Chapter 21：Tough Fight

Stanis lifted his weary eye-lids, only to see the outside of his cave well-lit. Drowsy and exhausted, Stanis slapped his face in order to wake himself up. No longer could he live the torpid life he used to, well, if he wanted to continue living that was.

A few minutes later, he was doing a bit of spear training. Afterwards, he treated himself to a large breakfast, before remembering the Missions bar. It had been unlocked yesterday, but he had forgotten to check it that day due to all the things that plagued his mind. Now free of those, he finally got his chance to open the mysterious Missions bar. He willed "Missions" in his mind.

[Missions:

Missions set by Hu:

Become the resident of a village:

(Optional Add-on) Kill a tier one monster and harvest the Stone of wonders. Use it to personally set up the village in order to get additional rewards.

Missions set by Zelaro:

Use the darkness to claim lives. Take 20 lives to pass.]

The mission set by the Hu was all about setting a village up. It seemed they really were all about Human survival. The easy way of passing this was to just become the resident of a village, whereas the harder route was by setting up a village yourself. This meant you had to kill a tier-one monster and harvest the Stone of Wonders, whatever those were.

As for the Zelaro's mission, Stanis was confused. Could he use the darkness to kill people? How?

So far he had only used it as a means of hiding his body and hadn't even thought of it of having any fighting potential.

And so for the next hour or so, Stanis kept playing around with the darkness near him, trying to make it destructive in any manner. It was fair to say that the stone he was testing on wasn't any worse off by the end, despite all his torture.

Eventually, he gave up and began equipping himself with his weapons. He had his sword tied around his waist and held his spear in his arms. He also put on his coat, over which he put on the tattered Cuirass. He really should have replaced it last time he had been to the Camp…

Today was the battle over the supplies. It had already been two whole weeks since the tutorial had finished. However, for Stanis, it was more a few days as he had been unconscious for several days, and then in the temple for several more. And yet what he had done during the other days more than made up for the uneventful ones.

Now ready, Stanis began walking towards the Camp. It was a weird feeling walking back, after all, not only was he going to returning to the Camp, but he was also willingly walking towards a battle.

The reason why Stanis was going there was that although the battles were so dangerous that a single misstep could translate to death, they were also a gold-mine of experience and loot as long as you survived.

A few minutes later, he had arrived at the Camp.

Surprisingly, there was not a single person there. He walked a bit deeper into the Camp, in particular towards the supply centre, only to be disappointed as he found no spare armour. He then heard a loud shout towards the East of the Camp, to which he responded by running towards it.

A distance in front of him were all the people from the Camp, all clearly tense and tired. Luckily no one saw Stanis as he was in the shadow of a Tent as he peeked over. Realising that everyone was preparing for battle, Stanis used this opportunity to apply the Tent's shadow over himself. His body already had the darkness over it, but he had forgotten to do the same for his equipment.

Close to a minute later, Stanis had finished as all his weapons and clothes were now black. It was now practically impossible to see him within the shadow as he completely blended in. However, instead of walking towards the others, Stanis ran north, towards the empty plains. He then ran from shadow to shadow, moving east towards the Forest.

When at the Forest, he chose to lie inside a Tree's shadow as he waited for the Goblins to make an appearance. He didn't have a long wait as he soon heard marching in the distance, alongside several howls.

It seemed someone within the Camp had sharp ears as everyone rushed into position. The formation was the same as last time, with the large men with high Constitution and tower shields at the front, followed by the rest behind them. The powerhouses were to the sides of this formation so that they could quickly run out and cause carnage. There were a bit over 30 people in total, a third of whom Stanis had never seen before, and so he guessed they were from another Camp. This formation had worked very well last time, and so no one found any reason not to use it again.

Stanis was hiding at the edge of the Forest, and so was in prime position to see all Goblins and Wolves run out of the Forest. Within seconds, the enemies were all out and causing a cacophony of noise, in an attempt to intimidate the Humans. In truth, it wasn't having much of an effect on the Humans, who were now used to violence and all its tricks.

However the longer the Goblins did it, the more it began to wear on their minds. They couldn't move forward, as that would make their formation close to useless, meaning that the enemies had all the power over the battlefield.

Within the enemy ranks were four different types of troops. There were around 50 Goblins on foot, 10 of them being Shamans. Surrounding them were 20 normal-Wolf riders, equipped with a simple spear and leather armour alike the one Stanis had killed the day before. Leading this rabble of a group were 4 large-Wolf riders. These Wolves were large and menacing: they were of the same race as the one that had chased Stanis close to death. The Goblins on top of these Wolves were of the same race as all the others, however, they were also muscular and vicious. It was pretty clear that you needed to have certain requirements to ride these Large Wolves, and strength seemed to be one of those.

Soon enough, the posturing came to an end as the Wolf riders began to charge forwards, followed by the foot-Goblins. The Shamans stayed back, with around 5 Goblins there to protect them. Interestingly though, the Goblins left behind seemed to be the weakest and least eager, which would, in turn, explain why they had been the ones to be left behind.

At the front, alongside the other Shield-bearers, Jayesh tensed himself for impact as he saw the large-Wolf riders tumbling towards him. A second later, he heard a loud howl but no sounds of clashes. Instead, the Large-Wolves ran around the Shield-bearers, and instead aimed behind them. By coincidence, this was also where the Dead 4 were standing.

The Shield-bearers were about to turn around, in order to provide support to the sides, when the normal Wolf-riders clashed with them, causing all of them to hold their ground. Half of the normal-Wolf riders followed their leaders and targeted the sides. Within seconds, the foot-Goblins were also there and began to surround the Humans.

Instead of causing carnage within the enemy lines, the Dead 4 found it hard to move, let alone provide support. By further coincidence, all four of the Dead 4 were targeted by one Large-Wolf rider each, and several normal ones who came to provide support. Instead of focusing on the maximum amount of people, the Goblins instead chose to focus the quality ones.

This made perfect sense, apart from the question as to how they knew who the powerhouses were, especially considering that not a single enemy had lived through last battle… Not only this, but it was also quite obvious that Goblins weren't the most intelligent of beings…

Despite being surrounded and attacked by multiple enemies, the Dead 4 still put up an amazing fight as each and every one of them caused the two sides to be even, despite the number difference. In fact, Orena was beginning to get the edge within her fight, and Anatoly was close to killing his Large Wolf rider. Unfortunately, around them, the other Humans were not of the same level and were suffering due to the sheer number of enemies attacking them.

Apart from the Dead 4, there was only one other person, that Stanis could see, who stood out. He was a large, bear-like Caucasian man. He had bright Ginger hair, and his fighting style was fiery and powerful, just like his hair colour. Around him already lay several Goblin corpses, and more only fell as the frenzied man blindly cut left and right.

Stanis had definitely never seen this impressionable man before, and so he knew this had to be a powerhouse from the other Camp. Stanis also noted that despite the man's exemplary fighting skills, he was not focused on by the enemies…

The battle was now at a stalemate as both sides had advantages that neither could push past. It was destined to be a long and arduous battle. Or at least it was meant to be until Stanis began moving. He tried his best to stay low, and in cover as he moved closer and closer towards the Goblin Shamans.

The reason why the two sides were at a stalemate was because the Large Wolf riders, alongside many other Goblins, were constantly getting buffed and healed by the Shamans. Due to their bad arrangement, the Humans couldn't even break out of their individual fights, let alone attack the Shamans who stood far away.

Within a few seconds, Stanis was mere metres away from the group of Shamans. He crouched, tensed his muscles, and then dashed the last few metres. The Shaman closest to him only had enough time to be spooked, as it turned around in surprise.

Stanis was flying, his spear swinging through the air as the Shaman made eye-contact.

"ARRRRRRRGGGGGG"

His spearhead sliced through two necks, causing two stumps to plummet to the ground. The closest Shaman to the two just-dead ones began shrieking, before beginning to run away. However, it wasn't able to get very far at all as it tripped over another Shaman.

The humans weren't the only ones in a bad formation; the protecting foot-Goblins had huddled together in order to chat as the battle proceeded. Since the Shamans wanted to use them as meat-shields if an emergency arose, all of them had huddled together behind the foot soldiers. The faults of such an arrangement were coming to light as Stanis pierced through the chest of the tripped up Shaman, before throwing his spear towards another.

Instead of running away, the Shamans who managed to get out of Stanis's range began chanting at him. In the meantime, their "protectors" came forwards, although they looked more vulnerable than the Shamans themselves.

Stanis slid his sword out of his waist-belt, before rushing the closest Goblin. The Goblin raised its short-sword in response while blinking, only to receive a large, deep cut across its stomach. The remaining four Goblin fighters all ran forward, using their numerical advantage to fuel their courage.

Stanis side-stepped a sword strike to his neck, before using his left arm to pick up a Goblin by its head. In response, the Goblin violently struggled, before being kicked to the ground.

He dodged another strike, and then pushed the closest Goblin away, causing it to collide with another.

As they struggled, Stanis met blades with the last Goblin, before overpowering it and then stabbing it across the head. He then sprinted towards the one he had kicked down, who was now crawling away, before also stabbing this Goblin.

The last two Goblin fighters were now free but didn't seem at all eager to once more engage Stanis in battle. Instead, they edged backwards as they hoped the Shamans would finish chanting. However, the Shaman chants would take quite a while to complete, too long, in fact, for the fighters to survive as Stanis bolted at them, before slicing both down.

Half the Shamans now stopped their chants, after all, they had been cancelled. They had been chanting buffs and healing onto the fighters, only for the fighters to die a little too fast… However, the other Shamans were now finished as they aimed at Stanis.

One after another, green bolts shot towards him. Stanis rolled out of the way of the first one, followed by him barely tilting his head away from the second. The last out hit home, causing destructive arcane energy to fill his left arm.

"ARGH"

Stanis yelped at the pain, which luckily only stung as much as a wasp sting. Now fuelled by further adrenaline and anger, Stanis roared as he shot towards the Shamans.

Within seconds, he killed 4 more. One of them had managed to pick up a short-sword and slashed him across the leg, although that had done little more than further infuriate Stanis. He forcefully knocked over one Shaman, sending it sprawling to the ground, before picking up the last one using his left arm.

There were tears dripping down its face as it stared at him, his body burning up as he tightened his claw grip. This slightly crushed the Shaman's head, to which it screamed in agonising pain.

This broke Stanis out of his anger, and irrational sadism, as he cut its pain short with a cut to the neck. He found the one he had punted to the ground, who was now playing dead, which he also proceeded to kill.

Unbeknownst to him, the moment he had first disrupted the Shamans had also allowed the Humans to take the lead. As he massacred the rest of them, the Humans began to dominate as it became a one-sided battle.

Stanis took his time to breathe heavily as he tried to calm down, his body burning with unbearable heat. He then felt an awful premonition, to which he shot to the ground.

*BBMMMFR*

The spot where he had stood was now scorched black, with thick, toxic smoke billowing out of it. Stanis followed the trajectory of the fire-bolt into the Forest, where he saw a large Goblin.

It was at least as tall as him and had a similar slim, athletic figure to him. More importantly, it pointed at him while licking its lips, before bearing an ominous grin. It then disappeared from his sight as it retreated deeper into the Forest.