Vorya’s POV :

When I was but a young Goblin, the tribe was waging war against its neighbours. I did not think that it would affect me directly, after all even for a goblin I was pretty generic. How wrong I was …

Most goblins can’t survive on their own either you evolve or you die, that’s why we are so numerous … Because we are destined to die from the moment we were born. To survive we must band together under someone who reached a higher state of existence.

Goblins band under hobgoblins, which in turn obey the tribe warriors, the foot soldiers of the Orcs.

That’s why when the tribe warriors came to conscript the hobgoblins for their war, us goblin were forsaken to our fate, still I survived. After joining group after group, participating in hunts after hunts, looking at many of my friends dying.

In the end I managed to adapt to this lifestyle, after reflecting on the many ways my friends died … The dangers that threatened my life at first, were element I needed to be wary off.

But that quickly changed when the surviving hobgoblins came back from war, with eyes dead and savage, metal weapons and experience.

They forcefully recruited many of us, those who opposed were quickly killed as an example, some of the goblin who managed to evolve before they came back fled in the forest never to be seen again.

So I joined one of the returning hobgoblin, I was scared shitless when he stated his sacrifice, before every combat, every hunts or even just on a whim, he would force two goblin to fight, the loser would be gruesomely sacrificed afterwards and the winner had to fight another one on the next day.

When my turn came to fight, I quickly understood that I was condemned , but still my instinct told me that I had to survive.

I fought, and fought, and fought again … 10 ? 20 ? I don’t remember how many times I won against my competitor, how many times I condemned them to get ripped apart for the pleasure of our leader. Even some I knew personally … some who I saved in the past.

But I survived and adapted again. The fight became easier … almost mundane.

That is where I started to think

‘Maybe … I can even win against the hobgoblin.’

He must have understood from how the fear in my eyes were replaced by hatred when I looked at him. But he didn’t kill me directly. First, he forced me to fight those to whom I was close … and I won.

When he sacrificed them, he forced me too kill them, rip them open … my still leaving friends. I couldn’t do it … so when he gave me his sacrificial knife, when I looked at the blood stained and rusted knife. I saw my chance. I kicked the hobgoblin leader in the back, when he fell, I jumped on him to stab this cursed knife directly in the back of his skull. But he reacted abnormally fast, the mark on his back shining brightly. As if he had eyes in the back on his head, he moved his hand in the trajectory.

My knife pierced his hand only to stay stuck in it. The hobgoblin roared and pushed me in the belly with his hand were the knife remained. Still holding the weapon with all my might I was thrown back with the knife in them.

This time I directly rushed to my comrades who were ready to be sacrificed, I cut the bound that restricted them one by one, while to hobgoblin walked to his metal axe, with cold anger in his eyes.

Seeing his demeanour, I understood that we were not a threat to him. When he rushed us a black and red aura suffused his body.

Watching my friend bisected in two by the enraged hobgoblin, I yelled at them to run.

The watching goblin in the audience did not try to block us, some of them even joining us as we tried to flee from the hobgoblin.

But he was faster … stronger.

As I ran for my life, I heard the groan and cry of my dying comrades. He killed them one by one. When we were too exhausted to run, we stopped only to see the hobgoblin in the distance. His wound still bleeding, and the aura around him gone, breathing heavily.

So, I took the chance. Even wounded he still had more stamina than us, now was our only chance, while we still have some strength remaining.

I told the remaining goblin that we had to fight and rushed the hobgoblin with my knife to take his attention.

Fortunately, all the goblin here were experienced and were braver than most, if not they would never have tried to flee with me in the first place. We were six, he was alone … Still he was stronger than us.

I fought, with all my mind concentrated on surviving, sometimes I got wounded, sometimes I manged to dodge. I could hear nothing outside of the sound of the wind made when the iron axe of the hobgoblin tried to kill me. I saw nothing but him.

After some time … He stopped moving. When I saw his body falling on the ground, it took me a few second to understand.

He had small cuts, bite marks, and scratches bleeding everywhere on his body.

I cheered … but no one cheered with me, when I looked around all my friends, all the goblin who fought with me were dead.

‘I survived … again…’

As I thought, bleeding, I felt a strong pulse on my torso … A burning sensation, and a pain overshadowing all my other injuries.

I knew what It was instinctively. I was evolving …

With a rush of information, I got to know my new power.

With it, I gained resistances to illness, poisons, mental invasion, a stronger constitution, and an accrued regeneration capacity … It even allowed me to drink salt water.

I even gained some knowledge on how to treat wounds.

Ironically … my mark had a name.

Survivor.

It pained me … I survived, still I only felt sorrow. At least with this power I don’t need to follow anyone anymore. Unlike the others, I could be free, alone …

That way I will never have to feel sad when I survive again.