A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 181: The Shadows - Part 6

The goblin was already quivering as Beam entered its periphery. Its lack of attention only boosted Beam's misdirection style, and in the goblin's eyes, he was a massive shadow, glaring from above, three times the size of a normal human.

It squealed in dismay, as its body fell to the floor. Beam did his best to keep it all in one piece.

As it fell, he grabbed it by the arm and flung it further into the clearing, where he would have a better chance of protecting it, as he looked to cut down the rest of the goblin's party.

A spear came at him from the side. It was much harder to see in the dark of the trees than it was in the clearing. Beam barely dodged it, but his reaction was too slow to raise his sword. Instead, he lashed out with a fist, hitting it square in the nose, not doing much damage, but managing to stun it all the same.

That was all the opening he needed, and with an increasing amount of desperation, he cut through it, knowing just how much speed was of the essence.

An anxiety was rising in Beam's stomach now, as he imagined all the monsters that were on the way towards him, and how slow he was. Any longer, and he was sure he'd be overwhelmed.

"I need to get faster," he said to himself, his brow furrowed as he bit his lip. He scanned the trees with anger in his eyes, attempting to locate the rest of the goblin's kin.

He felt them before he saw them. He turned his eyes in the direction of a particular smell. A scent that he hadn't ever smelt before. A scent that he'd later come to understand as fear.

Three horned goblins froze up as his eyes fell upon them in the dark. "Die," Beam murmured, rooting them in place and butchering the three of them together.
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As they fell to the floor, the forest went quiet once more. Beam strained his senses searching for any other signs of life, but he felt nothing. Confident that he'd managed to eliminate the entirety of the goblin party, he went to work throwing their corpses back into the centre of the clearing from amongst the trees.

As he went, he did the same thing with the other scraps of meat that the Konbreakers had tossed everywhere. Some he had to jump up into the trees to fetch. Others, in the dark, he completely missed.

But still, as the minutes wore on, Beam's work was proving to be effective, and nearly half of all the strewn-about meat was once again gathered in one place.

As Beam worked, he felt the hairs on his neck rising, as his body listened out for signs of approaching life.

He looked up more than once to glare at the trees, sure that something was there, but with the curtain of darkness cloaking everything, he couldn't be sure, and within a few moments, he would move on, hurriedly trying to complete this mission of his.

Soon, he'd got the worst of the meat from around the edges of the clearing, putting it once more into a protective pile that he could more comfortably protect. But, after learning from his earlier mistake with the Konbreakers, he realized that such a position still wasn't good enough.

As he attempted to shift the corpses back towards the cave, so that they could be sat on top of the Konbreakers, he began to eye up the trees for fire materials, deciding that it would be better to get a bonfire burning, so he could slowly get through the corpse. Else, come morning, he wouldn't be able to move for them.

He'd hesitated to do such a thing earlier, for fear that it would scare the monsters off. But now that he'd seen just how effective a pile of monster meat was for a lure, he didn't stop to think about it anymore. He knew that if he gave them even a little bit more leeway, he'd be overrun.

With such thoughts in his mind, a pack of Gorebeasts came swaggering through the trees.

Despite Beam standing there, with his hand on his sword, right by the pile of meat, it was as though the Gorebeasts were completely ignoring him. They hoped to and fro in excitement on that singular front leg of theirs, the muscles of it rippling as they danced.

One gave a squeak of excitement, as it yapped at the air. Another came through the trees after it, drawn by the noise. It too gave a burst of excitement upon seeing the pile.

The two sprinted towards it together, their jaws already wide open – which for a Gorebreaker, was wide indeed. With a near 180-degree opening, their jaws were more reminiscent of that of a snake than any other animal.

The fire of the Gorebeasts went to dive in, completely focused on the pile, as though completely intoxicated by it. Beam was easily able to sever its head as it ran past. The head dropped to the floor, as the animal squeaked in surprise, but then it simply started eating, as its head landed amongst the pile.

It wasn't able to actually process anything, but for those brief few seconds of fading life, the Gorebeast had never been happier.

It was only now that it had seen its friend killed right in front of it that the second Gorebeast noticed Beam. It began to growl. Its eyes flickering from Beam, to the pile, then back towards Beam again.

The rest of the pack came skulking through the trees afterwards, their eyes similarly on the pile. Only upon noticing their companion's growls did their gazes briefly turn towards Beam, as these assumed defensive postures, whilst moving towards the pile all the way.

Beam didn't have time to rest. As the Gorebeasts debated whether to simply run in and snatch the food or not, he was already running towards that which was closest to him. It managed to tear its eyes away from the pile for a brief second, enough time for it to put power through its front leg, sending it bounding to the side.