Guy hid amongst the highest trees and watched the weirdest village he'd ever seen. They almost looked peaceful. Civilized, even. They had houses.

He had killed five hobgoblins already, but he had barely made a dent in their numbers, they hadn't even noticed. As for goblin mages, that was a whole other ball game he was unwilling to tackle just yet. Well, he was unwilling to take them on in their natural habitat, in this village where they were surrounded by all the hobgoblins and goblin warriors. If he could lead all the warriors out of the village however, and only have a bunch of mages who sucked at close range, it would be a slaughter.

He needed thirty goblin ears, and he had five hobgoblin ears already. He was pretty sure they would be enough, but getting all the goblin mages would get him a good reward. Perhaps it could even get him into the supervisor's good graces. Besides, hobgoblins were stronger than normal goblins, but he'd found he could still kill them easily enough, at least as long as they weren't with the mages. His plan was a good one, he assured himself. Not a reckless attempt to measure how much stronger he'd become.

The alarm went off in the village, and he could hear noises, like monkeys chattering, but somehow more ominous. The goblins and hobgoblins moved out of the village in small bands over the next thirty minutes.

As he'd guessed, most of the goblin mages stayed behind. He was sure only about five parties had gone with a mage, and there were less than thirty warriors left with one hobgoblin. Guy pushed his senses to where the rest of his expedition were still fighting. It was far enough away from the now scouting goblin parties.

Still, if he didn't wrap up this business fast enough, they'd be in some trouble. Guy attacked.

He did not attack from the front where the thirty or so goblin warriors were still discussing something in loud animal noises and grunts. He went straight to what appeared to be a meeting of some of the goblin mages. He attacked the strongest one first, which meant he attacked the one who was dressed most similarly to a human, and who had seemed to have the most monkey noises to make.

The goblin's head flew before any of the others could realise what was happening. His second target died the next instant, but his sword bounded off air on his third attempt. An invisible magic barrier? He cursed, but he was already running, avoiding elemental attacks as he got behind the goblin and killed it before it could adjust it's shield. He launched himself into the air, narrowly avoiding a bolt of lightning. He clicked his tongue and dived away from this group. It had gotten dangerous.

The next group were still in some confusion when he landed among them. They were standing very close to each other, and all he had to do was thrust nine times in one second to kill half the group. He could feel his muscles pulling during the whole stunt. He hadn't used any techniques thus far, just speed and raw athleticism. He killed seven more with lightning fast strikes before the last two rallied and began to shout. One used a magic shield, which when hit with Guy's strongest attack launched the goblin into a leaf built house, helping it escape. The other goblin had very impressive control over earth magic and used the earth to pull itself away at top speed while screaming at the top of it's lungs.

Guy cursed quietly but he was already running towards his next group of victims. He needed to be faster. His body was letting him down, slower to react to his instructions than he would like. He killed three groups of goblin mages before he found himself back to the group he'd attacked first. He thrust forward five times, killed five times. His sixth attempt was blocked.

It was a bigger goblin, almost the size of a human being, dressed in a shirt of hide and a loin cloth, and holding a crude shield. Crude but effective. He had barely caused the shield to shake with his last thrust.

Which was very reasonable. Whilst they were fatal, his thrusts were speed focused and not that strong. They could overpower a weaker opponent, but could only try and penetrate the guard of strong, not necessarily stronger, opponents.

He bounced back from his failed attack, his body jolted, and his rhythm broke. He had been in a trance of swings and thrusts and darts and lunges. It was almost like he'd been taking the time to hone his basics, to warm up before the main fight. It seemed the hobgoblin who'd been left in the village wasn't a run of the mill mob. His rusty coloured and tangy scented club proved that. Guy took his tip down stance, took a breath, and once again his vision changed.

It was only him and the hobgoblin, who charged first. Guy tensed his muscles and swung, the sword clanged on the metal shield and sparks flew. Guy was launched into the air, he landed a few inches back, and the club was already coming for him, he rode the momentum of the hit to gain some more distance, and then he launched himself forward.

Club met sword in another shower of sparks, and strength met refined technique. Guy's sword should have been pushed back, but instead it slid off the surface of the club, going upwards even as the hobgoblin froze. Like a snake, it launched forward and took a nibble at the goblin's hand. And a finger flew.

Guy flowed past the goblin, landing behind the behemoth. It screamed in rage and the whole forest froze. Guy knew it then, and it filled him with no small amount of horror and pride. Here before him stood someone so much stronger, so much more resilient, impossible for him to defeat. He had landed upon the big bad boss, probably the leader of this whole forest goblin settlement. And the goblin's body was swelling. It got taller, it's muscles bulged out, almost the size of an ogre.

“Why? Why you puny humans come to our home, kill us?! You are weak. We capture your homes…”

Guy took a breath. He could feel his stamina flagging. As for the rest of the expedition force. They were withdrawing. Obviously they'd had the roar of a mutant creature, and knew they were in danger.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Guy just took another stance. Sure he couldn't win under normal circumstances, but these weren't normal circumstances. He could feel it. His body was tiring, his muscles torn, his breaths laboured. He could not escape from here. But he didn't need to. He was on the verge of something. If he survived a few more minutes of this, he was pretty sure something big was going to happen.

He could almost feel the world edge him on. He remembered Noid's words about the world being a trial and what not, then he promptly dismissed them. He crouched, and launched himself forward with a lunge.

The battle resumed. The trance took him, deeper than ever before. His breaths were slow, his senses were elevated but focused. He noticed everything his opponent did to the smallest detail. They crossed blades hundreds of times over the next thirty seconds, and hundreds of wounds gathered on the goblin's body. Still, at the end of those thirty seconds, Guy was launched through five houses of mud and rock.

He landed with a crush, dug a pit with his own body, and blocked his sight with a cloud of dust. There was pain, sure. But for some reason, he could ignore it, cut the sensation off. He was always in pain since he'd seen the world tear. It felt like this world was always trying to reject him. He wondered why he couldn't die though.

Not that any of that mattered. His body bruised and battered, his engine dry, Guy forced himself to his feet mere moments after his crush. He launched himself sideways even though he couldn't see, and a crush and subsequent dust cloud told him he'd done the right thing.

He crouched in a ready position. His enemy charged. He charged too, though with more grace than his enemy. They met in the middle. Their weapons clashed. He was not pushed back.

He could not suddenly overpower the hobgoblin. He could, however, steal all the momentum from it's hits, using it's own strength against it. As the club came down, his sword came in from the side and slightly angled. Instead of being pushed back, the hit pushed him to the right and down, inside the monster's guard. With that same momentum he slid past the monster's body, leaving a slash on it's gut.

His body was flexible. Almost like it was made of rubber. He did not have stamina, but he felt something magical flow through his veins. He moved back to attack, and he could see the angle where he'd need to put his sword to steal the monster's momentum again.

Again and again and again. The monster cried out in pain, the wounds on its body accumulating. But he was an evolved monster, and so too his mental faculties. He'd seen the trick, or thought he had. It was simple really, the beast's plan. And it might have worked too, if only he'd been fighting someone else.

It decided not to clash with him. Instead, as it charged, it swung it's club from overhead with both it's hands. Guy was running towards it when he realised he wasn't the target. It hadn't decided to just leverage all it's strength to give him a burst of momentum he could not hold. No. It decided to destroy the ground once he was in range, make him lose his footing, and raise a dust cloud all in one go to limit his vision. Guy could not stop his momentum, so he came up with a plan on the fly.

He felt more energy swirling through his veins, his eyes sharpened, his legs pumped even more speed from him. The club slammed into the earth and for almost a kilometer around the hobgoblin, the earth shuddered. Guy kept his eyes on the club. Even as the earth he was stepping on started to rise. He ran in the air, fighting against the rebounding pressure. His feet landed on the club and he never stopped running with his waist bent and his head pointed ahead to streamline it.

He ran up the hobgoblin’s arms, leveraged his sword’s sharp edge up just below the hobgoblin's jaw. And then the rebound came, equal but opposite from the beast's own momentum. He rode the wave, holding onto his sword as he leveraged it below the beast's head. It drove through the beast's jaw, and even as he flew he pushed inwards, and the blade kept going upwards with him. He didn't quite make it to the posterior, but almost two third’s of the beast's head was bisected vertically.

He saw, as he flew, groups of goblin mages flying around him with their magic focused on the hobgoblin. They'd been buffing it. He hadn't even realised the beast had gotten almost as fast as him, and almost twice as strong as it'd been at the beginning, and that was after whatever midfight evolution it had gone through. Not that he hadn't had his own evolution. If he hadn't been about to break through in some way, Guy wanted to think he'd have had the sense to run away.

A hobgoblin supported by goblin mages? That was a nightmare for rookie adventurers. It was lucky he specialised in speed, otherwise the mages might have had a more direct impact on the fight.

As he dropped, he tried to reduce the impact of his landing. He was not able to prevent at least one of his legs from breaking, but at least he didn't just splat like some of the goblin mages. He still didn't know how he was going to escape.

And then the roar reached him, and with a mass of blood and gore for a face, the hobgoblin ran toward him in one final anger fueled charge. He could see the flesh of it's face trying to knit itself back together, but he had cut it straight to the bone. It wasn't going to live. He couldn't run, and whatever had been fueling him before was now exhausted. The club came down, just as the first squads of goblins were getting back to the village. Guy was crushed, then smashed, then pulped until there was nothing left.

When he woke up, the big monster was draped over him, and the other goblins hadn't noticed his revival. Mostly because he was covered in blood and so much pulped and burnt flesh, most of it his.The stench was sickening. They were distracted by something. He felt the condition of his body, and aside from a kind of weariness he could feel deep in his spirit, he was in peak physical condition. He sent a tendril of awareness into the woods, then further to where he'd left his party.

They were trying to run. But they couldn't. The goblins and hobgoblins were there. Not as many as were here with him in the village, but he had a feeling that once whatever was distracting them was over, they'd be going after the humans. Waiting a few moments, he scooted out from under the former ruler of this community. He tried to be sneaky as he crawled into the bushes, but he'd never trained in that sort of thing.

He snapped a twig with his leading hand. For a moment, everyone froze. He would have laughed if he wasn't so terrified. He recovered first, getting up and bending as he started to pump his legs. His sword had not been removed from him, and his rugs still clung to his body. A hobgoblin got in his way, but he cut through it with a simple swing. He wanted to frown but he had no time.

He cut through a wall of fire but continued to run even as the whole forest started to burn around him. The massive spell had even killed a few goblins. His mind settled into that state where nothing but his goal mattered. He cut through three more hobgoblins, almost ten spells, and just as many goblin mages. He dodged a few spells flung from behind him, cut through swathes of goblins he couldn't even count. And around him the forest fell.

He found them in an encirclement. Orlandir was panting, holding two blades and trying to scare the goblins to keep them back. Grunter was just behind him, spotting more wounds than Guy could count. The supervisor had the rear, holding some kind of wand with a shining book floating next to her.

The other two girls were in the middle, both wheezing and doubled over. The elven girl looked pale, the other looked little better. He could see the devastation they'd wrought on the goblin population. It hadn't been enough. They had to escape the moment signs of a monster surge appeared. He shouldn't have been too cocky and gone into their village. This was his fault.

He took a moment to get out of his own head with a heavy breath. He'd play the blame game later. For now all he needed was to help them escape. He fell on the goblins from behind, and in his wake came spells that devastated the goblins even if they'd been sent by their allies. He'd timed it just right, ending up in the area where the goblin line was the thickest. His arrival broke the peace.

He spared a bit of attention for the others as he danced among the goblins. The supervisor let out a massive lava spell, and if he hadn't been very busy with a fight Guy would have stopped to gawk. The flame haired girl pointed in the direction he'd come from, and a massive bolt of lightning fell upon the goblins that had chased him from the village.

He took his eyes off them and continued his harvest, but his main objective was to find a route of escape. When the supervisor cooled the lava bathed area with an ice spell, no one needed any encouragement to run.