Fear was obvious upon the Goblin’s faces. Their rifles shook in their hands, and their posture was unstable. Standing there, I noticed for the first time that their legs were reverse-jointed. Their strange inverted knees gave them a dog-like countenance. I was filled with a feeling of disgust. Nature would not naturally produce a reverse-jointed biped. Reverse-jointed rear legs were meant to be supplemented by forward-jointed fore legs. That’s why you would only see reverse-jointed legs on quadrupeds like dogs, horses, cats, rabbits, and deers.
The existence of a reverse-jointed biped strongly suggested that some unnatural power had stretched and bent innocent animals into these disgusting monsters. I could tell that the Goblins had been some kind of predator animal once. They had probably once been a canine-adjacent creature with green skin and long snouts used for digging through the dirt until GM came along. I could see it in my mind’s eye. At some point, the progenitors of the Deluvians had been uplifted unnaturally. Their bone structures had been bent into a roughly bipedal shape, and the ends of their upper appendages had been twisted into an approximately humanoid shape so that they could hold weapons in the name of GM.
It would take a man a lot more tolerant than me to feel anything other than disgust upon seeing a Goblin up close.
“Hello, my name is Enzo,” I said. As I spoke, I realized that an edge of malice had entered my voice despite my best efforts to sound friendly. I had always had a difficult time with modulating my tone, and the disdain I felt toward the Deluvians must have seeped into my voice. “Can you understand me?”
“Yes,” one of the Goblins snarled. The one that spoke was the only one who kept his rifle aimed at my head. The others had allowed their rifles to point toward my torso or legs.
“Good. Do you know what I am?” I asked. I could have just told them, but I wanted to test their intelligence. Would they be capable of basic deductive reasoning?
“A Patrician,” one of the Goblin’s behind me answered. He spoke with fear in his voice.
“An elf,” said the Goblin to my left. I filed that statement away in my brain to be brought up later.
“I don’t know,” the bravest Goblin said. It and the rest of the Goblins spoke with a slow cadence and imprecise verbiage that made me question their intelligence. “You’re a Revenant, yeh?”
“Not quite,” I said as I walked toward the Goblin. It kept its rifle aimed at my head, and I kept walking until the Goblin’s rifle was pressed against my forehead. I was not afraid in the slightest. If any of the Goblins had any real intent to shoot me, Danger Sense would have picked it up. Ever since I had closed the distance to the Goblin squad, I hadn’t received the smallest sign from Danger Sense.
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“Could a Revenant do this?” I asked rhetorically as I brought my hand up to the brave Goblin’s rifle. I grabbed the rifle by the barrel and squeezed like I was crushing a can of soda. The gun’s wooden furniture immediately began to crack and splinter. The steel barrel creaked loudly and bent at a twenty-degree angle. I could feel the barrel constrict within my grasp to such an extent that a bullet could not possibly fit through.
The Goblin tried to wrench his rifle out of my hand, but I barely even noticed. After a few seconds of squeezing, I released the rifle. The Goblin toppled backward from the force it used to try to yank the rifle out of my hand. He quickly got his monstrous legs back underneath himself and pointed the rifle at me once again.
Once the Goblin had leveled the rifle in my direction, he realized that it would never fire again. The wooden furniture holding the barrel in place had been completely destroyed, and the barrel was twisted to such an extent that the gun would probably explode if anyone tried to fire it.
“One more guess…” I said as I started to unzip my jumpsuit at the collar.
“You’re a Dark Apostle…” the Goblin said with fear and reverence clear in his expression.
I pulled the collar of my jumpsuit aside to reveal my tattoo.
“Be not afraid,” I said, chuckling quietly.
----------------------------------------
A few minutes later, I had reclaimed my firearms from the house roof and regrouped with the Goblin squad by the metal crate. The leader of the Goblins had armed himself with a small axe, and all of my new monstrous subordinates had become uncharacteristically quiet.
I checked my magazine as I approached the small group of Goblins. I had used about a third of the ammo in my magazine. There was a satisfying sound of metal against metal as I slapped the magazine back into the assault carbine.
“Where’s the rest of the 13th Legion?” I asked no one in particular.
“They’re staying in the center of Threshold City,” grunted the lead Goblin. It was just as Melkior suspected.
Threshold City was a natural choke point between New Arcadia and Osiris. It was the only major settlement between the Southern Chasm to the west and the Phlegethon River to the east. Just about every method of transport between the two major cities would pass through Threshold. The bridges across the river and the chasm were each within a few miles of Threshold City, and the only other bridges across the two natural barriers were more than two hundred miles to the south.
Moments after the lead Goblin was done speaking, I heard the sound of heavy footsteps coming from the other side of the nearby house.
“An ally is approaching us now,” I said loudly to the Goblins. “Do not attack him.”
A figure appeared from around the corner of the house. The Goblins were clearly shocked by the figure’s appearance, but they did not move their rifles.
I turned my own head to regard the person who had just arrived. Dendrite stood there, regarding my new Goblin followers with veiled disgust.