Thorin watched as his troops retreated. The goblins, hyped up on victory, charged after like normal. Only five or six injured goblins remained, with around five other goblins who were looting the corpses. The sick bastards were not only picking up Thorin’s higher quality weapons, but also rustling through their allies corpses.

Thorin climbed down the tree quietly and landed on the ground with a small thud. The goblins were too busy looking for shiny things or wailing in pain, so none of them noticed. Thorin took out his sword and moved to the nearest looter. He was leaned over the orcs corpse, trying to saw of the poor bastards ears. Thorin creeped closer trying to get within range to kill the goblin. He was only two feet away from the goblin when it jumped up in the air hollering happily examining the orcs ear in front of his face. Surprised by the sudden change Thorin lashed out and made a long gash on the back of the goblin. The goblins shouts of joy, were replaced of with shouts of pain. The goblin’s screams alerted the other four looters, who looked up from their bounty and saw Thorin cutting off the goblin's head.

Thorin felt the rush accompanying his first kill, but restrained himself. He couldn't afford to lose his head while behind enemy lines. He need to finish killing these goblins then gather as many weapons and corpses he could. He still received some of the energy that normally accompanied the blood lust, but it was less than if he lost himself.

He readied himself to face the other four goblins. The first looter made its way to him carrying a new dagger picked up from one of Thorin’s skeleton. The bastard was eager to test out its new weapon, but Thorin didn't give him a chance. Noticing the goblins speed, he simply leveled his sword pointing it at the goblin and stepping forward. The goblin couldn't react in time and it’s forward momentum impaled itself on the sword three fourths of the way to the hilt. Before Thorin could remove the goblins corpse the other three looters made their way over.

Thorin quickly dropped his blade and dropped to the ground dogging one of the goblins attacks. Rolling backward, Thorin made space for himself to get up. Before he could pull his spare weapon out of storage. Another goblin was swinging a newly picked up sword at his shoulder. The goblin was idiotic and trying to use a normal sized sword from a skeleton and didn't have the strength to wield it effectively.

Noticing this Thorin put his hand up and grabbed the blade before it hit him gritting his teeth. The blade cut through Thorin’s hands all the way to the bone, but didn't have enough force to break his hands bones. With his other hand Thorin grabbed the goblin's head and pulled it down to his knee. The impact made the goblin faint and let go of the word that Thorin was currently holding on to by the blade.

While this exchange happened the other goblins weren't idle and attempted to flank Thorin from the sides. Thorin managed to dodge one of their attacks but the other left a line of red on his right side. The wound wasn’t terrible due to Thorin’s leather armour, but would still affect his movements.

Thorin quickly used his good hand to grab the blades handle and swung wildly at the goblin who scored the hit. It cut off the goblins wrist, disabling him with pain. Thorin grunted as he felt the other goblin behind him stab his back. The pain was much more than normal and Thorin felt his concentration slip and he entered the blood lust status. He wiped his injured hand around and grabbed the goblin's neck. He hosted it off its feet raising it to eye level, before impaling it with the sword in his other hand. He stared at the goblin face watching it squirm in pain before using his injured hand to snap its neck.

The goblin's body fell to the ground lifeless. The blade still in its body fell with it. Thorin seeing there were no more threats exited the bloodlust state almost as quickly as he entered. Pain flared back up from his hand, back and side, as the adrenaline of the fight wore off. Thorin reached back with his good and touched where the goblins stabbed him. His hand came back with a lot of blood.

He was stabbed in his kidney. A fatal wound if left untreated. Thorin could already feel himself weaken as he was losing blood. He quickly used some mana to help stop the blood flow but it was to much to control. He began to feel light headed and fell to his knees. Panicking he began to cast a energy siphon spell aiming at the goblin who was on the ground clutching a stump where its hand used to be.

Thorin managed to finish the spell and focused on stealing as much life force as possible. The goblin screamed in pain as more blood spurted out of its arm and traveled the Thorin. He directed it to the wound in his back and felt some of his vitality come back. He was still in danger, but was able to crawl over to a goblin who was injured in the battle.

He repeated the process and was able to stand up shakily. He was still bleeding so he walked around to the remaining injured goblins and took their life force. After two more the wound on his back was healed. By killing the other two left he was able to heal his hand and back. Feeling drained from the fight Thorin persevered and began to collect as many weapons and corpses as he could fit. He made sure to grab the orc and any of the weapons his skeletons dropped.

Afterwards he looked at his stats hoping that the exp he gained would leveled him up so he could use the stats to help himself. It had been the biggest battle yet and Thorin’s skeletons killed about one hundred and thirty.

As he opened up his stats screen, another popped up displaying that he leveled up another four times. Leaving him with twenty points to use and sixteen that were automatically added. This recent combat showed Thorin his lack of physical prowess. If he was going to continue fighting with his skeletons, not just commanding them he would have to spread his status points.

He ended up adding six to vitality, four to strength, three to agility, four to endurance, and three to dexterity. After gaining that many stat points at once he felt a bit better, but was still a bit ragged due to the earlier fight.

He wasn't up to raising the corpses into skeletons after the fight. He would need time to recover and a safer place if he wanted to create more skeletons.

Thorin left the clearing after filling his dimensional storage to the brim. He grabbed a total of seventy eight corpses and recovered all of his weapons and some of the better goblin to equipment to equip them with.

He moved at a slow pace due to his state and made his way back towards his cave. As he walked through the woods his vitality slowly stabilized him and brought him back up to fighting condition.

He was soon able to start jogging back to camp making a faster time.

A hour away from the cave Thorin stopped and threw himself to the ground behind some shrubs. A group of about a hundred goblins ran past his spot moving together at a fast pace.

Thorin held his breath and tried to hide as best as possible. If he was spotted he was as good as dead.

Luckily they were rushing and didn't spot him. Thorin let out a sigh of relief and stood up to continue moving.

‘Wait they were running in the direction of the cave! Shit!’ Thorin realized, before running as fast as he could after the group.

After running he managed to get to the area near the cave. Their was the sounds of fighting and Thorin stopped running and began to inch towards the cave. He peaked out from the brush and saw a group of two hundred goblins surrounding the cave. They blocked direct site to the cave, but Thorin used his magic to check the condition of the skeletons left. He reached out and saw that only eighteen remained. Thorin knew they could defend at the cave for a long time before being overrun due to the goblins having to enter two at a time.

The only problem was Thorin saw was the goblins were attempting to widen the entrance using crude tools. They weren't making too much progress but eventually they could break through.

‘They must have followed the trail created by the skeleton's retreat and called for reinforcements.’ Thorin thought.

Before he could do anything Thorin need to know if more goblins were coming. If the entire war group was on their way here Thorin would be able to do anything. He could only stay on the sidelines and watch as his skeletons were slaughtered.

He reached out and commanded Cynar to come back from scouting. While he did this he moved away from the goblins. He traveled five miles away from the cave before finding a clear spot to sit down and meditate. After a half an hour of clearing his head and filling his mana, Thorin stood up and began to take out corpses and reanimate them.

After raising twenty skeletons, Cynar arrived.

“We have a problem, they found the cave ” Thorin said as he saw the shade approach.

“I know after the battle finished I saw another group leave. I want to go warn you, but the rest of the goblins began to move. I stayed to see what they were doing. They are heading towards the town Thorin. They decided to just keep you busy with these goblins and keep on going.” Cynar said.

“Shit, I can't leave my crimson skeletons to die, but it will take time to fight all these goblins and then catch up. They still have five hundred goblins left and now possibly some orcs. That's plenty to destroy the town.” Thorin said while slamming his fist against a tree.

“We are going to have to wipe out the goblins at the cave in one go, then raise another hundred skeletons before chasing after the goblins. That gives them a day's lead” Thorin said.

“Defeat two hundred goblins with a hundred skeletons? A hundred new non trained skeletons! You must be delusional!” Cynar said.

“I must at least try. I will not change my mind, go to Roland and monitor their situation and tell me when they are unable to last for much longer.” Thorin responded ignoring Cyanr’s insult.

Unable to go against his owner's wishes Cynar had no choice but to obey.

‘Alright time I hurry, every second counts’ Thorin thought as he pulled out another corpse. He needed to make another batch of skeletons fast.

Thorin began to cast the spell this time with a higher sense of urgency. Each spell took around three minutes to cast, but after several casts Thorin began to slowly speed up his cast time. He became more and more familiar with the spell and casting it seem like second nature. Eventually he managed to cut the cast time down. Towards the end of creating the skeletons, it only took him about a minute per spell and he received a pop up.

Skill Rank Up

Summon Skeleton D-> Summon Skeleton D+

Able to speed summoning at the expense of extra mana.

With the spell ranking up, it became less mentally exhausting to speed the spell up and Thorin was able to finish the rest of the skeletons off with record time.

When he finished he line up his group and nodded before turning towards the direction of the cave.

He gave out a simple command.

“Forwards.”

Name: Thorin Black Class: Necromancer Lv 16 89/160 XP Health 445/460 Mana 863/1730 Stats: Strength: 42 Vitality: 46 Stamina: 22 Endurance: 19 Intelligence: 73 Willpower: 92 Agility: 17 Dexterity: 19 Skills Summon Familiar Rank S Skeletal Fusion Rank C Energy Siphon Rank D+ Summon Skeleton Rank D+ Blood Lust Rank D Talents Affinity with Death Dimensional Storage Head Start Magic Reserves Strong Soul Blood Lord Thorin's Forces Skeleton 92 Crimson Skeleton 3