"A king, huh?" Revvyn said, his eyes locking onto Grimjaw's manic, red-eyed stare. "Let's see if your crown stays on when I'm done with all your children."
The scent of iron hit Revvyn a heartbeat before the lead goblin did. It lunged, its bare feet slapping against the mud, a jagged cleaver raised high. To the Revvyn of three days ago, the creature would have been a lethal threat to him. Now, with his stats level up and his agility at (16). He could see the individual droplets of sweat flying off the goblin's brow. He could see the tremor in its grip.
Revvyn didn't even step back. He pivoted, his body moving with a fluid snap that made his sore ribs flare with a dull, hot ache. The rusty metal whistled past his neck, missing by an inch, and he drove the heavy pommel of his cutlass into the goblin's temple.
Crack. The goblin's eyes rolled back, and it crumpled into the dirt like a sack of grain, its nervous system short-circuiting instantly.
"Kill him! Don't be useless! Bring me the slime!" Grimjaw screamed from atop the Ash-Lion, his voice a high-pitched rasp that made Revvyn's ears ring.
The massive lion let out a low, bone-vibrating growl that Revvyn felt in his molars. A thick, rust-colored mist poured from the beast's paws, rolling over the grass like a living thing.
The moment the mist touched the remaining goblins, their scrawny frames began to twitch. Their muscles swelled, skin stretching tight until it turned a bruised, angry purple. Their dull yellow eyes shifted into a bloodshot red color.
What kind of ability is that? Revvyn thought.
"Syll," Revvyn gritted out. "Boar."
A cold, hollow ache blossomed in the center of his chest. He felt his mana ripping out of him. A solid chunk of his (50) Mana surged through the bond, a heavy pulse that made his vision swim for a second.
Beside him, Syll violently expanded. The translucent violet slime did not just grow, it distorted. Translucence turned to opaque, leathery hide; soft gel turned to thick bone and coarse bristles. A three-hundred-pound Bone-Spur Boar slammed its hooves into the mud, the ground physically shuddering under the sudden weight.
In that moment of intense mana-sync, a blue translucent window snapped open in the corner of Revvyn's eye.
[System Alert]
Bond Level 40% Milestone Reached.
New Active Skill Available: [Flicker Strike]
Sync detected. Review requirements to unlock.
Revvyn didn't have time to read the text. The buffed goblins were on him.
Syll didn't wait for an order. The boar lowered its heavy, bone-plated head and charged. The impact sounded like a boulder hitting a pile of dry kindling. Two goblins were thrown backward, their ribs caving in with a wet thud that Revvyn felt in his own marrow. A third tried to thrust a spear into the boar's flank, but the rusted iron just scraped uselessly against Syll's hardened indigo spurs.
Revvyn moved with the chaos. He stepped inside the guard of a charging goblin, ignoring its slashing. He swung his cutlass in a tight, horizontal arc, feeling the resistance of meat and collarbone as the steel sheared through. The vibration jolted hard up his arm, making his bicep twitch, but he forced the blade through, using the momentum to spin.
The air was getting harder to breathe, thick with the iron-scent of blood and the foul, wet-dog stench of the hyena-man.
Grimjaw leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he peered through the swirling red haze. He seemed to have forgotten Revvyn entirely, his predatory gaze fixing on the red-haired girl standing at the edge of the clearing. A slow, jagged grin spread across his face, exposing rows of rotting teeth.
"Don't only chase the boy!" Grimjaw barked at the remaining goblins. He pointed a filthy, clawed finger toward the girl. "Bring me his lover! She'll make a fine concubine for the Monarch of the Mud! I want her alive!"
The goblins nearest the girl hesitated, but the "King" snarled again, and they began to creep toward her. Grimjaw cackled, leaning back into his velvet saddle, his hand already reaching for the bone-dagger at his hip. "Go on! Take her!"
He pointed to where she had been standing.
But there was only empty air and a few drifting leaves.
"What?" Grimjaw's laughter died in his throat. He squinted, his head darting left and right. "Where did she—"
Then, he heard it.
Wind. Then the sound of cackling lightning—a sharp, electric snap. Grimjaw turned his head, his neck muscles straining, but it was already too late.
The girl appeared directly behind him, perched on the lion's hindquarters as if she had been there the whole time. The red mist parted and cleared for her.
Silver light flared from her blade, casting a harsh, strobe-like glare across the clearing. She didn't use the edge; she used the flat of her sword, delivering a horizontal strike with the weight of a falling mountain.
BOOM.
The impact was thunderous. Grimjaw didn't even scream; the air was punched out of him instantly. He was sent flying through the air like a discarded ragdoll, clearing twenty feet of open ground before slamming into a massive oak tree. The antler crown on his head shattered into a dozen pieces of bone and copper, and he slid into the mud in a heap.
"Wow," Revvyn breathed, his cutlass lowering an inch. His heart was hitting against his ribs. She was fast—faster than his eyes could even process with his Agility.
She landed softly on the mud, her sword already humming as she began to move toward the dazed hyena-man for a finishing blow.
But the Ash-Lion was faster.
The beast let out a roar that physically pushed the air out of Revvyn's lungs, making his skin crawl. It ignored the goblins and the boy, leaping across the clearing to stand over its fallen master. Its red eyes were wide, its claws tearing up chunks of earth as it bared its teeth at the girl.
"Back! Back to the dens!" Grimjaw wheezed from the mud, clutching his chest. He looked less like a king now and more like a mangy dog. "Kill them later! Let's leave!"
The lion didn't need to be told twice. It lunged down, snagging Grimjaw's hide cape in its teeth, and tossed him onto its back. With one final, hate-filled snarl at Revvyn, the beast vanished into the thick undergrowth, the heavy thud of its paws fading into the distance in seconds.
The clearing went quiet, save for the remaining eight goblins. The red mist had faded, but the frenzy wasn't. Left behind by their "King," they realized they were trapped. Their bloodshot eyes darted from the girl who looked ready to murder the entire forest to Revvyn and the massive boar standing in their way.
The girl didn't look back. She wiped a single drop of black blood off her cheek with her thumb. She said, her voice flat and cold. "Are you going to handle them?."
Revvyn looked at the goblins. His chest was heaving, the adrenaline starting to leave a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth. I don't have a move like her, he thought, looking at the spot where she had vanished and reappeared. But I can definitely handle them. If I want to survive the Springs, I need to be more.
He focused on the blue window still hovering in his periphery. He read the words; he felt them.
[Flicker Strike]
Requirement: 15+ Agility, 10+ Strength.
Description: For a fraction of a second, the Tamer and Beast synchronize their mana. The Tamer gains a 50% burst in movement speed for a single lunging strike.
Cost: 15 Mana.
Beside him, the boar form of Syll let out a sharp, resonant chirp. It was the sound of the slime's consciousness reaching out, pushing a specific, rhythmic pattern of mana into Revvyn's mind. It felt like it was playing a song into him.
The goblins shrieked, a high-pitched wall of sound, and rushed. They didn't care about the lion anymore; they were cornered rats. Two came from the front, two from the flank, their rusted knives glistening with filth.
"Syll, hold the line!" Revvyn yelled.
The boar let out a thunderous grunt, its bone-spurs glowing with a fierce violet light. It slammed into the flankers, its sheer mass pinning them to a tree with a crunch of wood and bone.
Revvyn focused on the four goblins in front of him. He reached into his Mana, grabbing a handful and forcing it down into his legs and his sword arm. He felt the world slowing down for him, like it was going to stop. The colors of the forest bled together into streaks of indigo and gray.
"[Flicker Strike]," he whispered.
The ground beneath his boots changed. He launched.
To the goblins, Revvyn simply vanished. To Revvyn, he was a streak of light. He covered the ten-foot gap in a heartbeat, the wind whistling in his ears. His dying cutlass became a blur of silver.
He felt the resistance of the first goblin's chest, a brief, sickening catch of metal on rib—before the blade passed through. He didn't stop. He pivoted on his heel, the extra speed carrying him into a second strike that caught the next creature across the throat.
The impact sent a jarring shock up his arm, but his Strength held the line. By the time the first goblin's body hit the mud, Revvyn was standing behind the fourth one.
The world sped back up. The sound of the forest rushed back into his ears.
Four goblins slumped over simultaneously, their blood staining the grass in a dark, spreading pool. They didn't even have time to shriek. They just fell.
Revvyn gasped for air, his legs trembling from the sudden, violent burst of mana. He looked down at his hands. They were shaking, but they were steady enough. He looked at the cutlass—the edge was chipped and the steel was dull with grime, but it had held.
Syll, having finished trampling the remaining two goblins into the dirt, began to glow. With a wet shlopp sound, the heavy boar form collapsed inward, reverting back into the melon-sized indigo slime. It bounced twice, shaking off the green goblin blood, and landed on Revvyn's shoulder, chirping with a pride that Revvyn felt through the bond.
Revvyn turned toward the red-haired girl. She was still standing by the oak tree, her sword back in its sheath. Her expression hadn't changed, but her gaze was heavier now.
"Not bad," she said, her voice still blunt as a hammer. "Your timing was off by half a second, and you wasted too much mana on the follow-through. But you're not dead."
"High praise," Revvyn muttered, wiping his blade on a patch of clean grass.
"Don't get over your head. They're just goblins." She turned toward the path leading deeper into the woods, where the air was beginning to hum with a strange, musical frequency. "The Whispering Springs are less than a mile away. The smell of blood is going to bring things much worse than Goblins. If you want to live, let's move."
Revvyn looked back at the carnage—the dead bodies, the broken crown, the smell of burnt mana. He felt a surge of cold, hard confidence. I'm badass.
He was Level 5. He had a move. He had Syll.
"Let's go, Syll," Revvyn said, shouldering his bag. "We've got a forest to cross."