I rushed through the forest in a frenzied panic. Kicking up giant patches of dirt, carving through any branch getting in my way. The sound of my heart beating being the only thing entering my ears, it’s beat filling me with more dread than anything I have felt before.

It feels like I’m in a nightmare, yet I am not. But, there can be an argument about if reality truly is a nightmare.

Will I get there in time? Will I be able to save them, or will I just get there in time to be a witness to a slaughter of my people?

What have we done to get attacked? We have no blood of the innocent or the towns folk, only the wildlife to survive another day.

Did they somehow follow trails to the village left behind from hunting sessions?

No… Why would they be so deep within the forest, there is no good reason I could see them going into this forest, and enough of them to cause a reaction saying that the village is under attack.

Nor do I believe that rotty would be killed so easily… There is probably many of them attacking.

My body burns, flesh tingling and itching as if wishing to escape it’s confides of the body.

Ragged breaths are expel from my lungs as I continue to sprint. The sprint feels endless, like I will never reach my destination, the forest will forever grow in front me, barring my advances.

What will I do if I lose all of them? I have not known them for long, a couple of days, but I’ve gone attached to the little blighters… They live their lives with little concern, just looking forward to the next day. The children not knowing the horrors of their future…

What have they done…?

I hear sharp screams accompanied by the cackle of roaring flames and laughter. The smell of blood flows into my nose, filling me a spike of anxiety. I push myself to move faster as every second counts.

I burst out into the outskirts of the village, frantically looking around at the scenery. Taking in the horrific sights, which I feared that I would never see.

Corpses of goblins lay dead within the streets they once called home. Their bodys missing limbs, slashed up, cut in half, filled with projectiles, or even charred to a fucking crisp.

Twisted expressions of terror and agony painted on my people’s last moments. Their eyes lifeless but still broadcasting their despair as they went down.

Seeing the body of a charred goblin that attempted to shield their child. Hunched over, cradling them.

Huts becoming ovens to the unlucky still caught inside. Some of my people pinned to such huts by spears or arrows.

My heart bleeds… I feel sickened…

As I look away from them, I see them… Wretched monsters who came here. Their laughter as they slay my people. Spells being slung as goblins run for their lives, being treated as mobile target practice.

A father, stopping to protect his wife and child. Taking a blast of shards of ice. Not a word escaped his mouth as he was impaled. Just a grim smile as he protected his family before his death…

Rage.

It fuels me. The cries of the dying call out to me, asking why they have been forsaken.

Eyesight turns to a shade of red. My adrenaline spiking to an all time high. My mind begging for death to those who dare harm my new family.

I lock my sights on two wretches slowly walking to a small goblin child shaking their dead parent as they cry. All I needed to hear was for one to ask the other if they wanted the ‘Free Experience or not’.

I snapped.

My anguish filled scream filled the air as I charged towards the two. Scythe and cloak ready to reap the lives who wish to do harm. Blood sprays me as I hack them in two. The look of shock still visible on their faces.

Without stopping, I continued towards the next defiler… And the next... And the next…

They all became fountains when I came to them. Some screamed, yelled, ran, but they all became fountains.

There was a warped sense of enjoyment as I now watch them go through what they have been making my people go through. The despair and blood, fueling me even more to the next one.

I can’t see properly. I can only see them, as if they are highlighted. Neon signs ready to be dismantled and I gladly obliged. I expanded on the ways I did it.

I crushed them, grabbing them by their skulls and squeezing, tossing the ragged body to their comrades with enough force usually to break ribs and their spine if they're lucky.

Impaled them with their own weapons or just with my hands, ripping their own hearts out, sometimes even forcing it down their throat afterwards. I even one time grabbed someone's head and threw it at a mage, watching it go right through their chest.

They ran. They cast spells. They fought.

They were slaughtered.

The feeling of grabbing a pyromancer by the face while using hellfire cladding is so refreshing… Sadly, their screams died as quickly as they started, but at least the burning smell persisted.

I let no one escape my clutches nor the confines of this village. They shall all get what they were looking for. It would be a disservice to them…

Eventually there was only one left. A man who was guarded by several others. They burned like the others, cooked alive within their metal armours as their protection melted on them.

The man was their leader. Well dressed, regal clothing, something ill suited to be worn outside of a cushy manor or extravagant ball. Unlike the others, he had no fear, only anger and despair.

May he wallow in it.

I beat him within a inch of his life, leaving him battered but breathing, unconscious. I dragged him to the middle of the village.

I look around the smouldering village. The body count to high to count, or I’m unwilling to. A place I relaxed for the past days. The memories of lounging around while the children would gather around and play, giving me little meaningless presents such as a flowers or mud…

Sound of cracking teeth makes me stop remembering. I take another glance around the village center seeing Goblins coming towards me. Their faces filled with uncertainty, sadness and a tinge of fear, which brings me pangs within my chest.

Many of them, go to the fallen of the village, falling down and crying. Their sobs being the only noise besides the crackle of the remaining fires, which care not for the suffering.

Looking back to the leader of the wretched, I feel the large desire to make him feel the same pain he made us suffer. I fight it off, for now as I drop him and cast Damned Centauri.

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I feel an immense feeling of lose, as an exorbitant amount of black fogs rises around me. Only to fade away as 80 black platemail wearing knights rise, clawing their way out of the earth. Each wielding a longsword, towershield, while also having a bow and full quiver on their back.

When I check the summons menu, it calls them ‘Honoured Death Knights’, each being Lv 350… If I only had this before I fucking left this place…!

I Clench my fist as I glare at the closest one which just salutes. I almost hit it in my unreasonable anger as if it was mocking me.

“Gather the dead and put them side by side with their kind… Bring me all Goblin Survivors.” I say to the Death Knight. It saluates again, but before It leaves I continue. “End any of the human survivors… Make it slow…”

It saluates once again gathering it’s comrades to start gathering and organizing the corpses. Some go off and start looking for Goblins to usher them to me. Several times they brought me Goblins which were close to death… They did not make it...

It did not take long for the bodies to be organized as well as bringing the survivors. Mibbit and Stronk came together in a sizeable group, probably the ones who were training or goblins nearby when the incident occurred.

Stronk has several lacerations on him, looking quite injured but nothing severe however, Mibbit looks as if he wasn’t anywhere near combat…

Rage is quickly quelled before I acted upon it.

I stalk over to their group, my face in permanent scowl. My eyes lock onto Mibbit’s who sees me glaring at him freezes like a deer in headlights. He starts trembling, Stronk to his side doesn’t notice his comrade’s state but kneels once he sees me coming, as well as the other with him.

Fingers twitching, knuckles clasping open and closed, as I stop in front of them. Deep agitated sigh escapes my mouth. This does not help Mibbit feel better in the slightest. Good.

I then look over to Stronk who is still kneeling, the edge of my mouth curls upwards but quickly returns back to my previous scowl. “Rise, there is no time for formalities right now… What happened after I left.”

Stronk slowly nods, reluctantly before he gets up with his right fist over his chest while he speaks to me. “Master please forgive this lowly one for not helping out more when the assault came onto us…” He grimaces and clenches his fist, his eyes slightly bloodshot. “We did not have anyone posted before they attacked… It did not help that they attacked on the opposite side where we were training…” He groans defeated.

I snort and wave a hand in a dismissive manner. “You tried did you not? If what you said is true about them coming from the other side, you would not be injured would you.” A warm smile grows on my face for a moment. “To risk your life for your fellow friends and kin, is more than enough. Treat this as a learning experience.” Stronk nods slowly, clearly not feeling any better.

Fucking shitshow…

Looking over to Mibbit who is fidgeting around. Nervously looking at me. I just snort and leave. There's nothing worth saying to him. Nor do I doubt he would have did anything game changing if he tried to help.

I waited at the center of village for everyone to come back, mourn for their loved ones, head count, and care for those hurt. It took a bit for Nibbit and the Magic bone crew to show up. I couldn’t see any surprised looks on their faces, except Nibbit, which makes sense.

Nibbit rushes over to me quickly, his face a mix between rage and horror. Erlin and his sons in contrast are taking their time, in a slow methodical pace, sweeping their gazes over the ruins of the destroyed village.

“Who did this!?” Nibbit snarls out. His fists and jaws clenched in burning fury.The killing intent coming off of him rolls off like barely visible green smoke, showing his poison affinity.

“Dead and soon to be dead men.” Comes out of my mouth, filled with venom and a still smouldering ire ready to be released on anyone foolish enough to push me over the edge. “There will soon not be a remainder of their existence…”

Erlin now near shakes his head before speaking. “I do not believe you should rush into vengeance Master, I don’t think it is wise.” He looks briefly to his sons. “I can understand why you will be… quite upset. But there are more-”

“What do you mean only quite upset! We were assaulted with our pants down, and with no proper defenses layed out to defend our kin. And your saying we should not get revenge?!” Nibbit explodes starting to shriek at Erlin, who seems not the lest bit disturbed by the outburst.

“I am not saying we will never strike back, but we can not just strike back without precautions. It would be foolish to do such a thing, expeccially if we do not know what kind of resistance we will meet,” Erlin points a boney finger at Nibbit’s chest “Or what kinds of strong powers we will piss off by such a intrusion. Maybe a lot of Goblins died, but there's always more out there.” He shrugs. “Not a huge loss, to risk our lives over.”

I send Erlin the most withering glare I didn’t know I could muster. He visibly wilts at my gaze, shrinking himself. “Erlin, to put this into perspective. Those mere Goblins, I feel are very important to me and actually outrank you. If I had to choose between saving your sorry ass and sons, or my people… I would pick the goblins in a heartbeat, and I’m assuming you would save your sons over me if you had the choice, wouldn’t you…”

Erlin flinches and looks away, not looking at me. His two sons seem quite shocked by my reaction but don’t say anything. Nibbit however is smiling smugly, which I treat which a swift smack up his head to knock it off.

The goblins nearby hearing the discussion seem to happy with what I say but when I look at them, they quickly look away minding their own business…

“I agree with that we should not rush into this, as with finding out more information about who attacked us, however sooner rather than later, the cretins who originally planned the attack will notice they have failed when their pawns did not return. Unfortunately time is not on our side.” I start walking to one of the remaining huts that is not burnt down. “That does mean we won’t much time to decide what our course of action will be, or enough time to gather information. Thankfully for us, we have a… ‘Cooperative guest’ in our midst, who will help us with this…” Once we enter the hut, we are greeted with a tied up heavily beaten body.

I look back to them with a malicious smile on my face. “Now, if you gentlemen will leave me for a bit, I will come find you when I have the answers for our little... Problem.”

Within the hut I am greeted to the sight of the My honoured guest slumped against the hut’s wall. Let me tell you he does not look well.

His face is covered in blood from me breaking his nose from my first punch. It is completely crooked and shattered, it will only be possible to be fixed with magic as I doubt they have modern plastic surgery here. The colouration around his eyes are the tell tale signs of having black eyes, being black and blue skin colour around them. One of his eyes were even damaged causing it to be blood red and him not being able to move it anymore when I hit him.

Several of the man’s ribs are broken from me wailing on him, thankfully for me, none of his organs have been punctured but there is severe bruising. His right arm is quite in a strange angle, being in a physiologically impossible state.

Thankfully I did not damage his throat, throat or mouth as I will be needing him to speak if I want the answers I seek. I just hope I didn’t deal any brain damaging when I punched him out. It is really difficult getting answers from a vegetable.

The cracking sound of a slap echos in the hut as I attempt to wake him up. His eye flares open as my hand strikes his cheek. His heated gaze shows that the beating I have given him has not destroyed his spirit… Yet.

“Your final moments of peace have come to an end, I hope you enjoyed them.” I say dryly as I crouch in front of him to be eye level with him.

“I do not wish to speak with you Daemon spawn…” He spits as his face turns into a scowl.

I chuckle at his response. “You are sorely mistaken here my honoured guest. You don’t have an option in this. You will answer my questions, and then you will die. Just like those miserable cretins who came here with you. The only option you have is deciding if you will have a quick painless death or not. Either way it’s fine with me.”

“I will not talk nor break! You killed my men and my wife! You will get nothing from me!” He shouts at me with splittle flying and hitting my face.

I wipe away the spittle and flick it back to him. The smirk on my face only angers my guest more. Now I wonder, what does he mean I killed his wife? She had to be one of the cretins he showed up with, unless he has me mixed up with someone else… Doesn’t matter, bringing it up won’t help me further getting answers.

Time to finally practice Biomancy and get answers at the same time. The information about it did say it was great for torture. It might not give me fully accurate information but it’s at least not going in blind, and has the chance of being true if it’s painful enough…

“I see, well I will take it that you choose the hard way.” I turn my head quizzically to the side. “Now I wonder what your answer would’ve been if I told you that I had an affinity to Biomancy at the start?”

Oh! The look on his face! He looks completely terrified! He’s shaking like a leaf on a windy day, which isn’t really good for him with his broken ribs.

“N-no, you can’t b-be..!” He wheezes out as he starts to hyperventilate.

I reach out to his face gently touching it with my fingers and cast Flesh Sculpt. The rush of knowledge that enters my mind is overwhelming. I can sense each inch of skin covering his body. Knowing each imperfection, the exact colour, thickness, past wounds, scars and elasticity.

Having a mental diagram of the noble within my mind showing his whole body and telling me everything I need to know about his skin and only that. Perhaps in the higher ranks of Biomancy I will have my senses deeper within the person getting information about their bones and organs. If so it could help a lot if I wanted to find any weaknesses or wounds to be healed with magic.

This all happens in a split second of the rush of information and I start what the actual spell is named after. I start to sculpt his flesh, changing his form to my liking.

The flesh on his face crack, bubble, change from pale pink to black, then to red or any other colour I can think of. I soften it, making it looking unblemished fresh to the world before I harden it, making it calloused and bumpy as if the face of a rock. Opening sores upon his face, creating pimples, warts and large tumorous growths. Then flaying it off and reverting it all back to what he looked like before I started.

He screamed. His blood curdling scream resonated throughout the area. You could only see the whites of his eyes when he screamed. His mouth never closing as it constantly made a choir of suffering sounds. His body convulsed as if his body was being grabbed and pulled in every direction brutally and without remorse.

His voice become demented the longer I went as his throat started becoming damaged from the strain. He didn’t stop, no matter what. He started bleeding from his nose and eyes. His blood pressure was going through the roof. I didn’t stop until several minutes have gone by. Stopping only after he started coughing up blood while screaming.

Well that was more intense then I was expecting. I do not think he will be able to answer me any time soon, but at least I got some valuable information about Flesh Sculpt. This can truly cripple and kill if you restrain the target. I doubt he would live with me completely flaying all the skin off his whole body. His Raw flesh and muscles being constantly bombarded by bacteria in the air, everything touching him causing immense stinging pain and so on.

Now let's continue moving forward. Need to speak with my surviving people. They are without hope and in the pits of despair with this tragedy. I must rally them for what is to come in the coming days…

With that thought I quickly leave the whimpering broken creature within the Hut.

When I exit the hut, I see quite a few goblins looking terrified at the hut. Thinking about what could be creating such a horrendous sounds in their probably. Ignoring them I look for Nibbit so he can gather the survivors for the speech I’m going to make.

It wasn’t that hard as he is taller than all the goblins plus his staff and robes help point him out from the rest. He was tending to a group of heavily injured goblins under the ever watching gaze of the Death Knights.

Bandaging them up with a mashed up bluish green mixture and leaves and applying what seems to be healing magic afterwards. Sadly it isn’t help to bring back the Goblins missing eye or left arm, but it will prevent him from getting an infection or dying out hopefully.

“Nibbit” I say, making him jump looking at me a little fidgety. “Once your done applying first aid I would appreciate if you would, gather up everyone. I wish to say something.”

“B-by your will S-sire..” He nods his head up and down with vigor, his eyes hold a small of amount of fear as his hands trembling at his sides.

I nod to him and walk to the center of the ruins.

That town shall be destroyed. It shall burn as well as all those cretins. They will suffer as we have suffered. Death will be a bittersweet gift to them. None shall survive. Death for death. Suffering for suffering.

Looking down at my hands I see them slick and dripping with blood. Purple blood. My blood. My nails cutting into my flesh, allowing blood to flow unhindered. I feel no pain nor a sense of numbness, only an increase in my anger.

The fools. The Fools shall burn for this!!! I Gnash my teeth and my hands clench tightly squirting blood out of my palms.