Hecares woke as the axe blade slammed into the dirt beside his head. He was confused, why did someone drop it beside him? The old grampa carried this axe around to protect him and the rest of the new goblins. Hecares looked up and saw the goblin grampa standing there with a sad look on his face, his hands still firm around the axe shaft. Hecares grew more confused, surely grampa knew that a bug or worm didn't need an axe chop to kill?
"I'm sorry little one, but you've left me no choice."
It was true Hecares was still small, but since that weird god had spoken to him he had felt a strange energy filling his body. From the tips of his fingers to the centre of his heart, Hecares could feel a fierce energy circulating through his veins. Hecares realised that if he was small he just needed to get big. Focusing on the energy in his body, he instinctively guided it to his arms, his legs and his chest. It felt like his whole body was tearing and ripping apart as it began to grow. Short stubby arms gave way to longer ones, his tiny legs grew to support the rapid expansion of his torso and head. He felt grateful for this energy, even if he didn't know where it came from
Hecares stood up, something he hadn't done before. Grampa was still taller than him but now he had gone from being knee high to just below the shoulders of the other goblin. Hecares felt tired now that he had used up all the energy in his body. There was more flowing to him constantly, but the rate of accumulation was far too slow. He would need to wait a while before growing bigger.
His thoughts were interrupted as grampa heaved the axe out of the floor and swung it horizontally towards Hecares' neck. Relying on survival instincts, Hecares ducked and grabbed the axe shaft, preventing the other goblin from pulling it back to his hands.
Hecares had seen what happened when this thing hit flesh. His twin brother had come out wrong. His limbs were bent at odd angles, and his eyes were a milky white with no pupils. The adults had said "This one has suffered the curse of the gods" before grampa had taken the axe and cleaved his brother's head off. The smell of blood and the sickening chop of the axe had been the second things Hecares had ever experienced.
His first meal had been his own brother's flesh ground into a paste. He hadn't had any teeth at that time, they had grown after the he had eaten all the flesh paste.
Hecares didn't know why grampa wanted to turn him into food. He was bigger now, he even had beautiful red skin. He looked far better than his stinky green brothers and sisters. He didn't have broken arms and his eyes worked too. So why would grampa attack him? He was even blessed by a god so why?
Hecares attempted to copy the way grampa and the other adults communicated. If grampa realised he was a good boy then he would stop right?
"Why grampa? I'm not broken like my brother was, why do I have to be food?"
The elderly goblin's eyes began to water. The absurd growth rate, the tattoos and the abnormal intelligence were just more nails in the coffin. His red skin had already damned the poor child to be thrown out once he'd matured, left to a life alone in the wilds, but a potential Overlord being born had cut off every path to survival. It never got easier though, murdering the children, no matter how many he'd had to kill over the years.
"Little one your skin is reason enough to die. Red skin is the mark of a curse. The gods have condemned you."
Well that just wasn't true thought Hecares. The weird god from earlier had given him a Contract. Admittedly Hecares still didn't know what a Contract was but it sounded important and meant the gods cared more about him than any other person in the cave. At least he thought so. The weird god hadn't really been told him so but he felt it was true anyway.
The goblin grampa tried to pull the axe out of Hecares grip, but the newly formed muscles in the crimson goblin meant the axe wasn't going anywhere. The strong and young new muscles began to rip the axe away from the emaciated old goblin. With a heave the axe was pulled from his grampa and into Hecares' grip. He only wanted to stop grampa from chopping him up but Hecares thought about it a little more closely.
He had said that Hecares had to die and so as long as grampa was alive he would try and turn Hecares into food. The only solution was to kill grampa and turn him into food instead. Hecares felt he was very smart for thinking this through.
Hecares was unused to the weight of the axe. He struggled to drag it behind him as he approached grampa. The old goblin had lost his balance after losing the axe to his grandchild and had fallen backwards, landing on two of Hecares' siblings. The weight of the adult goblin had crushed them, their eyes devoid of that spark of life and their hearts silent.
Hecares felt a new emotion seeing his dead brothers He felt like his insides were boiling up, his grip on the axe tightening. He didn't want to see his siblings die so needlessly. They hadn't been broken and they weren't food. He felt it was up to him to keep them safe. The adult goblins couldn't be trusted.
"Grampa… I'm not sorry"
Standing over the elderly goblin, who had yet to regain his footing, Hecares hefted the stone axe over his shoulder. Leveraging all the muscles in his back, his chest and his arms, Hecares brought the axe down into his grampa's face. The stone blade had been kept sharp to protect the cave. It carved through the aged flesh like a hot knife through butter. The axe only stopped when it hit the dense skull of the goblin.
The old goblin screamed as his face was carved into and he felt the bite of the axe on his skull. His right eye had been reduced to pulp which oozed out of it's socket and onto the dead goblin children he had crushed. His mouth and nose had been split in half and the pain forced the old goblin to blackout. His last conscious thoughts were regret that he had failed to strangle this tyrant in his crib.
Hecares saw the old goblin was still breathing. He ripped the axe out, drawing more bright scarlett blood as he did so, and plunged it back in aiming for the same spot. He missed the previous wound but still achieved his intended result. The old goblins skull caved in and his brain matter flowed out, joined his blood and eyeball in a steadily growing pool on the cave floor. The viscous mix of vital fluids produced a pungent stench which spread throughout the cave. Hecares heard a voice in his head, similar in the way it spoke but still different from the weird god.
[You have slain a Goblin Elder. 50 EXP has been awarded]
[A great achievement! You have killed a being whose tier of existence surpasses your own!]
[You have gained the title "Limitbreaker"]
The goblin babies were awake now and were either crying or screaming. The violence had woken them, and the vile smell from all the blood and guts had frightened them. Hecares had no time to think about what the new voice had told him or about his sibling's distress. He didn't know what eeexpee was or what a title was and didn't care to find out at present.
He only knew that the cries of his siblings would alert the other adults. When they were hungry earlier on their crying had resulted in the adults bringing them food. Hecares knew that one of the adults was too ill to move and one was even older and weaker than grampa. The last adult was a stronger and bigger one who carried around a rusted dagger. Hecares knew he would have to kill the dagger wielding uncle first since he was most dangerous.
Hecares began having a proper look around the cave where he had been living. The place he had been lying down in was the nursery for baby goblins, a small part of the cave. There were no light sources since goblins could see fine even in darkness. The walls of the cave were rough and uneven, still bearing the scars from the pickaxes the goblins had used to carve out the room. There was only one entrance to the nursery, which led to the main room. Ripping his axe from the now cold body of his grandfather, Hecares began slowly moving towards the exit.
The passage between the nursery and the main cave was similar to the nursery. Rough walls and no lights. It took only 2 minutes to reach the main cave, but to Hecares this felt like a much longer time.
He had been calm and composed when the old goblin attacked him but now he was having doubts. He could have just cut off a leg or arm and immobilised him. Why had he only thought of murder? Even now he was planning to kill the rest of his elders.
"They started it. I'm only defending myself and my siblings."
Hecares childlike logic had convinced himself for now. Walking into the main room, Hecares was surprised to see the goblin uncle was still asleep.
"Doesn't he hear my brothers and sisters crying? Or does he not care?"
This indifference stoked those hot feelings Hecares had felt earlier He had learned how to hold his axe more securely as he had travelled to the main room. He also figured out why grampa had cut his twin just below the head. The neck was a weakpoint. Hecares hefted the axe over his shoulder and once more plunged it into the green skin of his family.
Aiming for the neck yielded much better results as the adult goblin's head was cleaved from his body. The corpse writhed and spasmed before growing still. Hecares felt safer now, the rest of the adults had no chance to kill him. The fountain of blood gushing from the neck of the dagger uncle didn't bother Hecares, he was growing used to the smell of blood.
What did bother him was the blood had pooled around his feet and was hard to walk through. The dark red blood which normally contrasted against a goblin's green skin acted as a thick scarlet coating on his deep crimson skin.
As he retrieved his trusty axe from the cave floor, which had embedded itself into the softer dirt of the main room, Hecares heard the second god speaking to him again.
[You have slain a Goblin Thief. 100 EXP has been awarded]
[An astonishing achievement! You have killed a being whose tier of existence surpasses yours by two]
[The title "Limitbreaker" has evolved to the title "Limitbuster"]
Hecares still didn't have the time or inclination to check any of this stuff out. There were still two adults he had to kill before he would be completely safe. He looked around the main room to try and find the other adults. The main room had smoother walls and instead of a floor of dirt and stone some sections were lined with animal pelts, which the adults slept on. There were two other branches to travel down and one which led up. Leaving the one which led up aside, the path to his right reeked of blood. Curious Hecares began to travel down it.
The path led to a circular room full of rotting corpses. They weren't goblins though. They were too tall, and their skin was very light and pale. Hecares approached the corpse at the foot of the pile and was shocked. It was the first thing he had seen when he escaped from that hot room he had been in before he arrived at the cave.
A slim creature with long blonde hair and a massive hole in her stomach and chest. Hecares had ripped his way out of this creature. He supposed this made her his mother. She had been weak, she had been frail, and she had been killed. Hecares knelt down beside his human mother and swore to himself a rather childish vow.
"I will never die. Not for grampa, not for this creature and not for the gods. I will be stronger than them all."
Many miles away on the outskirts of the Forest of Cern the human settlement of Mena was in an uproar.
The God of Potential had announced to the humans a creature which could not be ignored
[The goblin Overlord, the Crimson Tyrant has been born]