Chapter 51: Double Kill

“Might as well get these while I’m at it,” he muttered as he walked inside the building. He didn’t rush in blindly. His pace was controlled, careful, crowbar held low at first so it didn’t clink against stone. The air changed as he crossed the threshold, staler, wetter, carrying the sour stink of mold and rot. Dust coated everything in a fine gray layer that puffed at his feet and clung to his shoes.

The whole structure was threatening to collapse on itself, beams were fractured and cracked. Above him, wood groaned faintly when the wind outside pushed against the building’s broken skeleton. Furniture was rotten, sofas were torn out with their innards spilled out covered in both dust and mold. Springs glinted like exposed ribs. Cloth hung in ragged strips. The floor was littered with broken glass and fragments of plaster, and every step demanded attention.

While a goblin lay drowning in blissful sleep, snorting a storm, careless of what was happening near it. The sound was disgusting, wet, rhythmic, too loud in the dead quiet.

The goblin was slumped awkwardly against debris, mouth partly open, its weapon nearby but not in hand. Its skin looked dull in the dim light, mottled, like something that belonged in the dark and resented being here.

Kael raised his crowbar in both hands as he approached the closest goblin. He adjusted his grip until it felt secure, palms tightening, wrists aligning. The crowbar wasn’t elegant, but it was familiar, and familiarity mattered when your hands were shaking. He has yet to see the second goblin, but from the minimap it felt like it was on the second floor.

The dot above the first was stationary, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t wake if he was sloppy.

He couldn’t use the hammer lest it cause too much ruckus. That thought was practical, immediate. Brokk’s Hammer might have been legendary, but legendary didn’t mean subtle nor was it a tool for killing, that was simply a tool for crafting. He already missed the Sledgehammer but that thing was gone and turned to dust when his small crafting hammer got jealous back in the Hall of Burdens.

Even if he did have it, he wouldn’t use it. It’s too heavy and too loud. A crowbar could be shoved, twisted, or used like a knife. Quiet mattered more than glory right now.

Once he was within striking range, Kael didn’t hesitate to dig the crowbar’s edge right into the goblin’s neck. The motion was fast and ugly. Not a clean stab like in movies, but a brutal shove that forced metal through flesh with resistance and a sickening give. The goblin’s eyes snapped open, but the surprise was too late; its body reacted with confused spasms instead of coordinated defense.

It snorted its last breath as it desperately tried to gasp for breath, waking to a steel bar shoved in its throat was both mortifying and deadly, and it could only thrash weakly for a few seconds before it died. Its claws scrabbled at the crowbar, nails scraping uselessly. Its legs kicked, knocking debris with dull thumps. The sound was muffled by the building’s ruin, but Kael still flinched internally at every movement, expecting the second goblin to react upstairs.

***

[You have slain a Goblin]

[You have obtained 1 Soul Core]

***

The soul core appeared immediately in Kael’s inventory, the system’s efficiency almost insulting in its calmness. One second, there was a life struggling on the floor, the next there was a neat reward tucked away as if the Tower had simply scanned a barcode. Kael didn’t let himself stare at the body. He didn’t have time for that, and he wasn’t interested in letting the rush of blood from the kill loosen his grip.

While the stench of goblin blood began to permeate the place. It spread fast, metallic and thick, cutting through mold and dust like a knife. Kael tasted it at the back of his throat, and the smell triggered memory immediately, first night, first kill, the way blood seemed to call goblins like a bell. His stomach tightened.

There was no time to waste, as Kael remembered how goblins could smell the blood of their own kin. He wasn’t about to repeat that mistake inside a building that could collapse on him.

Before the second Goblin would wake up, Kael hurried upward, climbing the stairs. Each step groaned under his weight, wood complaining as if it wanted to betray him. He kept his crowbar ready, body angled to keep balance if the stairs gave way. The air upstairs was slightly less moldy but more stale, like it hadn’t been disturbed in a long time.

Only to find the goblin’s eyes wide open, gazing at him with hostility. The red dot had lied. They didn’t show intent until it was too late. This goblin wasn’t asleep. It was awake and waiting, weapon in hand, posture tense. Its gaze locked onto Kael like it had been staring at the stairs the whole time, listening for exactly this.

Kael’s mind raced; an awake goblin was in front of him, and it carried its weapon. A crude-looking stone axe. The axe looked heavy and chipped, a rough tool meant to crack bone rather than slice. The goblin’s grip was steady, and its shoulders rolled as if preparing to throw or charge. Kael had a fraction of a second to decide whether to rush, retreat, or die.

“Presence!” Kael muttered, and immediately, his entire body felt like it was torn away from him. The word came out low and sharp, like a command he hated that he’d learned. It wasn’t a chant. It wasn’t magic in the way he’d imagined magic. It was activating a brand.

At first, the left side of his chest burned; it was the Rune of Presence that stigmatized itself like a tattoo on the right side of his chest, activating. The sensation was immediate and invasive, heat biting into skin as if the rune were a living thing pressing itself awake. His breath hitched as the burn spread outward in a pattern he couldn’t see but could feel in lines and angles.

His own senses dulled, his nose could no longer smell the stench of blood, nor could his eyes fully grasp light, and his sense of touch felt like it was lagging behind. It was like someone had wrapped the world in thick cloth. Sound dropped away. Color bled toward gray. The floor felt less real beneath his feet, as if there was a thin barrier between him and the ground that delayed feedback.

However, that was also applicable to the enemies within his own presence. He realized that with a grim kind of satisfaction as the goblin’s expression changed. The creature’s hostility didn’t vanish, but its certainty did.

The goblin that was ready to kill Kael seemed to get phased, it rubbed its eyes and began squinting them. Moving its head around as if it had seen something, but then soon lost sight of it.

Its grip tightened on the stone axe, but the axe didn’t rise in a clean attack. It hesitated. It sniffed the air with confusion, blinking hard, shoulders tensing in frustration like prey had been snatched away by an invisible hand.

It could no longer locate Kael, who simply rushed forward. Kael didn’t waste the advantage. He moved fast, closing the distance before the goblin’s instincts could recalibrate. The crowbar hit with a harsh, wet crunch that traveled up his arms piercing right through one of its yellow eye sockets and out the back of his skull. The goblin jerked once, a violent reflex, then slackened as its weapon dropped uselessly from its fingers.

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