Infernal Apocalypse

Richard and 11 others were standing in what they considered a formation as they slowly trekked through the forest just in front of the Outpost, Richard, and Brandon in front the remaining group with one of them walking on the left and the other on the right.

Neither of them let it show, but both Richard and Brandon started feeling a little invincible ever since breaking through to Body Tempering. That was the only reason Richard even felt safe enough to walk to go fight these stronger Goblins.

Richard in particular didn’t know what to expect from breaking through to Body Tempering, but he knew it would be something big based on what he saw from the young man who also lived in the Outpost. He came back with a bag full of Goblin orbs without even a single scratch on his body. To Richard, that had to mean he got far stronger after he broke through, and now having broken through himself, he would have to agree.

“Stay focused everyone.”

Richard reminded his team, as they continued to venture deeper into the forest, with the Outpost quickly fading into obscurity behind the cacophony of trees that made up the forest.

It didn’t take too long after that for them to spot their first Goblin off into the distance.

“It’s just one Goblin, we don’t know how much stronger it got and we know where there is one Goblin, there are more not too far away. I will take care of this one as quickly as possible.” Richard spoke to the team softly before doing his best to sneak up on the unsuspecting Goblin. It was only about 100ish feet from the group as the rest of them crouched down low to avoid detection.

By the time Richard got close to the Goblin, he started to feel like something was wrong.

POV Richard

Why it just standing there? Not moving at all…? Something about this doesn’t feel right, but I can’t figure out why. Do I turn back? No, it would be stupid to let a free kill on a Goblin like this go, let’s just kill the Goblin and we can assess the situation afterwards.

“RICHARD !!!”

Richard turned around so fast that a small child would’ve gotten whiplash if they did the same thing, he was extremely shocked. Brandon knew better than to yell that loudly in the forest, so something had to be extremely wrong.

Though what Richard saw wasn’t Brandon in some type of life or death battle with the rest of the group, instead he saw a ball of fire the size of a basketball flying with great speed towards his face. It was so close he could already feel the heat of the encroaching ball of fire bearing down on him. This was no illusion.

What the hell is that..! Wha..-

“Ahhhh!!!”

While he was still distracted by the fireball, the Goblin he was just a few short moments away from killing did not let the moment go to waste. When Richard looked down to where he felt the pain, there was a knife lodged into his thigh, and the Goblin was already scampering away after committing the act.

The pain seemed to wake Richard up from his stupor as he stumbled to the left, just barely dodging the fireball, as it bathed him in its heat as it whizzed by before smashing into a large tree in this distance, immediately the entire area the fireball hit was charred black.

Though of course Richard didn’t have time to worry about that.

“Fuck! What about Brandon and the rest?!”

Richard pulled the knife out as he got back to his feet, and frantically looked around his group. It only took a moment for him to find them, but he also found the bastard of a situation they now found themselves in.

The entire group was surrounded.

It was only about 50 Goblins which would be a terrible situation in its own right prior to stage two, but this was different.

The Goblins had different weapons. Gone were the small clubs that they once wielded, replaced them instead were small daggers fit for the size of Goblins. No matter how weak a Goblin was, a sharp point was very dangerous. Even a small child could kill a grown man if they had a knife and managed to stab them.

Though that’s not what worried Richard the most. What worried him the most was the fact some of the Goblins looked genuinely different.

Amongst the 50 or so Goblins who were gathered, more than a few of them wore some type of robe and carried a wooden staff in their hands. They were also a little taller than their counterparts.

Now as a middle aged man that worked as a manager in a corporate setting before the Tutorial, Richard didn’t consume much content, let alone fantasy content. But who didn’t watch one or two movies were the person wielding magic did it with some type of staff? And along with the fireball he just dodged, it didn’t take long for him to put two and two together.

“Dammit! Everyone group together! They have knives now! Micah be frugal with your arrows because I don’t think we will be able to collect them afterwards but focus your shots on the ones holding a staff! They can shoot damn balls of fire and we don’t know if that’s all so stay alert everyone!”

After barking the only orders he could think of he sprinted back towards the group as his thigh continued to bleed, while it didn’t bleed as much as it probably would’ve before breaking through, the knife went in pretty deep and that type of wound wouldn’t heal overnight, let alone a couple of minutes.

“Richard, we can’t stay here! We're just sitting ducks for them to shoot god knows what at us!”

“Christine, I know! But we are surrounded, and they haven’t even done anything yet! The're just looking at us, we need to…-”

“Fuck Richard! The magic looking ones are doing some shit! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!”

“Shit! Calm the hell down Lance! Everyone follow me! Brandon protect the rear! Micah start shooting those fucking arrows! I don’t even care if you miss, we just need to disrupt them!”

“I’m shooting, I’m shooting!”

All Brandon did was nod and then moved to rear of the group as Richard began leading the group towards the closest point in the encirclement.

Richard of course ran ahead to try break a whole for the group to get through, but at the same time fireballs began to form at various points in the encirclement.

“Richard!!!! They are forming the fire balls!!!”

“I know! Just keep running!!”

Richard with his sword drawn finally neared the Goblins blocking their path, they had began converging to that section when they noticed the group moving that way, so instead of a few Goblins, it was more like 10 of them.

He wasn’t an expert fighter by any means, but any fool could swing a sword and hurt someone, let alone a fool who was in the first stage of Body Tempering, and Richard was no fool.

Using his superior strength and speed, Richard was able to quickly deliver fatal slashes to the first 5 Goblins he made contact with, before he got stabbed on his arm. Instead of screaming out in pain he just kept going with a drive to survive. Maybe if he had taken the time to properly get used to his new body or maybe if he had proper training on how to fight with a sword, he could’ve eliminated these Goblins flawlessly.

But reality tended to be different.

Despite his overwhelming physical advantage, sometimes his swings were far too wide, or his mind didn’t react quick enough to the movements of the Goblins, or he just didn’t think far enough ahead in the battle, or fell for a feint, all of it led to him getting stabbed a couple times as he dealt with the Goblins, by the time the group caught up to him he was bleeding from all over his body, yet still going strong.

Of course, the Goblins were in full chase, and by now so were the fireballs.

The situation did not look favorable.