Chapter 34: Goblin Slayer
Axel broke the standoff with a scream:
"Time to die, bastard!"
He charged the King with a bronze, spatha-like weapon in hand. With each step, a new weight seemed to settle upon his shoulders.
’Fail here, and everyone dies...’
The King bellowed and slid one hand down to the base of its massive cudgel. It raised the weapon and adopted an awkwardly graceful stance before holding it sideways with both hands, sweeping it toward Axel the moment he entered its range.
Axel leaped back, narrowly avoiding a blow that would have reduced him to bloody chunks.
As the King staggered from the momentum, Axel sprang forward to catch it off guard.
An odd expression crossed the King’s face as it watched Axel’s blade cleave through the air toward its chest.
"KKURREEE!"
With a roar, the King moved as fluidly as a ballet dancer, allowing the momentum to spin its seemingly missed attack upward and around. The cudgel circled overhead, poised to smash down upon Axel.
’Seriously?!’
The only path was forward.
Axel cast his weapon aside to lighten himself, then dove between the King’s legs.
The cudgel crashed down, splintering the azure-blue vitreous floor in every direction — but not before clipping the back of Axel’s heel.
Pain tore through his body as he tumbled through the air. Then, something struck him across the face as he crashed to the floor between the King’s legs.
Despite the pain coursing through his body, pure anger rose within him.
’Oh hell no!’
Directly beneath the King, he drove an uppercut into its most vulnerable area.
The King roared and toppled forward, losing its grip on its weapon.
"Kreagh!"
The battle had just began, and Axel’s left foot almost certainly broken.
Axel desperately crawled toward the throne. The King tried to look back at him, but four other opponents demanded its attention.
As it turned, Connor swung his axe horizontally into the despot’s face.
The impact snapped the King’s head sideways, leaving the blade lodged deep in its cheek.
Ryon and Maks closed in, carving shallow cuts into the arm it raised to defend itself as it fell. Zayn...
Zayn glared at Axel while delivering a pitiful strike that missed the stumbling King entirely.
Connor lunged after the falling goblin and reached for his axe — the first of many mistakes to come.
"Wait!"
The King swiftly regained its footing and seized Connor’s right wrist.
Smiling, the King tore the axe from its cheek with its free hand, splattering Connor’s face with green blood.
It raised the weapon, but Zayn slashed its wrist just in time, forcing it to halt the attack and retreat.
Connor huffed to Zayn as he jumped back:
"Thank you."
Axel tried to rise, but putting pressure on either foot sent pain through him.
Ryon retrieved his sword and tossed it over.
The five disengaged and surrounded the King.
It calmly crossed the floor to retrieve its cudgel, ignoring the blood oozing from its mangled cheek.
’Two of us nearly died, and all we have to show for it is a few scratches, a worthless chunk of cheek, and one cheap shot.’
It wasn’t looking good.
Axel stood upon the steps leading to the throne, shifting his weight onto his right side. Given its height, he needed little elevation to meet the King’s gaze while it stood with its back to the other four.
"Scared of me or something, you mongrel?"
Axel hurled the insult at the wretch, and it answered with a roar.
The beast was far more powerful than anything they had faced.
Neither Axel nor the others understood what Nascent or Unseen meant, but they knew damn well this tyrant stood above both.
It possessed intelligence — and a battle style. Its enormous body moved like flowing water, and it understood how much punishment it could endure. It had deliberately lured Connor closer in an attempt to capture him.
Axel called out to the others:
"Take out its mobility! Claim its ankles!"
Connor recovered from his stumble and reengaged the King barehanded, challenging it in close-quarters combat. He screamed:
"I’ll hold the bastard still!"
"No, stop!"
’Did he not learn anything?!’
The King glanced over its shoulder and spun, throwing a backhand at Connor.
He ducked beneath it, but the Goblin King immediately followed with a front kick aimed at his head.
The world seemed to freeze as Ryon, Zayn, and Axel bore down upon the goblin with attacks of their own. None would reach it in time...
But there was another.
Maks.
Only Maks reacted quickly enough to save Connor.
"Ergh!"
Maks dashed between them and threw Connor aside, taking the kick squarely in the chest. The impact launched him across the vast room and into the wall which crumbled on impact and covered him in rubble.
"Maks, why?!"
Had Maks not intervened, the kick would have burst through Connor’s skull, scattering everything above his mandible.
"Fuck, I’ll go check on him!"
The King’s latest attack had left it genuinely off balance. Unable to arrest its momentum, it pitched face-first toward the floor.
Zayn struck first, plunging his blade deep into the goblin’s wrist. Ryon followed, cleaving into its left Achilles tendon, while Axel sliced across its neck.
As their attacks landed, Connor screamed:
"Maks is alive!"
The declaration reignited their hope.
Green blood oozed from the King’s wounds as it flailed, forcing everyone back. Axel, Ryon, and Zayn landed near the throne steps, while Connor remained beside Maks in the room’s left corner.
The goblin attempted to rise but buckled beneath its own weight. After a brief pause, it bellowed, forced itself upright, and staggered toward its cudgel.
Ryon screamed:
"We have the bastard!"
Then, the King sprinted toward Connor and Maks.
’Shit, the cut was shallow!’
The King had pretended to be weakened.
Connor screamed:
"Oh, fuck!"
Connor abandoned Maks and drew the goblin toward the center of the room. In doing so, however, he isolated himself even more.
The King swung, and Connor leaped away as nimbly as his body allowed. He desperately maneuvered around each attack, drawing closer to his advancing comrades.
Somehow, Axel and Ryon reached the King before Zayn and stopped just beyond its range.
Axel raised his sword to bring it crashing down, but something felt wrong.
’Huh?’
Without looking, he deflected a pebble sailing toward the spot where he was about to step. The stone ricocheted across the floor, slid beneath Connor’s foot, and sent him plummeting to the ground.
’A pebble...?’
’A fucking pebble...?’
A pebble was all it took.
They had been moments from landing a devastating blow, and one damned pebble ruined everything.
The Goblin King stomped on Connor’s legs, flattening them with savage kicks that widened the fractures spreading through the floor.
"AAarrrrgghh! Help! Help me!"
Connor released a desperate scream. The Goblin King swept its cudgel outward, forcing Axel and Ryon to retreat, then raised the weapon above the weeping man.
Connor fell nearly silent and stared up at the cudgel looming over him. Quietly, he said:
"I-I’m coming home, Mom..."
A crash thundered through the room, freezing everyone in place. Then came another — and another.
The King hammered Connor’s lifeless body until nothing remained but a bloody paste.
’No...’
The King roared in triumph, lifted its uninjured foot, and slammed it into the fractured floor. The cohort had no chance to react before the ground collapsed beneath them.
They plunged into the room below.
Axel tried to soften his landing, but his broken foot struck first. A shock wave of pain tore through him and sent him crashing down with a yelp.
"Ack!"
Axel looked up, expecting the Goblin King to descend upon him and finish the job. Instead, it appeared nearly dead. No... it was dying. The cut Axel had opened across its neck was indeed substantial.
Green blood continued to pour out of it.
But also...
’What is it doing?’
The King remained fixated on Connor’s bloody remains. Then... it did something vile.
It began devouring his corpse in front of them.
"You bastard! Let go of him!"
Broken foot or not, pain or not, he forced himself upright and charged the beast defiling his comrade’s body.
He reached the King and raised his sword to execute it — then its body began glowing.
More precisely, the tattoos covering its body shone with a vile, defiling violet light.
In an instant, every wound they had inflicted healed. The Goblin King surged to its feet and backhanded Axel through the air.
As he bounced and slid, Axel searched for Ryon — only to find his two remaining comrades rolling across the floor in a deadly struggle.
Pinned beneath Ryon, Zayn screamed:
"We’ll both die! Stop it!"
Tears streamed down Ryon’s face as he punched Zayn and screamed:
"You killed him! You killed him, you murderer!"
Before Axel could warn them, the Goblin King plucked Ryon off Zayn as though he were a toy.
Ryon didn’t even turn toward the King. He continued screaming into Zayn’s face and punching the air.
"You bastard, I trusted you! I trusted you!"
Those were his final words.
The King crushed him in a bear hug, sending blood spurting from his eyes and mouth. He tried to scream, but his lungs collapsed before a sound could escape.
Axel couldn’t understand what had happened or why his allies had turned against each other. He had no time to consider it. Whatever had transpired had left only him and Zayn against a fully healed Goblin King.
Zayn scrambled upright and plunged his sword deep into the King’s chest.
Blood poured from the King’s mouth as it staggered.
Then, gripping Ryon’s corpse by one foot, the King swung his body into Zayn and sent him flying across the room, landing beside Axel.
Axel wanted to grieve — to surrender to despair — but hope remained.
The King’s power had come at a cost. Its wounds were already returning.
Readying his stance, he said to Zayn without looking.
"Don’t give up! We can still win!"
A sudden whiff of air forced Axel’s attention.
"I... I can’t do this!"
Axel froze in horror at the tip of a weapin inches from his nose. Zayn’s sword.
Thankfully, he had pulled the attack.
But, he had attacked Axel...
His hands trembling, Zayn backed away, lowered his sword, and fled toward the only exit of the room they landed in.
"I-I’m sorry!"