Hours had passed since they left the valley behind. For Kayra, this journey had become an endurance test pushing his physical limits after that long, dark solitude in the cave. As the scorching heat of the suns gave way to the evening coolness, the group's steps had grown considerably heavier. The soles of their feet ached, the straps of their backpacks dug into their shoulders like knives. No one had spoken much along the way; only the rhythmic sound of boots on the mossy ground was heard.

  "We can't go any further," Elias said, adjusting the bow on his back. "We've been walking non-stop for hours. I don't want to fall into a pit in the dark with this exhaustion."

  The rest of the group exhaled deeply, as if they had been waiting for these words. Shoulders slumped, knees bent. They decided to set up camp at the base of a cliff within the forest that seemed relatively flat and easy to defend.

  Torin leaned his massive axe against the ground and dropped onto the hard earth. "Finally..." he murmured, his voice raspy with fatigue. "For a moment, I thought we'd never stop."

  Kayra also crouched down beside them. His new clothes were covered in dust, but after those fiber piles, the comfort of this fabric was still a luxury. With the brushwood Torin gathered, a small fire was quickly lit. As the orange light of the fire cast giant shadows on the massive tree trunks surrounding them, the stillness that followed hours of walking settled over everyone like a weight.

  Liora knelt by the fire, trying to organize the tubes in her bag with trembling hands. The dark circles under her eyes bore the marks of the hours-long trek and the heavy responsibility on her mind. The feisty alchemist was gone, replaced by a young girl exhausted from fatigue.

  "We should sleep in shifts right after eating," Liora said, her voice sounding more tired than usual.

  Shortly after Torin and Kael finished their meal, the weight of exhaustion pulled them into a deep sleep. Elias, the group's silent archer, took the first watch, perching on a rock overlooking the darkness; his bow on his knees, his eyes fixed on the depths of the forest.

  Kayra also surrendered to the peaceful embrace of sleep. However, the sounds of the forest and the turmoil in his mind caused his sleep to be short-lived. A few hours later, his own instincts prompted him to open his eyes.

  The campfire had dwindled considerably, the orange embers putting up a weak resistance against the forest's darkness. Elias was still in his spot, watching the surroundings motionless as a statue. Kayra noticed a silhouette on the other side of the fire. Liora was sitting awake by the fire, wrapped in her blanket. She had pulled her knees to her chest, staring blankly at the dying embers.

  Kayra silently rose. His steps made almost no sound on the mossy ground, but as he approached, Liora's shoulders straightened slightly. Without saying a word, Kayra went and sat on the other side of the fire, a little way from the girl.

  Liora didn't turn her head to look at him, but her usual feistiness had given way to deep fatigue. "Couldn't sleep?" she whispered. Her voice rang out in the night's silence like fragile glass.

  Kayra picked up a small twig and extended it towards the fire's embers as he answered. "Not used to it, I guess. Or... my mind is too noisy."

  Liora sighed softly. The fire's orange light highlighted the lines of fatigue on her face and the endless worry in her eyes. For a while, neither spoke; only the distant sounds of owls and the crackling of the fire were heard.

  "You're thinking about the village," Kayra said, breaking the silence.

  Liora slowly nodded. "Time is running out. If your blood doesn't work either..." She trailed off. She didn't want to continue, to make that terrible possibility real.

  As the silence between them stretched under the fire's weak light, the hairs on the back of Kayra's neck suddenly stood on end. An indescribable unease, an ice-cold shiver, rippled through him. His Kinesthetic Intuition ability had begun stimulating his nerve endings before any physical threat materialized. There was nothing visible; no breaking branch, no foreign sound... But the air had suddenly grown heavy, the forest's natural rhythm cut off like a knife.

  "Bot..." Kayra called out in his mind, holding his breath. "My intuition is going crazy. Something's wrong, but I can't see what. What's happening?"

  The Bot's voice was more mechanical than ever.

  ["Initiating analysis... No unusual conditions detected in environmental data at this time."]

  The moment the Bot finished its sentence, a deadly silence fell over the forest. The owls fell silent, the wind stopped; it was as if nature held its breath, waiting for what was to come. Kayra could hear his own heartbeat in his ears. He suddenly sprang to his feet. His body tensed like a bow ready to snap. He began scanning the surroundings, his eyes fixed on the darkest points of the forest.

  Liora, startled by Kayra's sudden movement, lifted her head.

  "What happened? Why did you get up?" she whispered anxiously.

  At that moment, the Bot's voice began echoing in his mind like an alarm.

  ["Warning: Multiple low-energy but high-frequency movements detected in the immediate vicinity. Count: 1... 3... 8... 15... 24... 32... 50! More and increasing, multiplying like mushrooms! Their form structure is small, biological signature: Wild and aggressive. Kayra, we're being surrounded!"]

  "Elias!" Kayra shouted, not taking his eyes off the darkness. "They're surrounding us! They're everywhere!"

  Elias, motionless as a shadow on the rock, grasped his bow in a single fluid motion at Kayra's voice. He didn't hesitate; his fingers were as precise and fast as a machine as he notched a silver-tipped arrow from his quiver. When he drew his bow towards the sky, the metal at the arrow's tip began absorbing the moisture and energy in the air, scattering pure white sparks around it.

  "Reveal yourself!" Elias murmured, releasing the bow.

  The arrow climbed into the sky with a sharp whistle that tore through the night. Right above the camp, at its highest point, the intense light at its tip exploded, expanding and transforming into an artificial sun that suddenly illuminated the forest as bright as day.

  With the sudden burst of light, the disgusting scene hidden behind the darkness was revealed in all its nakedness.

  Behind tree trunks, among thick bushes, and on the branches above them, hundreds of bright yellow eyes appeared, one by one. Creatures with crooked legs, green skin, and pointy ears, coming only up to Kayra's waist, shielded their eyes with their hands and snarled under the light's effect. Rusty daggers and bone spears with tips gleaming with poison shone ominously under Elias's light. They had spread everywhere like mushrooms sprouting from the earth.

  The fatigue on Liora's face instantly froze into shock. "Goblins..." she shouted, her voice choked and raspy. "But... how can there be so many?"

  On the other side of the camp, Torin and Kael jolted awake as the snarls rose following the light explosion and sharp whistle. They sprang up, drowsy, their eyes adjusting instantly to the nightmare of reality.

  "What's going on?!" Torin thundered, holding his massive axe horizontally. His eyes darted to where Kayra and Liora were, then to the green wave within the forest. His face hardened at the sight. "Damn it."

  Kael drew both his swords in a single motion. The steel gleamed with a deadly sparkle in the light. In the scene illuminated by Elias, the goblins were no longer hiding. Those in the front lines had started advancing, shoving each other, leaping forward. Their weapons made of rusted metal and bone gleamed with the shine of their saliva.

  The two quickly moved to Liora and Kayra's side.

  Torin glanced sideways at Kayra. "Hope you know how to use that thing you've been hiding at your waist," he grunted.

  At that moment, an ear-splitting snarl rose from every corner of the forest simultaneously. The goblins had begun swarming towards the camp with wild hunger.

  "GET BEHIND ME!" Torin roared. His voice was like thunder drowning out the goblins' screams.

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  Liora instinctively grabbed Kayra's arm and pulled him back, behind Torin's massive back. Kael, with the calm before a storm, flanked out to cover Torin's right side. Elias remained motionless as a statue on the rock; his bow still drawn, scanning the goblin wave to select targets.

  Torin squeezed the handle of his axe with such force that the stitches on his gloves creaked. He stepped forward with his left foot, coiled his body like a spring, and swung his axe in a horizontal arc at waist level.

  The attack was so violent that a sharp vacuum sound was heard just before the weapon cleaved the air.

  The wind generated as the axe split the air tore the soil and roots from the ground.

  This wasn't just an attack; it was physical devastation. The first wave of goblins within the axe's reach didn't know what hit them; severed arms, legs, and shattered goblin bodies began flying through the air. The shockwave threw even those behind back several meters.

  The area instantly became a cloud of blood and dust.

  Kael assessed the gap created by this devastation within seconds. "I'm on the right!" he shouted, lunging forward like a shadow. His dual swords flashed like silver lightning under Elias's light. Kael wasn't a fighter; he was a surgeon; each strike cut a throat, each turn targeted a goblin's heart. As he passed through the goblins, his swords spun like propellers, leaving lifeless green piles in his wake.

  Above, a deadly rhythm rose from the rock where Elias stood. Every time the bowstring was drawn and released, a "thwip" sound was heard, and seconds later, a goblin was pinned backward with an arrow embedded in its head.

  The area had turned into complete chaos. Ear-piercing goblin screams, the sound of flesh being cut, and the dull thuds of Torin's every blow mingled together. Kayra, in the midst of this wild chaos, didn't know what to do. For a moment, he was dazed. His mind seemed frozen in the face of such intense violence and speed. The Bot's voice echoed in his mind.

  [Kayra! Focus! Emotional fluctuation threshold exceeded; it's slowing you down. You're in the middle of a battle!]

  Kayra's fingers, as if acting outside his own will, wrapped around the strange, veined hilt of the dagger at his waist. As his fingertips touched the familiar cold metal, a shiver ran down his spine. The dagger didn't just feel like a piece of metal; it felt like a living thing, wanting to wake from sleep, its pulse slowly quickening.

  "Bot..." he called out in his mind, his voice no different from an internal scream. "Everywhere... blood. So much..."

  The Bot's voice echoed in his mind amidst the chaos.

  [Kayra, focus!]

  the bot said once more, this time its voice resonating in his mind like a clear command.

  Kayra gripped the dagger's hilt tighter. The rhythmic pulse emanating from beneath the metal was no longer just a feeling, but a dark whisper seeping directly into his soul. The moment he began slowly drawing the dagger from its sheath, a lightning bolt flashed in his mind. Kinesthetic Intuition was now giving an alarm, not against an external enemy, but against the very weapon in his hand.

  His mind went ice cold instantly. It was as if invisible chains coiled around his wrists, trying to pull his will downwards into that bottomless darkness. The dagger's veins had begun to glow blood-red, stimulated by the scent of goblin blood in the vicinity.

  The Bot's voice echoed like a command piercing this mental siege.

  [Kayra! Protect your will! The dagger is trying to use you as a vessel. Such intense loss of life energy and fresh blood spilled everywhere must have completely attracted it. It can't stop; it wants to hunt!]

  Kayra's pupils trembled. With every millimeter the dagger left its sheath, a wild, uncontrollable desire to kill flooded his mind. His fingers had turned deathly white.

  [Do not submit!] the Bot roared, its frequency pushing the limits of the system.

  [Don't let it become your master; you must be its master! If you lose control, that dagger will crave not just goblins' blood, but the blood of everyone in front of you. Focus and suppress it with your own will!]

  Kayra clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached. The dagger trembled in his hand like a living snake, imposing that dark hunger on Kayra's mind. Pushing aside the human fear within him, Kayra resisted this dark pressure with all his might.

  "No," he said, quickly pulling his hand away from the dagger.

  The moment he released the dagger's hilt, he thought his fingers would tear off. That ominous warmth seeping from the metal climbed up his veins like poison, striking another blow to the dark chamber in his mind with every pulse. The dagger wasn't struggling to leave its sheath; it was a wild animal thrashing to seize Kayra's soul.

  [Keep it up] the bot said.

  [Resist; don't succumb to its will.]

  As the Bot's voice echoed in his mind, the dagger, responding to the spilled goblin blood around, behaved like a wild animal. Kayra's vision blurred; the world took on a crimson hue. That uncontrollable urge to kill imposed by the dagger was knotted in his throat like a sob.

  Just then, a goblin appeared—one that had slipped through a tiny gap in the group's defensive line with the agility of a mouse, evading Torin's axe range. This creature was larger and much more aggressive than the others. Its skin had turned a dark green due to layers of dried blood. The yellow gleam in its eyes locked onto Kayra and Liora with pure hatred and hunger.

  The goblin leaped into the air with a guttural scream from its throat. Gripping its rough bone spear with both hands, it aimed for Liora with a descending strike, putting all its weight behind the spear's tip. When Liora noticed this approaching green horror, she couldn't even move. Her knees gave way; her eyes locked on the spear's tip as she awaited death.

  "NO!"

  The protective instinct within Kayra momentarily silenced the dagger's dark noise completely. His own will, like an electric current, activated every muscle simultaneously. With absolute control, Kayra hurled his trembling body—the same body that had been resisting the dagger—swiftly in front of Liora.

  The world slowed to a crawl in that second.

  Milliseconds before the spear's tip could touch Liora's delicate skin, Kayra reached out his hand. He caught the shaft of the spear mid-flight, just behind the sharp bone at its tip, gripping it like a claw. The rough, hard surface of the wood burned his palm like sandpaper, his wrist bending backward from the spear's force—but the spear stopped.

  At that very moment, a drop of poison oozing from the spear's sharp tip fell to the ground, passing just millimeters from Kayra's fingers. It sizzled where it landed, cauterizing the spot like acid.

  [Don't!] the Bot warned, its voice cracking in his mind like a whip.

  [Poisonous! The slightest trace will collapse your central nervous system in seconds. Throw it away immediately!]

  As Kayra reeled from the shock of the poison, the green creature before him clung to the weapon's shaft with wild ferocity. The goblin threw its whole body into pulling its weapon back, its claws scraping the wood frantically. Kayra gripped the spear with both hands like a vice to prevent the poison at its tip from touching Liora; but the goblin turned its short stature into a deadly advantage.

  The creature slammed its bony, blunt head violently into Kayra's ribs.

  CRACK.

  Agghhh

  A muffled moan escaped Kayra's lips. His old wounds from the grueling fight with the bear, not yet fully healed, flared up with a tremendous throb. He felt his cracked bones grinding against each other; his breath caught, as if thousands of needles were piercing his ribcage. The pain spread through his body like an electric wave, but he didn't loosen his grip. He clenched his teeth so hard his jaw began to tremble.

  The two were locked in a wild tug-of-war over the spear. As the goblin pulled the weapon towards itself, Kayra's pain-wracked arms applied uncontrolled force. At that moment, the spear slipped from both combatants' sweaty palms like a bar of soap, skittering away into the chaos, leaving both opponents defenseless.

  The goblin, without hesitation, lunged at Kayra like an animal. It tried to tear at Kayra's face with its sharp, yellowed claws. With a final reflex, Kayra caught the flailing claws in mid-air and clamped onto the creature's wrists.

  He felt the intense energy flowing through his veins. He pumped mana into his hands like a burning ember. Turning his pain into fuel, he twisted the goblin's wrists in the opposite direction with all his might.

  CRACK.

  The goblin's wrist bones broke with a dull sound like a dry twig snapping. The creature let out an ear-piercing, high-pitched scream of agony, spraying yellowish saliva from its mouth. Its eyes seemed ready to pop from their sockets from the pain; as it crumpled to its knees, it still made those disgusting animalistic sounds.

  At that moment, the goblin's snarl suddenly ceased.

  A spear, silently gliding from the darkness, struck the creature with great speed, entering through its back and bursting out through the center of its ribcage. That same poisonous spear which had slipped from their hands moments ago now extended from the goblin's chest like a bloody tongue. The saliva dripping from the creature's mouth gave way to a stream of dark blood; its body tensed for a moment, then went limp.

  Kayra lifted his head in astonishment and saw Liora before him.

  The young girl was clinging to the spear's shaft with both hands so tightly that her knuckles had turned deathly white. Her face was splattered with the goblin's blood, and the usual timidity in her eyes had been replaced by a fierce determination to survive. She was gasping for breath; her gaze darted between Kayra's hand clutching his ribs and the creature impaled on the spear.

  Without letting go of the spear, Liora looked at Kayra and whispered, "Are you okay?" Her voice trembled, but her hands on the spear were still as steady as a rock.

  The artificial sun hanging in the sky began to flicker, losing its white light piece by piece. The pitch-black darkness creeping from the depths of the forest gnawed at the edges of the light like a living entity. As the surroundings dimmed again, the yellow goblin eyes began to glow even more menacingly within the darkness.

  Elias, still drawing his bow on the rock, boomed down at them: "There's no end to these. Torin! This light won't last forever! Clear a path before the darkness falls!"

  Their numbers weren't decreasing. On the contrary, more were spewing from every shadow, every tree hollow in the forest. They were drowning in a green, bloody tide.

  Torin roared as he pushed back three goblins leaping at him with the shaft of his axe: "We're getting out of here! We'll cut our way through!" He turned his head slightly to the right and shouted to his dual-sword-wielding companion: "Kael! Cover Liora and Kayra!"

  Torin gripped his massive axe with both hands, planting his feet into the ground like tree roots. The wild gleam in his eyes flashed one last time under the dying light. "CLEAR THE PATH!" he bellowed, swinging his axe in a full circle with more terrifying force than ever before.

  This wasn't just a strike; it was a true hurricane. The axe's steel tore through the air with such force that the resulting whistle drowned out the goblins' shrieks. Everything within the axe's reach—goblin heads, green arms, shattered bodies, and bone weapons—began flying through the air like shreds of cloth. A bloody, open corridor had formed in front of Torin.

  "NOW!" Torin shouted. "RUN!"

  As Kael grabbed Liora's arm and pulled her to the center, the team plunged into that bloody corridor without a moment's hesitation. Kayra, despite the searing pain in his ribs, gritted his teeth and started running right beside Liora, deeper into the forest. Behind them, the darkness was rapidly closing in, ready to swallow them as Elias's light gasped its last breath.