Chapter 88 Overwhelming Force

Xia Nan stared at the goblin cave ahead with a strange expression.

After most of a day’s travel and the conversation that had died so abruptly the night before, he had a fairly good guess why Forgan had brought him here.

Choosing a combat technique was not something that could be decided from a few words across a tavern table.

Forgan probably wanted to see him fight.

Not practice.

Not demonstrate a few swings.

Actually fight.

That would let him judge Xia Nan’s strength, instincts, and combat habits for himself.

How Forgan had managed to locate a goblin lair hidden this deep in the forest was another question entirely.

Still, Xia Nan had to admit the choice of opponent was sensible.

As long as there was no elite creature like a bugbear inside.

Individual goblins were weak.

A whole lair of them, however, could still become dangerous through sheer numbers.

The fight would be challenging without necessarily being suicidal.

Forgan said nothing.

He did not need to.

As his presence faded further, his pace slowed.

By the time they neared the cave, the barbarian had somehow drifted behind Xia Nan.

Xia Nan glanced over his shoulder.

And immediately noticed how different Forgan’s method was from Wood’s.

Wood had relied on the techniques of a [Rogue].

Shadow.

Footwork.

Experience.

Small movements layered together to reduce sound and attention until the eye naturally slid past him.

Forgan was doing none of that.

He stood in plain sight.

No crouching.

No hiding.

No attempt to use the surrounding shadows.

Yet his massive frame seemed to belong among the trunks and brush around him.

Like a winter wolf buried beneath snow, lying motionless and waiting for prey to come close.

It was not concealment in the usual sense.

It was instinct.

Something primal.

Wood used technique to hide his presence.

Forgan seemed to let his presence merge with the natural world around him.

Xia Nan had no interest in deciding which method was superior.

But one fact remained undeniable.

Even while staring directly at Forgan and knowing exactly where the man stood, some part of Xia Nan’s mind kept urging him to ignore him.

As if there were no barbarian behind him at all.

Only a tree.

A patch of brush.

Something that had always been there.

Xia Nan shook his head sharply.

Enough.

He drew the Decapitating Longsword and held it diagonally across his body.

Then he entered the cave.

His first thought came almost immediately.

[Too narrow.]

Jagged rock crowded in from both sides.

Sunlight from the entrance flashed along the iron-gray blade.

Xia Nan frowned.

He had misjudged the terrain.

A two-handed sword needed space.

Here, even an ordinary swing felt cramped, and forcing it would only restrict him further.

[Should’ve brought out Green Pine first.]

Fortunately, he was still in the passage leading deeper into the lair.

He had not reached the chamber where the goblins actually lived.

[Still time to fix it.]

Xia Nan turned slightly and slid the Decapitating Longsword back into its sheath.

[Green Pine] came out instead.

The wooden sword felt light in his hand.

He kept it raised and moved deeper into the tunnel.

Quietly.

Carefully.

And, to his own surprise, nervously.

That bothered him.

It made no sense.

He had already killed plenty of goblins.

His equipment was far better than before.

He wore fine-quality armor and carried magical accessories.

There was no reason for his heart to be beating this hard.

Yet the deeper he went, the darker and narrower the tunnel became.

White bones appeared here and there beneath his boots.

His heartbeat accelerated.

Xia Nan knew it was not claustrophobia.

He had explored the cave containing the giant snake’s corpse without feeling anything like this.

So what was wrong?

Still watching his surroundings, Xia Nan turned part of his attention inward and searched for the answer.

It came quickly.

Two months ago.

Not long after he had first arrived in this world.

A goblin cave.

The hunter Maji.

The half-orc Gagu.

And the things Xia Nan had seen inside.

Mutilated corpses soaked in blood.

Grease rolling across the surface of a boiling iron pot.

Scrawny goblins with saliva hanging from their mouths.

The bugbear that had nearly killed him.

For someone raised in a modern, civilized society, the images had been brutal.

Time had passed.

Xia Nan had grown stronger.

He had killed monsters himself.

Yet the memory had never disappeared.

It had simply sunk deeper.

“Hah…”

He drew in a long breath, trying to steady himself.

Instead, the sticky stench filling the cave flooded his nose.

His stomach turned.

Xia Nan grimaced.

[Great.]

Then, at the end of the long dark passage, a faint orange glow appeared.

Firelight.

He could hear wood crackling.

More importantly, he could hear the excited shrieks of goblins.

Xia Nan’s heart pounded.

His focus sharpened until he could almost hear the blood rushing through his veins.

He stepped closer.

And, with a deliberate urgency he did not fully understand, looked first toward the center of the chamber.

The bonfire.

Orange flames licked upward.

Something roasted above them.

A small deerlike animal.

No red-hot iron cauldron.

No severed limbs.

No sign that the meat had come from an intelligent creature.

Xia Nan quietly exhaled.

Only then did he look at the rest of the cave.

Moist moss crawled through cracks in the stone walls, glowing a sickly green beneath the firelight.

The air was heavy with the sweetness of rotting meat and the metallic reek of blood.

“Skree!”

A goblin shrieked.

The sound bounced between the rock walls.

Xia Nan’s eyes narrowed.

Pustules.

Coarse green skin stretched over sharp ribs.

Bodies so thin he could almost imagine their organs shifting beneath the flesh.

Filthy cloth wraps.

Rotten teeth tearing at half-raw meat while blood and scraps dribbled down their chins.

Fifteen adult greenskin bastards sat around the bonfire.

For a moment, Xia Nan simply stood there.

The feeling in his chest was hard to describe.

It was almost like being a chronic procrastinator who had spent days dreading an unavoidable deadline.

Before entering the cave, every step toward these creatures had dragged up the revulsion of his first experience in this world.

His body had resisted.

His mind had resisted.

But now that the moment had arrived…

Now that there was nothing left to delay…

All that resistance collapsed.

What remained was simpler.

Disgust.

Hatred.

And killing intent.

“Skree! Skree!”

The first goblin to notice him had been sitting in a corner.

It leaped to its feet, shrieking.

Every head snapped toward the entrance.

Fifteen pairs of bloodshot eyes locked onto Xia Nan.

Something inside him answered.

Instinct from the body he had inherited.

A soul shaped in another world.

The combat talent that had spent years buried beneath scorching farm paths and the pale glow of computer screens surged to the surface.

[Green Pine] returned to its sheath.

The Decapitating Longsword filled Xia Nan’s hands.

The chamber was wide.

Here, the two-handed sword had room to move.

Against a large number of enemies, its reach and sweeping power were exactly what he needed.

The goblins charged.

Clubs raised.

Mouths stretched wide in ugly grins.

They came at him like a filthy green wave, as if dinner had just walked into their home.

Xia Nan did not retreat.

Not a trace of fear remained in his black eyes.

Everything that had weighed on him moments earlier had burned away.

What was left was hot, surging battle intent.

He stepped forward.

Against creatures like these, hesitation was poison.

If you showed fear, they would swarm you.

So don’t show fear.

Cut off their heads in front of each other.

Crush their eyes.

Spill their guts across the ground.

Then see if they still laughed.

Step!

His thick leather boot crushed moss beneath it, spraying viscous fluid.

Power!

Muscles tightened beneath his armor.

Strength gathered from his legs, surged through his waist and back, and reached his arms.

[Spinning Slash]!

Whoosh!

The Decapitating Longsword swept outward in a perfect iron-gray arc.

Flesh split.

Bone broke.

The five goblins packed into the front of the charge disappeared beneath the blade.

Blood burst through the air.

Organs struck the ground with wet slaps.

Bodies followed with dull thuds.

For one sharp instant, Xia Nan was reminded of the autumn fields in his predecessor’s memories.

Golden wheat falling beneath a sickle.

Except this time, what scattered across the ground was flesh.

The crowded battlefield opened instantly.

In an ordinary encounter, one strike like that would have been enough to break the nerve of low-level monsters this cowardly.

But this was their lair.

And Xia Nan was alone.

That gave them courage.

“Gah!”

A larger goblin rushed in behind the others.

Its skinny arm rose high.

A dark wooden club came down.

The goblin never finished its scream.

Xia Nan’s sword point punched through its throat.

Foul blood sprayed.

He twisted his arms.

The blade ripped through wet air, tore across diseased green skin, and carried the goblin’s body with it.

A second goblin happened to rush in from the side.

Xia Nan cut through that one too.

[Seven.]

Footsteps scraped behind him.

One of the filthy bastards had circled around while his attention was elsewhere.

It crouched low and swung its club upward toward Xia Nan’s exposed ribs.

Bang!

The club struck the Snake-Scale Arm Shield.

And stopped.

The force vanished so completely it was almost absurd.

Not even a faint white mark appeared on the shield’s smooth surface.

This was a supernatural material from another world, tougher than ordinary metal or stone.

A rotten stick that barely counted as a weapon had no chance.

Xia Nan shifted his weight.

His left arm drove the shield down.

The goblin was crushed against it.

Then Xia Nan dragged the shield’s sharpened edge across its throat.

Shhk!

Resistance tugged at his arm.

Half the goblin’s neck opened.

Blood sprayed from the ruined windpipe.

[Eight.]

All those days spent recuperating in Rivervale Town had not been wasted.

Neither had the endless training.

Xia Nan’s talent was already excellent, and an arm shield relied heavily on timing and reaction.

Gradually, he had learned how to use it.

Now he had finally tested those skills in real combat.

Rustle!

Numbers were numbers.

Even with more than half the goblins already dead, the remaining ones were still dangerous if they surrounded him.

Their quick footsteps pattered across the cave floor.

Wooden clubs scraped over stone.

The moment Xia Nan killed one enemy, the others rushed in.

His body reacted before conscious thought could catch up.

He twisted aside.

One club missed.

Then another.

His torso turned with the motion.

His center of gravity shifted.

The Decapitating Longsword followed like the blade of a spinning wheel.

Gray light flashed around him in a broken crescent.

Blood exploded.

Pale bone fragments flew.

Two more goblins collapsed.

[Ten.]

Only five remained.

Xia Nan meant to finish them in one push.

Then his boot slid.

The moss underfoot was slick as a toad’s skin, and repeated movement had smeared it with slime.

His balance broke.

His body tipped backward.

For the briefest instant, a spark of battle instinct flashed through his mind.

Bang!

Xia Nan smashed the arm shield into the stone wall beside him.

Rock chips burst outward.

The impact drove force back through his left arm.

He pushed off.

His already unstable balance collapsed in a new direction.

Instead of falling straight backward, Xia Nan threw himself diagonally to the rear.

Crash!

Three wooden clubs had been descending toward him.

If he had fallen normally, all three would have landed.

Instead, only one scraped across the breastplate on his chest.

A sharp metallic shriek rang through the cave.

Foul breath brushed the back of his neck.

Cold, damp ground struck his back.

Before Xia Nan could fully rise, another goblin sprinted toward him.

Too close.

No time.

He sat up and hurled the Decapitating Longsword like a spear.

Shhk!

The iron-gray blade punched straight through the goblin’s hunched body.

Momentum carried both sword and corpse backward.

Xia Nan planted one hand on the ground and pushed himself upright.

At the same time, [Green Pine] left its sheath.

Step.

Power.

[Spinning Slash]!

It was his non-dominant hand.

The force was weaker.

But a max-level technique was still a max-level technique.

The wooden sword screamed through the air.

A black edge tore across the damp cave.

Two charging goblins came apart at the waist.

[Thirteen.]

Barely a dozen seconds had passed since the fight began.

Only two goblins remained.

Their laughter had not even completely died before every companion around them had been cut down.

For a moment, their tiny minds seemed unable to process what had happened.

They simply stood there.

Clubs in hand.

Frozen.

Xia Nan walked toward them.

No hesitation.

No mercy.

Even without triggering its special effect, [Green Pine] was as sharp as an ordinary metal weapon.

One thrust.

One chop.

The last two goblins went to the Abyssal Hell.

Drip.

Warm blood slid from the edge of the arm shield and stained the moss beneath Xia Nan’s boots red.

The rings of his chain mail clicked softly.

A fresh white scratch marred the breastplate he had only recently paid to repair.

Nearby, severed limbs still twitched.

One detached hand remained curled around a weapon, tapping weakly against the ground and sending ripples through a pool of blood.

The cave reeked of rot.

Now it reeked even more strongly of blood.

The goblin shrieks were gone.

Silence settled over the chamber.