In an unknown village somewhere,
It was midnight and in the absence of the moon, there was only the fire-torches and sparks from the clash of metals, that illuminated the peaceful village that was now experiencing a slaughter. The monstrous shrieks, slashing and clashing sounds, painful and fearful screams all broke the silence of the midnight.
Green and red are all that etched into souls of the villagers. It was a bloody slaughter by the greenish dwarf beings called goblins. People were hacked, crushed and poisoned to death. The stronger ones even died getting surrounded by them and accumulating wounds. And none of this came close to how they considered the humans. Some of the men had their flesh eaten in between the fights, while some of the women were being raped on the battlefield that the village has now become.
With the increase in time, the damage and deaths never ceased rising. The goblins' fighting force was overwhelming for the humans. With cunning way, in which the goblins fought, the strong gets subdued and eventually killed by an advantage of numbers and underhanded tactics like poison, while the weak are just slaughtered almost without any surprise.
The defensive line being broken, goblins started raiding the houses. A youth of about 20 years with dark hair and fair skin was being surrounded by three goblins. As the battle kept on going, he got nicked, slashed and smashed by the dagger, rusty and blunt blade and the wooden club of the three goblins. And a minute after he went passive, defending with his sword, he realized he was poisoned, most probably by the dagger, being the only weapon that was able to make him bleed easily.
He felt his death approaching and started attacking aggressively, to break the entrapment and escape. Approaching the doors of death, it is only natural that one feel's afraid. Its not selfish to care about one's own life, but instinct.
It was at this moment that in a flash a person with hair and clothes that g up by the fire torches and burning houses manifested into the slaughter zone. He was a few metres away from the scuffle of the youth and the three goblins, but his back was facing the youth, who had his full attention on escaping.
Charles appeared in the midst of the battlefield and was stunned by the violence around him for a few seconds. Not being the first time, being exposed to violence, he soon calmed down. But the intensity of it, still made him uncomfortable. Looking around in vigilance, he found that he didn't attract the attention of any. He noticed the battle a few metres behind him, but didn't engage in the battle at once. Picking up a spade that was a bit away from him, whose owner he supposed was one of the corpses lying on the ground.
He readied himself and looked at the battle of the three goblins and the youth and saw the floating data above them, all in visible white text:
[Lv12 Knight]
[Lv14 Goblin]
[Lv14 Goblin]
[Lv13 Goblin]
Charles observed that the knight was actively attacking the [Lv13 Goblin] to escape the confinement. Waiting for the right time, he soon found his chance. When the youth attacked his target and his strike got deflected, the other two stronger goblins in wait utilized the chance to heavily injure or kill him. At the instant when, all the three goblins' attention was on him and the knight dodged backwards and raised his sword to defend against the attack of the two, an yellow lightning struck the weaker goblin, that got pushed back by the knight's initial strike.
The lightning strike without stopping, hit the other two goblins. It was a perfectly calculated strike, as the distance between each of the goblins was shorter than that between the knight and any of them. In this way, Charles was able to avoid hitting the knight as well.
The three goblins shrieked in pain, and their skin was singed in a few places where the lightning struck directly and they were paralysed by the remnants of lightning that coursed through their body. Without wasting the opportunity, Charles smashed the head of the [Lv13 Goblin] repeatedly.
The knight was shocked by the miraculous events before him. Nonetheless, he was not a newbie in battle, as he used the golden opportunity, to slash the head of one of the [Lv14 Goblin]. After beheading the goblin and moving on to the unengaged goblin, he gave a cruel smirk at it as he raised his sword to behead it.
He thought: 'You tried to poison me by dagger, now look at me as I behead you while you are paralysed.'
But before the sword could reach its neck, it deftly fell backwards leaning to the side the sword was slashing to. As the knight felt his sword striking the air, the goblin rolled out and brandished the dagger. As the goblin looked at the knight with a cruel, creepy smiling expression and was about to move to kill the newcomer, to prevent risks, the knight mistook it for coming at him and once again slashed the sword at it.
Frustrated by the knight attacking it, the goblin was forced to go on defence against him. Since the knight was facing against only one goblin this time, he had the advantage and was much relaxed than before.
Meanwhile, Charles was kicking on the step of the shovel, whose cutting edge was on the half penetrated throat of goblin lying paralysed on the ground. As he gave one more heavy kick, the hands of the goblin raised, as the paralysis wore off, but stopped mid-way, due to it dying as the shovel plunged further into its throat.
"Phew... that was a close one." He said in a low voice of relief.
The paralysis wore off a bit slower for this goblin, due to it being one level lower than the others.
And right when the goblin died, he got a message.
[You levelled up]
[You are now at Level 1. Stats unlocked. Gained 10 Stat points.]
[You levelled up]
[You are now at Level 2. Gained 10 Stat points.]
[You levelled up]
[You are now at Level 3. Gained 10 Stat points.]
[You levelled up]
[You are now at Level 4. Gained 10 Stat points.]
Charles felt his strength, spirit and magical energy rising abruptly and settle. He also noticed that the goblin he just killed vanished in a flash. Finding it hard to process everything fast, even with rise in his spirit and energy, he decided to kill all the goblins first and check things later. He picked the blunt blade that belonged to the vanished corpse of the goblin, and prepared to sneak attack the final goblin.
He found an opportunity soon enough, when the goblin blocked the knight's strike and fell back and lost balance. Charles aimed at one of the goblin's eye and stabbed straight down, even though the blade was blunt, it still penetrated into its skull by less than 5cm, but ultimately the strike didn't take its life.
When the goblin was about to go frenzied , instead of letting loose the blade, Charles clamped down on it and guided [Lightning Chain] through the blade, making it paralyzed and dealing direct lightning damage to its brains. The lightning after going through its body spread around an area of 1.5m radius around the point of impact.
The goblin died and disappeared like the last one he killed. At the same time the knight who was about to follow up on his attack, stepped back in fear of the lightning circle and fell down on his butt.
Like before Charles got the messages that he levelled up consecutively and felt an overall improvement in his fitness and prowess. Charles walked to the knight and lent him a hand, and nodded to him and left looking to sneak attack other goblins.
The knight recovered from his surprise and awe of Charles's power, soon enough, and left to slaughter other goblins.
Charles hid his presence as much as possible, even though he wore bright yellow clothes, he sneak attacked weaker goblins that were engaged in battle with others, changing his weapons whenever he found a better one, from the blunt blade to a spear and finally to a steel sword that was barely capable of being called a sharp sword.
Sometimes, he had to deal with ones trying to sneak attack him, and corner him using numbers. But his experience with the sword, rising levels that constantly improved him, the [Lightning Chain] that paralyzed a group of enemies and his analytic thinking, all made him slaughter the goblins without his life being at any risk.
Finished killing most of the goblins in his field of vision, he moved on to the stronger ones.
After about half an hour, all the people were free except for Charles and another middle aged knight, who were facing the two strongest goblins.
The goblin he was facing was at Lv21 while he is at present Lv13. Even though there was a level difference of 8, the gap was bridged mostly by his lightning magic and taking advantage of its paralysing trait. Especially, the new skill whose information was etched into his mind after he reached Lv10, made a huge difference.
[Static Shock]: A Rank 1 single-target skill, which induce substantial damage and paralysis. Only applicable, when in contact with the target.
With damage output of this skill and that of his sword in sync with the paralysis trait, the battle was about to end in the goblin's death.
While on the other side, the middle aged knight was Lv25 and the goblin he was facing was at Lv24. Even thought it appeared the battle was at an impasse, the more experienced knight was slowly and unnoticeably gaining advantage over the cunning goblin, who thought otherwise.
Charles was finished on his side and saw that the veteran knight was waiting for the opportunity to end the goblin in one critical strike. He felt that it was an insult to the knight's pride, if he stole his kill. So, he moved on to converse with the villagers to learn more about his whereabouts.
And as he moved his focus all over the village, he saw the relieved, depressed, traumatised and mourning faces. But the one that took his attention was the cute head that popped out of a door that was ajar. The house that the door belonged to appeared slightly dilapidated, but the plants grown in front of it were brimming with vitality, showing that its been taken care of.
Like a black sheep in a flock of white sheep, Charles's attention was attracted to the curious look on that little girl's face. He was just about to talk to the knight he helped first, who was approaching him. But, as he moved forward, he saw a goblin that sprang up from its hiding place, rush out and going to the girl's direction.
Adrenaline was spreading throughout his body. He screamed as he moved in the direction of the little girl's house.
"SAVE THE CHILD!"
As the goblin neared her, her face paled in fear and she went inside and closed the door. Charles was about ten metres away to start with. When the goblin broke the door, he was still 3 metres away. Seeing that he was too far to use [Lightning Chain], he threw the sword at the goblin's back.