Mud-blood matted hands straightened, goblin-rage echoes stunned-silent. Past carnage, den-mouth hillside-darkening, Red Leader stepped. Ground recoiled; trailing goblins shrank ancient-terror awe.
Massive—goblin-max, Noctis-foe zenith. Sinew-carved arms; ritual-scar red skin ether-glowed subsurface. Coal-eyes locked hate dominion-born, prey-lesson defiance. Steps clawed red-earth heat-trails oil-fire shimmer.
World shrank, sound-folded. Iron-taste, old-fear new-resolve cycled pounding subsurface. Wounds tallied humiliation; calm strange bloomed—final-monster edge, becoming-other threshold.
Noctis stood amid the carnage, chest heaving in ragged bursts, the metallic reek of goblin blood thick in his nostrils. His battered sword dripped dark ichor, every muscle quivering from the week's accumulated toll. You're not just a survivor anymore, the thought carved itself into his mind, cold and unyielding. You're the trial by which monsters test their claims. The forge that breaks them—or remakes you.
The Red Leader raised his massive head from the den's shadowed maw, ritual scars pulsing with crimson ether like veins of molten rage. For a split second, the system's echoframe flickered erratically behind Noctis's eyes, glitching through static snow:
[Hostile Detected: Awakened Goblin Commandant]
[Threat Level: High—Energized State Active]
[Status: Advanced Ether Manipulation, Extreme Physicality, Regenerative Factor—Target fatal point must be destroyed to ensure death.]
[Warning: Commandant's field may disrupt system interface. Adaptation required.]
Noctis gritted his teeth, jaw muscles knotted like steel cables, shoving the digital haze aside with sheer will. So even the interface flinches. Good. Gives me a reason to be surgical, not sloppy.
The Red Leader didn't explode into a reckless charge. He stalked—measured steps rhythmic as a predator's heartbeat, every corded muscle coiled with savagery leashed just beneath the surface. Noctis mirrored him instinctively, sword raised in the low guard he'd forged through blood-soaked trial: tip forward, weight balanced on battered heels, eyes locked on the goblin's flickering claws. Every twitch would count; every clash would carve flesh or bone.
The first strike blurred with unnatural speed, ether-laced like lightning through flesh. A feint slashed sideways, claws whistling; then a deep lunge straight for his core. Noctis twisted low, pain from his thigh gash guiding the pivot—claws raked only tattered cloth over his ribs, shredding fabric in a spray of sparks. He knew the follow-up: ether pulsed from the goblin's palm, detonating the earth in a shockwave of splintered rock and mud. Noctis rolled prone, palm slicing open on jagged shale, but distance bought—a heartbeat to breathe, to recalibrate.
Rhythm locked in, brutal and unrelenting.
The Red Leader pressed like a living avalanche—overwhelming force, always a half-step faster, blows humming the air with displaced ether that singed Noctis's skin. He parried desperately, footwork tracing wide arcs to circle the bulkier foe, always forcing the goblin's mass forward into open ground. Noctis exploited the weight: baiting overswings that whistled wide, redirecting momentum into tree trunks that shuddered and splintered. The leader adapted mid-flow, counters growing vicious—claws grazing armor-like hide, forcing Noctis to weave tighter.
Memories flashed unbidden: the wyvern's aerial death-dance, its downfall not in brute opposition but flowing with the monster's power—redirecting dives, waiting for arrogance's fatal overcommit. He's avalanche incarnate. But avalanches shatter on stone they can't predict.
A massive fist grazed his shoulder—fiery agony lancing through joint and bone, nearly buckling the arm. Noctis's sword scraped sparks off red hide, carving shallow furrows that knit closed in seconds, ether fizzing like acid on the wounds.
[System—ERROR: Ether field interfering. Adaptive Perception partially offline.]
[Analyzing pattern—weak point accessible only during full charge sequence.]
Split lips cracked into a feral grin. "Here's your lesson, beast: the more power you summon, the blinder it makes you."
Noctis baited deliberately, feigning collapse—shoulders slumping, guard dipping low as if exhaustion claimed him. Fury shattered the leader's caution: ether swelled visibly within goblin veins, muscles ballooning grotesque, crimson glow throbbing like a second heart. Air crackled, heavy with impending violence. Noctis timed it to the pulse, breath synced to the build.
The charge hit like thunder—the world strobing red as claws cleaved earth where he'd knelt. Noctis dove aside, mud erupting in a geyser; in that overextended instant, the goblin's chest ignited—a radiant ether node pulsing exposed above the heart, fatal point bared in arrogant surge.
Both hands clamped his sword; he lunged upward, blade plunging deep into glowing crimson. Steel bit true—but not fatal; the leader twisted with a roar, claws eviscerating Noctis's thigh to bone in a hot flood. Agony exploded, white-hot; mud slurped their mingled blood.
Both reeled back, gasping. The Red Leader's breaths heaved heavier, regeneration stuttering—wounds closing sluggish. Hate chilled to glacial focus.
Noctis's pulse thundered in his ears, mind a blaze: One mistake remains for us both. You're not fighting a man anymore. You face what you forged—a survivor honed by every failure you authored. I end this for me. For every trampled weakling. For the right to breathe unchained.
The true war ignited.
They circled anew, mud slicking the arena between shattered titans. Noctis's breaths rasped wetly—blood loss dizzied, bruises throbbed like buried drums from week's grind. The Red Leader endured inhuman: ether fueled ancient fury, rage a textured storm undimmed by slaughter.
He's faster. Stronger. Wounds seal before I blink. Press too close? Death. Falter? He devours my heart for tribal shame.
Claws lunged disemboweling; Noctis ducked, wind-shearing hair. Pivot anchored on mangled leg—a trick from a one-legged bandit's shadow-duel in pre-nightmare days. Blade scored exposed flank—black-red blood welled. Goblin spun backhanding; impact cracked ribs, sparks dancing vision's edge.
Stumble—recover. Roll evaded ground-pound, rock-shards peppering. Palm shard-bit ignored; pain mere threshold.
"Beast or pattern—you fall to breakers," he snarled inwardly, slashing. Some bites lingered, ether faltering; others skidded rippling hide. Noctis mapped regen: slower on joints, ether nodes.
Thrust-parry-feint-dodge symphony. Leader caged him toward boulders, slit-mud traps; Noctis flowed water-like, slipping gaps, turning charges against terrain—boulders crumpling under redirected bulk.
Not invincible—just arrogant. Bleed drop-by-drop. You endured beatings as prey. Outlast as hunter, even shattered.
Ether warped mid-clash, system spitting fractured ghosts:
[Warning: Ether surge—brace for impact]
[Analysis corrupted… adaptive subroutine failing…]
No digital crutch—pure instinct reigned, animal-exposed.
Mud-caked boots faster; shoulder agony deflected claw-barrages. Sword extension-of-self, threading wolf/slime lessons. Harried close: wrist-nicks, knee-slices, eye/ear gouges. Unpredictable gospel: Not immortal. Hate regenerates slower than mine.
Minutes blurred eternal. Leader's hits staggered Noctis knee-ward; each rise shocked foe, world red-black gasp-thunder.
Die here? Teeth bared, blade buried. Teach monsters: pain-born defies command.
No words—violence's code. Gasp-frayed edge, resolve knifed ache. Next wagered all.