51.

“That’s ominous as fuck,” Chloe hissed as she saw the goblin nest for the first time. Greg had died in the fighting with the Acolyte Night Hag, but Beverly had survived and volunteered to go with them. Chad was walking quietly with Rayleigh while the last two members of the team were a pair of the college track and field team members. Both of them were carrying javelins that they had somehow sharpened to killing points.

Adam and Luis were both tall with long arms and broad shoulders. The early morning chill had caused both of them to pull on their blue windbreakers and were wearing their track warmup pants. They hadn’t said much before agreeing to go to the dismay of the rest of the track team. Santi knew how large track teams were, so seeing only a dozen or so of the athletes gathered together in a knot was sobering.

Each of the men had four of the javelins and had even earned a class related to throwing weapons. While javelins might not be the best weapon for dealing with horde monsters they were better than nothing. Both the men had stood on the front lines and had made a good showing for themselves.

Between those two and Chad they had plenty of ranged fighters and with Rayleigh, Chloe, and Beverly they could hold a decent line. Until the first round of class evolutions came there wouldn’t be any truly specialized classers. The way Rayleigh fought he didn’t doubt she’d become a frontliner while Chloe would specialize into damage dealing. When that happened they’d be better suited for doing missions like this.

“Give me five minutes for me to run around the side, then kick the nest.”

“How long do we need to hold out for?” Chad asked. The quiet hunter seemed to be more subdued without his brother. He was still deadly and brave, but there was something missing.

“A few minutes. The longer the better, but don’t risk your lives. Run if it starts to be too much.”

“Got it. Piss ‘em off but don’t fight to the death.”

“Close enough. Five minutes.” Santi took off, running close to the ground as he flanked the nest. The rest of the team stayed close to the road and the easy route to retreat.

As he ran around the edge he saw burn marks on the barnes from when Justin had done his own feint yesterday. Forms moved around the edges of the nest. Scores of goblins were running around too far away for him to Identify. He couldn’t tell if there were hobs in their number, but he knew there’d likely be some at the least. A true honor guard of upper teen hobgoblins. Maybe even pushing low-twenties.

It took the majority of the five minutes he needed to sneak around to the far side of the barnes. There wasn’t much of a difference between the front view vs. the back view. Trees, barnes, gravel, and empty pastures. Santi lay on the ground catching his breath.

The arrow came flying in thirty-seven seconds later, the strangled scream was loud and clear. The shifting forms all froze and then they were moving. The area around the barns came alive with dozens of goblins all running toward where the group were waiting for them. Santi gave it another second and then he was up and moving.

His newfound strength and dexterity gave him speed bordering on superhuman. He’d have won gold at the olympics. And it wouldn’t have been close.

Gravel crunched under his feet as he transitioned from the fields and onto the property. The effect of the nest was immediate. Humidity that pressed on him while the temperature increased with every step. It was an early spring day but felt like the heart of the summer in the Amazon.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I already miss the A/C,” Santi bitched as the morph weapon slithered into his hand.

Three large barnes formed a line, metal paddocks extending out the back into plain dirt. To the right was a large metal building covered in the black webbing with red vines creeping over the top of the slanted roof. A small prefabricated home sat in the middle of the lot. The rectangular home was covered in the vine and the two trees next to it were choked off as the vines tore through bark and into the heart of the trunk.

“Not being discreet at all,” Santi muttered as he stared at the metal building. Lots of monster nests relied on hiding to protect themselves. This one had tried rapid expansion to protect itself. Too bad it had lost most of its defenders. He was on a time crunch, not wanting to get caught by the goblins when they returned and the defenders.

The hag nest was recent in his mind. Being pinned between the two forces in the stairwell had almost gotten all of them killed. He was going to run this fast as possible but he was going to do it right. Clearing each of the three barnes, the prefab house, and then tackle the metal building.

The closest barn was open, the wide double doors broken open and covered in black webbing that pinned them to the walls. Santi entered as fast as he could, his morph turning into a razor whip that trailed behind him. Against a wall was a series of tack rooms that hung open. Livestock equipment were scattered about in the rooms and the leather harnesses and saddles were decaying and breaking apart.

Directly in front of him was a series of open stalls. Goblins clustered inside of the stalls, staring at him with wide frightful eyes. They were small and thin, bones showing in every movement. It took only a flick of his wrist and the whip sliced through them without slowing down. The wood stalls shattered as the whip raced right through them and continued to scythe apart the goblins.

Clearing the entire barn only took a few minutes. None of the goblins fought back or even could. It was a massacre that needed to be done. Regardless of how weak they were right now they’d grow into full size goblins soon enough. Santi worked his way through the barn and saw nothing of value. The creeping black webbing had covered everything of value.

Santi kept the speed up as he entered the next barn. It was the same exact design but there were no lurking goblins sitting in the stalls. A deep growl emanated from the stalls. A second growl started up, then a third, fourth, and fifth.

“Oh, fuck me,” Santi groaned as he started to slink backward.

A beast came out of the stall directly in front of him. It resembled a hound. If a hound had been skinned. The beast’s skin wept fluids giving it a slick appearance as it growled and stalked forward. Conical teeth jutted from its jaws while each of its paws were the size of a dinner plate and had daggers for claws.

Greater Goblin Hound lvl. 20

He hadn’t seen many of the beasts before, having hidden from the monsters when he was close to this level. When he was stronger the hounds weren’t a threat that he ever worried about. All five of the hounds were level and twenty and as they pushed their way free of the shadows of their stalls he began to rethink his thinking about soloing the nest. If these hounds had attacked him while fighting a horde of the weaker goblins and hobs, he’d have been in trouble.

His whip cracked as it split the air and a wound opened up on the hounds shoulder. Blood rolled down its shoulder but all it did was deepen its growl as it lowered its haunches.

The whip stiffened as he created a eight foot boar spear. The shaft was thin but the spear head was broad and sharp while the crossguard was thick enough it couldn’t force its way down the shaft to get to him.

He set his feet and prepared himself as the hound leapt. He imposed the spearpoint between himself and the hound and let the beast's own momentum do the work. The hound’s maw opened wide as blood came bubbling out as it whined in agony as the spear punched through vital organs.

Santi held it up above the ground for a second before letting the morph blade condense, flowing out of the hound and letting it drop heavily onto the ground. The other four hounds took it as a starting gun, bursting into action with slavering jaws.

Gust activated as the hound on the far left was in mid air, pushing it to the side and slamming it into a wall. The morph blade simultaneously changed into a whip that slashed across the muzzles of the three other charging mutts. They all whined and hesitated at the pain.

Santi charged the stunned hounds, knowing he needed to finish them off in the closer confines of the barn, morphing his blade into a long handled axe with a sharp spike emerging from the back. Santi didn’t know why he was smiling as his heart pounded with excitement and fear.