The goblin was a nightmare of filth and fury.
Its skin was a greasy, mottled green, its teeth were like broken yellow daggers, and it smelled like sour milk and old mud.
As it charged, its glowing red eyes were fixed on Ryan with a singular, hateful purpose.
The Crimson Haze had burned away any instinct for self-preservation, leaving only raw, murderous rage.
Ryan's people backed away, a collective gasp of fear rippling through them.
Leo and Sam raised their axes, their knuckles white, but they were frozen in place.
This was the first monster they had ever seen, a real-life creature from a horror story, and it was sprinting right at them.
Ryan stood his ground.
The Clarity buff kept his mind from succumbing to the terror that was clawing at the edges of his consciousness.
He tightened his grip on the Blood Hunter, its obsidian shaft cool and solid in his sweaty palms.
He assessed the creature.
Disgusting? Absolutely.
Terrifying? Yes.
But as it closed the distance, Ryan noticed something else.
Underneath the frenzied rage, the goblin was… scrawny. Its limbs were thin and wiry, its movements clumsy despite its speed.
It was a creature built for ambushes and overwhelming numbers, not a head-on duel.
It was weak.
I can do this, he thought, a spark of confidence igniting in his chest.
The goblin lunged, swinging its crude stone club in a wild arc aimed at his head.
Ryan, who had never been in a real fight in his life, reacted on pure instinct.
He tried to swing his spear like a baseball bat to intercept the club.
The small, fast goblin was easily able to duck under the wide swing, its club whistling past Ryan's ear.
It scurried past him, spun around, and lunged again, this time aiming for his legs.
Ryan yelped and hopped back, nearly tripping over his own feet.
This was harder than it looked.
The spear was long and powerful, but against a small, agile target, it was unwieldy.
He stabbed, and the goblin dodged. He swept, and it leaped over the spear shaft.
It was like trying to swat a very angry, very ugly fly with a telephone pole.
"My Lord, be careful!" Elias shouted, his voice tight with anxiety.
Ryan gritted his teeth.
He was making a fool of himself. He had a Level 2 weapon, and he was being run in circles by the weakest of monsters.
He needed to stop thinking like a student and start thinking like a Lord.
He remembered the spear's description: Piercing Thorn.
It wasn't meant for swinging; it was meant for thrusting.
He planted his feet, taking a deep breath to steady himself.
The goblin, sensing an opening, let out a triumphant shriek and leaped at him, its club raised for a finishing blow.
This time, Ryan didn't swing. He watched the creature's trajectory, lowered his body, and with all of his meager strength, he thrust the Blood Hunter forward in a straight, simple line.
There was no clang of impact, no resistance.
The crimson metal tip of the spear met the goblin's chest with a soft, wet thunk!
For a split second, the goblin froze in mid-air, a look of pure shock on its grotesque face.
Then, the full power of the Level 2 weapon was unleashed.
The spear didn't just pierce the goblin.
It tore through flesh and bone as if they were wet paper.
With a sickening ripping sound, the Blood Hunter's momentum carried it straight through the creature's entire body, bisecting it cleanly at the waist.
The goblin's top half flew past Ryan's shoulder and landed with a wet slap on the ground behind him, while its legs crumpled into a heap at his feet.
Silence.
The world seemed to stop.
Ryan stood panting, his spear dripping with a thick, blackish blood.
His people stared, their faces pale with a mixture of horror and awe.
The sheer, brutal violence of the kill was terrifying. Mara turned away, gagging.
A notification chimed, cutting through the stunned silence.
[You have slain a Frenzied Goblin (Level 1).]
[You have earned 2 Development Points!]
[Congratulations! As this was your first combat kill, you have earned the bonus title: 'Goblin Slayer'.]
[Title: Goblin Slayer]
[Effect: You deal +10% damage against all goblin-type enemies.]
Two points. It wasn't much, but it was a start. More importantly, he had a damage bonus now.
He looked down at the grisly remains of his enemy and felt a wave of nausea.
But before he could process the horror of what he'd just done, a new sound reached his ears.
More shrieks.
From the edge of the forest, not one, but five more red-eyed goblins burst forth, their clubs and crude knives held high.
The scent of their fallen comrade's blood seemed to drive them into an even greater frenzy.
"They just keep coming!" Elara cried out, her voice cracking.
Ryan's brief moment of victory vanished, replaced by a surge of desperate adrenaline.
He couldn't handle five of them with his clumsy footwork.
"Leo! Sam! With me!" he yelled, his voice more commanding than he ever thought possible.
"Elias, protect the women!"
His order, backed by the authority of his incredible weapon and the Clarity buff, broke their paralysis.
Leo and Sam let out a defiant roar, charging forward with their axes.
The fight dissolved into a chaotic melee.
Ryan, having learned his lesson, focused on short, precise thrusts.
He stabbed one goblin through the throat.
The 'Blood Scent' effect of his spear activated, and he felt a strange warmth spread through him, a surge of energy that pushed back his exhaustion.
He spun around just as another goblin lunged at Leo's back.
"Leo, look out!" Ryan shouted, but he was too far. Just as the goblin's club was about to smash into the young man's skull, Sam intercepted it with his own axe, the impact of wood on stone echoing through the clearing.
Leo used the opening to bring his axe down in a brutal, cleaving blow.
Ryan dispatched another goblin, his movements becoming smoother, more confident with each kill.
He was starting to get the hang of this. His spear was a reaper's scythe, and every goblin that came within its reach was harvested.
He killed a third, then a fourth, the notifications for his 2 Development Points per kill chiming like a macabre cash register.
Finally, the last goblin fell to Sam's axe.
Silence descended once more, broken only by their ragged, heavy breathing.
Ryan leaned heavily on his spear, his muscles screaming in protest, his body drenched in sweat and splattered with black blood.
They were surrounded by the corpses of seven goblins.
"We… we did it," Leo panted, a wide, incredulous grin on his face.
Just as a wave of relief washed over them, the ground began to tremble.
A deep, guttural thump… thump… thump… echoed from the forest, like a giant, angry heartbeat.
A massive shadow fell over their camp as something huge blocked the crimson sunlight.
From between the trees, a new monster emerged.
It was a goblin, but it stood over two meters tall, its body a mass of thick, knotted muscle. Its skin was a darker, sickly green, and it wore crude armor made of scrap metal and animal bones.
In one massive, hairy fist, it dragged a colossal club made from an entire tree trunk, with sharp rocks embedded in it.
It looked at the dead goblins littering the ground, then its gaze fell upon Ryan, and it let out a deafening roar that shook the very air.
A system notification popped up in Ryan's vision, flashing with a dire red warning.
[Frenzied Goblin Chieftain (Level 5) has appeared!]