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***
Alas, self-taught without strong theoretical support from the outside, one remains self-taught. Magic worked almost without fail, not counting the greatly increased magical potential, of course. The first monsters I killed were hornbills. I fed their souls to the sword.
Alas, there were no visual effects: I poked the corpse with the sword and it absorbed the soul. However, the sword, as it turned out, absorbed not only the soul, but also the flesh. At least, that's what I can say when I look at the desiccated corpse of the horned man lying at my feet. No, the flesh is mostly still there: a quick autopsy showed that all the organs are still there, but the corpse is just dried up. Together with the meat, the blood had obviously lost its properties and turned into an incomprehensible slurry, very much like ketchup. I didn't eat it, I was squeamish. But the skill 'scavenger' worked well, satiating me a little. Hmm... it was a strange feeling, but I felt almost nothing from the satiation. But afterwards, I realised how to turn magic gaze on and off. It turns out that all this time I had been using it intuitively, always and everywhere. And as soon as I wished and stopped feeding my eyes with mana, everything went back to normal.
I realised this when I was using my spells to kill fleeing creatures. It was more like an epiphany than anything else, as if I'd remembered something I'd long forgotten. Meanwhile, my sword had devoured three more souls. The horns were weak, but they sensed the danger and ran away from me. Chasing them was a bit difficult, but I was able to improve my accuracy on moving targets a bit, and even almost sometimes hit with a water spike. The key word being almost.
Those things made me run around a lot, and it was useless to try to kill them with my sword. The small creatures were too agile and easily ran away from me with their heels glistening. This was despite my 'infinite endurance' and 'cloak of darkness'. As a result, I had to run for several minutes, trapping them in dead ends. I don't know how, but the closer I got to them, the more the horns started to feel threatened. And after all, I used two skills that were supposed to make me invisible in the night.
So my sword absorbed six hornbill souls, and my soul nucleation progress moved to 2%.
Very little, but really, what did I expect from the horned ones? I don't even get a lot of experience from them, and this is just like that. My thoughts immediately turned to another plane, I was much more interested in such prey as goblins or other relatively large animals, and maybe even humans. I wouldn't mind stumbling into an ambush of bandits and feeding their souls to my sword, and even start absorbing those souls myself. It was a very useful skill, and it could help me pick up new skills in the future.
Now, looking at the night sky... I can't say that I started, as a pathfinder, to explore the forest in which I was, but quickly came to the beaten path, orientated by the minicart.
Then I decided to run to the city, mowing everything that by my carelessness caught my eye.
I wonder if I'll find the goblin cave. The hunter's skill helps me to track the prey by its tracks, but I couldn't see any tracks in this forest....
I'll have to run west and hope those goblins were telling the truth and didn't deceive me. And there... I'll run to the city, while gaining a level.
***
An hour later.
Checking my path on the map, I noted with satisfaction that Elvina was moving further and further to the south-west and was getting farther away from me. Running just for fun was boring, even under incomplete body enhancement, so I graded everything I saw. The dash was gradually rising in percentage and was about to rise to a new level, as well as the mana core skill, which had almost reached level 3. Together with it, the darkness magic reached 87% progress, considering that I was running under the 'cover of darkness' and actively supporting the 'blade of darkness'. The skill 'undead' did not stand still, gradually rising in percentage. But the magic gaze was very slow. And that's not counting other passive skills, like keen sense of smell or instincts.
Well, it's not so important, the main thing is that the skills at least a little bit, but were swinging. Along the way, I collected various herbs.
I was able to find something useful with my assessment, and I collected different herbs in my ring. The description was pretty funny though.
Bezovik
Properties - poisonous
Red Yabiel.
Properties - tonic.
And things like that. There were many different herbs with various properties, up to and including energising effects. I don't know why, but I collected them all.
Meanwhile, the night began to flow smoothly into early morning. The two celestial bodies were slowly drifting off into the sunset. The animals in the forest began to revive a little: here birds squawked, there a hornbill crawled out of its Burrow. I kept running westwards, at least I hope I was running westwards.
It's a shame I didn't find any other monsters besides hornbills or wolves, the latter I fed to my sword too, but there weren't as many as expected. Either there aren't many of them here in general, or the Fulfians just changed their residence, but whatever.
Meanwhile, I can see the first mountains ahead, I think I'm close to my goal.
Creeping through the foliage of trees and bushes with various shrubs, I attracted attention more than moving stealthily. I don't know if I had lost my fear, but I was confident in my superiority over the goblins. I have closed armour, night vision and magic enhancement. Apart from magic, what can they do to me? - those were my thoughts. I didn't even take my sword out of its sheath.
Gradually, I began to see signs of goblin presence. They were rare, but they were something. The name of their tribe was justified. They shit everywhere, leaving behind an exorbitant amount of traces of their vital activity.
Not paying attention to this, I continued walking.
After a few minutes I reached the location of a small crevice in the mountainous terrain, and if it hadn't been for the two goblins and two wolves, I might not have noticed it, hidden under the foliage and not too spread out tree branches.
Without much concealment, I stood in the shade of the tree and my gaze caught the following:
Two green goblins, one metre tall, nodded sleepily, they were almost asleep at their posts, leaning on wooden spears with stone tips in their hands: they were trying not to fall down, muttering something to themselves under their noses. One was sitting on a rock, and the other was standing not far from another goblin and the entrance to the cave. Once in a while they said something to each other, chuckling quietly. Not far from the entrance stood a lone totem made of a long stick and decorated with animal bones, on its tip was an elongated skull, either of a wolf or something else. Next to the goblins lay two small grey wolves, the same as the Fulfs, but with a slightly different colouring. They wiggled their ears in different directions, sometimes raising their heads and glancing in opposite directions. As if they were tracking something, they were on the lookout.
It was clear who was the guardian and who would run to the cave at the first sign of danger... I guess. Judging by the totem, there's a goblin shaman here, is he a mage? Or not, I'll have to check with my sword later. So, judging by the totem, these goblins are not quite simple and if they have a plan when the humans attack the cave, the goblins will first run to wake up their still sleeping brethren....
Hmm ... two I can not kill at once, alas, I do not have a bow, and skills too. The distance that separates us is not less than thirty metres. The sun had not fully risen yet and was rising from behind the mountain. Actually, I had two choices:
The first one was to run, using reinforcement and spurt. I could get to them in a couple of seconds and kill one of them, and I could launch the same dagger at the second one. This time, I might not miss. The wolves won't have time to do anything, and neither will the goblins. The surprise effect seems to be there. Given the vague cloud of smoke that is me, the goblins won't even realise what's running towards them, if they wake up at all.
And the second - to use stealth, sneaking through the trees and sparse bushes... Given the abundance of dry branches and leaves on the ground, I will still be heard quite a bit.
I don't want to face a huge crowd of goblins, but I have to learn how to fight an outnumbered opponent. Stealth is good, of course, but it's not my business to bend my back and sneak stealthily towards the enemy, although I don't mind, of course, hitting the back of an enemy who is not expecting anything. It's so much easier that way!
Okay, I can still prepare magic: water spike... and the other one I might be able to slash with my sword....
I'll prepare the spell, draw my sword and run headlong into my enemies. Great plan, I'd say, if I didn't smell danger behind me. On instinct, I leapt back with a dash that saved my life.
*Boom* A wide two metre long club landed on the spot where I was standing, and the impact raised a lot of dust and leaves into the air. Miraculously, I managed to dodge it. And if one of those had hit me, I would have had to pick up my spine long and hard, if I had survived at all.
Bleuth's huge brother in tattered rags looked up in surprise at where I'd just been. Behind him stood an equally surprised dozen goblins that had handled the surprise earlier and shouted something loudly.
- GGUII! ENEMY!!! - The goblins grabbed their weapons, and someone even launched them at me.
And then the hob turned his gaze sideways a little too late - on me. He was about to raise his huge weapon and shout something, but my sword was faster.
*Whiz* Using full amplification, I made a leap along with a jerk, aiming my sword like a spear at the big hob's head. More on instinct than consciously, my first opponent was quickly killed by way of an unwanted object in his head. The sword simply slammed into his mouth open in surprise, and pierced his head through and through, splattering the brains of the goblins behind him.
Experience +560
Several spears brushed against the armour, bouncing off in different directions. The goblins gathered tried to do something, shouting something in their own language.
*Some of the more clever goblins, despite their leader, threw a rock at me, but it bounced off. But they did not despair and picked up their spears, intending to throw them at me.
I hung on the hoba's belly, and he began to fall on his back as a puppet. The sword was still in his head, and the goblins quickly began to surround me.
An obscure black smoke shaped humanoid pulled his sword.
*Whiz* With a savoury sound, the sword was pulled out of the hob's head, showering some goblins with blood and a blade of darkness. The black blade obediently snapped out of the sword - and the goblins with cries of panic quickly dispersed from the approximate area of the magic's impact.
And the hob finally fell loudly, kicking up dust in different directions.
But those didn't expect the magic to do anything to them. Before their eyes, the blade of darkness quickly reached one loser, and he naturally shrank in fear, expecting a quick death.
Suddenly, the man's vague shadow disappeared for a second.
But, instead of death, a swordsman - that is, me - flew into him and hacked him into two halves of one whole with his sword, splattering himself with red blood as well as the other goblins.
The goblins and the smoke outlining the man's silhouette froze in place. All of them had already been splattered with red blood, and the smoke had taken on a slightly reddish hue. A second's silence filled the battlefield, but the goblins suddenly perked up.
Even I was surprised, not expecting such a feint from myself, thus froze for a few seconds, which the goblins took advantage of, hitting me in the back.
I don't know how many times, and more importantly, what they hit me in the back with, but I flew off towards the other goblins, spinning in the air like a ball.
*I was hit by a group of goblins that were about to meet me with their outstretched spears, which scraped uselessly against my armour, leaving sparks behind.
And already I took advantage of this gift, clutching my sword tighter in my hands. As I fell, I knocked three goblins down with my body and slashed one in the face, and then I decapitated two at my side, rolling to the side and getting into a defensive stance.
- One at a time, you green arseholes! - I shouted with the excitement of battle.
The goblins froze when they heard their native speech.
I took advantage of that, rushing towards them under the reinforcement and jerk. Now I can't be taken by surprise and they have no choice but to voluntarily lie under my sword.
Experience +160
The goblins screamed and squealed as they tried to impale the unknown monster.
Experience +160
But it demolished their pathetic defence, beginning to rapidly reduce their numerical advantage.
I laughed madly, ignoring the new faces of the goblins. The power was overflowing and the experience was flowing. What more did I need?
Experience +180
Experience +200.
Experience...
Meanwhile, another dozen armed goblins jumped out of the cave and rushed to the aid of their brethren. And after that, goblins with primitive bows or stones came running out every second. There were more and more of them, and then a goblin in a dark cloak came out, holding a wooden staff. He shouted something and was quickly surrounded by several goblins, covering him with their bodies.
Despite the carnage unfolding before his eyes, this goblin was extremely calm. It was as if the whole battle did not concern him. Putting something in his mouth, the goblin shaman stretched out his hand towards the battle and began to mutter something.
- ~~~~~~~~
Invisible to the naked eye, a matte black ball-shaped blob flew out of the goblin's hand and quickly reached the unknowing black warrior who knew their language, hitting him directly in the chest.
The goblins that were closest to the black warrior fell to the ground as helpless puppets. And the warrior himself froze in place like a statue. His sword was frozen, and drops of blood were dripping down it. The smoke trembled faintly, but did not disappear.
- Gui! Grab it! - The shaman waved his hand, grinning with the corner of his lips. His three particularly tall minions quickly began to approach the black warrior.
Goblins lived by the law of survival, sacrificing as many of their kin as it took to win. So because of the death of their comrades, they did not grieve. But the anger and hatred from these deaths were deeply and forever buried in their souls.
Here and now, an unknown warrior would fall from their 'entertainment'.....
The minions already reached for him with their hands as they quickly lost their heads, showering the air with a fountain of blood. A very quick movement. No one even realised what had happened. Only the goblin shaman shrieked something.
- It's going to be meat! - The inhuman voice echoed throughout the battlefield.
The goblins, who were standing not far away, squealed furiously and threw themselves at their enemy. The shaman chanted a new spell again, and some of his minions rushed to the aid of their fellow goblins. The arrows bounced uselessly off the armour of the enemy, rather hitting their own.
*The man who had been standing on the ground a moment ago disappeared, kicking up dust and leaves into the air.
The goblins backed away in confusion and began to look around. It didn't occur to anyone to look up, not even the shaman: because of his hood covering half his face, he didn't even realise what had happened.
*There was a loud whoosh of an indistinct shadow.
- Guiii?! - The confused goblins turned around at the sound and were presented with a frightening sight.
Their shaman, the informal leader of the nest, was nailed to the ground with a spear. His body had been pierced through, and a vast pool of red blood had already pooled beneath him. Even the minions didn't realise what had happened, looking around in confusion and almost panic.
*The sound of something heavy hitting the ground came from behind them. A gust of wind blew a fair amount of dust and leaves into the air, hiding everything.
Slowly, as if afraid of something, they turned around. The dust and leaves slowly settled to the ground, and there stood a black warrior....
He held the same spear in his hands and twirled it in different directions, as if showing off to the goblins.
Finally he stopped this circus, clutching the spear with one hand, and in the other he still held his black sword.
- Well, my naked and former brethren, give me experience! - a deafening roar, and the black warrior rushed at them with spear and sword, taking the lives of two of them at once....
The crowd began to swarm. Everyone wanted to survive and escape. All the goblins scattered. But no sooner had they run far away than they were all killed in just a few minutes. Some were nailed with a spear, some with a sword or dagger, and some were flattened by an anvil.
Suddenly, there was not a single goblin left alive. The battlefield was strewn with their corpses, some missing an arm, some missing half their body, and their organs scattered everywhere - they were all dead.
And silence... only the wind whistled faintly, raising gusts of dust and leaves.
The black warrior, on the other hand, began to approach each corpse, performing some strange-looking manipulations...