Instead of weaving my way around my opponent’s powerful attacks, I simply backpedaled to gain some separation and then sprinted toward the goblin corpse to pick up the ax.

The solid heft of the weapon and metallic-shimmering wave-pattern of the crescent-shaped blade made my confidence surge.

Fighting someone as sturdy as a fucking tree? Fight them using an ax.

A simple truism.

“Come on, fatty,” I taunted the goblin waddling toward me. “Chop, chop!”

Of course, I had no fucking clue how to fight with an ax. Beyond pretending to be a lumberjack, that is.

But, I mean, how difficult could it be to hit something with an ax? Swing sideways using your core strength, step into the strike, and… well, hit the fucking tree. Easier than baseball, I imagined.

Obviously, I had no idea how to defend using an ax, but that seemed less relevant anyway because I had no desire to block those massive swings by the goblin lord. Despite the decreased size of the guy, there was still some serious power in those arms, and any direct hit would probably just break my bones if I tried to block with the shaft of my ax.

So weaving around and dodging the powerful swings was the plan.

And whacking the goblin until it couldn’t move any longer.

That plan worked out reasonably well, at least the dodging part. For a few exchanges, I evaded the goblin’s strikes matrix-style and got in a few counterattacks, that left bloody wounds, but otherwise didn’t have much of an impact, it seemed.

“You are toast, motherfucker,” I cackled, more to pump myself than anything. A little bit of trash talk never hurts.

Unless it does.

The goblin’s little pig eyes focused on me with sudden burning intensity, and it… smirked. As if it had understood my words and dismissed them as utterly irrelevant. And then it caught me by surprise. Instead of swinging its Morningstar in a wide arc as it had done previously, an attack that was easily evaded by merely taking a step back, this time, the goblin let go for the heavy weapon midswing, hurling it right toward where I was going to inevitably end up.

Needless to say, tossing the weapon completely blindsided me.

In the last split second, I managed to raise my ax to at least partially deflect the weapon, but it still hit me like a steam train. Even though I only suffered a glancing blow, that was enough to crack a couple of my ribs and tear deep, bloody gashes into my torso.

Before I could recover, the goblin bull-rushed me, slamming its shoulders into my chest and toppling me to the ground.

Immediately, I tried wiggling my way out from underneath the massive barrel of fat pressing down on me, but the goblin outweighed me by a factor of two or three. Wincing in pain from my injured ribcage, I tried everything I could think of, from slamming the shaft of my ax into the head of the goblin, to pressing my thumb into its little pig-eyes, and even drawing my dagger and stabbing the sweaty, stinking pile of blubber on top of me in the side as quickly as I could.

But nothing worked.

The goblin simply shrugged off whatever I was doing. With my back pressed against the floor and half-smothered by fat rolls, I simply did not have the angle and leverage to deal significant damage.

The goblin’s stinking breath made me gag, and slowly I was losing consciousness. And I knew that this was it.

The end of my journey.

With a last surge of fear-driven strength, I heaved with all my power, trying to roll out from underneath the stinking body, but all I got, as a result, was sweaty manboobs pressing down on my face, as the goblin reasserted its position.

What a fucking ignoble way to go, I thought, while darkness descended on me.

…

…

And then suddenly I could breathe again.

Air.

Fucking. Sweet. Air.

After a moment, my vision cleared as consciousness returned.

And I realized that the weight on my chest was gone. And then I noticed that something was arresting my arm. I twisted my head around and found myself suddenly face to face with the ugly goblin mofo.

“Fuck,” I hollered and recoiled, heart thumping wildly in my chest.

The goblin held on to my arm and grinned at me toothily.

“What the hell do you want from me?” I shouted, while desperately trying to free my arm from the vice-like grip of the goblin. “Let me go!”

All I got in response was a little chuckle.

I reached around for a weapon, something to swat the goblin over the head and get my arm out of its clutches, but they were spread around me, just out of reach, tempting me, teasing me.

I started hitting the goblin and even kicking it, but it did not even blink in response.

And then I heard a cracking noise, like a dry twig breaking, and pain shot up my arm.

“Fuck,” I screamed again, this time watching in horror my little finger sticking out at an unnatural angle.

And then the goblin grabbed the ring finger.

“Shit, don’t do it. I was just kidding about the motherfucker thing, and the chop, chop. Really, ther…”

With a crack, my second finger broke, this time white bone visible, as splinters cut through the flesh.

For a moment, I almost fainted, but then the pain brought me right back to the present. Tears streaming down my face, I just mumbled, “Shit, shit, shit,” like a little mantra, all the while rocking back and forth, trying to block out the pain and the desperate situation I was in.

The goblin was staring into my face, pig-eyes squinting slightly and its shit-eating grin ever-present. Its teeth were crooked, stained, and still full to bits and pieces from poor Glorfindel’s stomach. And it was waiting for something.

Was it looking for some kind of reaction?

Maybe it expected full-on panic?

Almost there.

I desperately yanked my arm away from the goblin, but barely even budged its hold. How was that guy so fucking strong? It wasn’t fair.

And that red ring was right there, in front of my face, on the hand that was arresting my arm. But without a weapon, it might as well have been on the other side of the room. And frankly, at the moment, I was more concerned with escaping than the completely unfair regeneration ability of the goblin.

The goblin slowly raised my hand, and I resigned myself to it breaking another one of my fingers. I steeled my nerves against the expected pain, but still could not help but swear violently when the sharp flash of agony raced through my body.

“I am gonna fucking kill you,” I cursed, more so because it helped me stave off full-blown panic than a belief that I would get out of this situation.

Apparently, the goblin did not like my more subdued reaction this time. Its smile was replaced by a frown, or perhaps a pout.

And then it raised my hand again.

For a moment, I thought it was going to break my index finger next, but then it raised the hand to its mouth.

“Are you fucking sick? You’re gonna suck my finger, or what?” I swore through clenched teeth.

But then it chomped down on my pinky, and a red-hot bolt of pain raced through my body. It lowered my hand, now missing the little finger, and proudly chewed on my pinky in front of my shocked eyes.

Just to prove a point, I think, the goblin then released my hand, only holding on to my ring finger with his meaty sausage digits pressed down like a fucking clamp.

That was the moment when I was losing it. I had been trying to keep my shit together for the off chance that I might escape, but the situation seemed hopeless. I started screaming every vile thing I could think of, struggled with all my might, spat, bit, headbutted,… and the goblin king started laughing.

That was precisely what it had wanted, it seemed.

And fuck me if I was going to give it the satisfaction.

I forced myself to calm down, to not give it what it craved. A small act of defiance, and one I might not be able to sustain, but my pride demanded it. Perhaps this was the greatest threat I had faced yet, but I wasn’t gonna give up that easily.

The moment I stopped screaming and thrashing around, the laughter stopped, and the goblin king glared at me. After realizing that I did not intend to beg or scream any longer, it spat part of my fingernail at me, still connected to some bloody tissue.

I did not react in the slightest, staring with a stony expression at the goblin.

With an angry scowl, the goblin squatted fully on the floor, spreading its legs to the side, like a walrus on land. If walruses had legs, anyway.

And then it raised my hand to its mouth, watching my face, clearly waiting for a reaction, expecting fear or even panic.

But instead, ice-cold clarity washed through my body, as I realized that I had one tiny chance. And I had to get the timing just right, or I’d be done for.

The goblin was still holding my finger with just its thumb and index finger like one might hold a sucker, a tasty morsel to be put into the mouth delicately. Or at least as delicately as two digits, each the size of a cucumber, squeezing my finger with the force of a steam press can be.

And when the attention of the goblin shifted to my index finger in eager anticipation of the newest treat, I pushed all the black mana I had accumulated during the previous few seconds into the index finger, before jerking back my hand with all the force I could muster.

With a surprised expression on its face, the goblin lord stared at its fingers, its brain clearly trying to figure out why it was unable to keep a grip on my suddenly dark, malleable flesh.

And then I was free.

Immediately, I rolled over to the war ax, ignoring the sharp stabs of pain from my ribcage and my hand. In one smooth motion, I stood up and swung the ax around with all the force I could muster, hitting the goblin square on the back of its head.

And while the ax only marginally penetrated the thick skull of the gob, it caused it to completely lose its balance and fall flat on the stone floor. Coupled with its walrus-like position, this was my chance. I could have run away and try to recover from my wounds, but all I could think of was payback.

Tit for tat. And more.

I was laying into the gob with all I had.

Which wasn’t all that much, to be honest, mainly because I had to swing the ax one-handed, but it was enough to keep the goblin off balance. I kept on chopping into its legs whenever it attempted to get on its feet and picked on the arms when it tried to turn its body around.

And I tried taking off the finger with the ruby ring. But the goblin protected that one pretty well, preferring to unbalance itself rather than potentially lose the ring.

Soon I settled into a rhythm, slowly working my way through the goblin’s fat reserves. Because that is what it was. A battle of attrition of my endurance versus the goblin’s regeneration.

And I could see my progress. Slowly, but surely, the goblin was shrinking, turning from an oversized barrel of lard to a pudgy, tallish goblin, to a skinny runt with vast layers of loose skin draped all around it. Situation under control, I was mostly worried about either the mind-fucking geezer coming back or some random goblin patrol showing up at an inopportune moment before I could finish up.

But for once, I lucked out.

Maybe the geezer was busy.

Or perhaps it was fighting the elves in the throne room.

I had no idea.

All I cared about was that the goblin king was going to die.

Finally, after what felt like hours of heavy chopping, I lifted my arm one last time, aiming a massive chop at the neck of the goblin king. And whereas all the previous chops had failed to deeply cut into the body of the goblin, this last one, finally, severed the spine.

Which was not enough to kill the savage creature, but it was enough for me to finally catch a breath. My right arm felt like rubber, and I was barely able to lift the ax any longer. I grabbed my dagger from the floor and slowly trudged over to the vile creature.

Rather than prolong its suffering, or god forbid, allow it to recover, I put the dagger against the base of its neck and pushed it inside its brain.

A quick death, but after minutes of chopping into the goblin, all my desire for revenge had evaporated. By the end, it was just a matter of finishing the business and tie up loose ends.

Once the goblin was finally dead, I slumped to the ground, cradling my throbbing left hand against my chest. This had been a costly fight. And it had been a close call. Again.

Eventually, I was going to run out of luck.

So I’d better make sure to get stronger quickly to have a fighting chance against a monster like this.

Speaking of… the ring. Eagerly, I heaved the goblin’s body over to recover that ruby ring, hoping that it might help me perhaps regenerate my missing finger, or at least deal with the broken ones.

In addition to being just an awesome magical gizmo in general.

But what I found made me curse yet again… all that was left of the ring was red ruby dust and half molten gold.