"Run!" Greg yelled, coming face to face with the direwolf.

  Neither their small group of goblins were ready for a direwolf attack, nor was his body evolved enough to come face to face with an existence like that. So as soon as his instincts screamed that they couldn't defeat this enemy, he turned around and booked for the cave entrance.

  The leftover goblins also moved just behind him and jumped for the cave. Greg was the first one to reach the waterfall and made his way inside the cave. When he looked back, the direwolf had personally made a move and was leaping to catch the other four goblins in the way.

  It stretched its hands and immediately swatted one goblin to the side, and the poor fellow became a green blur before his body was sent crashing to the clearing where the other black wolves fed on its mangled corpse.

  The other three goblins didn't wait to see what was happening beside them and ran through the narrow way to reach the cave. But one unfortunate soul tripped, and because the water pressure from the waterfall was more powerful than whatever he could muster out, he was swept away by it. He almost took another goblin with him, but Greg was quick enough to lend a hand and save his life before everyone made it inside.

  When the direwolf approached the side cave entrance and tried to make its way inside, he soon figured out the raging water from the rainfall would take him away too. Also, his body had grown too big over the evolution to enter inside.

  "Rawwwwr," it growled in a voice of annoyance and then moved out of the way.

  But nobody felt happy, because the next second it ordered its fellow black wolves to hunt the goblins for him, and they quickly heeded his commands.

  The normal black wolves were about the size of a tall human, so they didn't have any problems in entering the cave by avoiding that foamy falling water. So one by one, they approached the cave entrance in a line and made their way to the darkness beyond.

  But this slow approach was halted by a quick strike of a claw from a goblin with green hair. It was Greg, and he was alone guarding the narrow entrance while the other goblins cowered in fear and uncertainty.

  They could try going deeper into the cave, but Bog and Eka knew the cave only stretched endlessly beyond. Also, the path just increased in size the deeper you went before it merged into a cavern. And if they went any deeper they would start encountering those centipede like creatures, and maybe those dead spider corpses they had seen the first time they had come here.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  So their only and last hope was that Greg could stall the wolves and kill enough of them to make their leader understand that pursuing this group of goblins was not worth that many lives.

  And Greg did this job spectacularly.

  He smartly used the darkness to his benefit and the wall of water to the side to kick the wolves into the raging waterfall and end their lives or just get them away. He would strike and try to injure them too, but that was not his main goal.

  One person had limited stamina, and he was trying to make the best out of the situation, and because he won't be able to gain any more strength from just killing them, he just attacked like a maddened beast.

  Soon a few minutes passed and five wolves died or were swept away, then fifteen more minutes passed and he had dealt with eleven wolves in total when a change happened. The direwolf stopped sending its brethren mindlessly into the cave and decided to call them back.

  Greg fell to the ground and used this time to restore as much of his strength as possible. His muscles were giving off steam, and his chest was heaving up and down from exhaustion. But in his mind, he only hopes the rain won't stop or slow down, because if the water pressure becomes any less, then more of the black wolves can simultaneously enter the cave and wreak havoc.

  He looked behind and saw the terrified faces of the remaining goblins. At the start, the village had over a hundred souls, but the first wolf attack cut them down by half, and when Greg took control over the settlement, they lost more because of the second attack and there were no more than sixteen here.

  Most of the goblins were female or children, and only five male goblins were left.

  Bog soon left Eka and approached him to check his condition. "Are you hurt?" he said while peeking outside the cave to see the situation.

  "No… no cuts or scratches," Greg also stood up and came beside him to see.

  The situation outside seemed calm and quiet, and the wolves looked to be gone, but he knew they were in the area looking for more goblin settlements or waiting their time for the rain to stop. He knew in his heart that that direwolf held great animosity towards goblins and won't stop until it can claim everyone's life and assert dominance in the territory.

  Greg shook his head before turning around. "Let's go deeper," he said to Bog, and the other agreed. Now that Greg was free, he could deal with any centipedes or other monsters lingering in the cave and maybe find a safe spot for everyone to be left alone.

  But just when he was about to tell everyone to get up and start moving, he heard a sound.

  The sound was not of a wolf's howl or the muttering of the goblins, but it was the sound of a child's cry.

  His eyes flashed, and his head turned to look towards old lady May and the stretcher she was sitting beside. The goblinas were surrounding her with unreal expressions.

  Greg and Bog slowly made their way towards them, and soon they saw the crying figure of Fess on the ground. But he was not crying because of pain, but there was an ever so lively happy smile on his face.

  Then old lady May slowly raised a green little fellow towards Greg for him to see… and… the child was successfully born.