Three hundred forty-two goblins dead. One hundred fifty-eight remaining in the camp. And now—as the sixth night bled into what passed for dawn in this cursed realm—he'd finish what he started.
The camp leader had organized the survivors into a defensive position around the central tent. A Stage 1 goblin, Iron Will cultivation, probably level 4 or 5 of the stage. Taller than the others at nearly two meters, wearing actual armor—leather and bone reinforced with scavenged metal plates. Carried a massive war axe that glowed with a faint red aura.
His manifestation—War Drums—pounded constantly now, a desperate rhythm trying to keep his remaining forces brave in the face of extinction.
Don's new title immediately revealed weaknesses he couldn't have known before. The leader's left knee—an old injury that never healed properly. A blind spot on his right side. The way his manifestation required concentration, making him vulnerable during sustained use.
[So. Tonight's the night?]
"Now," Don corrected quietly, his voice empty of everything except cold certainty. "Dawn is coming. They'll be tired from staying awake all night. Guards will be at their weakest. Perfect timing."
[All of them? The remaining hundred fifty-eight? The children? The leader?]
"All of them."
[And you feel… what, exactly? About slaughtering an entire camp?]
Don considered the question honestly. His Iron Will's passive effect kept most emotions at bay, but even without it, he suspected his answer would be the same.
"Nothing," he said finally. "They're obstacles. Resources. Experience points. The Abyss made the rules clear—there are no allies here. Only enemies and corpses."
A pause.
Then he added, almost as an afterthought: "And they would do the same to me without hesitation. Probably eat me too. At least I have the excuse of needing their strength to survive."
[There's the little seed I've been WAITING for.]
Madness's grin was audible in his tone.
[Not pretending anymore. Not justifying. Just cold, perfect EFFICIENCY. You're ready, little seed. Ready to become something MAGNIFICENT.]
Don stood slowly, The Executioner's Edge manifesting behind his right shoulder—two meters of guillotine blade that had been with him through every kill, every meal, every step of his transformation from frightened child to apex predator. The blade had evolved with him, the crimson veins pulsing brighter now, the steel darker, as if it too had fed on the blood of his enemies.
He checked his equipment one final time. Diana's sword at his hip. Her armor fitted perfectly to his transformed body. Two stamina potions remaining—he'd used the mana potions days ago when his pool was smaller and easier to deplete. Now his mana regenerated faster than he could spend it in short engagements.
Below, the goblin camp huddled in fear behind their pathetic barricades. Fires burning low as fuel ran short. Guards slumped at their posts, exhausted from days of paranoid vigilance. The shamans were all dead—Don had made sure of that over the past week.
They were broken. Terrified. Defeated.
They just didn't know they were already dead.
Don activated Emotion Suppression.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: EMOTION SUPPRESSION]
[DURATION: 11 MINUTES]
[MANA COST: 81]
[CURRENT MANA: 3239/3320]
The last traces of hesitation vanished. The faint echo of conscience that whispered this was wrong—silenced. What remained was pure tactical analysis, perfect clarity, absolute focus.
The Executioner's Edge pulsed once, as if approving.
Don stepped forward, moving down the slope toward the camp with the silent grace of a hunting cat.
Dawn was coming to the Veiled Shadowfen.
And with it, extinction.
-----
The first guard died without ever knowing Don was there.
The blade—Diana's sword, not his manifestation, no need to waste mana yet—slid between the gaps in poorly fitted armor and found the heart with surgical precision. His Greenskin Hunter title highlighted the exact point to strike, the exact angle that would kill instantly and silently.
Don caught the body before it fell, lowering it silently to the ground behind a stack of supply crates.
The second guard turned at some instinctive warning, mouth opening to shout—
Don's hand clamped over its face, muffling the sound. His other hand drove the blade up through the jaw into the brain—another weakness revealed by his title. Quick. Efficient. Silent.
Two down.
The camp was arranged in rough circles—outer ring of sleeping commons in crude tents and lean-tos, middle ring of better-constructed huts for warriors and their families, inner ring where the leader's tent stood surrounded by the last defenders.
Don moved through the outer ring like death itself.
Sleeping goblins died in their bedrolls, throats opened so quickly they drowned in their own blood before they could scream.
His title showed him exactly where to cut—the jugular on the left side where it was most exposed, the carotid that pulsed just beneath green skin. Children died beside their parents—Don's blade making no distinction between age or innocence. There were no innocents in the Abyss. Only enemies who hadn't tried to kill him yet.
Ten goblins. Twenty. Thirty.
His Agility of 95 let him move faster than their half-awake minds could process. His enhanced night vision turned the dim firelight into perfect clarity. His Hardened Skin meant the few wild swings that actually connected—panicked strikes from goblins waking to find death in their midst—barely scratched him through Diana's armor.
Forty goblins. Fifty.
The Experience notifications flowed past his awareness like water, acknowledged but not consciously processed. He was in the zone now, that perfect state where thought and action merged, where his body moved with mechanical precision through forms his Adept Combat Arts mastery had burned into muscle memory.
And his title made every single kill trivially easy. Weaknesses highlighted in his vision. Optimal strike paths illuminated. Blind spots revealed. It was less like fighting and more like solving a puzzle where every piece fit perfectly.
Sixty goblins. Seventy.
And then someone screamed.
A goblin warrior, better trained than the others, had woken fast enough to see Don kill three commons in the space of two heartbeats. The warrior's voice cut through the camp like a knife—a guttural roar in their harsh language, words Don couldn't understand but the meaning was clear:
Danger. Intruder. Death.
The camp exploded into chaos.
Goblins poured from tents and huts like disturbed insects. Warriors grabbed weapons. The war drums that had been a background rhythm suddenly BOOMED to life with frantic intensity, the sound physically painful, reverberating through Don's chest like a second heartbeat trying to drown out his own.
[HOSTILE MANIFESTATION DETECTED: WAR DRUMS]
[EFFECT: ENEMY MORALE BOOST, ALLY CONCENTRATION DISRUPTION]
[RESIST WITH IRON WILL? Y/N]
Yes.
[RESISTANCE SUCCESSFUL]
[SEVERED EMOTIONS PASSIVE + IRON WILL ACTIVE = COMPLETE IMMUNITY]
The drums pounded. The rhythm tried to shake his focus, disrupt his timing, make him hesitate.
It failed.
Don's Iron Will cut through the manifestation's influence like his blade cut through flesh—completely, effortlessly, inevitably.
A goblin warrior charged him, axe raised high, screaming something in their guttural language.
His title showed him three ways to kill it instantly. Don chose the fastest—sword through the throat, severing the spine.
[+40 XP]
Three more warriors rushed him from different angles, trying to surround him.
Don activated Telekinesis.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: TELEKINESIS]
[COST: 18 MANA/SECOND]
A broken spear shaft flew from the ground and embedded itself in one warrior's eye—the title had shown him that was its weak spot, old injury that never healed. A cooking pot smashed into another's face, targeting the fragile cheekbone his title revealed. The third warrior stumbled as Don telekinetically yanked its feet out from under it—his sword ended its confusion with a strike to the heart.
[+40 XP] × 3
More were coming. Dozens of them. The entire camp now fully awake and aware, converging on his position with the mindless fury of cornered animals.
Good.
Let them come.
Don deactivated Telekinesis and manifested The Executioner's Edge into its full physical form.
[IRON WILL ABILITY ACTIVATED: WILL MANIFEST]
[COST: 10 MANA/SECOND]
[CURRENT MANA: 3077/3320]
The guillotine blade materialized fully behind his right shoulder, two meters of impossible sharpness that hummed with barely contained violence. Unlike his sword, the Edge didn't just cut—it SEVERED. Existence itself seemed to part around it, reality flinching away from something that shouldn't be.
Twenty goblins rushed him in a wave.
The Executioner's Edge moved.
It was beautiful in the way an avalanche is beautiful—terrible, unstoppable, mesmerizing in its totality. The blade moved independently of Don's body, guided by his will but freed from the limitations of his arms' reach. It spun and whirled and struck with the precision of a surgeon and the force of a falling mountain.
And with his Greenskin Hunter title, every strike hit a weak point. Twenty-five percent more damage to vulnerabilities meant goblins died in single hits that should have only wounded. Heads separated from bodies. Arms fell to the ground still clutching weapons. A goblin warrior raised its shield—the Edge passed through a structural weakness in the metal his title revealed and took the warrior apart in a spray of green blood.
[+20 XP] × 15
[+40 XP] × 5
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL 8 → LEVEL 9]
[ALL STATS INCREASED]
[PHYSICAL STATS: +10 EACH]
[MENTAL STATS: +15 EACH]
[FREE POINTS: +5]
The power surge hit Don mid-combat. His already enhanced body suddenly felt BETTER—faster, stronger, more durable. His mana pool expanded. His mind processed threats with even greater clarity.
He didn't slow down. Didn't pause to allocate points or review changes. Just kept killing, the notifications a background hum beneath the sound of screams and the BOOM BOOM BOOM of war drums that couldn't touch him.
More warriors charged. Don's sword and the Edge worked in perfect synchronization—one blade defending, one blade attacking, both guided by perfect knowledge of goblin anatomy and weakness.
A child goblin—no more than a meter tall—ran at him with a crude knife, yellow eyes filled with fear but charging anyway.
Don's blade took its head off without hesitation.
[+20 XP]
[You didn't even FLINCH.]
Madness's voice carried something like awe.
[A CHILD. Barely more than an infant. And you killed it like swatting a fly. No hesitation. No remorse. Just EFFICIENCY.]
Don didn't respond. There was nothing to say. The child was a goblin. Goblins were enemies. Enemies died. The logic was simple, clean, undeniable.
His Emotion Suppression was still active. Four minutes remaining. More than enough.
The remaining goblins were breaking now. The initial fury had met immovable opposition and shattered.
They scattered, running toward the center of camp, toward their leader, desperate for protection.