"This isn't fair," Noctis snarled—not just at the creature, but at the world, the system that had kneecapped him, and the version of himself that had dared to think he might get a clean start. "You shouldn't move like that. You shouldn't hit that hard. Every nightmare gets an upgrade. Is that it?"
He remembered the wyvern's eyes: no malice, just cold calculation. The same perspective he now felt turned back on him from this goblin's gaze. Survival stripped of romance.
You survived worse, he reminded himself. You scraped through battles on desperation, not superior strength. How did you beat the wyvern? Not by out-fighting it. By outlasting it.
The goblin lunged again.
This time, Noctis made a brutal choice. He didn't fully evade. He let the cleaver graze his shoulder—pain flaring bright and immediate—but he controlled the angle, let it carve shallow instead of deep. In that sliver of stolen time, he drove his heel into the ground and pivoted hard, using the momentum of taking the hit to power his own counter.
His blade bit into the goblin's side.
The strike was weaker than he would have liked, but it was solid enough to draw a spatter of dark blood. The goblin hissed, its eyes flashing with surprise first, then raw anger.
Noctis pulled back, chest heaving, forcing his stance to stay upright. I'm slower, weaker. That doesn't mean I'm finished, he told himself. Maybe this world wants a rerun where I lose. If that's how it goes, then I'll make sure losing costs it something.
A bitter thread of humor slipped through his clenched teeth.
"At least the wyvern didn't laugh at me," he muttered. "Guess the goblin's got better manners."
His hand tightened around his weapon, slick now with sweat and his own blood. Every muscle screamed a different complaint. The goblin charged again, wild and furious this time, all pretense of testing gone.
Noctis braced.
He did not expect to get out unhurt. He only refused to go out quietly. With the last of his focus, he aimed not for flashy heroics, but for precise brutality—attacks learned not from glory, but from surviving monsters way above his pay grade.
When he struck, his blade tore deeper into the goblin's side.
He staggered with the force of it, but did not let himself crumple. The goblin's body jerked back, eyes wide. It was not dead, not yet, but for the first time, it hesitated.
Outlast. Adapt. If you can't outrun power, let it burn itself down on your bones.
Noctis watched the goblin stagger backward, blood streaming from its flayed side. For one fractured instant, he allowed himself the smallest spark of satisfaction—a reminder that he was still capable of turning pain outward, not just receiving it.
Then the world answered.
The goblin did not fall. Instead, it threw back its head and roared. The sound was wrong—too big for its body, too layered, carrying notes that didn't belong in any simple creature's throat. The chains in the sky seemed to vibrate in response.
Noctis's heart dropped.
From the jagged treeline behind the goblin, more shapes spilled out—six additional goblins, each larger, more heavily muscled. Their skin was marbled green and black, veins of darker shadow running under their surfaces. Red eyes gleamed in the dying sun, their hunger and malice almost tangible.
Noctis swore under his breath. "Of course. Couldn't keep it fair, could you?"
He edged back as they spread into a loose half-circle. The first goblin, still bleeding but defiantly upright, stood at their center. Each ragged breath it took seemed to feed their collective rage. This was no simple rematch now. This was an ambush, a pack execution dressed up like a test.
He calculated in quick, brutal lines. Outnumbered. Outpaced. Slowed. The system had throttled his body; the world had multiplied his enemies. Standing here trading blows would not be courage; it would be suicide.
The nearest goblin lunged, testing his guard. Noctis deflected, but another's cleaver bit into his side. Pain screamed along his ribs, warmth spreading under torn cloth. A third dropped low, grasping for his ankle, trying to drag him into the dirt.
He struck out wildly, not with panic but with urgency, trying to keep just enough distance to stay mobile.
This is how I die, the thought slid in—plain, unadorned. No glory, no final speech. Just dragged under by creatures that hardly deserved a story.
Something deeper pushed back.
The survival instinct that had kept him alive through wyverns and wolves, through alpha beasts and collapsing worlds, refused to accept this ending.
No. I didn't crawl through hell just to die here, in a pile of upgraded memories. If I have to run, I'll run. Stubbornness isn't bravery if it just digs my grave deeper.
He grabbed a fistful of mud and grit from the ground and hurled it into the nearest goblin's face. It howled, clawing mud from its eyes. The grip on his ankle loosened enough for him to rip his leg free.
He didn't wait to see what they did next.
He turned and bolted, each step sending pain shooting up his legs, his side protesting with sharp bursts of agony where he'd been cut. Behind him, goblins bellowed and shrieked, cleavers smashing into stone and dirt as they gave chase.
He ran limping, lungs burning, vision blurring around the edges. He didn't have a plan. He had direction: away. Away from the killing circle. Away from the place where the world had stacked the deck beyond reason.
He tore past the edge of the cliff path, down toward the lake that mirrored the sky. Behind him, reflections fractured as goblins rushed past, their warped images trailing him on the water's surface.
"So much for the hero," he rasped, half-laughing, half-choking on his own breath. "So much for the hunter. Tonight, I'm just a survivor. If the world wants a chase, I'll give it one."
He kept moving, not because he believed he could outrun everything forever, but because he knew one thing with absolute clarity: standing still had never saved him yet.
Noctis hurled himself between jagged boulders, their rough edges scraping his already torn clothes like vengeful claws. He ducked under a sagging arch of rusted, tangled chains that swayed like the entrails of some ancient beast, his lungs ablaze with fire from the chase. Blood poured hot and sticky down his leg from a goblin's parting slash, soaking his boot and turning every step into a slick betrayal. The system's voice echoed one final warning—or was it a curse?—right in his ear, a mechanical drone slicing through the chaos. But Noctis barely registered it. All he heard was the thunderous pulse of his own desperate heartbeat, pounding like war drums in his skull, urging him onward.
He didn't stop. He couldn't afford to look back.
Finally, he slammed his back against the twisted curve of a gnarled tree trunk, its bark rough and unyielding like petrified flesh. His breath came in shallow, ragged gasps, every sense stretched taut, listening for pursuit from the world below. Moss clung to the wounds gouged into his side, digging into raw flesh—a sharp, gritty reminder that stillness was no sanctuary. Night bled steadily into the floating archipelago around him, the air thick with the metallic tang of mist and distant thunder. The last goblins' shuffling footfalls faded to the very edge of hearing, swallowed by the wind whispering through suspended roots.
That was too damn close. The thought clawed at him. If I ever trust a moment's peace again, I deserve the knife twisting in my back.
He flexed his hand experimentally, feeling the deep ache of old scars mingling with the fresh sting from tonight's frenzy. The trick that masked his blood-scent was a desperate hack he'd jury-rigged over months of hellish observation—watching monsters sniff out prey with noses sharper than any blade. A pungent herbal mixture smeared on his skin, paired with iron-willed mental discipline to suppress his ether current, the faint magical hum that coursed through every survivor like a second pulse. It wasn't elegant skill; it was raw, unashamed desperation, born from too many nights evading death by inches.