Alien Evolution System

Chapter 158 - Another Duel

Thragg turned down his aura of flames and stepped up to the Snowmound. He raised one of his webbed hands up to gesture for the fifteen goblins behind him to stay behind him.

"Thragg, do you intend to use the Sovnar's voice to bend them to us? Or will you duel their champion?" said the elder.

"I will do what I must," said Thragg. "But I know how our kind is. We respond best to force. I will put fear in them, then soon that fear will turn to loyalty."

"Ah, to think that we are now the ones to conquer the Frostfish tribe," said the elder. He tugged at his long, icy beard as he looked into the distance at the Snowmound. "When before, when we were simpler and smaller, the Frostfish goblins were the ones that drove us away.

Taking lake Aska and the fish for themselves, leaving us to scavenge in the cold wastes with only this Snowmound as our refuge."

"They took our Snowmound too," said one of the champions. "We take it back."

"Remember one of them. Made my ear hurt and bleed. Now I never hear from it," said another.

The Frostskull tribe and the Frostfish tribe had a conflict ridden history, and Thragg knew it well. Unlike Thokk, Thragg had lived enough years to know the various goblin tribes, and the Frostskulls were not even close to the strongest.

Not that power mattered much now. Thragg was confident in that regard he alone could defeat the entire Frostfish tribe with utter ease.

But in an environment where might made right, it was a simple fact of life that the other goblin tribes had long forced the Frostskulls to the fringe.

When the goblin lord had called, the Frostskulls were the only tribe to join because they were simply desperate to expand out, for in time, they would dwindle and waste away after being driven away from the lake and more temperate, prey-laden areas.

Yet past conflict could not color this conquest.

"We must put aside our pasts," said Thragg. "All of us are more evolved and stronger than we ever were. The life we had is one we no longer live now. What happened then is beneath us.

And when we take in the Frost tribes, they will become our own. We must tolerate them."

The champions grunted in understanding, and Thragg took this as a sign to advance forwards.

When Thragg reached close enough to the Snowmound, hobgoblin scouts around it spotted him and pointed at him, leaping up and down and shouting.

"Monster! Monster!" shouted the hobgoblins, and soon, a whole host of them piled out of the Snowmound's entrance.

Thragg beheld the Frostfish goblins. They had large barrel chests and blocky stomachs meant for holding in deep breaths, for they had adapted to swimming into the depths of lake Aska for food. They also had the ability to take in great breaths and unleash them in concussive, mana charged blasts.

There were fifty Frostfish goblins in total that swarmed out. Many of them had roughly carved Everfrost weapons in their hand, likely from Everfrost shards that broke off from underwater caverns in the lake and floated to the top.

There were probably a hundred fifty more in lake Aska, with these goblins simply being a hunting party.

"I am no monster. I am one of you," said Thragg as he spoke in their tongue. "You are hunting, no? Instead of fishing. That means you are seeking red meat to honor a new champion."

The hobgoblins tentatively looked at Thragg, knowing his power, and fearful of the new form the Sovnar had granted him. They gazed at his thickly muscled, yellow striped eel tail, at the golden fins lining his back and limbs, and the fiery red frilled tendrils that hung down from his back.

"What tribe you from?" said a larger goblin as he shifted forward to the head of the crowd. A champion, judging by his size, and wielding a club of Everfrost almost as large as he was. 

"I am from the Frostskulls," said Thragg.

A laugh rose among the fifty hobgoblins.

"Frostskull? Your tribe supposed to be dead! We kicked you out of lake and then you all disappeared! Thought monster ate you. What you want now, huh? Food? We don't give it," said the champion, grinning with his tusks out.

The champion narrowed his yellow eyes and stared at Thragg, then at the fourteen champions and elder behind him.

The champion's attitude became much more somber. Serious. He understood that they were vastly outmatched.

"What happen to you? You have four arms. So many champions. Did the lord do this?" said the champion.

"We do not want food, Thur" said Thragg, remembering this champion's name. "And no lord did this. It was the greatness of the Sovnar that ascended us."

"…Sovnar?" said Thur with confusion.

"You will come to understand." Thragg took another step forwards, and the hobgoblin crowd tensed up, raising their weapons. "I am here to take the Frostfish tribe into our own. We can do it the traditional way, with us slaughtering most of your tribe and forcing the rest in, or we can make it much easier, with all of you willingly coming with us.

I can guarantee that we will treat you well, for that is the Sovnar's will."

Thragg had been vested with some of the Sovnar's voice, but it was not so strong that he could bend them all to his will with a mere word. He required them to willingly submit to him first before his voice could truly reach them.

"You will take this tribe from me only if you kill me," said Thur. "And we have two more champions. We can fight."

"Three champions against fourteen?" Thragg shook his head. "You are not that stupid, are you? The math does not work toward your favor."

"Don't matter. My tribe." Thur said this simply, willing to die before he gave up his power.

"Bring forth your elder. He will recognize my form, and he will know that I bring to you greatness akin to the Old Age," said Thragg.

"No elder. I killed him," said Thur. "

"What?" Thragg's deep blue eyes narrowed.

"Elder was tiny and weak. Why keep him around? Useless. So I killed him. We have lake, anyway, and with lake, we don't need elder to tell us where to go. What to do."

"Your elder was the only one among you who knew anything beyond the miserable lives you led," said Thragg. "So many memories and stories just lost like that. All because of one stupid champion that believes himself lord of a little lake."

Thragg shook his head and stepped up. "Come on, then, Thur. Fight me. Show me the strength you believe gave you the right to kill your elder."

Thur hesitated, obviously knowing that Thragg would obliterate him, but his tribe was behind him, and his pride and power was at stake.

"Fight me!" roared Thragg as his magical energy explosively radiated out in yellow streaks.

Thur gripped his club tight and charged with a growl. His muscular body trudged bulldozed through the snow as he leaped into the air, ready to slam the club down on Thragg's head.

Thragg raised one of his arms up and caught the club in his palm. The club strike was true and made with the entirety of Thur's might, but it might as well have been as effective as a summer breeze.

Thragg jerked his arm to the side, easily overpowering Thur and tearing the club off of his grip.

Thragg tossed the club away and stood right in front of Thur, looking down at the champion with nothing but disappointment.

"Concede your tribe," said Thragg. "They are wasted under your command. They have the potential to be so much more, but your simple-minded foolishness-,"

Thur punched Thragg in the face while he was talking, but the full force punch only made Thragg's head tilt back a few centimeters at best.

In response, Thragg slammed a palm into Thur, sending the champion skidding a dozen meters through the snow, groaning painfully.

"Get up," said Thragg as he walked up to Thur. Every step Thragg took, the hobgoblins of the Frostfish tribe stepped back in fear and awe.

Thragg looked down at Thur's pain-wracked body as the champion sucked in deep breaths, recovering the air that had been squarely knocked out of him from Thragg's casual blow. 

"Get up," said Thragg.

Thur managed to get on to a knee, then raise himself up with shaky motions. The moment the champion got onto two feet, Thragg slammed a palm into him again, sending him flying once more, this time into a group of hobgoblins.

Thur's great weight and size sent the hobgoblins he crashed into falling, and the hobgoblins shrieked as they scrambled away from Thragg's advance. Thur coughed as he lay limp on the snow, multiple ribs shattered by now with all the fight solidly beaten out of him.

Thragg stood over Thur again. "So this is it? This is your power? Your strength? This is what you were proud of? This is the might that made you think you were somehow better than your elder?"

"Enough, Thragg," came the elder's voice as he stepped to Thragg's side, putting a wrinkled hand on the elite's shoulder. "Too much fear will only break them."

"You are right, elder. I got carried away. But at the least, I may use this fear to make them submit." Thragg raised his voice, and it reverberated like the Sovnar's. "I have won over your champion. Your tribe holds two more, but there is no point in struggling further against me.

You will only lose your lives. Join us, and we will guarantee you will be treated right, provided for, and made stronger with bodies like ours."