Brent snuck up the ridgeline in the darkness. Snuck was a relative word. Though he tried to be quiet, he couldn’t help himself from snatching up various snacks on his journey, so squawks and shrieks announced his arrival intermittently.

As he crested the mountain’s face, he came face to face with a hobgoblin, who appeared to just be waking up from a nap. Devouring the little green creature, he idly noticed a large pile of logs situated nearby and considered eating them too, but ultimately decided that vengeance should take priority over an especially fibrous salad.

Small fires in the valley below guided him to the town proper, and he began to pick up speed in his haste to finally get revenge. Arrows began to whiz by his head as he entered the village proper and his stomach growled in anticipation as he eyed the feast in front of him. A heavily armored hobgoblin caught him by surprise, knocking him sideways and into a fire pit. Screeching in pain, he ran into the nearest building searching for something to regenerate his charred flesh, not caring that the logs began to catch fire as he entered and devoured one hobgoblin after another.

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Creeanth awakened to shrieking outside of his private cabin. Already garbed in his loincloth, he jumped from his bed and ran outside to see absolute chaos. Several cabins were burning brightly, and their luster was reflected by the countless metallic-coated trees in the surroundings. Usually the shimmering sight was awe inspiring, but under the current conditions, it only served to heighten the pandemonium.

Grabbing a fleeing hobgoblin as they ran past, he urgently asked what the source of commotion was, only to be told in very limited hobgobberish about an adventurer that was eating hobgoblins by the dozens. Feeling somewhat skeptical, he made his way in the direction indicated, which was further into the town towards the valley’s center. It wasn’t until he neared the small river that he first caught sight of the enemy. Based on the reports he had received a few hours prior, he knew Brent on sight. If the force of his inhalations wasn’t obvious enough, then his unsightly pale skin and the overly stretched mouth were plenty.

Moving into action immediately, he motioned to the trained warriors and instructed them to attack from distance and from every side. As they backed off and fell into formation, he once again felt grateful for the many tactical advantages Big Bossy Boss had taught them before he vanished.

For a brief moment, Brent found himself in the center of an onslaught, and Creeanth felt that the fight was a foregone conclusion as the enemies body was impaled many times over, but that changed when the much larger being raced forward and sucked up Creeator, one of the best trained scouts the valley had. To Creeanth’s surprise, the hobgoblin wasn’t eaten, but instead seemingly vanished in only a few bites from the oversized maw, before Brent started regenerating more rapidly than the attacks fell.

Fighting the onset of panic, Creeanth instructed his troops to continue attacking from a distance and to retreat at any motion from the enemy. It was a stalling tactic at best, hopefully a way forward would come to him soon.

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Creenchez worked as fast as she could, humming along the planting song that had been developed over the months planting trees–it served both to keep the horde’s mind off of the repetitive and somewhat nature of the work, while also inspiring them. The discordant notes were a beautiful medley that only hobgoblins could sing perfectly, although sometimes dying animals got it almost right. As she finished her tree, the long awaited notification appeared:

[Congratulations! Quest Completed!

Calculating Rewards]

[Congratulations! 20 Additional Stat Points Awaiting Assignment]

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

[Congratulations! New skill unlocked, Divine Smite!

+2 Intelligence

Channel the power of your deity directly,

smiting your foes with the force of their energy.]

Tears spewed from her eyes as she saw the skill. Both because she felt an unworthy vessel to use Big Bossy Boss’s energy, but more so because she knew it wouldn’t work. Her connection to him had been severed for weeks. Desperate to do what she could to help save the valley, she began running towards the sounds of warfare while debating where she could put her points. 20 points was far more than she had ever been able to allocate in one go and she felt confident it could make a difference if she just put it in the right place.

She wasn’t a warrior, she was a spiritual leader, and as such, most of her points had gone into Intelligence thus far, allowing her to guide the flock with a heightened ability to think and problem solve. Her Strength was poor, as was her Dexterity, and while 20 points could bring up either to compete with the highest in the valley, she was hesitant to do so.

She still hadn’t come to any conclusions when she reached the conflict. Brent was moving towards Creeanth, inhaling deeply. The love of her life stood resolutely, launching fireballs which were snuffed out in the gale. As the distance closed, his hair began to bend and whip about his face and he began to stumble forward. In desperation, she dumped all her points into Intelligence, hoping with desperation that something would happen. And it did.

Suddenly, her connection to Big Bossy Boss was restored and she activated Divine Smite, drawing as much power as she could. A blindingly white beam of energy appeared, reaching towards the sky. Brighter than anything she had seen before, she was blinked to shut out the light. An instant later, the light disappeared. Brent was gone and perfectly smooth hole descended deeply into the ground.

Maybe I should have used less energy. She thought as she pushed aside the Level-Up notification and ran towards Creeanth.

Hopefully he will listen to my advice more often after seeing that. She thought smugly.

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Mike grew his core from one stage to the next, the seemingly endless supply of energy he had stolen giving him hope that he might even make it to Tier 3. When his core reached the size of a large pumpkin, he knew his insights into cultivation were about to be tested and he began thinking through what needed to happen next.

He had asked Pupach about the stages and had been surprised when the squidman had simply laughed at him. Apparently it was rude to discuss cultivation insights. He did learn though that Tier 3 was still considered weak in the multiverse, it wasn’t a blocker on the path to power, as nearly 30% of most factions were at Tier 4 or above. That being said, assimilators assigned to integrate new sectors were limited to Tier 2 and below for two reasons. The first, and largest reason was the accords. The second was that nothing above Tier 2 was needed. The System took care of most of the process, and it wasn't like planets had creatures stronger than Tier 2 if they had never experienced cultivation before. That information had given Mike the courage to fight back earlier, knowing that inside his opponent's suit was an assimilator that was quite a bit weaker than himself.

Shaking his head to remove the stray thoughts, Mike focused back on his core and thought about compression. He had grown his core layer by layer in what felt like solid sheets, but he began to wonder if they had truly been solid. And if they were solid, were they as dense as they could be? Increasing the density of his core, compressing the mass into a smaller space, would enable it to hold onto more mass due to gravity–much like planets and stars functioned. Keeping that image in his head, he began looking at his core, delving inside layer by layer. Sure enough, he found that the layers didn’t comprise a solid object, and he felt confident that smooshing them together was a good way to go.

Preparing himself, he gathered his energy and was about to proceed when a small tendril of energy reached out to him. It was clearly System related, and he moved to destroy it, until he felt what seemed like a whiff of Creenchez, which gave him pause. He had no doubt that accepting the tendril would have negative effects, though he wasn’t sure of the repercussions completely. He went back and forth for several minutes as he mentally debated his options, but then something changed.

He sensed an urgency from the tendril, which had suddenly grown thicker, and he was confident that Creenchez was desperate for help. Knowing his life would be worth nothing if he simply turned his back on her, he pushed energy outward, grasping the tendril with one of his own. No sooner did they touch than energy began sucking out of him at an alarming rate. His channels which had been full of energy were suddenly bordering on empty after only a brief moment and his body slumped sideways.

What just happened? He thought as his consciousness faded.