Six days.
That's how long it took Don to reduce a camp of five hundred goblins to rubble and corpses.
Not through a single glorious battle. Not through some dramatic confrontation that would make for good stories around campfires.
Through patient, methodical, systematic extermination.
The first two days were learning. Studying patrol patterns. Understanding sleep schedules. Identifying the shamans' routines and the warriors' guard rotations. Don moved through the forest like a shadow, killing stragglers, ambushing patrols, dragging bodies deep into the undergrowth where they wouldn't be found until the smell gave them away.
And eating.
Always eating.
The taste never got better. The act never stopped being fundamentally wrong on some primal level that even his Severed Emotions couldn't completely suppress. But the results made it worthwhile. Every goblin consumed added five points to his physical stats—strength, agility, vitality, dexterity, stamina all improving with each meal. Every warrior gave him the same gains. Every shaman he managed to kill and devour—three of them over the week—added precious mental stat points.
Until the tenth.
After the tenth common goblin, his body stopped responding. No more strength gains. No more speed improvements. His Learning and Adaptation skill had fully extracted everything a common goblin's flesh could offer. The same happened with warriors—ten consumed, then diminishing returns until eating them provided nothing but sustenance.
The system was elegant in its limitation. Learn completely from a source, then move on to new challenges. No infinite power from farming weak enemies.
His body transformed regardless. Muscles became denser without becoming bulky. Reflexes sharpened to the point where he could track individual raindrops falling through the crimson twilight. His night vision turned the perpetual dusk into something as clear as day. His enhanced smell let him track goblins through the forest from hundreds of meters away.
By day three, the camp knew something was wrong. Patrols stopped returning. Bodies started appearing—when Don bothered to leave them visible as warnings. The shamans performed rituals, casting detection spells that Don simply avoided through superior positioning and his black energy that didn't register to their crude magic.
By day four, the camp population had been cut in half. Two hundred fifty goblins dead. The useful ones consumed—ten commons, ten warriors, three shamans. The rest left to rot where they fell. Don no longer needed their flesh for power. Only their deaths for experience.
And on that fourth day, as the one hundred fiftieth goblin fell to his blade, the System spoke.
[QUEST COMPLETED: KILL 150 GOBLINS]
[ANALYZING PERFORMANCE…]
[KILLS: 150/150]
[EFFICIENCY: EXCEPTIONAL]
[METHOD: SYSTEMATIC EXTERMINATION]
[TIME: 4 DAYS, 8 HOURS]
[CALCULATING REWARD…]
The notifications paused. Don stood in the forest darkness, blood dripping from his sword, another patrol of five lying dead at his feet. Then—
╔═══════════════════════════╗
TITLE ACQUIRED
╚═══════════════════════════╝
Title: Greenskin Hunter
Description: Through 150 kills, you have mastered the art of goblin extermination. You know their weaknesses, predict their movements, and exploit every gap in their defenses.
Effects:
- Analyze skill reveals ALL Goblin weaknesses (free)
- +25% damage to Goblin weak points
- Goblin ambushes detected automatically
- Immune to Goblin fear/intimidation effects
"Study your prey. Learn their fears.
Become what haunts their dreams."
╚═══════════════════════════╝
[TITLE EQUIPPED AUTOMATICALLY]
Don felt the change immediately. Knowledge flooded his mind—not learned, but KNOWN. Every goblin weakness. Every vulnerable point. Every pattern they followed. It was as if he'd spent a lifetime studying them and the System had simply compressed that expertise into a single moment of perfect understanding.
His yellow eye burned brighter.
[Oh my. THAT'S interesting.]
Madness's voice carried genuine surprise.
[A title that makes you the PERFECT goblin killer. How delightfully SPECIFIC. The System really does reward specialization, doesn't it?]
Don tested the new knowledge, his mind automatically cataloging everything about the corpses around him. He could see their weaknesses now—not just analyze them with his skill, but KNOW them instinctively. Where their bones were thinnest. Where their organs clustered. How their muscles connected. The optimal angles for killing strikes.
"Useful," he said simply.
[Useful? Little seed, that's PERFECT for what you're about to do.]
Don looked toward the camp in the distance. Two hundred fifty goblins left. The title would make killing them even more efficient.
Good.
The goblins huddled closer together after day four. Stopped sending out patrols entirely. Posted triple guards. Burned fires high and bright, as if light would protect them from what stalked the darkness.
It didn't.
Don continued hunting—not for stats anymore, but for experience and the simple necessity of eliminating threats. The title made every kill easier. His blade found weaknesses automatically. His movements exploited blind spots he hadn't consciously known existed. The goblins became less like enemies and more like problems to be solved with mechanical efficiency.
By day six, he'd killed another ninety-two. Three hundred forty-two total. The camp leader had finally emerged on day five, rallying the remaining goblins, organizing the defense, casting detection spells that actually came close to finding Don once or twice.
Don had reached Level 8 by day six. The experience from over three hundred kills had pushed him far beyond where he'd started. His stats were approaching numbers that shouldn't be possible for someone at his level and stage—but his Supreme Foundation, the systematic devouring of his enemies, and three levels worth of natural growth had turned him into something that broke normal progression rules.
[You know what you've become, don't you, little seed?]
Madness's voice carried something like satisfaction as Don crouched in the darkness on the sixth night, watching the depleted camp huddle behind hastily constructed barricades.
[A MONSTER. Not in the sense that you're EVIL—evil implies choice, emotion, CARE about what you're doing. No. You've become a FORCE. An inevitable thing. Death with a face and a blade.]
Don didn't respond. He was checking his status one final time before the assault.
Level: 8
Experience: 2847/3000
Stage: 1 - Iron Will (Level 2/6)
Title: Greenskin Hunter
Strength: 93
Agility: 95
Vitality: 85
Dexterity: 85
Stamina: 87
Wisdom: 86
Magic Power: 83
Intelligence: 83
Mana: 3320/3320
Stamina: 87/87
Health: 10/-
Madness: 17%
Quest Progress: 342/150 Goblins (COMPLETED)
Skills: All Level 8
Sub-Skills:
- Emotion Suppression (Duration: 11 minutes, Cost: 81 Mana)
- Hardened Skin (16% passive damage reduction)
- Soul Library (3 books absorbed)
- Analyze (Cost: 9 Mana - FREE against Goblins)
- Primal Weapon Crafting
- Telekinesis (Cost: 18 Mana/second)
Masteries: All Adept
Devoured Traits:
- Night Vision (Common)
- Enhanced Smell (Common)
- Poison Resistance (Common)
- Battle Instinct (Common)
- Basic Dark Mana Sense (Common)