The first goblin charged right for me with little regard for the corpses surrounding me, or why a strange, somewhat translucent helmet was even here despite the fact that none of the farmers pushing them back earlier even wore any. Its obvious lack of cognitive function only made this that much easier for me. My body stretched and flattened as his scrawny hand rose high above in preparation for a deadly stab, rusty and chipped dagger held in reverse grip as its face was adorned with glee and a smile full of crooked and yellow teeth that wore fresh stains of blood all over.
My anger surged, and so did I, launching myself directly for the shoulder attached to his rising arm and wrapping my body around it as I melted its skin just as I had done earlier. Screams left its mouth, smile lost and an expression of undying rage and immense pain replacing it, its eyes shedding tears as it clawed for my body with its other hand, only to regret the decision immediately and pull it back two fingers short as my toxic body melted every inch I touched at a much more rapid pace than it had the hobgoblin before. The drastic difference would have confused me earlier, however, I now knew that this meant the difference in Will between the hobgoblin and regular goblins seemed quite severe.
The goblin soon fell dead from the wounds my contact caused it, hitting the floor with a thump, the other goblins surrounding me stopped at that, watching on in silence as I slowly moved off the corpse to reveal the gruesome wound my actions had caused. The goblins shoulder, as well the upper part of the arm and some of its side was partially dissolved, showing parts of the muscle and bone that were underneath, trying, and failing hopelessly to hold the pieces together. The impact of hitting the ground separated the lower arm from the rest of the body, having it flap around and roll to the feet of one of the other goblins, who raised his face filled with fear at being the next victim of the ghostly reaper I had become after suffering at their hands for my past several lives.
I myself shuddered at the sight, feeling guilty over causing such enormous amounts of pain to a being that might not have wanted to commit the acts it had committed. I knew from the Ogre that there were others like me, and I didn't know whether these goblins were natural beings from this world or other people like me who were given a bloodthirsty innate talent that changed them fundamentally, made them crave the violence they were causing and not even letting them realize how different from their former self they were. If they were other humans, the only difference between me and them would have been that I got the chance to make it right, whereas they would never get it. The thought of such a thing being possible made me sick to my nonexistent stomach, however, I did not have much time to wallow in self pity, as another round of reinforcements made their presence known, this time with another hobgoblin leading them. 'This could be bad…'
This hobgoblin was, just as the previous one, noticeably stronger than the others, slightly taller and covered in muscles that were slightly less prominent than his earlier compatriot. What was different was his weapon, rather than that weird dagger that could cut my very self in a way I could not yet grasp, he held a staff as long as he was tall, adorned with feathers and a human skull at its tip, with a dark violet vine wrapped along its length in a spiral fashion. I could feel the power emanating the staff as he raised it high above, barking orders at the other goblins and immediately restoring their bloodthirsty urges with just a few words. The goblins grabbed their daggers with newfound vigor, some of them also sporting old axes that seemed to have been used for foraging once upon a time.
The staff began glowing slightly, the shade of the vine turning a deeper violet and the skull's eye sockets adorning two small, equally violet flames, it screamed bad news no matter how I looked at it. One of the goblins was a bit more overzealous than the others, running from the surrounding circle directly towards me with its axe raised high and preparing a dangerous downward swing, as it did so, I noticed the flames in the skull getting more violent and growing in size, and I made a decision.
I flattened myself and jumped back from the goblin, instead of at it like I had done before, in doing so, I angle my leap in such a way that puts it directly in the line of fire for whatever the hobgoblin was charging up, hoping that he would not wound his own entourage just to get to me. This turned out to be wrong, however, as the axe-goblin between me and what I believed to be some kind of shaman exploded into a thousand pieces, covering me and each of the enemies in bloody pieces of goblin guts.
Even some of the goblins seemed stunned at that action, but the shaman seemed simply displeased that one of them got in the way of my total annihilation. 'I'm so totally royally fucked, aren't I?' My thoughts wanted to rush forth and distract me by explaining in detail how this would be a gruesome way to die over and over again, increasing my fear at that moment, however, I shut them down and decided to do something about it before those visions turned into reality.
Before they could catch their bearings, and before that shaman could have made toxic paste out of my blobby self, I leapt further to the back of the encirclement, as I was already closer to that area than any others. The goblins were still staring at their supposed leader, some of them seemingly contemplating whether to turn at him instead of me for the offense and obvious disregard of their lives, but my approach made them delay their rebellion. Axes and daggers were readied, the now smoking skull grew new flames in preparation of turning me into past tense as I leapt twice and narrowly passed through a gap between two goblins, resulting in one of them beheading the other in their attempt of slaying me. The body hit the floor at the same time as screams echoed from the opposite side of the battle, both human and goblin, followed by a loud horn being blown that appeared to overwhelm any other sound in the surroundings with its sheer intensity. Just as I impacted the ground and readied my next leap, the space left behind by the fallen goblin gave me the view of numerous flags flowing in the wind and rapidly approaching the mass of goblins I had gathered in this central village area.
"Kill every single one of these greenskins!"
"Show them what the Empire is made of!"
"For the Emperor!"
The last shout was repeated dozens of times by a large number of soldiers that showed no mercy to the goblins from what I saw in those brief moments. I myself was promptly ignored by the greenskins, as the newcomers called them, due to them presenting a much more dangerous challenge in their eyes. Another explosion echoed in the distance as I decided to make myself scarce, I had no doubt that anyone killing goblins in the name of the Emperor, whoever that was, wouldn't look kindly on a moving helmet.
Leap after leap took me out of the village, or whatever was left of it by that point, being mostly charcoal and half-burned planks that once housed numerous families in their walls. Screams still rang in the distance, mostly of goblins that kept dying in droves as the humans seemed to have this fully in control. Flying over the initial bush that led me to this village, the thoughts finally caught up to me, but I didn't feel safe to stop and contemplate just yet, so I kept on going. I passed tree after tree, bush after bush, coming into contact with more human and goblin corpses, but thankfully was spared of finding the mother or her child, this absence of bodies made me hope that they were still alive and made it out of the carnage one way or another, but I could not confirm as such at that point.
Another dozen trees passed revealed a small hole in the side of a hill, too small for a human or goblin to enter, but more than big enough for me to enter. I approached it, hoping to go over all the recent developments in my mind before moving on to god knows where. Doing so revealed that the surroundings of the hole were littered with flowers of all colors, strangely more prominent than the rest of the forest. Of course there were also a number of branches and fallen leaves, but the flowers were strange in a way. Not only were they more prominent than the other places I had seen so far, but their beauty was also pronounced in a way that attracted me towards them the longer I looked at their captivating petals. I stopped leaping and made my way towards them in the worm-like manner I had initially tried to move when coming into this body, soon remembering that I was still melting everything that touched me due to the grass giving up on life under me. 'Whoops!' I confined the toxicity spreading through me into my core once again, which was slightly harder than calling it out, but otherwise showed no issues. My dark green color grew slightly lighter at that, although I hadn't even noticed growing darker in the heat of battle earlier. I thought this was curious, but moved on for the moment.
As I approached the first flower, a red variant with petals facing outwards and heart shaped leaves decorating its stalk, I reached out with an appendage I created just for this purpose, expecting to pick the first flower of my new lives. 'Can I even smell flowers? I~I don't think I have that sense at all, although I only noticed that now that I am not actively dying.' The reality of that saddened me slightly, however, my appendage simply passing through the flower got my nerves on edge once again.
'Oh great…'