"Ha, damn, how tedious this is getting" I commented with obvious tiredness in my tone, as I kept walking forward, closer and closer to the center of the island.
So far I've been traveling for about two days or a little more, I don't know exactly because it's always at night.
Each time I go deeper into the island, the green dwarves become stronger, although it is only a slight difference in strength. I have rested every time I feel moderately tired or mentally fatigued, I can't get hungry but I do seem to get tired faster mentally.
In this couple of days I have killed, approximately more than a thousand goblins! each one stronger than the other, by now a goblin is like an evolved goblin and an evolved goblin is almost as strong as the evolved mutant goblin, which has cost me a lot to kill them, but the more I fight the more experience I gain and the stronger I become, making me survive.
I've also been tempting to try monster blood these last "days" and at one point I tried it, which made me slightly increase my strength! Although something almost insignificant, if I had to put it in numbers, it would be an improvement of 0.01% or something like that, but when I killed more than a thousand goblins, I noticed the difference.
Their blood tastes strangely good and refreshing, so I had no problem tasting more and more, the stronger the goblins, the more strength I absorb.
Not only have I been fighting, gaining experience and strength, but I've also been exploring the island, realizing that, it has a kind of illusion that makes you see at first glance that the island is a straight ground without irregularities, but in reality the more you walk towards the central ground, the way is more and more downwards.
So far, I estimate that I am 20 meters down from where I started and am currently only a few meters away from entering the central terrain.
'Well, finally here' I walked slowly, with goblins all around me, each one dead, with their heads separated from their bodies and almost no blood on the ground because it was absorbed by me.
All my clothes were soiled with blood at this point, my white shirt looked more like a deep blood red shirt, I'm sure if a person were to be asked currently that this shirt was white, they would either burst out laughing or run in fear if they realized it was because it was completely blood stained.
My dark blue jeans had a few stains, not covering it completely but mostly.
In a matter of a few minutes, I was already inside the central area. What separated one area from the other was practically nothing, in fact I barely noticed passing from the outer area to the inner area and almost the same thing happened when passing to the central area, but the difference here is that the central area has completely deep black soil, while the inner area has short bright green grass.
One step was what separated one area from the other. I began to analyze the surroundings, taking my time in the process. Unlike other areas, the central area did not have as many Goblins, at the moment not even signs of life could be seen.
In analyzing the environment, it was simple. The ground was black in color but had no danger, there were no trees in plain sight and the terrain was wide and clear.
There were no signs of life from any monsters at least as far as my vision reached, which was very wide.
I moved with my Duranvil crawling on the ground, creating a cutting stripe in its path on the ground, which would serve me two things: That any monster or living thing would come towards me by sound, at this moment I was not afraid of any monster except the black mass that was outside the island, more specifically the water, although I was not sure if it is a monster.
Besides that, it would serve me if I get lost in case there is another illusion that would alter my mind or vision, that mark would work to know that I am not walking in circles or make a strategic retreat, although I doubt that my pride let me do the latter.
On my walk, I found some sort of drawing on the ground, which made me stop in my tracks and look at the figure in the drawing on the ground.
It was basically, a white hand, with black colored goblins inside that hand. I did not understand the meaning of the drawing, and I had been walking for a few minutes without seeing the end of the central area, nor did I have trees to mount and see the surrounding area as I did with the other two previous areas.
So, with no other choice to have if I didn't want to be walking possibly until the end of time, I crouched down a bit and placed my hand on top of the drawing in hopes that something magical would happen, which strangely was exactly the same size as my hand.
"Final stages of the test in progress, Ready?" a robotic voice came from my head, it was the same one that previously asked me if I was ready for the Test.
'Apparently, I'm already going to finish this Hell, hahahaha.... I'm ready' I didn't think much about this, I immediately said I was ready, I didn't want to spend more time in this place, killing, killing, killing, killing, killing and more killing was making me go crazy or I was discovering my insanity.
"I tried to separate my hand from the ground, but I couldn't no matter how much strength I used, so I gave up, I didn't panic for such a thing, after all I placed my right hand on top of my left hand.
The drawing glowed for a few minutes, until the same light and darkness emanating from the drawing began to create a palace about a hundred meters from where I was standing. Such a palace was huge, about 50 meters high approximately, covering a hundred meters in diameter, its color was blood red and pale green, plus some black tones here and there.
It looked like, the castle of a King himself, despite looking big and beautiful, it also looked imposing, intimidating and sinister, giving an aura of terror around it that made, for sure any common person would run away from such a thing or at least I myself before Esmeralda's training would have done that.
The aura that covered the palace was of a chilling black and red tone, and, then a few statuses were created around such a castle, the statuses created of black rocks that formed the figure of various goblins, like goblins giving bread to goblin children, goblins touching a demon with their fingertips, goblins at the last breakfast, a beautiful female goblin that I called "The Goblinslisa", among other works of art of goblin culture in this world.
Already when the light of the drawing stopped glowing, I could withdraw my right hand from it, sighing in relief.
"Well, it's clear where I should go now, I think..." I said, so I started walking towards the door of the palace where I entered. Not without first admiring the amazing goblin sculptures and their art that could never be seen by the universe, not because I lacked quality, on the contrary, so much art would surely blind anyone for not being worthy of seeing such a masterpiece.
"Luckily, I am worthy enough."
______________