One after another, goblins were picked off once they drifted far enough from the others. If they had stayed as a group, Leggy was also prepared to crowd control them if needed, like in their previous slaughter fest.

Rocky and Coral, Liu and Sparky, and Zellin, Reyal and Leggy formed teams to pick off stragglers. Coral’s approach was to first slit the goblin’s throat to prevent it from screaming, then afterwards, Rocky and Coral would team up to slaughter it, before hiding its corpse. Team 2’s approach was to slither up through the bushes and have Sparky paralyze the target with continuous electric shocks before Liu hacked it to death.

Zellin’s team was a little sketchy as they had no quick way to silence their targets, and they didn’t have Coral’s Silent Steps skill to sneak up to their opponents.

First, Leggy would spit a butt web and Zellin would use Sprint to quickly stab the targets neck. It was fine for their first kill, but during their second attempt the goblin managed to cry out before it was stabbed in the throat, alerting the five or so remaining goblins.

Zellin’s team immediately climbed some trees to hide. After a while, seeing that only five or so goblins had approached, Zellin let out a sigh of relief. He didn’t mind this outcome too much as having already killed five or so was a better outcome than expected. They were kids after all.

It wasn’t too hard to kill the rest as the Coral and the others had also regrouped to this area. When Zellin saw Liu and Coral nearing, he blew the goblin horn again, giving his party a five point boost in Strength for 30 seconds, and also signalling the beginning of their all-out assault.

Coral and Rocky still teamed up, with Zellin providing support with his poison-tipped arrows; courtesy of Leggy. Liu and Sparky also teamed up, while Reyal tried his best to support using Fireburst on any goblins who tried to help their comrades, sending them flying. Leggy also did the same, except with webs.

It wasn’t long before the goblins were no more, but before they could breathe a sigh of relief and celebrate their victory, they saw the Level 5 Goblin Shaman approach, fury on his face.

The goblin shaman sensed something was wrong when he heard the horn sound again, but he didn’t expect that the goblin minions would all be slaughtered. The goblin shaman acted quickly and unnoticed by anyone but him, were the bodies of the dead goblins which didn’t dissipate into the air.

Liu immediately snorted. “Isn’t this guy a little too stupid. He actually approached us by himself.” He said in disdain. But before his arrogance could go any further, the goblin shaman lifted his hands and his staff head glowed with a dark-red light. 6 wisps of glowing white light suddenly appeared and entered the bodies of the dead goblins.

Zellin furrowed his brows before his eyes widened in fear. Shit, it’s the Spirit Puppet skill! Zellin thought as he hurriedly shot a poison arrow which pierced the shaman’s shoulder, slowing its actions. “Quick! Coral kill the shaman! Reyal, Liu, hold off the puppet goblins!” Zellin yelled, simultaneously ordering his pets through their mental link.

Coral hurriedly ran towards the shaman as Zellin moved forward step by step, shooting arrow after arrow at the unmoving shaman. It was determined to finish his spell and was willing sacrifice HP to do so.

Sparky quickly approached to deliver an electric shock to the goblin shaman, but before paralyzing it, 3 goblin minions had already risen from the ground and were beginning to approach the group. Coral arrived soon after, sending a flurry of stabs at the paralyzed shaman, quickly ending its life.

The remaining three corpses that didn’t get up again, then shattered into white light which dissipated into the air. But Zellin still felt some dread. The spirits possessing the goblins required weapons that had special qualities to harm them, such as weapons made of silver.

“No choice!” Zellin yelled. “Go all out to dismember them!”

Though he said that with a live or die resolution, he simply stood back as the others went forward to fight. Zellin simply shrugged his shoulders thinking, Unfortunately all I have is a spear and bow. Unless I stabbed multiple times in a perfect row along the arm, there’s no chance of dismemberment.Zellin rationalized shamelessly.

The puppet goblins were extremely fierce as they fought; their strength being much higher than the original goblins. They also fought with no fear of the damage to their body, resulting in an advantage in situations where both sides would usually lose out.

Unfortunately, if this group avoided this kind of fighting, with their current skill levels, the fight would get drawn out to the point where they would all die of exhaustion. Even more unfortunate was the fact they had already been fighting for quite a while, and were now struggling to push their limits.

Another point was that dismembering someone wasn’t as easy in this world as it would be on Earth; bodies are much tougher here. Zellin assumed it was because who ever created the laws of this world, wanted to, as much as possible, adhere to the RPGs of Earth. In other games that Zellin knew of, dismembering your enemies was not too common.

When Zellin thought of this god-like creator, and how it had to be a being who was familiar with Earth that created this place, his mind was simply blown. Even the fact that there was a god-like creator out there blew Zellin’s mind as he thought about the limits of this world.

“Zellin, you jerk! Come and help!” Liu called out in anger.

Zellin sighed as he raised his spear. “Fine, I’ll try…” He mumbled.

Zellin wasn’t like the others, who were getting beat up in the process of fighting back. He kept a certain distance from the goblin zombies. He’d wait for an opening then step in to send a flurry of stabs, trying as hard as he could to keep his stabs aligned in a line. He experimented with the technique as he fought, slowly perfecting it.

After getting to the point where he could make quick, accurate, shallow stabs in a line, Zellin heard a “DING!” sound and saw a notification appear in the lower part of his vision. It read, “You have gained the skill, Stab Dismemberment!”

Nice, Zellin thought with a pleased smile. He immediately used the skill on the arm of a goblin he was trying to dismember. Zellin suddenly moved in an almost automatic way, swiftly stabbing out in a line, much deeper than he had done originally. The puppet goblin was practically dismembered. "Nice!" Zellin called out, smiling even wider. Although there was some strings of flesh that were still attached to the arm, it was basically not the goblin’s arm anymore.

Bear hurriedly ripped the arm off, ripping apart the remaining flesh and tendons which were attached to the shoulder. With this new skill, the dismemberment of the remaining puppet goblins went smoothly, leaving behind a couple writhing pieces of goblin. Liu had dismembered an arm and a leg, while Reyal and Coral dismembered a limb each. As for Zellin, he dismembered the remaining six limbs, before they joined together to behead the goblins and cut up the bodies.

Liu immediately collapsed to the ground after the work was done. “I’m done. No more. I’m going to sleep.” He said in a weak voice as he closed his eyes to rest.

The others also collapsed into seating positions, breathing heavily.

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“Should we… find… the boss?” Coral asked with a heavy breath. Though she was tired, it didn’t dull her eagerness to fight a strong opponent.

“I can’t…” Reyal responded through his heavy breathing. “My HP is dangerously low, and I basically have no mana or stamina left.”

Zellin looked down at his beaten companions and said, “What, you guys are tired already?”

Liu forced his head up to give an angry glare at Zellin. “Shut up, Zellin! You’re laziness almost killed us!”

Zellin snorted. “What are you talking about? I saved your asses.” He replied arrogantly.

Liu gave a frustrated grunt, before hitting his head against the ground. If this jerk wasn’t right, I’d beat him within an inch of his life. Liu thought to himself.

Zellin went over to where the shaman died as something caught his eye. He picked it up and tapped to bring up the information screen. It was a Level 5 Goblin Shaman Staff. It gave a 15% boost to the Magic Attack stat, but lowered the Intelligence attribute by 3 points. Zellin raised an eyebrow at this before deciding to give it to Reyal. Zellin didn’t have any attack spells so it would be useless in his hands.

Zellin gave the others some medicine that he had made, and the group rested for about an hour. After which, they went off to find the boss.

“Hmm? Looks like we cleared out everyone but the boss.” Liu observed. “What was that guy doing all this time? He actually let his whole tribe die without him knowing.” He said as he shook his head at the boss’s lack of responsibility.

“Let’s check the tents.” Reyal suggested.

As they wanted to be prepared, they all checked each tent as a group.

After checking several tents, they still hadn’t found anyone. “Check the big one; he’s probably there.” Reyal said.

The others nodded and went towards the larger tent. From outside Zellin could hear grunting sounds which caused him to raise an eyebrow. He popped his head inside and saw the wide back of the goblin chief grunting and thrusting atop a make-shift bed. Zellin’s face paled and his eyes widened. My god, Zellin thought. They’re doing the monster mash…

Zellin pulled his head back out. “Yeah,” he said slowly, his voice a little weak. “We should probably avoid this tent.” He said as he tried to stumble away from the site of this horrid event.

“Why?” Liu asked curiously. Zellin simply put his hand on Liu’s shoulder and shook his head. “I’m going to see.” Liu said as he strode inside.

Zellin simply shook his head. Today, someone’s innocence will die in the most horrible fashion… Zellin thought solemnly.

As Liu entered the tent, several emotions flashed across his face. The first was confusion, then came shock, then came the ultimate disgust as his innocence was destroyed. He didn’t even make it out of the tent; he immediately emptied his stomach out right there in the tent.

Unknown to the group, was that this time was actually the beginning of the goblin breeding season. Because only the highest ranking goblins would be allowed to breed, the goblin chief was quite busy at this time.

The goblin chief didn’t even notice Liu puking behind him, and continued grunting and thrusting. As the scene continued, Liu weakly left the tent and fell on Zellin’s shoulder. Zellin patted his back, offering comforting words as Liu began to softly cry on his shoulder. “It’s okay, it’s okay. After today, it will just be a bad dream. Time heals all things…” Zellin comforted.

At this point, Reyal made the connection with Zellin’s and Liu’s reactions with the grunting sounds and his face paled. He gagged as he tried to hold down his stomach.

Coral raised an eyebrow. “You guys are acting weird. I’m going inside.” She said as she took a step.

“NO!” Reyal and Zellin instantly yelled. Reyal moved over to grab Coral’s shoulders and hold her in place. “Coral, you can’t.” Reyal urged. “If you go in there, the part of you that’s still a little girl will break down at that moment. Then, you’ll truly be a heartless killer who needs to murder to ease the pain in her heart.” Reyal warned with an intense stare that said that this was a critical life or death choice that would decide her fate.

“Fine! Geez! Why are you guys so weird?” Coral responded, annoyed.

The group simply decided to loot the place and leave as quickly as possible, deciding to let the goblin chief’s lust save him from disaster.

As Zellin went into one of the tents, he heard a horrified scream. As he looked up, he saw the ugliest goblin he’d ever seen run past him and out of the tent. This was actually a female goblin.

Zellin simply ignored the ugly goblin and went over to where she was standing. Shit, it’s actually a baby goblin. He thought as he looked down at the sleeping, green mini-goblin in the crib. Zellin’s eyes immediately furrowed. He knew that it was a goblin, but when he thought about how its whole tribe died and its mother just abandoned it, he quickly related it to his past experience with his parents, causing his expression to soften.

At this point, Reyal entered the tent. He raised an eyebrow at Zellin’s expression and approached to see what he was looking at. When he saw the mini-goblin he instantly understood. “Zellin, this…” He began cautiously, seeing that he was entering into a delicate situation. “I’ve never even heard of someone contracting a goblin, and it’s still a baby. Are you, a twelve year-old, going to raise a baby?” He asked in disapproval.

Zellin sighed at this. “Reyal… I can’t abandon it.” He said slowly as he looked at the sleeping mini-goblin with empathetic eyes. Would I have succeeded in obtaining my dreams back then if my parents hadn’t abandoned me? He thought solemnly. How far does caring go?

“Let the goblin chief raise it! What’s the point in you raising it?” He asked, not able to believe that Zellin was actually going this far.

Zellin snorted in response. “What’s the point in letting the goblin chief raise it? It would simply grow up and become experience points to others.” Zellin retorted, with clenched fists, thinking, at least with me, it has a chance. “No, this has to be done.” He continued resolutely.