The next few hours blurred into a rhythm of fists, blood, and bone.
They came in packs that were sometimes three, sometimes seven. I took hits. Got clawed. Slammed against walls. Bitten. One even tried to gouge my eye out with a piece of glass.
I used whatever I could grab—stones, torch brackets, the sharpened corner of a shield I ripped off a corpse. I turned their weapons against them, used their dead as bait. Broke knees. Crushed windpipes. One even got his face stomped into the gravel until his skull split open.
I just kept going.
One by one, I erased them.
[ Goblins Defeated: 12/50 ]
[ Goblins Defeated: 21/50 ]
[ Goblins Defeated: 35/50 ]
They started to run as they started to panic.
But the system wouldn't let me leave. Not until the last one dropped. So I hunted them through the crumbling ruins, through their nests, through the ash-coated trenches littered with rusted armor and shattered bones.
By the time I climbed out of a narrow crevice choked with the scent of burning flesh and old magic, I was caked in blood.
[ Goblins Defeated: 48/50 ]
I stopped hunting for a moment, and I sat on a broken slab of stone and wiped the blood from my face with the edge of my sleeve, and stared at my battered knuckles.
'Damn, my knuckles were split open, skin was torn, and my damn bone is aching. Two more. Just two more.'
I rolled my shoulder. Winced. My left arm had gone half-numb. One of them had jammed a splintered javelin clean through it earlier. I'd snapped his neck with the same weapon before yanking it out.
'Only two more. Then I can get out of this floor.'
The wind shifted, and the usual shrieks and hisses of the goblins had gone quiet, replaced by a low, pulsing hum in the air. A pressure. Like the floor itself was holding its breath.
Then I saw two shadows stepped into view from behind the wreckage of a crumbled stone watchtower. Taller than the others.
They are generally broader, their green skin was darker, thicker, scarred like old leather. Jagged armor strapped to their torsos with real iron—not scrap. Their weapons were forged, not stolen. Spears and hooked swords that gleamed faintly beneath the orange sky.
[Warning: Hobgoblin variant detected.]
[Enemies have evolved due to survival threshold.]
[Combat difficulty increased.]
[Hobgoblins are more intelligent and physically enhanced compared to standard Goblins. Proceed with caution.]
'Oh, shit!'
The one on the left held a curved blade, the edge blackened and serrated, like it had been carved from obsidian. The other gripped a long spear, its shaft wrapped in bloodstained cloth, the tip glimmering with poison.
I saw their eyes locked on me.
The spear-wielder barked something low in its throat—guttural, sharp.
They split up immediately. Flanking me.
Left and right. Classic pincer.
'Oh great, now we're playing chess, huh? You overgrown, moss-colored Shrek knockoffs!'
I backed up a step, keeping them both in view, blood dripping from my fingers as I flexed them loose again.
The blade-user feinted first, rushing low, fast. I twisted aside, but the spear shot toward my ribs—perfect timing. I caught it with my palm, gritted my teeth, and pushed it up just enough for it to scrape past.
'No room for screw-ups, unless you want to end up as goblin paste!'
I lunged toward the spear-wielder.
Fist to the throat. It blocked with the shaft, countered with a kick to my chest that sent me skidding back across the dirt.
And I noticed the other was already there. Its blade arcing for my neck.
I ducked, barely, and drove my shoulder into its gut, lifting it off the ground and slamming it against a wall of crumbling stone. Dust exploded around us. It snarled, headbutted me, then clawed at my arm as I tried to pin it.
The spear-wielder closed the gap again.
I wrenched a piece of broken stone from the wall and drove it into the blade-user's jaw—felt the snap, And It screamed. Blood poured.
But it is not dead yet.
The spear scraped my back as I turned, too close. Too fast.
I ducked under the next strike and threw a wild punch into its ribs, then another into its face.
It stumbled, staggered, and recovered faster than I liked. Then they regrouped again—opposite sides using the same tactic.
I didn't slow down.
The Hobgoblins split again, but this time, I saw their hesitation. They weren't sure which of them I was going to target first. They knew I was on the edge, running on fumes. The pain in my hands felt like fire, each swing growing slower, the throbbing unbearable.
But I pushed through because I had no choice.
The one with the spear lunged, but I dodged and delivered a hard, open-handed strike to its ribs. It grunted, stumbled, but didn't go down. Instead, it swung the spear around, aiming for my chest, but I was faster.
I ducked under it and landed a blow to its stomach that forced the wind out of it. I spun around, throwing an elbow into its back, knocking it into the ground. It struggled, but I was already on top of it, my fists battering down until it stopped moving.
[ Goblins Defeated: 49/50 ]
"One more," I muttered to myself.
The second Hobgoblin was already back on its feet, charging at me with a roar. The curved blade shimmered in the orange light as it aimed for my throat.
I blocked it with a quick upward punch, jarring my shoulder, and followed up with an uppercut that connected with its jaw. It staggered back, snarling, a flash of pure fury in its eyes.
But I could see the fear now. The moment it recognized it was losing, It will calculate everything, thinking through its next move. And that hesitation was all I needed.
I moved in fast, closing the distance before it could react, and drove my knee into its gut, knocking the wind from it. I followed through with a brutal punch to the face, and then—finally—another to the throat, hard enough that I could feel the bones snap under my knuckles.
It collapsed, twitching.
[ Goblins Defeated: 50/50 ]
I stood there for a moment, panting, my hands burning, blood coating my hoodie, my body screaming for a break.
"Alright. That's it. No more punching for a while," I muttered, holding my sore hands out in front of me, flexing them, wincing at the pain.
I looked down at the Hobgoblins' bodies and wiped some sweat off my forehead.
"Maybe I should start a new motto. Something like... 'If it's not broken, you're not hitting hard enough.'"
I let out a laugh, even though it hurt. Even though my fists felt like they were going to fall off.
But hey, the job was done. And in the end, that was all that mattered.