Goblins

Both Damon and Gregal quickly broke out of their fear, purely based on how seasoned they were towards said feeling. Being fearful would have an effect on their fighting prowess: too much of an effect if they wanted to survive this encounter.

Damon looked even closer at the Troll king only to notice that he actually didn’t hold a weapon, after all he had killed the blood-horn wolf with just his arms. To be fair though it made sense that the troll king didn’t have a weapon, he was a genuine meat mountain whose strikes were like hammers. But more importantly someone his size would not be able to find a suitable weapon in some place isolated like the great forest, yes he could steal the weapons the human adventurers brought with them but how many humans were 2.6m tall?

It was during this time Gregal thought the opposite to Damon: what was forcing them to fight this monster anyway? Clearly the odds were not in their favour against such an abnormal troll so why couldn’t they run just like the deer had done for them? There was nothing shameful about that if you could wake up alive tomorrow. This thought only grew inside of him as he thought of how the big the troll was: yes that might aid his strength but it was an absolute liability to his agility whereas the goblins were the opposite.

Gregal quickly made a certain bird sound, quick communication for retreat.

Tensing his bear like legs, the troll exploded off the ground as he pounced at Damon, whose vision was completely filled up by said flying troll within a second. It was to the troll king’s pity that both goblins just shot off opposite directions, clearly showing no interest in fighting him.

Perhaps others would be distracted by such a tactic designed to confuse but the troll king only had his eyes on Damon from the beginning anyway and thus he followed Damon, giving care to the wind about Gregal. But that gave him no useful edge in actually catching the fleeing goblin, who turned out to be at least double his speed.

Within a minute, Damon was fully out of the Troll king’s eyesight and Gregal had already been forgotten.

“GRRRGGGGGAHHHH”

The king roared in anger as he felt frustration build up; no one dared to fight him anymore. He felt such a strong bloodlust, one that wasn’t sated just by murdering the powerless. He needed someone powerful so he could crush them alike the powerless, it was a pity that the powerful ran before he even got a chance to do anything.

On top of his frustration, exhaustion was also building up as he had sustained his buffed self for about 2 minutes now. Similar to how Damon used mana to strengthen a certain muscle, the king used to do the same. However this changed when he evolved, letting him enjoy so much more mana than before. Thus he created this buff form of himself, which was done just by employing mana all over his body. If they had fought, he could have torn through their weapons if needed in this state. If they had fought that was…

He began to release the mana from his body, which only revealed a truly nightmarish scene to the forest as the massive rage filled troll began to physically deflate, almost as if his pumped up muscles had all been simultaneously punctured.

*Seeeeeessssssssrrrrrrr*

A knife tore through the air, finding deep purchase within King’s shoulder.

Finding no time to even scream, the king suddenly rolled across the ground as an axe shot to where he had been, causing a deep hole in the ground. It was clear that these throws were different from before: they were no longer just pure strength but also densely infused with mana.

To his left he heard the crack of branches and the shaking of the shrubbery, to which he quickly threw himself down once more. Pity for him that the sound he had heard was just a stone being thrown, rather the true danger came in the form of the axe that kissed his thigh better.

“ARRRRRGGHHA”

He could feel his anger building up; that wasn’t good. If he got angry, he would definitely overburden his body to the point of injury…

*KEKEKEKEKE…

He heard continuous bird noises around him. He was certain this was the goblins, only they kept running around him in opposite directions making him very paranoid over which direction the next, inevitable strike was coming from.

…KEKEKEKKE…

This carried on for about 10 seconds as the king felt his nerves melt over, he so desperately wanted to actually see one of them so he could tear through their heads, crushing brain and gore into a bloody pulp and yet they dared not give him that opportunity.

…KEKE-CRAA!

Hearing the clear change in note and actually registering it in your mind when your nerves have melted over were two different things. But the king’s battle scars weren’t just for show: he was battle hardened. He reacted within a second as he immediately dashed to where the sound had been. To his front were rustling sounds, clearly a goblin flustered and running away, while to his back landed another axe where he had just been.

But his bad luck hadn’t ended just yet, in fact the singular second it took for him to react was already too much, and it showed as within his now-smashed shoulder blade was another knife. This was an attack unlike all the others; it was completely filled with mana to the point that the mana had actually created an extension of the blade that went deep into his ribs.

Perhaps he should have cried or collapsed at this, a good old roar wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary. But instead his rage had bubbled over, all of which now filled the king’s head with pure unadulterated bloodlust to eat the goblins alive. He pushed his body over the edge as he forced vast amounts of mana into his feet as they rapidly speeded up, finishing at a speed even faster than Damon was at.

It was no surprise that at this speed he quickly caught sight of the goblin as he ripped himself through the foliage, it turned out to be the normal, green goblin. But that did little to dampen his high-as-fuck spirits, after all he would act a good appetizer before the main meal!

“RRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWRRR”

Gregal dared not turn around as he only sped himself up after hearing the roar, he too filling his feet with mana to dangerous levels. But lady luck shines on any who work hard, and the troll king had certainly weathered through many hardships, which were in fact still sticking out of his body. He bolted over the 20m separating them within 2 seconds, creating a trail of destruction over both the forest and his feet. Once close enough, the king lunged to catch the fleeing goblin.

Gregal was a big goblin but the King was an even BIGGER troll, who cared not of the violent struggles made by the dwarfed goblin. Instead he began to do his favourite finisher: the bisector. The mana that had been tearing apart his legs suddenly found themselves in his arms as they bulged outwards before pulling Gregal outwards at his trap muscles.

“AAAAAAAAAARRGGHH”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGGHH”

Gregal could feel his back tearing apart as he screamed and protested even more violently. His upper back had actually torn apart by the time intervention came, which came in the form of a knife. A knife that pierced through the cheek of the grinning troll before impaling through the cheek on the other side.

Just like before, the troll king once again made no roar nor scream, only this time it wasn’t due to resistance to the pain but rather due to inability. His arms lost all their strength as he dropped Gregal swiftly, followed by him tearing the knife out of his mouth.

Finally the king saw the devil who had been torturing him, a murky red goblin standing at a fair distance staring right at him. Damon’s black eyes felt like an abyss at that moment, as the troll king felt … fear? No not fear, never fear! The fear all of a sudden twisted into a dirty rage, once again threatening to bubble over.

Unwilling to let his chance at freedom escape, Gregal got up despite the pain and sprinted, using all the mana possible, away from the king.

The king himself was bleeding all over with several holes on his body. Worse still were his overstrained limbs that were internally bleeding, as it felt like any of his muscles could snap at any moment.

This was an easy kill for Damon, or would have been if he had any knives left on him. But that wouldn’t stop him from ending the life of such a monster.

Almost as if his mind had been read, the troll king got his weary body up, which now stood crooked at 2.5m, before he flashed his large bloody fangs. The mouth was torn at both sides, revealing every single bloody teeth and yet the maniac still smiled!

No.

Of course the king smiled, this was what he had been looking for… It made him as excited as his dead-like eyes began to flash brightly again: a bloody red colour.

This was enough for Damon to reconsider, after all he still had no chance of beating this injured behemoth in a close-range fight. And collecting the knives would be a worse idea; the king would just use that time to chase him down and tear him apart.

Damon said nothing nor showed no emotion as he turned around before sprinting off, unwilling to face off with such a monster again.

“HAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHH HAHAHAH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHARGGHHHHH”

Behind him came thunderous laughter, laughter that would shake any but the worst of people to tears.

…

It was to Damon’s great luck and to the King’s great disappointment that neither would see each other until 2 months after that fight.

But it was to Damon’s great misfortune and the King’s great pleasure as to what would happen there, after all the champions of the two warring villages couldn’t not fight, could they?

Morgars

Friss acted quickly after coming into full power. She effectively converted the whole village from a watch point for Morgaz into a military base as the Morgars, whether male or female, were conscripted into their army to learn formal fighting.

Granted they only had around 200 left in the village, meaning it was less than even the trolls who relied more on strength than numbers, but the Morgars would need all possible manpower if Friss’s plan was going to work perfectly.

It was no surprise to anyone when Sikke got promoted to number 2 in the village, as she would oversee the training of all the soldiers alongside Friss, while elder Zare, who had once been one of the glorious elders, got demoted to just the overseer of everyday matters. Not that elder Zare cared though; she was awfully happy just by having her head where it should be.

All that remained for Friss’s plan to go perfect was to get both the trolls and goblins fighting with desperate vigour, leaving no hope of mutual existence. This sounded difficult but it was doable, after all Morgaz hadn’t just decided to invade the great forest for no reason.

Rather the great forest held within it ever so much valuable resources alongside the ever so dangerous terrors. One such resource was the golden crest Tare – a root vegetable that held so much pure mana within in that it could cause a forced but higher evolution. This meant that despite the evolution being forced, it would still be to the same standard of a proper growth induced one, in spite of being forced. Of course the Tare only had enough mana in it to have such an effect up to tier 5.

This was the reason why there was a large clearing in the vegetation dense forest between the trolls, morgars and goblins, since the Tare had roots all across that region which prevented any other plant from growing there. The plant itself only became ripe every 5 years. The last one had been taken by the Morgaz nation, which was in fact the reason why they had set up village 3 in this spot as they wanted to be able to harvest it every 5 years. But now the Morgaz nation had forgotten about both village 3 and about the Tare, in fact it was highly probable that they had a much larger issue on their mind which made them disregard the two rather than forget.

Now it was true that neither of the other two races would fight to death over a singular plant which had that effect. But then again who said they needed to know the truth? After all the morgar village had many scouts who were dispensable; they could very easily feed the goblins and trolls the wrong information as long as the scouts themselves believed it.

On top of this the scouts had already been spying on said races for a long time now under Friss, she knew what both of the races wanted to death, which in turn would cause their deaths. The next Tare would be ripe in 2 months, the mana fluctuations would attract the races anyway but the right information could attract the full villages.

Friss had told the other elders this plan long ago but they had all opposed it, after all they would be putting the Tare at risk if they did this. The whole purpose of village 3 was to harvest the Tare safely every 5 years, they dared not go against the nation that definitely still remembered and cared about them.

But their cowardly opinions no longer mattered. Friss clasped her hand behind her as she thought this, she would be the one to take this village to new heights.

Fuck being village 3 for some large behemoth, she would rather be a small time village that strived to grow.

And that was exactly what they were now...