pain. The fight he had was special, but nothing special on the battlefield, as corpses of Troll’s and Goblin’s littered the place. In fact this certain goblin was in one of the better shapes out of the survivors, as most of them had collapsed under the mutual destructions that they had called a fight.

In response, his body once again increased his adrenaline. The pain seemed to subside as the bloodlust once again grew, it was a sick feeling to say the least and yet the only feeling that made any sense in a bloody hell like this.

In hindsight, perhaps it would have been better if he had never gotten back up…

“WWRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!”

The roar was as primal as one could get, fully guttural and yet as loud as the sky itself crashing into the Earth. It felt like the air itself was against him as he felt the roar rob him of his balance as he staggered backwards. They were like rising suns in the background of his vision, and yet they got big so fast. They were clearly trolls, with blue skin covering the body while a pair of thick tusks imposed itself on the world through the mouth. But they weren’t trolls; the monsters were around 2.5m tall but scarier was the fact of how muscular they were. Their bodies were literal meat mountains as the behemoths’ muscles bulged outwards.

Perhaps it was pain, perhaps it was fear, perhaps someone had even stabbed him in the time he stood dazed out but his body could no longer handle the mental nor physical stress put on it. His body crumpled down, collapsing onto the troll as his back bled outwards onto it.

Some people say your life flashes in front of your eyes as you are about to die, but how that is possible when you are faced with such debilitating fear. Instead all that came out were tears, hot streams that quickly melted down his face. It wasn’t a long wait before it came down, the constant newcomers’ roars had completely broken his will to fight, though he doubted his body’s ability to move even if he wanted to. It was a big foot, a pathetic death it was to be trampled to death, but it was another thing when you were crushed to death by a single foot. It found home on his chest as it crushed downwards, easily shattering his ribcage while mushing his organs into paste before it skipped along its path. He never even saw the face of his killer, all he had seen was a foot…

The battle had taken place in a big clearing in the forest, though now it was a dump of dead bodies. To the north was the troll’s home while to the east of the clearing was the goblin’s home. To the West it was still the forest. Dark green covered all surfaces here, whether it be through leaves or moss. Barely any sunlight got through to the forest floor, meaning all the undergrowth had taken down “different” routes to other plants as most were angular and dangerous looking. The canopy, usually filled to the brim with monsters making a sundry of noises, was completely silent.

There were two reasons for this: One being the intense battle taking place. The roars, squeals and cries seemed to capture all’s attention as no noises were made. The other reason was due to the people directly below the dense canopy to the West of the clearing.

The people were not random passer-by’s, nor any kind of adventurers. Rather they were third player of the game, just they had come slightly late, although that was no mistake. To their front were two dying armies, while behind and around each of them were perfectly rested and orderly soldiers. The fate of the trolls and goblins were decided with this move, as long as no surprises would pop up…

“CrooooooOOOOO”

The battle-horn was blown...

Some of these chapters come out as two spoiler parts just because the site keeps adding an extra set that i can't delete. Not sure why

 

(1) The insignificant events in life can lead to the significant journeys.

Spoiler

Damon

Two fingers gripped one side of the rough wood while his thumb firmly held the other side of the handle. Bending the whole arm back, his wrist flicked towards a large oak tree, releasing the knife from its hold as the index finger guided it towards the centre of the tree.

“thump”

A hit but no kill.

Another knife was picked and once again thrown, which like before was a hit but no kill. The sun had gone down by the time he had finished, multiple knife wounds now littering the tree. Very few scratched the sides of the wide tree as most were concentrated around the centre where the trunk had even slightly caved in, due to the magnitude of knife wounds. Two years of hard work hadn't gone to waste.

Collecting the knives back into his slight woven bag, the goblin set his way back to the Tribe. Training for social monsters was important as they were usually born with little to none innate skills and thus had to learn many through their life in order to survive. The importance of this was only multiplied when you lived in the Great Forest, a large forest range that was rumoured to be the entrance to somewhere else otherworldly.

And yet goblins had no dedicated training sessions; it was seen as a waste of goblin resources as it wouldn’t have an immediate apparent increase in survival. Thus the older goblins preferred to allow the younglings free range and allowed them to do as they wished, after all only the strong and hardworking ones would survive all the way up to adulthood. The harsh calluses on the walking goblin’s palm gave clear testament to his work ethic.

His mind seemed to run amok as he walked towards the tribe, it was visiting certain parts of his short life which had an effect on him, though in no particular order.

He had lived 3 long years, which although was extremely short when compared to some species, was actually congratulatory. After all a goblin grew to complete adult hood at the age of 5, though the average in the Great forest was a meagre 1 years, which was what made the goblin’s age of 3 congratulatory.

Goblins were considered a spawn animals by other intelligent species; this being attributed due to their quick growth periods and high birth rates: a female goblin could give birth every 3 months, meaning a total of around 4 babies per year for each female goblin. This alongside their weak strength made sense why others considered goblins a spawn species, which only made it more confusing why such a species was in the Great forest, even if it was just the outskirts region. Goblins were generally found on the plains with foliage, though that was a different matter in the Great forest where the foliage itself was more of a shield than greenery.

He hadn’t been named at birth, after all their survival rate was very low. He had named himself at his first anniversary, proof of his significance by living for so long, as Damon. It was also around that time Damon had seen Gregal, the strongest goblin in the village, kill an Alpha wolf with a single axe throw. It had sparked inspiration in the little goblin to learn throwing, which although wasn’t a strong passion, was one he had continued for 2 years due to the consistent results.

Damon had already arrived at the village, unbeknownst to him, while still lost in his thoughts.

“CrroooOOOOOOOOOOO”

His stupor was quickly broken by a blaring horn-blow, which transformed his gentle walk into a rushed jog towards the centre of the village. The village itself was made of huts and a clearing. The huts were made out of mud and several strong plant materials. Each goblin used to make their own huts due to its simplicity but now most just used old unoccupied huts made by others due to their low survival rate. The countless huts surrounded a circular clearing in the middle, around 20m radius, which was now filled with several goblins.

Goblins anatomy-wise were not the most exciting creatures: they were humanoid creatures with distinguishing features being their fangs, above average nose sizes and angular eyes. Though the biggest give-away was their pasty green skin. The goblins in terms of size weren’t too small but definitely not big either, the average males in the forest went up to 160cm while the average females reached 155cm. Damon himself was already 120cm, and would be taller than his counter-parts were it not for their early deaths. Instead he was up against goblins older than him, most reaching from 130-150cm.

This basic description agreed with around 90% of the goblins who kept on swarming into the clearing, ballooning the number of goblins in the clearing to around 80 by now. The 10% remaining were the goblins at the centre of the clearing, because surrounding the large blow horn was a well-aged goblin and several other large, muscular goblins.

“Quiet!” The aged goblin bellowed and it was quickly followed as the noisy rabble instantly quietened down.

“Over the last week, a warrior stumbled upon a cave which earned us a loss of life!”

“Luckily the rest of his group escaped and the warriors have now investigated that area. We are now confident that what lies in that cave is a silverback bear. Know that the monster is a tier two, meaning a massacre on our side would be necessary if we wanted it. However the investigations have also shown that the monster is currently at maximum size, meaning no one here could ever hope to kill it. But that is also to our advantage, after all any monster at maximum size would want to evolve.”

The raspy voice continued onwards onto a few more details about minor matters before concluding the meeting.

“A silverback bear evolves into a moon bear by bathing in moonlight for a night,this means just as it is evolving, it will be weakened and we can kill it. Its next evolution's strenght depends on the amount of moonlight it can absord in a night, so it will definitely wait for a full moon. It is just within our luck that the next full moon will be in 2 days, meaning we have enough time to prepare. Remember that as long as we get the bear’s body, we can forcibly evolve ourselves!”

His speech ended on what the people actually cared about.

“We will be sending 10 warriors alongside with a few pack carriers in order to make sure the warriors are in best condition as they arrive.”

What proceeded was him choosing 10 of the strongest warriors standing near him, in which there were two notable ones: Raarak and Withil. Both were extremely strong warriors at the top of the pack but more importantly, both were vying for the next position as Chief. In truth the village’s strongest Gregal could have solo finished this task, but it seemed he and the current aged Chief seemed to agree on using this task to indirectly test the two candidates. Whichever one succeeded would have an advantage over the other, enough so for one of the two to be chosen as the next Chieftain.

He was done within seconds, after which he began naming the pack carriers.

“…., ….., ….., Damon,….”.

A smile bloomed widely on Damon’s face as he heard the golden word. Although it instantly wilted within the next second.

“Chieftain, I desire a battle with Damon for his position!”.

“…hmm… Accepted”.

The goblin who had requested to fight him wasn’t after the extremely “glorious” position of pack carrier but rather the baggage it came with . The warriors would have monopoly over the beast’s carcass as they brought it back and the pack carriers who came alongside with them would have second dibs. Having a better quality piece could exponentially increase chance of success, which in turn made perfect sense why the other goblin had wanted his place.

The reason for choosing Damon? He was the smallest of the bunch.

Within seconds an area had been cleared out as the warriors made the physical parameters for an arena. Across the circle stood the challenging goblin who was 130cm tall and quite a bit more muscular than Damon. The goblin had in his arms a small axe while his other arm edged towards his woven bag around his waist.

In truth it was a pathetic attempt, it was similar to standing in front of a football and pulling your foot completely backwards while in front of a professional footballer: they would know exactly what you were about to do and how to respond, due to experience and expertise.

The arm suddenly shot into the bag, grabbing a knife which the goblin instantly threw. It was simply unfortunate that Damon had already rolled backwards, causing the knife to fly overhead. Damon's hand flowed like water as he shot towards his own bag, a well-practised action as what followed was extremely fluid: a straight throw towards the goblin’s chest.

Clearly flustered by the lack of gaps between Damon’s actions, the other goblin flinched before jumping backwards.

“RAARGH!”

The moment of hesitation revealed its dangers as the knife missed the kill but still hit, just as it had done on the tree. Blood streamed down the goblin’s arm with the knife at the centre, akin to an overflowing volcano.

The warriors surrounding the two seemed amused due to the amateur attempt at fighting shown by the challenging goblin. He was well known in the tribe as a future goblin warrior candidate, and yet he was absolutely ruined when faced against an expert. In truth most goblin's wouldn't focus on knife throwing and certainly wouldn't persist on it as long as Damon had. Damon was without a doubt the second best at knife throwing in the village, though that meant little when faced up against a few of the skills the warriors had.

Gritting his teeth, the challenging goblin clenched his jaw down although tears still escaped his eyes. Damon was about to throw another knife just as the other goblin dashed forward, ducking below the now-speeding knife as he reached close proximity.

The goblin was at least 4 years old and he hadn’t just wasted 4 years, after all one couldn’t survive here if one had done such. Instead he had well trained his close combat skills as nearly all other goblins did and it clearly showed as he used his only able hand to strike the axe downwards. Damon used another knife to clash the axe, though the strength difference was clear as day as Damon’s wrist began to bend under the pressure.

It was also within that second Damon let go of the knife, though by no accident, as the downwards force meant the other goblin staggered forward, striking thin air. This was enough time as Damon jumped backwards while he threw another knife out. Missing at this range would be a joke for an amateur, nevertheless an expert at knife throwing. The knife blade met the goblin’s eye as it pierced through, reaching the brain.

The goblin staggered forward once more just as he collapsed: an instant death.



???

He was born bigger than the rest. At the age of 1, he had already reached other 3 year olds. At the age of 15, he was already the biggest in his tribe and his growth had still not finished. It was at just a month after his 15th that the tribe lost their leader due to an attack. He had made himself a name in the tribe but his size was nothing when compared to the fame of a few of the elders. But none of that mattered not, it had been passed down their species that the strongest would be leader. This made perfect sense, after all which troll didn’t love a good fight?

 

(2) Rising action

Spoiler

Goblins

The goblins had set off at night, in order to get to the bear’s cave by first light. This was because the silverback bear was diurnal just like humans and goblins, and that only got emphasised by the fact that bear was planning to go into evolution that very day. All of this added up, basically meaning that the bear would be extremely aware of its surroundings during the day, due to its incoming self-induced period of weakness. Thus the goblins had decided to get to and camp near the bear's cave during the night, meaning all unnecessary movement could be minimalised in order to not rise awareness in the bear before its evolution.

It was a good plan but it forgot one matter; the fact that the bear would be extremely aware during the day due to the dangers it could face at night, dangers far more fearsome than a pack of goblins. The dark was the hunting period of the true monsters, monsters so strong that a silverback bear was nothing but a fat cat to them. It was the reason why the bear wanted to evolve amongst many other reasons. Now this was all well and good for the bear but it was another thing when it came to the goblins, monsters who were top tier one at best and basically equivalent to plankton in a food chain at worst. The moving goblins looked like ants to some of the monsters, barely noticable, while others saw them as easy food.

Withil's POV

It would explode anytime now, my god damned ear-drums that was! Fear was something I utterly despised, it was an emotion that would through all logic out of the window just to increase survivability, no matter the cost.

The pain in my legs were only increasing but I couldn’t stop them, not now at least.

Why did the bumbling fool of a pack carrier have to step on an Acid worm, the god damned thing shone fluorescent and gave of a rancid odour! Who in this world would want to go near that thing and yet this retarded 3 year old ran straight to it like it was his toy or something. AND. THAT. WASN’T. EVEN. THE. END. OF.THAT!

Of course it wouldn’t be, a goblin of that size would barely act as an appetizer for such a disgusting monster.Now what would be perfect as a follow up main-meal would be a grown up warrior goblin, but why did it have to be my fucking man instead that bastards'!?

Spoiler

“SKRAAAA”

I rolled to the side as I heard the deafening sound, though nothing seemed to go well today as I felt a scorching pain on my arm.

“ARGHH!”.

Fuck! I could see it coming, not really as my eyes were well blurred up by now but then again you didn’t need the best vision to see such a bright hell hole heading your way.

“SKRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

This time it screamed in pain, at what I didn’t wonder or care about, as I instantly jumped backwards behind a thick tree that protected my body from immediate danger. Frantically searching, my hand finally stumbled upon the Black water in my waist satchel. It seemed to splatter more on the forest floor than my arms as my shivering hand tried to pour it onto the acid that continued to burn away at my arm.

Offense is the best defence and the best type of self-torture, especially when the water you are using is an extremely strong and effective disinfectant. The pain was unimaginable to say the least, I felt better having the arm scorching away than disinfecting it with black water.

“Garrgh!?”

Severe back pain quickly spread over my back in less than a second as I looked backwards, though all that entered my vision was a thick dark tree in contrast to a blindingly bright monster behind it, not at all unlike the sun peeking over the horizon. My vision seemed to blur further-still as my brain fully registered the pain on my back, added with pain over my arms and legs. I instantly bit into my able hand in an attempt to stay awake, I would be dead if I slept here after all but to it was to no avail…


...


“Ugh huh hu uh hu uh”

My body was heaving violently, even after my eyes broke open their barriers. The whole place was an un-naturally dark, unlike midnight. At midnight, you had moonlight but right now I had no light. Though it didn’t matter much as I was currently seeing with my night vision, I looked around and saw about a dozen or more goblins in this little enclosed space. It should have been a perfect 15, it should have been but it wasn’t. My heart seemed to feel an incorporeal pain, one that I could sense but in no way fix at the loss of my man.

Had I been particularly close to him? No, he had followed me due to his belief in me but that was enough for me to look after him. Furthermore half my arm had been melted away, half my god-damned arm. Rot had started growing over the aftermath, although that wouldn’t matter much as long we evolved. If we evolved that was. Anger bubbled inside my mind and only grew as I thought of it, why had we even brought pack carriers? Keep us in our best situation my ass, all of us here were mentally and physically exhausted due to their naivety.

It took quite a while for my mind to calm down, though we had an abundance of time since the attack on the bear would be at night; we wouldn't even be able to move around today due to the chance of giving away our presence.

*sigh*

I edged over to one of men, perhaps my longest serving one. I could see the scumbag Raraak watching me, the bastard was big for sure though I doubt anything was happening up in his head.

“Ahh Withil, you are up!”

“Yes I am Roger, though not in the best conditions”

“Haha, of course not but which one of us here isn’t exhausted due to that unlucky encounter”

My mouth soured downwards at that as my eyes grew more slanted. It seemed Roger got the cue not to talk about it as he dryly coughed it away. All of a sudden, something clicked in my mind as I wondered why I hadn’t died? Thinking back, I had seen something shining bright green whack the tree I had been leaning on, which was clearly the acid worm. But why? It had 1000’s of more effective attacks and yet it had decided to attack me by whacking itself into the tree? And why had I not died after fainting right in front of that disgusting monster?

It was like Roger could read my mind as he quickly changed topics to the very ones I had been thinking off.

“Ahh Withil you must be wondering what happened after you fainted. Yes?”

“No tell me even before that, I had been leaning on that tree but that worm decided to just whack me? What happened to it for it to do that?”

“Mmm, that was that pack carrier. What his name again?”

“Pack carrier?! He did what?”

“Of course, it was young Damon. You know, that goblin who was challenged for his position and killed the challenger with a knife. He did similar to the worm, a good battle sense on the boy, as he threw knives right into the worms sensors. It is granted that anyone can tell where its sensors are without ever seeing it before since they move around like crazy, sensing the air, but its another question to hit them both.”

Finally some gold uncovered from the shits.

“Tell me more about this Damon. Has Raraak already recruited him under his banner by any chance?”

“Not at all. You know what Raraak respects with that body of his, people alike him who fight fully frontal. In fact I believe Raraak actually belittles the boy for using knives, though I believe its more so because he saved your ass. Haha”

My face soured again, though this time he seemed to take no heed of the hint as he chuckled away.

He soon stopped and carried on about Damon. “Right , about the boy. I’m not entirely sure about his situation, though I heard he has been practising knife throwing for quite a long time. Now I’m not sure but I reckon its due to Gregal, you know how he throws those axes of his. If I was a kid who saw him do ones of his throws, I too would be obsessed like young Damon.

Something seemed up in his mind as he stopped for a few seconds, before looking me right in the eye and saying "I think you should go and intimidate him into joining your banner, after all we just lost the two talents of Rodrick and Ragger. It wouldn’t hurt to heal those injuries a bit, especially since Raraak has been acting a lot bolder after your losses. The boy Damon is still young and small, a goblin variant like you could easily shape his thoughts now so that he follows you later.”

He had a point that I couldn’t refute, the boy had a good battle sense but that didn’t get rid of his naiveté, it was only something that disappeared after experience.


Damon

Damon sat huddled in a corner of the cave, he had hoped his prowess had set him apart from his fellow pack carriers and yet he did not see Raraak coming over. Raraak was with no doubt the biggest goblin he had seen, reaching 1.9m. The goblin was muscled to the toe and was seen by other goblins as the ideal image to aim for, and yet Raraak and his flagship avoided Damon like the plague, despite his performance. Instead Raraak talked to another pack carrier who had had also set himself apart from the crowd, although it was through being bigger and carrying a heavier load. Inside of him was a feeling of disappointment at his dashed hopes but worse still were the feelings festering within him: feelings of disdain for the mediocrity shown by the pack.

He had worked himself hard to increase his skill to such a high level and yet some fool had got all the favourable attention for just being big. *sigh*

It was at this moment Damon noticed a goblin edging towards him, someone he instantly identified as Withil. Withil was the most popular goblin against Raraak, which was a bit surprising since Withil did not have any notable physical features, such as bigger size, distinguishing himself from the other warriors.In fact Withil was almost the polar opposite of Raraak, since Raraak had distinguished himself through brawn while Withil had done it through his brain. It had been the reason why the Chieftain had banned direct conflict between the two, as both were invaluable for the tribe’s prosperity.

“Hey Damon”

“Yes sir”

“Call me Withil boy. I’m pleased to see another day boy, you saved my life. I have heard about how you did it from my man and I'm impressed by your skill on the knife. Enough so that I can offer you a chance under my name, you can be my man from hence onwards.”

Shock filled Damon’s mind as he thought over what had been said. Of course he had saved Withil and had expected some kind of reward for it afterwards but surely going under Withil's banner was too cheap of a gift. In fact it wasn’t even a gift…

Living up to his rumours, Withil easily read Damon’s face as he saw the shock and disdain.

“Don’t misunderstand me, coming under my banner isn’t some random gift. It means when I get the beasts body, you will be able to get a higher quality part and be associated with me in the future when I become the chief. Perhaps you think me too ambitious and would rather Raraak, but have you ever considered all the people in his group. They are all big and strong with nothing else, who cares about your knife skills when you are close to half their size.”

“Just join me boy, believe me when I say you will not regret it”…




The Trolls- ???

In front of him stood the Chief’s hound, a pathetic troll that all trolls looked down upon. He was a troll who licked the previous Chief’s feet in order to reach the top and then proceeded to flounder his false power.

I looked him down, his blue skin looked diseased as it was shaded a murky green. All troll’s took care of their tusks and yet the troll in front of him had cracked tusks. His eyes were as beady as they got as he alike stared me down. Directly in front of me was a good old bludgeon, it wasn’t fancy but did the job. The rough wood of the body led to a heavy top made out of iron metal, I was told it had been a weapon stolen from some dumb humans, a story I refused to believe as this bludgeon itself was 1.5m long and weighed 45kg. How could any of them wield this!?

Within an instant, the hound had contracted his body and ran forwards. It was a fast dash, one that was used to catch one of surprise, but I reacted just as quick as the cold metal of the bludgeon smacked the air as I lifted the weapon of the floor. I raised the weapon into a defensive position, though it was perhaps over the top as the hound suddenly slipped during his dash, whilst within my range. Foolish! My legs moved with pure instict as my pose changed in order to whack his diving head.

I was wrong. He mush have chuckled as he saw me follow his lead, just before he instantly straightened his body, flashing the cold glint of a short sword before my eyes: it had been a trap…

My hands opened up as I reacted, dropping the bludgeon whilst punching one of my fists into his body. But it was too late, far too late as the short sword pierced through my ribcage, only centimetres away from my heart. His body flew onto the floor as my weakened-punch still did damage, bruising his arm.

I don’t know what it was, no that was a lie. I knew what it was, a feeling of the past, the feeling of pure unadultered anger. It had its source deep within my confidence in my body, and yet it had only ever weakened me. After all it's easier to deal with an angry monster than it is to deal with a crafty human hunter.

But I must have forgotten all the beatings I had gotten in the past for my stupid anger, I must have forgotten all the times I had come close to death due to it because I let it grow within me. What entered my head was the primate feeling of anger, and what exited was a pure roar of hatred…

 

(3) A fight. Or is it just a slaughter?

Spoiler

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.

Spoiler

“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…

 

(4) First Evolution

Spoiler

Goblins

Slicing through the air, the knives struck their unmissable target. Damon had thrown 3 of them, not simultaneously but fast enough for the bear to have no time to protect its vitals. Two of the knives slid into the bear’s flesh but were easily shaken off as the bear continued to attack the warrior goblins. In fact the bear didn’t even notice those two knife strikes, they had been completely shadowed by the pain and high it was feeling from other sources. But it certainly felt the last knife he had thrown, it had found its home within the bear’s eye cavity.

“RAWWWR”

The bear roared in pain but the goblins barely took notice as they had already been completely desensitized to sound during the fight, after all the bear had battered them with roars throughout the whole thing.

Damon continued to throw knives at the bear, though none of them hit any vitals like the eyes. The fight had been going on for about 3 minutes now, the constant attacks on the bear had certainly worn it down as its movements were beginning to slow, even if they still had the same anger behind them. But this was even more evident for the goblins who had been on the defensive positions for the whole time, despite the fact that they were here to hunt the bear. Withil’s other men had already fallen, either due to death or from exhaustion but it had been fine since Raraak’s men had gotten back up to fight again. Though this did little to help considering most of them were also taken out, currently there was only Withil, Roger, Raraak and another goblin warrior under Raraak’s flag fighting since all the others were downed.

Due to the major downtime in comparison to the first half of the fight, the bear finally had time to think as its immediate danger went down. It was then that the cunning bear realised that even if it beat the goblins, it would need to rest for months just to attempt to evolve again. It had been completely overwhelmed by anger at the goblins attacking it, it was as if a mouse starting attacking a lion: the mouse was even too small to be the lion’s prey and yet it was the one attacking the king?! But why did the bear have to fight when it had no advantages to be won from such a fight?



Raraak wielded his large battle axe with one hand as he went in for another strike, his body already completely exhausted. All the fighters in this battle had been warriors, goblins used to long and hard battles. But that was against enemies of similar battle prowess, but here just blocking the bear’s strikes made his joints creak as the massive pressure threatened to break through his limbs. At this moment, he and Roger were on one side of the bear while Withil was on the side. His man had already fallen to the ground and was struggling to get up.

Rising his axe once again, Raraak lumbered onwards as blood slipped down his body, targeting the bear who was hopefully just as tired. It was to his and all the goblins' surprise when the bear suddenly exuded out energy as it actively bashed into them. Their mouths physically gaped at what followed: the bear ran away. It was almost like depression hit them as all of the remaining warriors fell onto the ground, after all the prey that they had sacrificed nearly all the goblin warriors for had just simply ran away. Worse still, they didn’t even have any energy left, unlike the bear ,to chase it down.


Damon felt fire burn inside himself, he felt completely belittled by the world as he saw people he had looked up to all his life face such an embarrassing defeat all due to one monster. They had all come here with high hopes, hopes that dashed away as fast as it could. He felt indignant as he felt his legs moving before he even knew it, chasing down the bear, without giving any thought as to what he would do when he caught it.

The other pack carriers seemed to break out of their stupor as they saw Damon chase the bear. None of them had fought in fear of interfering, though that made little to no sense near the end of the fight when everything had slowed down. But none of them had gone out then after seeing the monster in action, a true beast earning the name monster as it crushed warriors under its claws. It was for this reason that none of them chased the monster despite all being well, after all what would they do to a beast that even their superiors couldn’t kill? Nevertheless those worries and fears seemed to disappear as they saw Damon chase it: he was the smallest of them, how was it possible for him to have such courage when they didn't !? Thus they followed Damon and bear, due to jealousy and a bit of recovered confidence.

Damon watched the bear run for about 30 seconds, before hiding behind a large rock. Perhaps hiding was the wrong word as the bear had collapsed upon its knees, exhausted due to the accumulation of wounds and fatigue. Damon instantly slowed his steps as he began to climb the boulder the bear was hiding behind, in order to get behind the bear.

In fact such a scene was almost like a retelling of the previous scene of Withil sneaking behind the bear; the bear would have easily been able to notice both if it payed a little attention to its surroundings. During the first time, it had been distracted by its battle-high whereas now it was so exhausted that it only focused onto the forest in front of it...

His legs reached the edge of the boulder as he took out his last knife from his bag: he had thrown all the others and hadn’t the chance to recollect them. Taking a large breath he ran off the top of the boulder, freefalling on the resting bear. The knife slightly pierced the head but was stopped by the layers of flesh and the skull, in fact it was extremely unlikely a 40kg goblin would be able to kill such a muscular monster by using downwards force. Regardless it broke the bear out of its rest as it roared once more and leapt towards Damon who was now retreating backwards.

Not too behind, the other pack carriers arrived to see Damon running away from the once more enraged bear. They instantly charged towards it, unleashing their attacks upon the bear. Some might call their previous fear cowardice but in truth it was not dumbfounded. The warriors had been barely able to injure the bear, while the attacks the pack carriers unleashed did nothing but cut a bit into the fat layers. In fact the bear wasn’t even the slight fazed by the attacks as it striked one of the pack carriers into the ground, crushing his bones under the bear’s weight. It proceeded to leap onto another one, which his head it bit off…

Seeing the futility, the other two pack carriers turned tail as they sprinted off for their lives, while Damon used this time to pick up the weapon of the first dead pack carrier: a short thick sword which looked like it had seen much better days. The bear instantly relaxed its guard as it saw the goblins sprint for their lives, though it immediately turned around as it heard footsteps pacing towards it. But it was too late…

The sword was pushed upwards into the bear’s rectum, though the blade didn’t go in very deep due to the immediate reaction from the bear. Nevertheless such a strike was enough to enrage the bear as it roared due to raw pain it felt since it didn’t have folds of fat nor muscle to protect such an area. The roar of intense hatred was enough to wake Damon of his idiocy; what was he going to accomplish by himself that 12 warriors had failed to do?! Seeing the danger at his life, Damon also turned tail as he sprinted of alike to the other pack carriers. It was just his unfortunate luck that the bear most definitely would not let him get away, after all he had come back to attack it in such a place even after his previous chance to escape.


Damon POV

I jumped across the thick tree root that protruded above the ground, just fast enough to survive as I heard the sound of the root being smashed apart. I didn’t need to turn my head to see it, I could hear the beast breathing heavily with the occasional thunderous roar.

It was truly a pity my feet couldn’t run any faster as I feel my body fall out of control, as the pain overpowered my senses into oblivion. In my mind it made no sense how come the bear hadn’t fallen yet, it had been stabbed everywhere we could have stabbed it and yet it still wasn’t dead. At one point I had seen Raraak smash it across the head with his axe, and yet all he got out of that was a bite on the torso.

The pressure on me from the forest was building up, I could feel it push down on me as my feet dared not slow down despite the intense pain they were in. This was exactly why none of us came this deep into the forest, the pressure was so large that I was finding it hard to breathe at this point.

“RAWWWWWWWWWWWWWR”

Another earth shattering roar, but not aimed at me?! I feared what I would see but still whipped my head around as I saw the bear in battle with some kind of bug. I couldn’t see it clearly due to the bear blocking its figure with the bear's massive body but I was certain that it wasn’t a tier 1 beast, perhaps not even a low tier 2 beast. After all I could feel the pressure pushing down on me making it hard to catch my breath but I was sure the bear wasn’t having a jolly time this deep in the forest either, since the monsters here would start to become the ones that would be willing to fight the bear.

I had heard it during the briefing the old clan leader; the bear was a top tier 2 monster but it should actually be living around this deep in the forest, not in the cave way out where it had been hiding. It turns out this was due to it not wanting to get into fights with equal monsters in its territory before its evolution since the other tier 2s would tear it down during its weakened evolution state. I guessed that was what was happening right now, a monster had picked the bear as its prey after seeing how injured it was.

Inside of me I knew perhaps this was the only chance I would get to kill the bear, and thus decided to get closer. It would be perfect if they both killed each other, leaving with me the spoils that I could take to the chieftain but it seemed not to be the case as I saw the other monster take control. It turned out to be an extremely long centipede, one which was actually 3m long and had two large blade like limbs at its front and back. At the moment it had wrapped its needle-like feet around the bear’s head and was dragging the struggling bear somewhere, using one set of the blades to stab into the bear while the other pair was used to pull itself across the ground to move.

The centipede was far too occupied with the struggling bear to notice me tailing it as it continued onwards, towards what turned out to be a deep cave within the wall of a ledge, next to where they had fought. I continued to follow the duo until they made themselves to the end of the cave where the centipede used its other pair of blades to try and stab the bear in the heart. It had been trying to strangle the weakened bear all this time but had ultimately failed and thus it chose instead to kill it another way.

It was unfortunate for the centipede that it had to loosen its stranglehold in order to use its other pair of blades to stab alongside the other, which gave the bear the opportunity to escape. The bear roared with pain as it pulled apart the stranglehold altogether before it bit deep into where the centipedes head should be. Reacting appropriately to the danger, the centipede went into a frenzy as it began to randomly stab the bear in random areas. What followed was such a dirty struggle that I struggled to comprehend some parts of it, as blades, teeth and claws ripped each other apart.


It was almost 2 minutes of struggling before both of the monsters eased up, not due to a clear winner but rather because both were nearly dead. Damon didn’t dare to go up though, as what he had seen from the two still scared him deep inside. He waited 5 more minutes in which both of the monsters went completely still before he went towards the corpses. The bear had its whole torso ripped apart from the blades of the centipede, while the centipede had a crushed head. It certainly showed the power of the centipede as it had been able to pierce through so deep despite 12 warriors not being able to do it.

Damon made extra care to make sure the monsters were dead before directly touching them, first touching the centipede’s blade. He didn’t even notice it as he put his palm over it, but it was as he took it off he noticed his palm had been sliced through half the way. Damon wouldn’t know but the monster was actually a beast named the Blade centipede by the humans, a low rank tier 3…

That had been the reason why the monster had targeted the bear, since it knew it would come out on top. In fact if both were in prime conditions and the bear still had an able spine, it would have easily come out on top; this was because the bear was at the highest a tier two could be, and was awaiting evolution. If it had evolved, it would straight away become a mid-tier 3.

Damon hadn’t noticed as he had watched the fight but the centipedes blades were actually coated in a toxin. The bear hadn’t showed any external signs to the toxin due to its strong body but it was another matter for a mid-tier1 monster like Goblins. In fact Damon felt the effect straight after he noticed the cut, and persistent pain spreading across his body quickly. He felt his body burn up as it felt like he was actively losing his body to the world physically, as his body parts seemed to shrink. Despite in pain, Damon managed to jump into the bear’s body where he found its bloody heart, split through the middle. Seeing what the chieftain had said had the highest chance of forced evolution, Damon instantly stuffed the 20cm heart into his mouth?

It was alike to pouring cold water over a hot item, he instantly felt his body feel better as he chewed the tough muscle down into nothing. Even though the pain hadn’t died out, it certainly had subsided. Damon continued to eat the inside of the bear as he felt the pain slowly subsiding as he went further in, using his fingers to claw out the parts of the bear, although none of the meat cooled his body down like the heart had.

After battling the pain for about an hour, Damon noticed not only had he been filled by the massive meat meal but the pain hadn’t died out either! Instead he could feel it growing once more and yet the meat from the bear seemed to have little effect in subsiding it unlike the heart had. Not wanting to lose out to the pain, Damon turned his head towards the Centipedes body which was getting cold. He noticed the centipedes shell was crushed at certain points where the bear had bitten it, namely its head and halfway down its body. In hope of the Centipede's heart, Damon began to dig through the centipede’s meat which he also ate. It was then he noticed that this meat had a bigger counter-effect on the pain than the bear meat, which turned into a thing of joy as he felt the pain almost disappearing.

Almost 30cm through the centipede, he noticed a large bloody organ that gave off strong sense of power, alike the bear’s heart had. Gulping down his saliva, he knew this was the centipede’s heart and it was like a dream as he ate the heart, fully escaping the pain he had been in. In fact it turned out to have other side-effects as well since he almost felt like all the meat he had eaten suddenly entered his stomach, as he all of a sudden he felt his stomach fill up completely. Being in a cave with a full stomach, his body fully relaxed as the strains of the day accumulated, tiring him beyond exhaustion. It was only 2 minutes since he ate the heart that he fell into deep sleep, still surrounded by the cold, bloody corpses of the two monsters.

In fact forced evolution wasn’t usually successful unless it was a higher tier monster and it was a good body part, and even then the evolved state wouldn't be that strong. This was because it was forcing the body to change despite it not being ready, meaning the evolution was limited in a sense. This was only further emphasised since tier one monsters like goblins had limited perception of mana, meaning they wouldn’t be able to collect much of it during an evolution which only limited their immediate evolved state's strength even further.

Despite not knowing it, Damon had actually eaten the hearts, the body part most likely to cause a successful forced evolution, of a top tier 2 monster and a low tier 3 one. He had also eaten so much of the two monsters meat, which was strengthen by mana. This meant that he had a resource of mana inside of him for his evolution, and quite a hefty one at that. It seemed his luck wouldn't stop as mana coursed inside the cave: being attracted by the dead bodies of the monsters. The higher the body, the stronger it acted like a magnet for mana, which would only intensify after the body’s death. This was an unexplainable occurrence which was happening right now, acting as a catalyst for Damon's evolution.

He hadn’t known it as he had gone to sleep but he would wake up different, very different to what even he thought he would become...

 

(5) Overpowering Might

Spoiler

The Goblins

The moon was fully revelling in its glory as Damon searched over the scene of carnage outside the cave. He had woken up not too long ago and was searching for the knives he had thrown at the bear, which had lost its purchase on the bear’s body as the bear had tangled with the centipede.


He was different now. In fact that was an over-simplification, after all his whole body had been changed by the evolution! From the moment he had awoken, he could tell something had happened since his skin was in utter pain the second he woke up. For some reason his skin's sensitivity had increased a hundred-fold or so, since he could feel the cool air slicing into him. It was in the least an unpleasant experience, one that all the neighbours knew about due to the intensity of Damon’s screams.


The next thing he had noticed had been the change in physique, he grown at least a solid 40cm leaving him at 160 cm. His whole walking experience had changed as well because he felt a difference in how his limbs actually moved, due to the new-found difficulty in actually orienteering his legs to walk normally. This could very well be due to inexperience in his new body, though a definite change was that he felt that he could explode out with his legs in mere milliseconds. It had just been a mere feeling but proved more than it’s worth when he tried running out of the cave using all his force: what happened spontaneously was a cave in, due to the force he exerted on the centipede’s home. It was a pity that Damon couldn’t feel pure happiness at his new-found power as instead he felt his muscles rip apart under pain.


It was clear that this was a move he couldn’t do often due to the massive strain they put on his legs!

Outside of his legs, he noticed that his torso and arms was much larger. He looked like a muscular human now, which although he wasn’t chiselled to perfection was still an amazing transformation from a scrawny goblin child. Not that anyone would mistake him for a human though, no way! After all his skin did a very good job at distinguishing himself from humans since his skin was a murky mixture of red and brown, essentially a dark shade of maroon. This had been the colour of the centipede’s shell and he had of silver hair growing over his skin, clearly the same colour as the bear’s silverback. It was clear to any fool that he had been influenced by the monsters he used to forcibly evolve alongside many other factors.


A glint was shining in the moonlight, one that Damon walked towards to as he recognised his knife. It was on his way there he noticed a big puddle, one large enough to see a clear reflection in the moonlight. It was his first time looking at himself in the reflection and it showed as his face suddenly shone in joy. The maroon skin was plastered over his face, and only added to how demonic he looked. His eyes were the same shade of black as before, but their shape itself had elongated, creating a feeling of constant glaring. The overly large nose had stayed the same size but fitted in more snugly on his bigger face, alongside with the dark brown lips. His ears were pointed towards the sky and opposite to them was his very prominent jawline.


Overall the look created was creepy to say the least and scary to the say the most as he looked much more evil than before.


Moving on in glee, Damon picked up his old-knife which all of a sudden felt a lot smaller in his palms. You needed the weight of the knife to be right, otherwise it was like throwing a feather and this knife did not feel at all heavy enough in his hand. He gripped the shaft before he extended his arm backwards, before arcing it into a throw forwards while using his chest to propel it towards the centre of a tree.


The knife shot through the air, making a noise akin to a sonic boom albeit quieter. Within one second he had thrown the knife but in the next it was nowhere to be seen.


*Thump*


Confused, Damon walked towards the tree before looking closer to find out the knife had actually ripped through the edge of the tree, making a hole which started and ended on opposite ends. A hit and certainly a kill…


Feeling ever the more pleased with his evolution, Damon found the knife quite a distance away from the tree before walking towards where he reckoned the tribe was. Now he wasn’t to blame for getting lost, after all he had been chasing the silverback bear at the time and had for some reason ended up where he had never been before.


What Damon hadn’t noticed was the pressure which had before been bearing down on him like a truck had completely disappeared. Instead what replaced it was a feeling of normalcy where he had been and a feeling of weaker air where he was walking towards. This was hard to explain but the weaker air made him feel like someone who had always carried around 50kg on their back, only to suddenly lose that and feel a lot more free, movement and energy wise. Although he felt better on the whole, he would have noticed if he tried to push his legs to the limit again, the result would be a lot more lacking here than it had been deeper in the forest.


It was as he was walking along that he began to use his new perception: his new sensitivity had left him excited as he followed his brain which registered in many new factors it had been unable to previously. To no surprise, he soon found a trace of the blood trail the silverback bear had bled out during its retreat. Looking at the blackened blood, Damon could tell that quite a while had occurred as he had evolved since the blood had fully dried up, crusting over itself alike to a scab.


What followed was simple but a long walk back to the tribe. Now Damon could have very well run the whole distance in around 3-4 hours in his new body, but he didn’t feel any rush to get back home. Instead what fascinated him more was discovering the new functions of his body: right after his evolution all he could do was go from 0 to 100 at using his muscles but eventually as he got used to his new body as now he could use varying ranges of strength. It felt truly amazing as he left behind a trail of carnage, as the goblin which had walked that way before had been a low-down goblin not even fit to fight the silverback bear. But what walked back the trail was a machine made for war: his whole body felt optimised for battle.


Along the way back, he saw a small pack of Alpha wolves drinking from a small water source. He was quite a distance away from them, but could instantly tell what they were due to the memories he had of them. This made sense considering Damon had only began putting hard-work into training after watching Gregal kill an Alpha wolf with a single axe throw. The fact that Gregal did it in 1 strike was absolutely amazing but it was only so because of the opponent he had been against, the alpha wolf.


Now alpha wolves were mid-tier 2 monsters, weaker than the silverback bear, but the wolves fought in a pack unlike the solitary bear. In fact a pack of wolves would find it much easier to kill the bear than the goblins had, nevertheless the wolves wouldn’t do it due to the price they would have to pay for quite a low reward. However in front of Damon right now was only 4 wolves, clearly scattered from the pack which was much larger.


Buckling down, Damon eyed the distance between them to be around 100m before he fully tensed his calves, getting ready to explode out the power into the ground. Now note that Damon couldn’t use all his strength due to lack of mana in the air but he could still use around 70% of it at where he currently was and it proved to be more than enough as he exploded forwards. There was no sonic boom unlike his knife throw but it was unnecessary as the startled wolves had barely enough time to react anyway.


Out of fear, it instantly began running the other way. It was a pity for the wolf that Damon did the 100m in a bit less than 9 seconds, outpacing the wolf before it even got to properly accelerate. What followed was a swift knife stab downwards into the wolf's back, though it turned out to be more than a stab as the knife melted through the wolf’s torso.


"SKRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"


The other wolves turned around, only to see a squealing wolf bleeding on the ground, although he became much less important in their eyes as what instead filled their vision was a maroon demon right in front of their eyes. In foresight, the wolves should have definitely just ran, although none of them would ever get the chance to think that...

It was close to around 40 seconds later that Damon felt the adrenaline fall a bit as he rested on his legs, surrounded by 4 dead bodies at varying distances. In fact most the time was spent chasing since 3 of the wolves just needed one strike to die. It was just for the last one that he had no time to retrieve his knife so had just instead jumped on the wolf and tried to pull its back apart with sheer strength. What followed was not what he had expected, as its back didn't pull apart from his pressure: he was not strong enough. Instead he fell off its back and the spooked wolf ran off with all its might, it was this chase that took the majority of the time.


Damon had already gorged on the remaining bodies of the bear and the centipede as he had woken up and thus wasn’t feeling very hungry at the moment. However in the end he decided to eat one anyway, before leaving 3 wolf corpses to rot in the rising sun.


...


The sun had already broken dawn around 4 hours ago by the time Damon saw the village, the same as always with the countless mud and plant houses. Instead of walking to his house, he walked over to the chieftain’s home. It was to his luck that the chieftain was in and busy with some kind of medicine sort of thing he was creating.


…


It was after much shock the chieftain recognised him.


“Ha-ha, I always knew we would get another evolved person in our tribe soon. I’m not surprised it’s you Damon, I always saw the potential in you ever since you took inspiration from Gregal.”


The aged chieftain continued to boot-lick a bit more before he realised how stiff Damon was to his compliments, mainly due to the fact he had never received it before that he was confused at how he was to react. Understanding the naivety of the boy, the chieftain immediately placed Damon’s importance in his mind upwards as he realised how easy it was to control the boy. After all it would become beyond difficult once the evolved goblin realised his power, which was something the chieftain knew very well due to Gregal’s evolution.


“Boy why don’t you stick around a bit more with me. The fight for leadership between Withil and Raraak will be happening in the afternoon which I’m sure you want to go to, but why don’t we talk a bit before that?”


Surprised at what he heard, Damon responded “Wait what?! How can Withil fight if he his arm is injured?”


“Oh that? Yes I heard that his arm only got worse even since fighting the bear. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing boy. I tried my best to make sure that the chieftain could be decided without a death since both of them are such talents but it will be at least another year before we find another opportunity like the bear. So second best would be if they fought and one won without any injuries, like Raraak would. After all Raraak has only gotten stronger after his failed evolution, he will certainly be able to beat Withil considering his arm is injured…”


Within moments, Damon said his goodbyes to the chieftain, much to the chieftain’s disappointment, before he began his walk to Withil’s home.


There was a reason why Damon had been able to get so good at knife throwing despite all the other goblins quitting. He had strong dedication to anything he committed himself to, and he had committed himself to Withil. He had declared his allegiance to him, and he felt a bad taste in his mouth as he thought of such a staged fight for such a grand position. But most of all, he had evolved and enjoyed such power, why would he have to any longer follow anyone else’s schemes?!






The Trolls-???

It was my second fight, this time against one of the elders. He was in fact one of the oldest trolls here, even in terms of the other elders. You could see the age everywhere on him, whether it be his hair or his wrinkles and yet his figure did not look aged at all. He was smaller than me, as was every troll here, but not by much.

In my hand I held my trusty bludgeon, though it felt much heavier than it had before. This wasn't physical weight but rather the weight that bore down on my mind. I had to end this battle quick and clean, otherwise the worst case scenario would happen which was in essence my death

"RAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHH"

The elder screamed a war cry as he charged into me: a big mistake. You can scare big people by showing anger but you couldn't do the same for angry big people.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

Even my head felt like exploding as my scream filled the air, showing visible worry on the elder's face although he still ran onwards. I rasied the bludgeon before striking it downwards. A strong fury burnt inside of me as cold fear ran through the elder, rushing to get out of my way.

Hot passionate red flowed onto the arena as the elder's arm went flying. Following up, I dashed forwards before smashing my foot against his with a strong kick. It was to my surprise as the elder stood strong, before he stabbed his axe into my chest. I could feel the metallic taste fill my mouth as I punched him across the face. Just as my punch was about to make contact, the elder ducked before stabbing me once more.

The pain was overbearing but nothing like the anger I felt. Nothing at all like the power I felt. And certainly nothing close to the bloodlust I craved... Shit.





"WAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGHHHH"


The audience watched as the falling giant immediately rose again in anger. The shadow overcast by his body only seemed to get larger as he wrapped his arms around the elder, before lifting him. Struggling violently, the elder tried to grasp his freedom though to no effect. Perhaps if he knew he was struggling for his life instead, he would have been much more extreme. But he wasn't...


The giant began to close his arms, beginning to squeeze the elder. Finally sensing the danger he was in, the elder began to truly struggle for his life as he began to kick and bite away at the giant. It was to his pity that the giant didn't let go, in fact the giant didn't even react to his protests as the massive troll only squeezed harder.

You could physically see the elder's chest getting smaller as bones crashed into other bones, crushing up into a bloody pulp of gore. The elder's blue skin was dyed red all over, but it was even more frightening as his still-blue head began to go red under the sheer pressure he was in. Losing all strength to struggle, he lost all sense of life as his mind shut down under the strain it was in.

That hadn't stopped the giant from desecrating the hound's body and it certainly wouldn't stop him from desecrating the elder's body. Instead the looming shadow began to extend its head downwards as the he released the pressure over the elder's chest, revealing an open organ system, albeit a bit unclear due to all the blood and gore.

Closing in, the yellow teeth covered the scalp of the dead body's head before biting in. Followed by another bite. And then another one...


It took a bit of time before the giant dropped the elder's body which lifelessly fell to the ground. It was in better shape than the hound's body, though it mattered not to the giant as he continued to chew away. The flesh was easy to do but the bones were a bit more difficult to digest...

Around him even the other trolls were shocked as they watched the behemoth do all of this, creating open dread upon their faces.

It was on that day a true monster had been created amongst their midst...

 

(6) Identity

Spoiler

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…

 

(7) Are you worthy to lead?

Spoiler

Goblins

Surrounding a circle was the whole tribe: this included everyone from the very few elderly goblins to the very many still young goblins. However unlike the last meeting there were no tall muscular goblins creating an inner circle, after all how could they do that when they were so few of them left alive? 7 of the goblins that had gone had died, 10 if counted the pack carriers. This meant only 5 had made it out alive out of the original 15: Withil, Roger, Raraak, Damon and another pack carrier. This was the largest setback faced by the tribe so far, and yet instead of frowns, all the goblins were wearing smiles and talking excitedly. How could you be sad when a new chieftain was to be chosen in front of them through battle?

They were expecting a large fight, after all the two fighting were the tribe’s superpowers: Withil and Raraak. To their ignorance, it was merely a façade meant to cover up Raraak’s rise to chieftain, since Withil would certainly die under his feet.

At the centre of the circle was a massive goblin squatting. His limbs were muscled to a t as he looked almost like a Greek god. It was a pity that the fur-like-hair over his body ruined it, nevertheless his frightening face. Before his evolution his face had been normal albeit a bit big, but now it looked like the face of a giant as all his features had been exaggerated, creating a face inciting fear.

In front of him rested a massive stone hammer, weighing at least 70kg and rising as high as 1m. Fearsome was too light of a word as the hammer was in essence an extremely tough, thick rod of wood attached to a monstrously sized rock. Both the materials had been chosen for their light weight and high strength, and yet it still weighed 70kg…

The giant didn’t worry, he didn’t have to! The goblin he was to face was a goblin he had always respected, albeit also mixed with a bit of loathing. And now he would crush that goblin as it was weakened, giving him too much of an advantage to lose with.

The clatter of noises suddenly hushed as one side split apart, revealing a small group of not-so-distant goblins. At the vanguard was a goblin all knew, Withil, and he walked with his chest held high without the cast on, revealing the ghastly arm that looked like it was diseased and broken.

The current aged chieftain choked a bit on his chuckle as he watched the proud goblin walk over, walking over to his death that was. Following Withil was Withil’s warriors who hadn’t gone on the bear mission, walking alongside Roger.

Though this skipped all’s minds as they watched an average warrior-sized goblin walk behind. The goblin did not hold his chest high, nor was he followed by a group of warriors; rather he was following. But he incited awe but also fear in to the audience’s hearts since his skin was coloured a dirty red. His body slender, unlike Raraak’s and yet all the goblins there knew that this goblin was evolved, after all the very feeling they got watching him was different to when looking at each other. He gave the feeling of strength, a feeling that they could follow this goblin, a feeling of leadership…

Arriving just on time, Withil told his warriors to join Raraak’s, barely creating a wide enough inner circle.

Raraak didn’t stand but rather called out, “Withil, are you ready to face death?”

His voice was much deeper and louder than before, and yet Withil responded with no loss in confidence.

“Of course I am ready. I am ready to show the tribe the truly worthy leader. But it is a pity that it won’t be you Raraak.”

“HAHAHAHHA. You need to beat me to win the chair Withil, tell me how you will do that with a dead arm? Just learn your position and swear your allegiance to me; I will not treat you unfairly as long as you do that NOW!”

A smile creeped upon Withil’s face before it infected all his warriors alike as they laughed in unison, as if Raraak was a joke before them. Clearly disturbed, Raraak was about to shout out once again just before Withil interrupted him, this time speaking with vigour and volume that he hadn’t had before.

“I will show you what a leader is Raraak. A leader is a person who leads, he does not need to be the strongest, just the smartest. Dare you tell me you are better than me to lead! I was willing to let you live, but that mistake will cost you your life.

After all I won’t be fighting you my bad friend. Instead it will be my champion doing it in my place, Damon!”

Almost as if rehearsed, Damon walked into the circle as Withil said his name, allowing no time for Raraak to respond. Words seemed to get stuck in Raraak’s mouth as he almost wanted to taunt Withil for using such a young child as a champion, but gave up as he sensed the power from Damon. He exuded a feeling of strength, both reassuring the goblins surrounding them but also frightening them.

The current chieftain interrupted at this moment, his voice sounding out as he said “Withil, you only have one chance at this. If your champion loses, so do you. Do you understand?”

Nodding swiftly, Withil returned his eyes to Damon’s back. This 3 year old carried his life on his back, something he would not have believed if he had heard it a week ago. And yet it was so real now…

Needing no words, Raraak stood up, towering over all his surroundings including Damon. The beast-like goblin stood at 2.2m tall, growing 30cm from his evolution, though he seemed to weigh a lot more than before, as his steps upon the ground left footprints on the rough ground. Lifting off the ground the hammer swung into Raraak’s arm as he held it firmly, using the now-bulging veins on his arms to intimidate Damon.

Almost as if juxtaposition to the scene, the chieftain softly said the word all had been waiting for:

“Go”.

Springing into action, Raraak leapt of the ground, rising into the air before landing right in front of where Damon had been. What followed was his hammer, smashing into the rough ground, creating many cracks. Damon had already leapt away in response to Raraak’s jump but struggled to find time to think after that as Raraak followed up his singular strike with many more alike. Even one would crush the bones of a normal goblin and would most likely disable Damon.

It was alike to watching a struggle between an ogre and a panther as neither could find the opportunity to hurt each other due to their opposing strengths cancelling the others’. Raraak created cracks all across the ground, spreading dust all over the arena. The dust only further pained the audience as they already struggled to hold view of Damon as he leapt from space to space, disappearing from a spot just before a crack formed over it.

…

After seeing a chance, Raraak immediately once again charged Damon, hammer swinging in front as he attempted to make contact. Almost like swapping pleasantries, Damon repeated his action of jumping away. It was his pity though as Raraak felt compulsion to break formality, since what followed the swing was actually a throw: the 70kg hammer blasting towards Damon. It was like an eclipse, since dark completely filled Damon’s vision, though he no longer flustered as he done with bear. Instead he stopped his leap short by falling onto the ground with his arms first, before rolling past the overhead hammer.

His hand proceeded to slide into his waist satchel, flashing out a deadly looking knife before flicking towards Raraak. He had used 60% of his strength at this mana density to do so, and it showed as the knife slid through Raraak as if he was melted butter. You could only see the wooden handle sticking out of Raraak’s left arm since the whole blade had slid their way into his flesh.

Screaming in a combination of pain and anger, Raraak firmly grasped the knife before ripping it out of his wound, blood splattering over the ground . Before Damon could respond, Raraak had already thrown it at him with all his force. It was a pity that Raraak never really practiced knife throwing, as instead the knife went into the chest of a warrior goblin, making him collapse upon contact.

Raraak then charged Damon in a tackle, though he missed by quite a margin. This was fine as he instead gained the opportunity to pick up his fallen hammer, only not before another knife stabbed into his thick back. What followed was an enraged beast attempt to catch an agile mouse, as 3 other warrior goblins were injured as knives and hammers were thrown.

Having exhausted his whole knife collection, Damon took out his thick short sword. The weight seemed perfect in his arm as he eyed the red monster in front of him. Dyed in red now was Raraak, due to the blood both inside and outside him: inside as blood bubbled in rage, creating a red flush to his skin which was , to his bad luck, overpowered by the red crimson blood that now painted his whole body. His skin was pierced in 7 occurrences with 3 knives still in while 4 holes bled out, creating a bloody trail.

All the pain seemed to disappear as he saw Damon take out the sword, finally it was going to be a fair fight! Once again his hammer flew into the air as he rushed Damon who alike did the same. The scene seemed a joke as an earth encompassing hammer met a small sword, though the outcome was even more of a joke as Raraak felt a strong sting flow through his arms. Although he wasn’t alone on this as Damon also felt the strain of his arms go over the limit: Raraak was still stronger than him, even in this bloody state.

Knowing he would only be in a disadvantage if he let Raraak make all the strikes, Damon thrusted forward with his short sword. Responding in time, Raraak rose the hammer’s rod to block the strike, though not much use as another quick flick of the sword followed up, tearing through his shoulder muscle. Dropping the hammer in pain, Raraak once again attempted to pick it up before his shoulder muscle tore even more under the strain, earning him a full swing of the sword into his core as he roared in pain.

His knees felt weak as he kneeled forwards, head facing the ground now stained with blood. His legs had been stabbed long ago and now felt weaker than ever as his body began to lose hope.

Feeling a compulsion for a strong ending, Damon decided to use all of his strength possible as he dashed towards Raraak’s head quicker than nearly all eyes could follow him. Within one second was a kneeling giant and dashing demon, within the next was a motionless demon holding up the whole head of the giant.

He had been executed under a single strike…

Silence stilled the forest as if the whole world had frozen, no goblin willing to move or make noise as they watched the demon raise the bloody head, still frothing at the mouth. The beautiful dusk sun over the forest created a daunting image, something fully worthy to be in a nightmare. What followed though was thunderous applause, cheering and breakdowns…

Sounds loud enough to crack one’s eardrums surrounded the singular living goblin. It was all for him.

Warriors he had once respected and looked up to now applauded for him while others lost the strength in their knees as they collapsed like Raraak. It was all for him.

He watched as Withil roared in joy, quick to be congratulated by his surroundings. It was all for him, or had been and should have been!

He had been the star of the show: he had been all powerful and yet this other goblin earned praise for nothing. He didn’t feel the senseless jealously building up within him as he was drunk on power, unwilling to accept any as worthy as him.

Unbeknownst to him, another evolved goblin watched from a distance, sneering as he saw the champion get jealous. It had been a decent fight, earning a 3 out of 5 from him but he held no true interest in it. Who cared who became chieftain? You needed power to hold that position, and if you used a hound for that, you needed enough power to control that hound. Otherwise…

The evolved goblin got up, walking away once more away from the village. He did not know for certain what would follow this event but nor did he particularly care; his personal strength was enough for him…

Withil walked over to Damon, all smiles and cheer. His face seemed much in difference with his ghastly arm, diseased looking while his face beamed in joy. Squinting his eyes, Damon watched Withil come over. It made sense since he was Withil’s champion but it didn’t…

Why did he deserve the prize when he did fuckall? Why did he deserve such a position of power when his own power was insufficient?! Withil outreached his hand towards Raraak’s bleeding head, unable to see the wrath building up deep inside Damon…

He could kill Withil right here just like he had done to Raraak, a single slice with his sword and Withil’s head would also be off. Then in his hands he would hold the heads of two tyrants, neither able to contest with him in strength. He could be the chieftain, fuck that, he could be king. The closer the arm got, the stronger his wrath became as his mind toiled on a decision, still drunk on power.

Should he execute Withil, right here right now?

 

(8) Winner takes all - End of Arc 1

Spoiler

Goblins

Withil’s arm was essentially on top of Raraak’s head as Damon felt the anger inside of him bubble over. His body could no longer hold the anger in as he squeezed the flesh of the head so much that the flesh he held tore off, the head falling to the bloody ground.

Surprised by the sudden event, Withil looked up to see Damon smiling back at him, even if the smile looked a little strange. Still in the ecstasy of winning, Withil linked Damon’s weird actions to him being tired after the fight and instead refocused his attention on the head as picked it up, and raised it overhead for all of the audience to see.

To his side stood Damon melting in cold sweat as his jealously induced anger ended, bringing him back to sobriety. He opened up his clenched fist, only to find up a flattened piece of bloody flesh.

The rest of the coronation for the new chieftain went almost like an ordeal for Damon, as he desperately searched for a chance to appropriately leave. It was to his bad luck that he was actually the main benefactor of Withil becoming chieftain and thus was wanted throughout most of the event. It wasn’t until an hour after the fight had finished that Damon received his freedom, and desperately made an escape from the village within seconds.

After running as fast as he could for what seemed like a long time, Damon came to 5km away from the village. He collapsed upon a tree, using it as support as he rested both his mind and body. To be honest, he wasn’t feeling very tired since the fight truly hadn’t taken much out of him. But what he almost did while drunk on power tore at his mind, and he found no answers within him why he had wanted to do such a thing.

In fairness he hadn’t been with Withil for long but Withil had always treated him well during that time. He had made the first move to invite Damon under his banner and yet Damon had felt a deep desire to kill him the second he felt powerful.

That would have been a stupid decision no matter which way you looked at it from. If he had killed Withil, he would have become chieftain but for what? He had no particular desire to when he was sober and he certainly would butcher the job if he did get it, after all he was only 3 years old and still very inexperienced in many things other than fighting.

Damon began to calm his mind; yes he had only thought such an idea because he was naïve and was lost in the power for a moment. There was no underlying motive behind that, none at all. He felt as if he was shoving horse shit down his throat but it was fine for him since he could feel himself calming down.

Feeling his body once again become truly his, he opened up his clenched fists only to find the dried up blood on his palm. It paled in comparison to his dirty red skin but was still very apparent due to the very nature of the substance: it was blood, he had taken the life of another goblin.

At other times he would have found such a situation humorous, after all he had taken the lives of many other goblins without batting an eye, for whatever reason he had. And yet this impacted him so deeply in this moment of mental weakness as he continued to lean on the tree, staring directly at the bloodstain on his hand.

It felt like an eternity as he found the topic on his mind suddenly shift to another and another… It continued onwards over things he had done today, and last week and over his life. In the end his mind ended at one place, what did he want to do?

He vaguely knew he was still very naïve about the world and yet on the other hand he felt wise coming up to such a conclusion by himself. In fact he felt proud deep in his heart that he had managed to break out of his anger-induced mind frame just before the climax of his stupidity. But that was left behind as the past as he looked at his own life in the current.

On the one hand he wanted to go and explore the world. He had felt this ever since evolving, he had felt so good breaking out of that shackling shell he had worn before and felt so liberated in his new one. He also knew that he would most likely not find any chances to evolve further if he stayed here without waiting to age to his elder years , after all the area of the great forest they were in was the outskirts region where the monsters were tier 3 at max.

And yet on the other hand he felt a duty to stay with the tribe, after all they were the people he was the champion of! This feeling was much stronger than the wanderlust he felt, and would have won easily any other day but it felt lacking today. He felt disappointment at the tribe: this wasn’t because he felt a little stronger than the other goblins, but rather because Raraak and Withil had been the strongest in the village, they had been the peak! And yet one had died under his blade without much effort while the other visibly acknowledged him as much stronger. The feeling he got before was of looking after his tribe in which he fitted in with, but now it felt more like he was an adult taking care of children.

It wasn’t an easy choice at all to make since the night had fallen and yet Damon was still by the tree. However in the end his dedication to the tribe seemed to win, as he walked back to the village with a firm resolve. Nevertheless seeds of deserting had already been planted within him … and would only continue to grow as time went on…





The day after his coronation, Withil came out with a few radical changes. He would first halve the 12 remaining warriors, although this included none of the strongest warriors who now occupied higher positions within the village or more likely dead. Half of the warriors would continue doing what they had done before, which was hunting food for the village, only at double the speed they had done before. The other half would starting teaching the normal goblins how to fight.

This might seem obvious to do but it was actually something that had not been done before, since goblins rather focused on their immediate kin rather than the whole community. In fact the retired chieftain laughed at what Withil was doing: he saw no point in changing ways when there was nothing wrong with the tried and tested route.

Hard was a word too easy for the training the normal goblins were put through, and it seemed to all that Withil was trying to evolve all the other goblins by speeding up their growth. Each warrior focused on teaching their strengths, leaving Damon to teach the normal goblins how to throw knives well.

In truth Damon was already strong enough to start throwing axes effectively like Gregal had done before but he chose not to after judging the strengths and weaknesses of the two weapons. Axes might pack a bigger punch but that came at the cost of ease of transport, after all Damon could only carry 2-3 throwing axes on him at once while he could carry 8-9 knives.

The training would last from morning till noon. Another big change Withil made was a specialisation in terms of occupation. Before each goblin lived their own lives, meaning their whole life was managed and controlled by them. But now each goblin had a specified occupation, meaning they were specialised in one thing which improved efficiency at a massive rate. The drawbacks of this method was that the goblins didn’t really like having to specialise in one thing and would rather do everything in their day by themselves, although this was quickly fixed after a few deaths caused by “mishaps”.

At first the ordinary goblins lived under the fear of their leader, though over time they would come to love and glorify him as they saw the effectiveness of this system, whether it be in fighting strength or the rate of advancement as a village. Within a few short years, the goblins would distinguish themselves in the area as the powerhouse.







The Trolls- ????

The giant continued to grind his teeth together as he finished up his meal: the skull of the elder troll. Blood, gore and splinters of bone was spewed all over the arena, disgusting and scaring the audience into silence as they just watched the giant much onwards.

Finished with his meal, the giant began to look around for another challenger. Seeing none challenging him, he started to feel awfully sleepy as his mind seemed to shut down. At the back of his mind was his alter ego, screaming at what it had seen as it came back in control. Last time it had been unconscious while its anger had taken over and yet for some reason it wasn’t the same this time. Instead throughout the whole fight it had felt almost as if it was in the passenger seat, watching an awful horror movie occur right in front of him. The only twist was that the horror was all caused by him…

He had long noticed his anger even as a child, only then it had been a dumb anger which was disadvantageous for him. For a long time that anger had slept after his mind had realised that the anger wasn’t any use in a fight. That had also been the reason why the towering troll had gone meeker as he had grown older, using more of his brain in fights. In fact he hadn’t fought any other troll in such a long time, mainly because all the others were terrified by his massive size and strength.

Perhaps that was what it had been, his meek personality had already began getting cockier deep within as he had seen none dared to fight him as he grew bigger than the rest. After all Trolls loved to fight but they weren’t suicidal or dumb. If he had time to think, he would guess that this cockiness deep inside him had begun to revive his anger. It was a pity that in his fight with the hound his ego had been triggered: how dare such a low down troll in the society attempt to kill such a figure like him?! It had triggered his anger, and it had been a mistake…

The anger had only fought twice since its awakening but it had won both times with extremely tyrannical strength. Furthermore he could only feel the anger growing, growing as personality as it began to take more life from him. Perhaps the only sanctuary he could be thankful for was that the anger was only triggered by fighting, it would lose all its power when its battle-high was over.

Thank goodness for that, the giant decided he would withdraw from this competition. Yes it was true he could become chieftain if he carried on with his heinous methods but it would be at the cost of his very own life, since the anger would become him while he would become just a deep feeling inside the anger than could get triggered into a moment of rationality and softness.

Last time it had been like waking up: not knowing what had happened in his sleep and being awoken abruptly. But this time it was more like he was already up and had already seen everything, he just needed enough strength to retake control of his body. And he was gaining that very strength.

He could feel the body become his as he clenched his fists in front of him, just to check his control. Good, it was all his! What followed next was the giant staring at all the carnage under and around him, it had been like watching a battlefield on a screen only to find it so much more terrifying when at it in person. He felt disgust and fear at his alter ego as he looked around, each piece of flesh telling their own story. It was no surprise that his eyes soon found themselves on the elder’s headless body, its spine violently detached at the neck. Within the next second he felt sick as he heaved all the contents of his stomach out, the contents of course being the head of elder.

This was quite a scene for the trolls in the audience, as one second the beast had been eating their own brethren while in the next he was visibly sick at what he had done. It also seemed to shock some of the trolls out of their fear induced stupor as their minds finally recovered.

One such person was elder Nargo, the oldest elder in the audience. He had been the strongest under the old chieftain and favourite to win, in fact this whole competition was just a trick of the light for him to kill some of the other trolls who wielded power in the tribe without gathering too much hate for it. Right now he felt intense anger building up inside of him, the trolls meant to die in this competition was his competitors and yet the brain that had just been retched out belonged to his supporter…

Before he had been shocked silly by the giant’s cruelty but unable to stop him as such a demonstration of tyrannical power disabled his feet from moving. But he got the opposite feeling as he watched the giant heaving out the brain of his supporter: the giant was in a moment of weakness. What elder Nargo would do next would be something he would forever regret in his little remaining time, something all the trolls would regret not stopping but most importantly something that the giant would regret ever hearing. After all it would cause his death, causing him to become little less than a bitter memory for his dominating anger…

“YOU EEEEEVVVVVVILDOER!”

The whole audience, including the mountain turned to face elder Nargo as he waited for effect.

“HOW DDDDAAAAAARE YOU EAT A FELLOW TROLL?! THIS MIGHT BE A FIGHT TO THE DDDEEATH BUT WE ARE NOT CANIBALS!!”

Elder Nargo was now shaking in anger as he proceeded to pick up his war axe, stepping out of the audience, into the arena.

“YOU ARE A BACKSTABBER. YOU ARE HENIOUS. YOU ARE NOT A TTTRRROLLLL, YOU ARE A DDDEEEVIL!!!”

Now standing 10m away from the giant, elder Nargo finished his soliloquy.

“I WILL END YOU MONSTER, WHO CRAWLED UNDER ONE OF OURS’ SKIN TO RUIN US ALL! YOU SHALL DIE UNDER MY FEET TODAY!!!”

The giant felt himself die, only not underneath elder Nargo’s feet but under his own alter ego. It was like a crazed demon let out of its cage, shaking and roaring in delight as it anticipated what was to come. The mountain tried to fight, he truly did for his life but he held no resistance before his own anger once it was triggered…

The giant began violently twitching, gritting his teeth and clenching his nails as hard as he could as cold sweat dribbled down his head. But it was ok, within the next second he was liberated… from the world.

The anger raised both arms spontaneously, breathed in as hard as possible before roaring out the call of insanity.

“RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”

Elder Nargo was prepared this time for the scream as he moved forwards regardless the terrifying roar, axe pulled back overhead in preparation for a strike. It was a pity that he never got the chance since Anger moved too quick, dashing forwards towards the elder Nargo before strongly gripping the pole of the axe with both hands.

Only the audience could see the terrifying strength of the giant as veins bulged over his arms, almost as if they were moving. Not one to be left out, Nargo would hear the strength milliseconds later as the pole snapped under the crushing pressure, creating a loud crunch sound. Nevertheless his mind never got the chance to register the sound as within the next second was a kiss between a tree-trunk like knee and his face.

Blood exploded out from Nargo’s face as his crushed nose began to cry out rivers of blood. But there was no rest for the righteous as Nargo was then picked up by his shoulders, only to come face to face with the giant who firmly gripped him on both sides.

The face was something that was only worthy of being in the worst of nightmares due to the red-shot eyes, the bulging blue nose just above the monstrously sized yellow teeth but worst of all the skin coloured red by the amount of blood and gore splattered over it.

“WWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!”

Spittle shot onto elder Nargo’s face as the giant screamed the song of devils.

“RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH”

Tears mixed with the spittle, only causing Nargo’s face to melt under all the fluid on his face.

“GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRAGGGHHGHHH”

Not waiting for Nargo, the giant began to pull apart Nargo’s body, using each side of the ribcage as handles.

“MRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAAHHH”

It was impossible for Nargo to feel any pain at this point as he had already fainted, and yet his body resisted through erratic convulsions and violent spasms.

“WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH”

The song of the devils was closing to an end as the previously invisible line of red soon became very prominent down Nargo’s body.

“RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

The giant’s whole body became red as Nargo’s body split open, releasing with it explosions of red and gore which splattered over the audience who stood 9m away.

…

Within giant’s mind, he could feel his alter ego trying to reclaim control. It was a pity that it was too late as the anger felt in true control for once as he brushed his weakling alter ego off, left to die in the depths of his mind.

Instead Anger started walking, walking off the arena onto the podium at the end of the arena left for the winner. Slow heavy steps echoed in all of the trolls’ ears as they watched the giant climb atop his throne.

It was the first time that any of them heard the anger speak, his voice as different as could to his alter ego’s as what they heard wasn’t deep or nasally but rather soft and yet filled with insanity since the pitch erratically changed.

“I am troll king. I am your king. I AM KIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG! None shall refer to me as any less and none shall regard me as any less!”

Every word was followed by a short pause before the next one, creating a sense of command as the trolls watched their new king with terrible fear.

He followed up his introduction asking the mandatory question, “Does anyone think else?!”

But it looked like he had convinced the audience with his elaborate and silky speech as no troll dared to question him, nevertheless challenge him. Rather each one of them were so convinced by him that they felt weak at the knees which in turn was nothing compared to the nightmare their mind felt.

The nightmare they feared in their hearts then would become the nightmare they would live, until death did them apart from their King…

 

(9) Three Apex Species - Start of Arc 2 ( Timeskip)

Spoiler

???????

When it had been formed it had been a spot to see one of the most beautiful scenes in the forest, but that was well in its past as the cliff-side was now just an eroded piece of rock covered in natural rubbish. Below the cliff-side to the left was the goblin village, which meant that this cliff used to be a popular spot for young goblins to play in, at least before the eroded-away cliff began to give away under their weight, ending up with bloody splatter decorating the cold rock 50m down. And yet currently lying on its chest on the very cliff-side was a reptilian type monster, uncaring of its dangers.

The reptilian monster was 1.7m tall and had brown, scaled skin all across its body. Plastered atop the scales was a soft cloth armour, which had no other practical use other than defence against the elements .The reptile had a humanoid figure and armour-like-scales at its major joints though, compensating for the uselessness of the cloth armour. Lying next to this reptile was a piece of thick grainy paper, atop it many letters in a weird language. The reptile had already been at this position for the whole day and the paper was nearly full: full of information about the very goblins below the cliff.

Seeing the paper almost full, the reptile decided that was enough for the day as it placed the paper into a leather bag around its waist before it set off, away from the goblin village. For the first few minutes it ran at a jogging pace, clearly trying to conserve it energy before it began sprinting at all its speed. The sprint rode the reptile past a large clearing and about 1km further before the reptilian once again slowed down to a jog. It was about an hour later when what filled the Reptilian’s vision was no longer the countless greens of the forest but rather a muddy village.

No one paid any attention to the reptilian scout as it walked in, although this made perfect sense considering within that very hour many scouts had come back. The scout walked past the mud huts arranged in a simple design, as it imagined the stories it had heard as a child. The stories of the towns filled with massive stones homes and paved pathways. Furthermore the towns had had many areas for leisure and just as many for study. It sounded almost dreamlike considering how far of a cry the village he was walking through right now was.

At the centre of the village was a big dome like building, made out of tough wood instead of mud. The scout homed in to its target, as it walked through the wooden doors of the building. Emanating a rancid odour made it the opposite of the ideal building but it mattered not as the scout walked onwards, soon finding himself in front of another wooden door albeit smaller.

The scout walked inwards to find himself surrounded by stacks of thick pages filled with writing covering every possible surface in the room. In the middle of the smallish room was a similar reptilian albeit smaller, who was furiously writing up something. Finding the piece of paper from today, the scout handed it over to the scribe who only looked up then. Seeing the title of the page, the scribe immediately placed it upon another stack of paper, each of them containing little information individually but all combining together with half the other stacks in the room to make up a surplus of information about the goblins. The remaining stacks were the same, the only difference being that they all contained information on the trolls instead…









Goblins

What had been before a largely barren village due to the low amount of goblins was now a thriving one with green mass everywhere you looked. The houses before built with mud and plants were now built out of pure wood, showing the prosperity of the village which was only furthered by the boisterous market near the centre.

It had been 3 years since the change in leadership, from the old village chieftain to Withil. A long three years at that though, since nothing had stayed the same. The old chieftain himself was no longer here to enjoy the sight; he had died mysteriously a little after publicly talking against Withil…

But on the other hand the village had prospered for as far as the eye could see, with new houses popping up, extending the boundary of the village, every day. The population had risen all the way up to 500 goblins within the 3 years, which was excellent considering the death rate in the great forest.

What was even greater was the fact that 200 of those 500 goblins were variants, to be more specific goblin warriors. A monster was original at whatever tier they started at, and so for goblins it would be at low tier 1. Therefore they would become a variant if they broke past that boundary. This meant that evolved goblins were high variants, and the village currently had around 200 variants: all versed in the brutality of battle.

The current village held no resemblance to the old one, the difference being like night and day!





Goblins-Krakov POV

It felt like the sun was baking the ground underneath my feet as I hoped from place to place, in a hurry to get to morning classes. Morning classes were made up of warming up and some sparring, it was nothing too difficult even though the bruises I was coming home with each day was only increasing. It was the afternoon classes I really hated! I had heard in the past before I was born that there had only been morning classes which used to be very different to the ones we had now, but now we had afternoon classes on top which were the terror of any sane goblin. That of course was just me, since all the others were insane!

I slid through the sea of green bobbling heads and violent jostling, only to find my place after bumping into too many goblins. Just in time as well as I watched the instructor for the day walk over to the fields.

While he walked over, the crowd around me quietened down very quick as soon as they saw who it was. The Goblin walking over was 1.8m tall and gave clear authority of power and strength. This was because of how the goblin’s muscles were clearly oversized for his body, making him look monstrous although they also helped clearly distinguishing himself as a special high variant. Of course this was Captain Roger, who not only was a high variant but also part of the Karx which only made it more confusing why he was here right now.

The Karx were the most powerful goblins in the village, whether it be in authority or battle strength. The Karx consisted of: Captain Roger, who was stronger than any of the other high variants by miles but in fact the weakest of the Karx; Chieftain Withil, who was perhaps the most authoritive due to his command of the village; Absinthe, who was the only female goblin on the list but also the creepiest one; Demon Damon, who needed no explanation for why he was on the list and Gregal, the strongest goblin.

We started our routine while Captain Roger watched us, his eagle eyes unwilling to let any slip up get away. Although I doubted he would catch many errors at this stage, after all we have only been doing this training for every day for however many years we had been alive for.

In fact we had repeated these actions so many times that they were so ingrained within my mind that I couldn’t help but losing my focus. Instead my mind wandered off onto a day that no one would be able to forget: the day Gregal returned.

I don’t know much about it but I’ve heard he was one of the forefathers of this village, which only makes the day he returned even more important. Apparently the goblins here had migrated from somewhere as a group of 10 which included Gregal and the old chieftain, although only Gregal survived till now. He had been one of the forefathers of the village but for some reason had left for such a long time. It wasn’t till just a year ago that he returned, and what followed his return was a legendary fight with Damon…

And Damon lost…

Perhaps the goblins in the village had just forgotten Gregal’s strength but Damon’s loss caused a major upset in the crowd. I had watched the fight but was barely able to follow any of it, though what I did catch was Gregal’s comment to Damon after the fight:

“Learn to use your mana kid. There are better ways of using it than just by powering up muscles…”

No one saw the fights after that but I had heard Damon eventually beat Gregal. And this had all happened a year ago! I’m sure only the other Karx know up to what stage of strength both Damon and Gregal were at by now!

Nowadays both of them were barely seen in the village. But when they did come back, it would cause a large commotion as they would always come with a tier 3 monster heart! This was how all the high variants in the village had evolved, meaning that they had brought back at least 20 tier-3 monster hearts back in the past year.

At this moment, all I could imagine was myself becoming a high variant and perhaps even entering the Karx. I felt ecstasy blossom inside even as I imagined it.

With morning training finished, I was about to go to afternoon training just as Captain Roger stopped everyone.

“Listen Up you lot, I’ve got some good news for you guys”

…

He paused for effect, clearly taking lessons for public speaking from Withil.

“I have seen all of you work very hard for such a long time now, with some even going the extra mile. Now I won’t act like we don’t reward that, after all you need to work hard to survive here. So I will be choosing the ones who stood out the most as the first people to try the new “training” program made by Absinthe.

I had felt myself elevate for all of it until I fell back to Earth as I heard the word Absinthe. She never meant good news…

I heard the names being called …

“….,…..,…., Krakov,…”

... and I almost felt regret at imagining myself as one of the high variants. Why had such bad luck come my way?













The Trolls

The king ordered and we followed. Blood followed close behind, the blood of weaklings and of our enemies. Before we had been nothing in the system; now we were the tyrants ruling the forest.

The king was truly great, a blessing by a God for sure. He had ensured that we no longer some mediocre race but rather one meant to dominate.

The king had trained his own troops, each of them an elite. They had in turn created law and order for the King while he directed more of his time to greater deeds. No one dared to go against the elites and no one would want to, considering all the weaklings who went against the king were already dead.

In front of us right now was a true monster, the Bloody Tiger. Its stripes were the colour of blood and seeing one meant you would be bleeding to death within the next second. This was no surprise considering this monster was mid-tier 4.

Dragging it by its crushed skull was a greater monster, our King. His appearance after evolution was even more regal than it had been before, the exact image of death as any monster that saw him would be dead within the next second. This was no surprise considering that this monster was the troll king, OUR KING!