It was the smell that woke me up.

As the disgusting scent of unwashed bodies and old blood reached my nostrils, I could not help but open my eyes.

That was a good thing, as what greeted my eyes was a plunging dagger coming down straight at my face. The goblin wielding the dagger seems to be startled when I open my eyes. Maybe due to that, his grip on the dagger wavers and the blade shakes wildly as it descends to my face.

A few days before, such a situation would have meant my death. But after being baptized by blood back at the Goblins Cave, my mind is able to jump from drowsiness to full alert much more quickly.

It is with a sudden and desperate strength that I grab for the goblin wrist with my right hand. The speed and steadiness of my grip surprises even me. That was close.

For a brief moment, as the goblin realizes his assassination attempt has failed, our eyes meet. And I recognize him.

The goblin from the cave! The one I spared!

My surprise, however, is soon taken advantage of by another goblin. It lunges from the shadows, bringing with it a stabbing attack. With ferocity, it aims a crude wooden spear at my raised arm. The same one that is stopping the dagger from descending to my face.

Laying on my back, surrounded by two foes, dodging would be a difficult feat. I try twisting away, but in the end, it is for naught. The wooden spear pierces my right forearm and continues pushing through it. The momentum brings the second goblin closer, and I can feel his rancid breath on my face.

Godammit! This hurts!

But I had learned my lesson from the last fight. I could not surrender myself to the pain, nor show any hesitation in the middle of battle. «Endurance» would see me through. All I had to do was to focus.

Taking advantage of both the momentum of the charging goblin and the fact that his spear was now embedded on my right forearm, I use my left hand to pull the small goblin by one of his long ears. As I do that with one hand, I also manage to use the other one - that is holding back the dagger - to twist the blade towards the incoming head. The resulting collision is accompanied by a yell of surprise from the first goblin, as he kills his own companion.

As soon as he realizes that, he releases his dagger and backs off. His retreat finally gives freedom to my right hand. Using the much-needed relief, I also back off to the cave's moss wall.

It is when I cover my back with one of the stone walls that I look back. And realize that I am surrounded.

Around the cave stand eight goblins. If I hadn't managed to kill that spear-wielding one, there would be nine.

Fuck!

I shouldn't have spared that little fucker! He waited for his wounds to recover and now he is back for my blood! With friends!

Despair threatens to overwhelm my mind and body, but I resist. I will not give up here. Not after all I have already been through.

My right-arm is throbbing, with the wooden spear being embedded on it. The pain, however, is manageable. Looking back to where I was sleeping, both the weapons I had gotten from my first fight were left there. Now, the goblins surround it.

Well. It seems I have no choice. I know that as a first-aid principle I shouldn't do this, but this is an emergency.

Gritting my teeth, I pull the wooden spear out of my arm.

Argh! This hurts even more than being pierced in the first place!

But now I have a weapon. Wielding it, I look up again. Three of the goblins are charging.

Without wasting any time, I straighten the spear horizontally. As soon as I do it, the first of the goblins reaches me. He is wielding a bone club. Seeing my raised spear, instead of foolishly rushing to his death, he stops and tries to swing his weapon at mine. He wants to break it. I don't let him.

Instead, I pull the spear back. Without a target to hit, his swing goes wild. Exactly what I wanted.

Spinning around, I capitalize on the opening by bringing my leg straight at the side of his head. It is a roundhouse kick, if I remember correctly.

The fluidity with which I perform the move surprises even me. It is as if I had practiced this for the biggest part of my life. The movement is smooth and my balance is perfect. And the speed...

The speed is like that of a leaping tiger. My leg comes crashing at his head like a meteor, bringing his whole body to the ground with a dull crashing sound. I may have killed him.

The other two goblins that were charging me, however, don't stop. As soon as my foot touches the ground again, they are on top of me. The first one leaps at me wielding a... rock?

Yeah, a big piece of stone. This one seems even more reckless than the others. As he jumps at me, all I have to do is to raise my spear and stab him right in the middle of his chest. As he impales himself, a shower of blood comes out of his mouth, surprising me as it sprays over my eyes.

Ahhh! My eyes!

I close them momentaneously, but that is all the other charging goblin needs in order to land his strike.

A sharp pain erupts on my upper leg. Once, twice and then another time, on my belly. The fucker is stabbing me!

Opening my eyes through the burning ache, I blurrily see the smiling face of the culprit. Motherfucker!

Releasing my spear - that is now stuck on the chest of the dead goblin - I use both my hands to grab the little shit. With a few cleverly employed twists of his arm, his dagger is on the ground. Another twist and I lock his arm behind his back. Adding a little more pressure on the arm lock, his joints pop and he is on the ground screaming, with a broken arm.

But he doesn't scream for long. As soon as he is on the ground, I kneel on his back and smash his head on the ground. Then I pull it back and smash again. Again and again. Until the screaming stops.

When I look up, I see exactly what I expected. The other five goblins, trying to take my brutality as an opportunity, are all rushing at me. Hellfire.

This time, they don't take turns.

Coming as one, the creatures seem to abandon all resemblance of civility, giving themselves to their primitive natures. Throwing their weapons away, they just jump at me in a blur of claws and fangs. A veritable goblin swarm.

Maybe not unexpectedly, this is their most effective tactic until now. As the five creatures jump and hang on my limbs, I am soon down on the ground.

Their fangs and claws sink into my flesh. In but a few moments, every exposed surface of my body is in the process of rending. Since I am naked, that meant my whole body.

I scream. It is as if I had been thrown inside a twisting blender. My skin and flesh are being pulled apart.

Even «Endurance» is not enough to make me push through this kind of pain. I thrash around, rolling, screaming and bashing every moving thing on sight.

My knee connects on the head of one of the creatures, and he falls from my body. He stays down.

Pain. So much pain.

I lift one of the goblins by the nape of his neck and grind his face on the rough stone walls. Sharp pieces of stone dig into his flesh. After an unknown amount of time, I notice the skin of his face has given way, and I am only grinding bone. I release his body.

More bites.

Between the flashes of blurring red and green, I can see chunks of my flesh strewn around the ground. They are so intent on biting me that they are not even swallowing. Just spitting it on the ground and getting their fangs back inside me.

Using both my hands, I manage to twist the neck of another one. I break it. The goblin falls like a sack of potatoes.

But occupying both my hands was a mistake. Through the opening I gave, the most cunning of the remaining goblins pokes at my face. His single digit claw comes straight into my eye.

It pops.

Blood follows. The vision from my left eye is replaced by bloody darkness.

The goblin has destroyed my eye. The realization, together with the massive pain that engulfs the totality of my body stuns me. Even if I survive, what is going to be left of me?

Using common sense, anyone would say that my body is beyond saving by now. There is little remaining, and even what is left is swiftly being devoured. Flashes of bone can be seen between the rends all over my body. Flayed skin hangs loose on every appendage of my body, and I believe most of my muscles have been munched at least once by now. Looking down, I realize that even my scrotum has been bitten off at some point. Am I still a man?

As I ponder, strength slowly leaves me. My will is wavering and by now I am laying still on the other ground.

I feel weak. I haven't eaten properly for more than ten days now. During these ten days, I have been under fear, discomfort and pain on every single moment. Even during my dreams.

I am just tired.

I want to go home.

Looking at the two remaining goblins, they don't seem to have been affected by the demise of their companions or the pitiful state they have put me in. They keep slashing and biting at me with the same furious frenzy with which they started doing it.

Hah. They really are beasts, aren't they? Undeniable monsters.

It was very easy to fool myself into thinking of them as living creatures worthy of respect. Of guilty. Seeing them walk around like little green people for so long, at some point they had become my sole companions in this dark place.

And because of that, when the moment came, I hesitated. I spared when I should have been harsh.

So stupid.

So... So stupid!

Rage.

Rage like I have never felt before.

Rage at me, rage at the goblins, rage at this place, rage at the world. Unbridled, all-consuming rage.

Why?! Just why did I have to spare that piece of shit?!

Before I realize it, I have thrown one of the remaining goblins on the stone wall. Brutal strength I didn't even know I still had fills every fiber of my being. «Endurance» goes overdrive as my mangled body raises like a zombie.

Pain will not stop me.

I will have my mercy withdraw.

As this resolution firmly imprints itself into my conscience, I can feel that it has also opened a path to something more.

The Universal Truth is here again.

Surviving is defying the shackles of biology. Fleshy bodies are born weak. But they don't always have to be. Now I see it. To change it, it is a simple thing. Oh... So simple...

In the back of my head - behind the red fury that makes me want to smash the world apart - I can feel that familiar gate opening. I am leveling up.

The knowledge it brings is instinctive. Like the flexing of muscles or the blinking of an eye.

I harden. My remaining flesh pulses and suddenly it becomes something more.

The last goblin, who had stopped his chewing as I threw his final companion away, looks at me with dread as I stand. Despite all my wounds, my back is straight and my eyes alive.

I know what he must be seeing. A ragged man, holden together by tenacious strings of tendons and thin strips of skin. Missing pieces of flesh and completely disfigured features. Covered in blood and grime, both his own and that of others.

A person that by all means should be dead.

Absolutely furious.

And suddenly I know. Strength is simple. All you have to do is to take it.

And so I do. And become even more.

As if sensing my rage, this time the sensation of enlightenment is curt. Almost brutish.

But it works nevertheless.

With both my hands, I grab the head of the goblin that gouged my eye. I hadn't realized before, but their heads are really soft. Like that of newborns.

Very... smashable.

With a grunt, my fingers dig into the side of the goblin's head. My thumbs gouge both his eyes and soon I can feel his skull cracking.

POP!

Like an exploding watermelon, his head crumbles inwards and showers his surroundings with gore.

His body falls lifelessly to the ground.

I look around. There is still one goblin alive. The one I threw on the wall right before I leveled up.

But he is downed. Crawling on the ground, he is looking up to me.

My improved body screams at me and threatens to thrown me at the ground again. There is no amount of magic that can ignore what has been taken.

But I trudge on.

Limping slowly, I manage to reach him.

He looks higher, at my face.

It is the same goblin from before. The same one I spared last time. Once again, he looks at me with those huge watery eyes. He lets out some pitiful sounds and then he is pissing himself again.

Just like last time.

But this time, I don't have any mercy to give.

No. Never again.

He and his whole race can go to hell.

No. They WILL go. And I will be the one sending them.

"Fuck you."

It is the last thing he hears before my foot stomps his head.

As I would soon be doing to all of them.