Before long, the night passed, and I woke up. There was no loud knocking at my door as everyone knew what to expect. I’m actually quite proud of myself for waking up on time. It’s been a while, so before I leave my bed, I took a look at my status.

Name – Raizen

Age – 19

Race – Infernal

Cultivation – Body Tempering (5th Cycle)

Your Task is to Survive.

Run, Hide, Fight. Survive.

Time Remaining – 38 Days

38 days until this is all over eh. Time flies when your killing Goblins I guess. Anyway. I made way outside and, in the distance, I could hear the loud grunts as everyone was busy at the training grounds trying to improve in some way. By the time I got to the gate only Richard was waiting for me.

“Ready?” He asks, but I could tell it wasn’t a question of worry. He trusted me. They all did.

“Ready.”

“Good, everyone on guard duty has retreated inside the Outpost, and all the non-combatants are grouped together at the training grounds watching the fighters train. We’ll also tell them about the beacon later and handle if anyone asks about your fire.”

“Everyone’s doing their part. I’ll do mine.”

“I know you will, hopefully we can join you soon. A few of them are hoping to break into the 2nd Cycle soon, while 3rd Cycle is close for me, I can feel it.”

I thought to tell him not to rush, but they’re all pretty determined. So, a simple nod is all I do in return before making my way through the gate.

A similar sight to yesterday morning greets me.

10 Hobgoblins staring at the Outpost.

It took them a second to realize no one else was coming out. They seemed surprised.

“GRAHHH!!!”

One of them leaned forward and roared out in my direction.

It seems upset.

I don’t do anything and just watch them.

A few moments later and they stormed off into the woods and it didn’t take long after that for me to hear the loud march of thousands of Goblins running in my direction.

Good.

I was partly worried they wouldn’t all come at once.

I took a deep breath, called upon the flames dwelling within me and slammed the but of my spear onto the ground.

Voosh

My flames rushed out from that point and continued to soar into the sky. It easily towered over the Outpost. Though it didn’t stop there. Without pause it stretched and stretched and until the black flames towered around the entire Outpost.

I could’ve bathed the Forest in flames and killed them all a lot easier.

But this was also training for me.

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If I was weaker, maybe I’d be forced to fight with everything I had, but I was strong. Strong enough to face the entire hoard on my own.

I stepped through the wall of flames as the first line of Goblins were finally about to break through the tree line.

My spear, that I still needed to replace, was at the ready and before I knew it, hundreds of Goblins were upon me.

The Hobgoblins seemed to hang back as the horde roared towards me.

My spear seemed to sing as I swung with a force that threw tens of Goblins back from the created wind alone.

They were bisected, beheaded, pierced, crushed all by myself and my spear. More than a few hundred of them ignored me completely and ran towards the Outpost, perhaps thinking they could survive the flames. Obviously, that did not work. They promptly became ash, and that ash burned away shortly after.

Eventually a rain of arrows and fireballs descended in my direction, but I didn’t halt my movements. I cut the arrows down or nimbly dodged when my spear had to be used in the killing of a Goblin or two.

My only mistake thus far was letting a few of the fireballs hit me. There was no pain, and it actually just felt like a summer breeze, but my clothes weren’t fireproof, so my tunic mostly burned away.

Exposing my beautifully toned and chiseled chest that I hardly worked to achieve.

…Moving on.

Part of the reason I decided to fight like this was to put my stamina to the test when it came to my flames. So far, I haven’t run into a situation where I felt any massive exhaustion from using my flames or feel like my flames were ‘running out’. I knew it was impossible for me to ‘run out’ of flames but I could instinctively tell I couldn’t keep them up indefinitely. Like all things in life, it required energy of some sort, and with my newfound hunger these days, that probably played a part in the energy required. Honestly, I didn’t know the exact details behind it, I just knew this wall of flames was something I couldn’t keep up forever.

I don’t know how many Goblins I’ve cut down at this point, but the Hobgoblins were still hanging back. All 10 of them. Just waiting. Of course, it didn’t take long for me to realize that they were likely waiting for me to tire myself out fighting these Goblins, but I think I’ve let them wait long enough.

I shrunk back, before doing a powerful swing outwards, instantly pushing some of the Goblins backwards. With the ones at the front, simply being crushed from the swing alone.

With the quickly depleting space in front of me, I quickly took a half step backwards before planting my backfoot and driving off of it and leaping into the air towards the lurking Hobgoblins.

It happened too fast for them to react properly.

One moment I was facing off against the horde, and in another, I was seemingly flying straight at them with my spear hoisted high above my head.

They were grouped together, but upon seeing my soaring form to they tried to stumble out of the way. One of them wasn’t so lucky.

Boom!!!

I came crashing down on his head with my spear. He was bisected from his head to his shoulders before the rest of the force seemingly caught up and slammed his body to the ground. Of course this happened in an instant.

I didn’t get much time to admire my work was a series of roars were released, and the remaining 9 Hobgoblins were upon me in a flash.

I was both faster and stronger than all of them, and while the gap between the 3rd Cycle and the 5th Cycle was truly large. It wasn’t large enough so that I could fight without a care in the world.

Especially not with this level of coordination.

It was 9 of them. 9 3rd Cycle equivalent Hobgoblins. Yet they never seemed to get in each other’s way as they punched, kicked, lunged, and continuously attacked with ferocity, coordination, and communication as a group of lionesses would hunt prey.

It was likely better since there was no actual audible communication going on.

Honestly that level of coordination should be applauded if anything. I’m sure the effectives of the others would soar a lot higher than what it was if they could fight to this level.

Of course I was no mere prey.

Despite the level of attention, I needed to pay to this battle, I wasn’t in dark waters just yet.

It was as if we were doing some intricate battle choreography for a fight scene. I had yet to attack, just focusing only on dodging and moving out of the way of all manner of attacks while doing my best to pay attention to the movements of all 9 Hobgoblins.

This too was training.

I didn’t have eyes in the back of my head, nor did I have multiple brains to process every little piece of information I received.

It was hard.

If I was a little bit weaker this fight would’ve looked a lot different.

Thankfully I was not.

And with a wide grin that somehow found its way onto my face, I finally began attacking.

The fight didn’t last long from that point on.

One swing of mine was all it took to eliminate each one. They could follow my swings with their eyes, but their bodies simply couldn't keep up.

Before long, the battle with the Hobgoblins was over, but the horde of Goblins were still running headfirst into the flames. From the start of the battle till now, it had been roughly over 30ish minutes, maybe closer to 45 mins? It was always hard to keep track of time with no clock.

Anyway, the majority of that time was spent fighting the regular Goblins, while the Hobgoblin battle was short and sweet.

Though with my flames continuously burning high into the sky this entire time, I could finally feel somewhat of a strain somewhere deep inside of me.

They would die down soon.

So before that happened I willed the flames to come crashing down like might of a tsunami once it swelled to imaginable heights.

The nearby area of the Outpost and a little bit into the forest was all covered in flames.

I stood calmly as the flames danced all around me, burning all the Goblins to ash.