A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 44: Battle With The Goblins - Part 10

But that was a skill he had yet to master. Each step he took he felt like he was awaking all the spirits of the underworld. It was painfully loud. He winced with each stride.

"Guh, I need to get better at this too," he whispered to himself without producing a sound.

His grip on the knife felt loose the more steps he took as his hand grew slick with sweat. It began to feel foreign and unsteady in his hand. His mind began to overthink, imagining the killing blow once he got to the Goblin, expecting it to look a certain way and respond in a certain fashion.

He saw the leaves rustle up ahead and he stopped breathing, flattening himself against a tree. He looked behind him, and his master was nowhere to be seen. Likely out of consideration for his hunt – making sure he wouldn't give them away.

Beam watched with a widened eye from his spot, seeing the branches move frantically, as a little creature tussled around inside of it.

It was a few moments more before it emerged, dragging the corpse of a baby bear with it.

The Goblin had dark green skin, as Beam had been told they would, but he didn't expect it to be such a hideous shade. It was the colour of mold, almost approaching blue, a thoroughly sickening colour, especially when contrasted with the deep red blood that stained the creature's teeth and poured down its torso as it took maddened bites of the bear even as it dragged it.

It was barefoot, just as Beam had expected it to be, but around its waist, it wore a fur rag held together with roped ivy. And in its hand, it clutched a spear longer than it was, with a vicious-looking sharpened flint tip, fastened together by the same ivy as its clothes.

Beam's stomach suddenly turned as he observed it. There was something terribly wrong about its existence. It didn't seem natural. It was as though a God had fused together two opposing entities, and they were a constant war inside one sac of flesh.

It would move like a human for a few paces, marching with its spear, dragging its kill behind it, and then it would be overcome by what seemed like a bout of insanity and it would suddenly lunge back at the corpse with its bare teeth and tear a lump out of the flesh, with fur and all still attached.

It was thoroughly unsettling and more than a little intimidating. If that was how vicious the creature was now, when it should have been a moment of calm and victory, then how erratic would it be in battle?

Beam's nerves were fried as he pulled back behind his tree, daring to look no longer, hearing instead that the Goblin was getting closer with each step.

His mind was near useless. It only gave him short and simple panicked lines. 'We're going to die. Die. We're going to die.' It said endlessly as his whole body shook.

With the fear, it felt like he was experiencing the pain of death already. While Dominus said that it was his armour and that would protect him, in that moment it felt more like fire that was burning him and limiting him. Beam wanted nothing more than the fear to stop.

Realising that, he hit upon a sudden thought. "The Goblin is causing the fear. If I kill it the fear will stop. I'll kill it. I'll kill it and stop the fear.' His mind spoke erratically in a desperate attempt at reassurance.

His fingers clutched the knife as he heard the Goblin come continually closer. It was now or never. If he let it come past without attacking, he'd die. He was too close, far too close. He had to attack, and he had to kill.

He steadied his breathing. The Goblin was so close now that Beam could hear its rasping breath. He didn't know where to attack from to surprise it, he only knew that he'd prefer to attack it from the back, however that was possible.

But the second Beam made a step to move on his wobbly legs, he crushed a stick, and the Goblin heard it, its neck snapping towards him with narrowed yellow eyes.

There was no delay in its response. As soon as its eyes locked on to him, it jumped, like a magnet was attracting it, it shrieked through the air, seeming ready to bite Beam despite the spear it had in its hand.

Beam panicked. His balance was all off. He couldn't land a perfect strike from how he stood, despite Dominus' training, despite his lessons that a true master could find his balance from any position.

As the Goblin lunged through the air towards him, Beam merely did what was instinctual and kicked out with a front kick, sending the hellish green demon sprawling into the side of a tree.

'A mistake!" Beam realised. He could have waited. He should have waited. He'd already let his best chance slip. The Goblin was most vulnerable whilst it was airborne – that should have been his chance to land the killing blow, but he'd panicked and chosen to create distance instead.

But like that, the spell of fear was nearly broken. Even though he'd failed to secure the killing blow, Beam had been able to force himself to move, despite the Goblin's overwhelming killing intent, and now that he'd sent the Goblin sprawling, he ran after it before it could recover.

The creature opened its jaws wide and gave a high-pitched battle cry as it scrambled to its feat far more quickly than its short frame would lead you to believe.

But Beam was in close now, he was finding his rhythm. He started to feel the moves he'd begun to practise with Dominus, and as the Goblin raised its spear to lunge at him, Beam twisted, ducking, allowing the deadly point over his shoulder and using his hand to secure it in place.

It was true what they said – indeed a human was far stronger than a Goblin. Now that he held its weapon in place, Beam could feel it did not have the strength to wrestle it back. But the Goblin did not seem to panic or fall into fear, instead, it only grew angrier, as it pulled on the spear harder, whilst lunging in with its jaw to bite Beam in the arm.