My reckless taunt had worked, maybe a bit more effectively than I had thought it would. The little green fuckers went into a complete frenzy when they saw me. The closest one threw itself at the window, glass shattering and leaving deep gashes on its body. Dark blue blood flowed from its wounds. The wounds looked fatal, but it's unwounded brethren were a more pressing concern. They jumped through the broken window like wild animals

The first ones quickly crashed against the barricade. They climbed it clumsily, all while biting and clawing at the air. When the first one finally ascended the barricade, it slipped when trying to stabilize itself. It fell from the top of the barricade with a wet thud on the ground. Undisturbed by his own lack of balance, it kept its beady eyes on me. Unluckily for him, it was the perfect opportunity for me to swing my sledge hammer.

I moved the head of the heavy tool over my shoulder and sent it crashing down with all my might. With a resounding boom the head of the creature was completely annihilated. Chunks of bone and blue flesh flying everywhere.

[You have slain a Plagued Goblin.]

A translucent hovering window appeared at the bottom of my vision. I immediately dismissed it. Another two of the fuckers were already over the barricade while more flooded in through the window. I dispatched the other two as quickly as possible. They were too clumsy for their own good, but their numbers were what made them dangerous. They kept climbing and I kept trying to bash their heads in.

The message kept popping up and I had to do my best to ignore it. I didn’t have time to dismiss each new one that popped up. Thankfully they didn't stack, and instead replaced the last one. It would be a real problem if my vision was flooded with messages.

They climbed over the barricade in growing numbers. Forced to retreat, I performed a wide sweep. I caught three of the little buggers. They smashed onto each other and tumbled towards a wall. I didn’t hesitate to make good use of the space created and backed away to the stairs. There wasn’t enough space to swing the sledgehammer sideways, so I had to resort to swinging it over my shoulder everytime. Thankfully, the first part of the skirmish had been a valuable lesson, revealing two important facts. First, their names. Second and more importantly, their heads were surprisingly soft. I didn't have to use all my might to crush it. That proved to be helpful. I don't know if I could swing for long if I had to use all my strength everytime.

I kept trying to bash their skulls, but often I would get a shoulder or miss. I even crushed a knee once, a horrible sight. They bumped into each other and climbed over their living and dead like they were nothing. Still, it seemed there was no end to them. By the time I ran out of stairs, I could still count a dozen or more of the fuckers coming at me. I kicked the closest one and it tumbled, taking every other green fucker down to the ground floor with it.

It wasn't enough to kill any of them, but it would buy me time. I didn't want to fight them in the open space of the rooftop. They were easy to kill, but their numbers were a real problem. I jogged to the fire ladder leading to the back of the building, which was a few meters from where I had emerged.

My arms were burning something fierce after all that swinging and without thinking much I let my weapon drop off the roof. There was no way for me to go down the rungs of that ladder while holding that thing. Hopefully it was sturdy enough to not break with the fall.

I turned and started to climb down, but as I was about to get my head under the roof line I saw them coming. As if they were more furious than before, they snarled and clicked  their jagged teeth, spittle flying everywhere. Disgusting little fuckers. I hurriedly descended the ladder and by the time I was halfway down something amazing happened.

Amazingly stupid.

They just jumped.

They fucking jumped off of the rooftop to get to the ground. Enthralled so deep in their frenzy, they couldn't even discern the obvious danger when it was right in front of them. Despite the pressure of the situation, I was flabbergasted. I stopped to admire as the remainder of the fuckers plunged to their deaths. Their soft skulls and brittle bones would break as they crashed on the ground at odd angles. Not all of them died instantly, most of them just crippled themselves, but that was enough. A few messages popped on the bottom of my sight

[You have slain a Plagued Goblin.]

[You have slain a Plagued Goblin.]

[You have slain a Plagued Goblin.]

[You have slain a Plagued Goblin.]

Interesting.

Coming down from the ladder, I looked at the broken bodies of the little horrors. A couple of them were even trying to crawl their way to me. Relentless fuckers. My arms were super tired after all that exertion, but when I looked at their disgusting skin and face I thought better than to use my knife to finish them off.

I made my way to the sledgehammer standing upright above a small deformation on the paved floor. Since the fuckers were already so debilitated, I chose to kill them only using the weight of the sledge hammer. I lifted the head a little above their heads and let gravity do the rest.

[You have slain a Plagued Goblin.]

[You have slain a Plagued Goblin.]

...

[You have slain a Plagued Goblin.]

I had to do it twice on one of them. Nasty shit. Blood leaked through the ears and one of his eyes popped out, but the fucking thing kept snarling at me, so I did it again. With a nice pop, his skull cracked open and their pointless brain matter splattered on the ground.

Feeling exhausted, I let my back slide on the wall of the building and sat down. Despite being a few steps away from the corpses, the foul smell still assaulted me whenever I inhaled.. Suddenly, I heard a faint snarl followed by a wet thud.

[You have slain a Plagued Goblin.]

‘What…’

I turned to my left only to see a fresh goblin corpse properly smashed against the pavement floor. Taking a better look I saw that half of its right leg was gone.

“It's the knee fucker!” I exclaimed, utterly shocked at their suicidal tendencies. 

When the adrenaline finally subsided, and I stared at the dead creatures lying a few meters away, it finally dawned on me what had happened. A strong impulse from my stomach made me double over and retch. It was only water and stomach acid. It tasted horrible. After spitting some more bile for good measure, I felt like it was finally over. I don't know how my mind was taking all of this, I didn't feel particularly any different at the moment. But if my body was any sign of it, the outlook wasn't good.

The red hue from the dome still washed over everything. The ominous pyramid and its powerful red beam painting the sky blood red. This was probably not over yet. I started worrying about Mrs Aya again. Now that I wasn't fighting for my life anymore, I had the luxury to do so. I decided to make my way to the auditorium.

I couldn't hear the creatures anymore. It was eerily quiet. Moving through the alleyway I peeked onto the road. Nothing. I made my way out of my poor hiding place and in front of the building when the sound of breaking glass and the faint snarl caught my attention.

I moved to the window where the suicidal fucker had jumped through to get me and saw the first of the fuckers lying in the pool of its own blood. He was almost dead, bleeding out profusely, but still trying to get to me. His claw outstretched in my direction. I obviously didn't feel any measure of empathy towards it, even though it looked quite pitiful. But if the system is like a game, and it is looking more and more like one, then probably there is some reward at the end of this. Killing more of these fuckers is likely to get me more of whatever the system plans to give us.

I raised my sledgehammer and let it fall on the head of the little green horror. Realizing how filthy my weapon had become, I dragged the hammer's head across its loincloth. I at least got to try and clean some of the flesh and blood stuck in it. Fucking disgusting.

I left the building and started making my way to the auditorium. I walked on the edge of the road while attempting to conceal myself as much as possible. The goblins had been quite loud since this started, so I tried to listen for any sign of them..

After moving a couple of blocks in silence, I finally started to pick up some noise coming from the direction of the auditorium. The same snarling, high pitched screams and shuffling of feet as before, but much lower in volume now. I neared a corner that gave way to the street in front of the auditorium. The sounds were a bit louder now, but nothing like they had been when that horde passed by my location. I hesitated for a moment. No point in coming here if I won't at least look at what is happening. I steeled myself and took a peek.

A few dozen of the little green fuckers ran inside the auditorium building. There were bodies everywhere. The majority were dead goblins, but there were some humans on the ground. No one I recognized, but it's not like I knew a lot of people here. The human bodies were close to the entrance, while the dead buggers were pretty much everywhere.

I kept scanning the battleground until I finally spotted something concerning. Standing two heads above any of the other little blighters, a bulky slab of green flesh stood with a massive wooden club. That club was probably the size of my sledge hammer, but much thicker. Different from the others, this one had no boils or other ailments on it's skin. He looked surprisingly healthy, and powerful. He stood a considerable distance from the entrance while gazing at it. Reluctantly, I had to admit, there was a tinge of intelligence in those beady eyes. There was fury, plenty of it, but enough intelligence to restrain its blind charge.

The sounds of battle were faint, I could barely hear them. They were probably deep into the auditorium by now, and this creature was likely waiting for the perfect opportunity to rush in and make the most out of the tired people inside. Caught in my indecision, I waited too long and the creature finally decided it was time to move in.

At the moment I don't know if it was greed, plain stupidity or the revolting sight of the creature grabbing the dismembered arm of a human and munching on it like a snack that made me do it. But I moved out into the open and, with a resounding thud of my sledgehammer against the pavement, I silently challenged the creature.

Its hateful beady eyes swiveled at the sound and a sneer quickly formed on its repulsive lips as it caught sight of me. He spit the arm from its mouth like a cheap piece of meat. Grabbing his club with both hands he didn't hesitate before charging at me, glad to take up my challenge. Screaming his battle cry he came at me swinging his club wildly.

The green bugger was bigger than the others, but his reach was still shorter than mine. With a quick step back I avoided his wild swing. I stepped to my right and let him pass before swinging the hammer at his side. He didn't react in time and the blow sent him skidding. I could see a bruise rapidly forming on the skin of its left shoulder, but otherwise he was fine.

Even if a sideways swing doesn't carry as much power as an overhead one, it was still enough to crack the bones of an adult male. Was this thing tougher than an adult man? I shouldn't be surprised, he did look powerful, but after how weak the small ones were I wasn't expecting him to be so strong. He was really a few cuts above those little shits.

The pain of my blow must have snapped the thin veil of intelligence holding back his fury, for he came at me with rage. I did my best to avoid his wild swings, but a glancing blow caught me on my thigh. Adrenaline allowed me to keep going, but I knew I was hurt.

I avoided wasting my energy with another sideway swing, but it was hard to find an opening for an overhead blow when I had to keep dodging his relentless attack. This bloody green murder machine was unstoppable. He would have short breaks to catch his breath but would soon resume. I am afraid I might tire before him, despite just dodging. Pressed into the theoretical corner, I started to think of other ways to deal with him.

I discarded numerous options before settling on the least crazy of my ideas. It was utterly insane, but it was better than slowly losing to my own fatigue. When he stopped to catch his breath I suddenly threw my sledgehammer at him in a wide arc. He was caught completely unprepared and fumbled trying to block the flying hammer. While he waved his weapon and his free hand trying to recover his balance I was already in front of him, knife out.

I stabbed him in the shoulder. The knife didn't go as deep as I wanted it to. His skin was tougher than I expected. But that was fine. While he was distracted by the pain from his wounded shoulder, I moved to his back and did something I never thought I would do against a creature like this. I put one of my arms under his chin, while the other boxed in his head between my biceps. The hand of the arm across its neck grabbed the inner joint of my elbow, while I locked my elbow with my hand inside. The hand of the locked elbow pushed his head towards my forearm on his neck. When the lock was done I pulled with all my might, lifting the green blighter out of the floor.

He kicked the air and his hands moved chaotically grasping at nothing. To make sure he wouldn’t be able to escape I dropped him straight on the ground, my body weight over his. My arms hurt as we hit the ground hard, but I endured. He smelled as bad as I had imagined. Like rotten meat mixed with a year worth of dry sweat. I endured.

With my knees on top of the back of his thighs and my pull stretching his back there wasn't much he could do to escape. He might be smarter than the other Goblins, but he was still dumb as a rock compared to humans. He scratched at my arms, his claws trying to dig into my flesh, but the jacket held surprisingly well against his assault.

It took quite some time before he finally showed signs of slowing down. How much stamina did this fucking creature have? I don't know how long it was before he finally stopped moving, but it was an unreasonable amount of time. At some point I thought he would be able to survive longer than I could keep squeezing him. My arms hurt a lot, my hands were already numb, but I kept squeezing him under the lock for a good extra time. My arms hit their limit before the system informed me of the creature’s death. I had to let go.

I scrambled to my feet as fast as my tired body allowed me and made my way to my sledgehammer laying on the ground. I'm not sure if it was my stressed mind playing tricks on me. Still, I swear that in the few seconds it took me to grab the sledgehammer and position myself to swing it, the tough bugger was already twitching, as if about to wake up. I didn't waste any time, and with a grunt of pain I raised the sledgehammer overhead and let it crash down with all the strength I could muster. It exploded the head of the twitchy green horror. I let go of the sledgehammer as the system messages started to come in.

[You have slain a Fledgling Warrior Goblin.]

[You have leveled up.]

[The first wave has been cleared.]

[Participants will be rewarded according to their contribution.]

[The contribution ranking is:

Leo - 60 Points

John - 49 Points

Sarah - 35 Points

Takeshi - 33 Points

Somchai - 27 Points]

[You have been awarded 60 points.]

[You have been awarded one free stat point for being the highest contributor.]

As the system flooded me with information, I flopped to the ground, exhausted. Looking at the sky I could see that the red was slowly fading from the dome and the pyramid no longer emitted the ominous red beam.As curious as I was to understand the implications of the system's messages and the events of today, I was too tired to think right now.

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