Chapter 13

The farther down the tunnel the goblins went the more often Groby heard the strange word "Divine".

On their way the newcomers surreptitiously shifted their position to the back of the group.

Groby let himself fall back a little too but not as far because he only wanted to keep an eye on the newcomers and not stand with them.

They reached the end of the tunnel. The air was kind of different here.

A small cavern's entrance with a very big and strange looking plant a few steps in greeted them.

The plant had a red blossom so big that a goblin could lie on it.

Weirdly Groby thought of the mouth of a beast. But it was only a plant and the blossom even looked kind of comfortable and inviting.

It had long vines with thorns, they didn't look comfortable.

And green leaves even though it grew without sunlight.

It spread a sweet smell. It was relaxing.

The plant was high but not so high that a goblin couldn't look over.

What Groby saw there shocked him.

Six goblins in clothing similar to what humans wore beneath their armor. More or less clean. All of them were well fed.

Four goblings with the same attire running around on luxurious animal pelts making weird sounds all the time. The four of them looked like they hadn't starved a day in their lives and one of them was even fat.

A fat gobling. Groby definitely hadn't seen that before.

And if that wasn't enough, there was another goblin.

Good looking, tall, with a strong built. Wearing the same cloth as the others, only his were pristine.

The world was unfair. How could such a perfect goblin exist in their Lost Tooth Tribe. Groby immediatly disliked him. Gribbly could never meet him.

Groby had a feeling that this goblin was the one the others meant when they talked about Divine.

The goblin adonis Divine was doing weird movements as if he was fighting against invisible enemies in slow motion.

Was that goblin crazy?

That was a stupid question Groby shouldn't have asked himself. Every goblin that had only a little power over others was batshit crazy.

Like the one he followed here.

"Me Snorktooth. The great Chief Mouth raids the evil Misty Mountain Tribe. For glory and for loot. You all follow!" Snorktooth cried loudly to catch everyone's attention.

The six goblins looked up shortly and then got busy preventing the goblings from running to the visitors in childish curiosity.

One of the six, the one with the crooked nose got himself punched on the nose by one of the goblings.

The goblin crouched down and held his bleeding nose. The goblin didn't retaliate against the gobling.

That crazy good looking goblin Divine didn't react. Not to Snorktooth's words and not to the chaos the goblings made. He just kept up the slow fight against the invisibles.

Something didn't feel right. Scared, Groby noticed that while he was distracted some of their group had fled. The damn goblins they picked up in this tunnel, the newcomers he had wanted to keep an eye on sneaked away without him doing anything.

Suddenly he felt a piercing pain in his leg. One of the plant's thorny vines had grabbed his leg and the leg of every goblin in their group at the same time.

Groby fought against the vine but couldn't get free. It only made the pain worse.

Even Snorktooth couldn't cut the vine with his knives.

Groby hadn't noticed when that crazy good looking goblin Divine had arrived among them but he was suddenly there.

Cutting down goblins left and right with a beautiful blade in his hand.

Some goblins tried to defend themselves but it was in vain.

Blood flew through the air and rained down. Painting everything red. Everything but that one goblin.

The evil goblin Divine danced through the rain swinging his sword butchering everyone but stayed untouched by the blood.

When there were only three survivors left the butcher put away his weapon and gestured in the air.

A very long rope crawled over like it had a mind of its own and tied the three goblins up.

It pulled them after that butcher to fire in the middle of the cavern.

What did that crazy goblin want from them? Why did he even attack them all and hadn't just challenged the leader Snorktooth? They hadn't done anything.

Was he a cannibal that was going to eat them?

Groby looked back to the entrance and saw the plant with the moving vines pull Snorktooth's corpse right into its blossom. The blossom closed around the corpse.

Groby shuddered in fright and looked at the evil goblin Divine again who was starting to cook something in a fancy pot.

Groby got his hopes up for a chance of surviving this and seeing the next sun when he noticed what exactly was cooking there. Glowing mushrooms.

Glowing mushrooms grew all over one side of the cavern and propably tempted that goblin the whole time. And luckily right when Groby became his prisoner that goblin decided to try out the glowing mushrooms.

Groby didn't know why no goblin told the scary one that glowing mushrooms were poisonous, but he prayed that the evil butcher would eat them and die.

After the mushrooms had boiled for a while the scary goblin fished them out to grill them on a stone at the edge of the fire.

The boiling water from the pot got poured near the many glowing mushrooms in some pits. Groby and the other two captives used the evil goblin's absence to try and get out of the rope but it was in vain.

The scary goblin Divine came back and kept an eye on the mushrooms grilling on the stone.

When the mushrooms were deemed ready they were collected on a piece of wood.

The scary goblin Divine pierced one mushroom with a rusty knife and held it in front of Groby.

"Eat!" The scary goblin commanded grinning with anticipation.

Earlier Groby even had dared to hope he could survive, but how wrong he had been.

This crazy goblin liked to torture others by poisoning them to death. What a horrible way to die.

Now Groby wished he had died earlier with the others.

Groby hated himself for not offering up a last resistance but there was nothing he could do.

He just ate the poison. He hoped it would be over quickly.

Groby didn't chew and swallowed the mushroom down immediately.

When he was fed more and he just closed his eyes and complied. It even tasted good. That was a small mercy.

Slowly he could feel it starting. Groby got hot from the inside and started sweating.

His tummy rumbled and his arms and legs were shaking.

After a while this pain turned into incredible comfort. Groby thought he had died but that wasn't the case.

Only now did Groby notice that the other two captives had endured the torture too. Just like him.

Their tormentor was happy about their survival too. Seeing that as a horrible sign Groby fell into despair again.

But that was completely unnecessary.

"Good work. Now scram!" With these words their tormenter freed them from the rope and shooed them out of his cavern.

The only reason they dared to walk near the evil plant again was that behind them was the much more evil and scary goblin.

Only half of the corpses were left. The others had already been eaten by the evil plant.

Groby let out a sigh of relief when they stepped into the tunnel but he didn't slow down until he reached the main cavern.

The only thing he wanted to do now was seek refuge in the arms of his goblin tit Gribbly and sleep for five suns.

Unfortunately Groby didn't get his wish. The raiding party was setting off right at this moment and the three survivors got swept up in the crowd of goblins.

They found themselves outside between the other raiders when they regained their bearing.

The crowd of young and old goblins that were sending them off were already some distance apart from the raiding party.

If the chief saw someone escaping now they would be killed as a deserter.

If Groby wanted to or not he had to go raid the Misty Mountain Tribe.

He had survived that evil goblin then he could survive this too.

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Divine was happy. Finally he had collected enough blood qi essence to buy the movement technique he wanted from the system shop.

Normally he didn't just kill other goblins or experiment on them without proper reason or provocation.

Divine could use many explanations to rationalize why he killed them without even letting it play out properly.

But truth was he was becoming increasingly indifferent to the lives of others and more bloodthirsty with his time as a goblin cultivating demonic techniques.

He needed the blood qi essence. They were already on their way to raid and dying outside was a waste of their blood qi essence.

Additionally he completed his newest project and found a way to prepare glowing mushrooms without killing a normal goblin eating it.

With his cultivation he could probably eat the glowing mushrooms raw, but he didn't want to take that risk if he didn't need to.

Since normal goblins survived the consumption he was completely sure he would and he could feed the goblings and the minions with mushrooms now too.

It was good that he found a way to prepare the glowing mushrooms. A dish that still contained some qi and nourished body.

Divine had felt it strengthening the three goblins. Not enough to step into the qi condensation realm or the body tempering realm, even his minions and the goblings hadn't managed that yet and they always ate the food nourished by qi from the spirit pot, but enough to rise above a normal goblin.

That's why he had let them go. If one of them managed to rise in the Lost Tooth Tribe he would visit them in the future and influence the tribe that way.

His first priority was still his safety, cultivation and comfort. That's why Divine didn't take over the tribe personally nor sent one of his minions.

Divine ate some leftover mushrooms and gave the rest to the minions and goblings.

None of them had the same reaction as the three test subjects because their bodies were much more used to qi.

After his latest project was completed now it was time to find a new one. Learning the movement technique would be a good one.

Divine accessed the system shop and bought the technique he had saved up for.

[+1 Stepping Light Traversing Shadow Movement Technique] [-150 Blood Qi Essence]

He took it out and it was a little booklet written in English.

It described a technique that used light qi and dark qi to quicken one's movements. Cultivating the Stepping Light Traversing Shadow Movement Technique to perfection one could literally step on light and travel through shadows.

Like always Divine read to the goblings and then started the training.

Running in circles trying to fuel himself with dark qi. Since Divine already had experience with the shadow claws he made fast progress.

In spring Minion Scarface had started copying his movements while he was doing body cultivation.

And after Divine didn't prevent it the goblings soon got interested too and participated with varying levels of enthusiasm.

That's why when Divine started running around Scarface and the goblings followed along, chasing after him. Of course Divine was much faster and lasted much longer.

After that Divine read to the tired goblings again until they fell asleep while Minion Scarface stood to the side listening.

The goblings could speak a new English word every day now and learned fast.

Teaching them was a really good decision even if it meant that they couldn't speak Gobble and talk to other goblins.

They had each other and him. Normal goblins weren't interesting conversationalists anyway.

And if they managed to learn English they could easily learn Gobble in the future. Gobble really wasn't a difficult language that didn't have that much words, especially in comparison to English.