I placed my hands on her waist just above her hips, and pulled her closer to me. Her body was divinely comfortable against my own. I pressed her head down to the left of mine so I could whisper directly into her ear.

“Alright, I’ll tie you up again.”

My right palm moved down to her ass and lightly squeezed.

…

“Thunderbolt.”

[230 damage]

You have killed [Euphemia]

You have earned 60 silver.

Your PK status has risen. You are more likely to drop items upon death.

Your notoriety in the surrounding area has increased.

HP: 18/236

Jesus christ that was a close call. 18 HP left was no joke! Even the recoil from thunderbolt might've been able to kill me from that range. Thankfully, I didn’t take any recoil from Thunderbolt because my body was entangled with Euphemia's when I casted it. At my health, I couldn’t safely take any more damage.

Exhausted, I logged out for the day.

As I logged out and went back to sleep, one thought remained in my head—That [Euphemia] girl is dangerous.

———————

Meanwhile, at KB broadcasting.

“We’ll continue with coverage of the goblin invasion.”

A map of Eclipse’s known playable area was shown on the screen. A red blob from the north east was shown growing and pushing southwards. It looked like a weather channel forecast of an incoming hurricane.

“The goblin armies have not been stopped, and are now pressing deeper into human controlled territory.”

The screen shifted to footage of goblins that players managed to capture on their recording software, right before they got overrun.

“Reports from users have all concluded that individual goblins are relatively weak, but the sheer amount of them poses a huge problem.”

The screen blinked to an eight foot tall muscular goblin among regular goblins.

“There are also reports of commanders in some divisions. We originally mistook them for orcs due to their size and stature, but upon closer inspection they seem to be an evolved type of goblin. We decided to refer to them as Hobgoblins.”

The screen transitioned to two news anchors sitting around a broadcasting table.

“John, you’re KB broadcasting’s Eclipse streaming head. What are your thoughts about this situation?”

“The situation is dire. The playerbase at the moment can hold their own against small amounts of normal goblins, but the hobgoblins are on an entirely different level. Now back to you John.”

===========

In case you were confused, KB broadcasting has two experts in charge of Eclipse coverage, both named John. Over the last week as Eclipse coverage increased in popularity, the two Johns became a running meme.

I minimized the stream.

“Master, you are evil~”

Meat Shield rolled on my lap. She was referring to when I used a point blank thunderbolt on Euphemia, frying the poor girl who was struggling under the aphrodisiac-like qualities of [Restrain].

“It was a defensive reflex.”

We were sitting on the grass not far from the city of Talos. From what I could tell, this landscape was rather typical across Eclipse. Human territories spanning the continent were all situated in rather temperate climates.

There were regional variations in weather and climate, but even the coldest regions within human territory were habitable. This climatic benevolence was rather unexpected, given how brutally the game treated its players for the most part.

During work today I was browsing the Eclipse forums in between meetings. The top thread was a player updated danger zone map of the north eastern region, detailing sightings of the goblin army and its commanders.

Normally in MMOs like this, players would be secretive and try to monopolize critical information. But the goblin world event changed things. A doomsday event of world influencing impact created a slight sense of solidarity amongst the playerbase, because the entire playerbase benefited from repelling or at least slowing the goblin onslaught.

In the current disaster-level state of the world, dungeons and prime monster slaying locations located in danger zones with high goblin activity were inaccessible without high risk. Traveling outside of cities was a dangerous endeavor, as only the bravest players were venturing far out of city limits.

Unfortunately, due to my recent life choices of stealing from a city lord's mansion and murdering players within city limits, I was safer outside of the city of Talos.

My wanted status would be active for a while even after the Duke's arrest quest expired, so the danger zone map was a great tool in helping me stay alive outside of the safety of a city.

Not being able to visit Talos was a huge pity because I had a massive amount of gold in my inventory that I wanted to spend on better gear. But actions had consequences, and extreme actions had equally extreme consequences. Consequences were what made this game balanced.

I drag selected a hologram of the map from my user interface and laid it on the floor so Meat Shield could see it as well. Technology truly was amazing, and I felt like a billionaire playboy superhero from a movie adjusting the holographic map with my fingers.

“Look here. There were four goblin sightings not far from us.”

“Maps are boring nya~”

“Pay attention!”

I pointed at a nearby city.

“Here’s the closest city that’s not Talos. Look, there’s a gap in the goblin sightings that we can take that leads us to there.”

“Okay~”

The closest city was called Mountain, and it was a considerable distance away from our current location.

We moved out. At my state with [Love Whip] and [Thunderbolt], I wasn’t really scared of any player encounters. I just needed to watch out for goblins and other environmental hazards.

I was leaving an A rank conspiracy quest behind by leaving Talos. But with my current wanted level there was no way I’d be able to thoroughly investigate the city and advance the quest. Still, forgoing a chance at the rare rewards made me feel somewhat bitter.

From my previous experience with [Love Whip], it was clear that high rank quests could give out legendary rewards, and I risked my life and aggroed an entire city to activate that A rank conspiracy quest. The quest wasn't salvageable from this position though, so I had to swallow my bitter tears and move on.

I also had another objective in mind. Collecting more souls. The dimension room shop items looked ludicrously broken, and I had every intention of obtaining them as soon as possible.

But how the hell was I supposed to amass thousands of souls? Even Steel Slice, at his current rate of murdering noobs, would need a year to yield that kind of soul count.

------------

Plains, forestry, rolling hills, into more plains. It felt like the landscape barely changed no matter how long I walked. The lack of cover and flat lines of visibility on the plains were a real bitch to deal with, since there were goblin patrols and larger goblin regiments every square kilometer.

It wouldn't be possible for any player to complete the journey from Talos to Mountain unless they had a stealth ability. Or, I guess if they were strong enough to take on an entire goblin army.

Fortunately I had a unique class stealth ability called [Dimension Room]. Together with Meat Shield’s keen detection senses, we managed to dodge three goblin patrols and make our way to Mountain.

We walked for hours, playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse, except in this case, the cat was the mouse. A black, spineless, useless mouse, that ate so many pork jelly beans that my wallet was beginning to hurt.

After a long four hours of ducking and weaving between patrols, we finally reached a breathtaking distant view of the city of Mountain.

Mountain was a beautiful and architecturally advanced city, seemingly carved into an elevated island land mass surrounded by deep blue water and sandy shores. From a distance, it did seem like a small mountain rising from the water. A tall, imposing castle that looked like the Alcazar De Segovia in Spain rose from the sloping top of the mountain, and smaller villages dotted the lower slope.

A wide bridge lead onto the island.

Despite its remarkable visuals, the Mountain I arrived at was in complete chaos.

The island’s geographical serenity was currently disturbed by intense fighting. Even from a distance I could see the trouble. Hordes of goblins had already crossed the bridge into the city, and smoke and fire billowed up as the goblins were locked in combat with both players and NPCs.

World Event Goblin assault of Mountain Objective Defend the city from the goblin army. Difficulty ?? Rewards ?? Punishment for failure The city of Mountain is taken by goblins. All inhabitants will be killed, or will be forced to flee to neighboring cities.

A world event quest! Adrenaline pumped through my veins. This was going to be some kind of battle.

“Let’s help them out, Meat Shield.”

“Yes~”

We rushed across the bridge, into a city engrossed in a deadly melee. Level 80 guards skewered goblin after goblin, and players of all different levels fought frantically against the horde. Arrows and spells and strange unique players abilities were being fired off left and right.

In the pandemonium, I saw a firework launch from someone’s hand, roses grow from the ground, and a light orb floating by a swordsman. There were certainly a lot of strange and interesting unique abilities.

“Love whip.”

I grabbed the handle of my whip and cracked it. The whip was a resourceless weapon, with no recoil like thunderbolt, no mana cost, and no cooldown. I could command it telepathically, but my control wasn’t good enough to wield it telepathically yet. It was more effective while directly wielded.

It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that there were goblins everywhere.

I smiled. It’s killing time.

Two goblins with spears leapt from the roof of a building towards me. I lashed out with my love whip.

My whip struck the side of the goblin’s neck, snapping his neck and instantly killing it.

[230 damage]

An arrow whizzed by my head, followed by a second.

“Dimension rift.”

The second arrow fizzled into the void as it contacted my glove. My reaction speed was insane, a product of years of baseball and tennis in my childhood.

“Die, human!”

The other goblin lunged towards me with its spear in hand.