.

Since no one was looking in his direction, Elim decided to take advantage of this and began to quietly sneak towards unsuspecting monsters. All the goblins, including the captain, were looking towards the second passage, apparently they were firmly convinced that the few groups that were destroyed by Elim would have warned them about the attack. Unfortunately, they faced a new, unprecedented enemy - a man, even more unfortunately, this man turned out to be Elim, who is a monster in the flesh.

The guy moved slowly and silently. Over the years of guerrilla warfare with demons, he learned to hide and silently sneak up to deliver the fatal blow. After a couple of minutes, two goblins stood quietly whispering about something, not even suspecting that there was a man behind them who was preparing to kill them. Elim held a knife in each hand: one was his own, and the other he had taken from one of the goblins he had killed.

In a moment, each knife pierced through the throat of its victim. The eyes of the two monsters widened - they did not understand what was happening, after a second Elim took out his knives and blood began to quickly flow from the wounds of the victims. No matter how hard he tried, it was impossible to eliminate these two without noise, so now his tactics have changed radically. Before the goblins had time to turn around, he dashed at full speed towards the trio on the right. When this group noticed the man it was too late - with a wild roar, Elim thrust his knife into the eye of one of them, instantly killing the other, and pushed the other one off with a kick of a couple of meters.

Now all the goblins realized that they were attacked and looked with fear at the unknown monster, whose roar seemed deafening in the silence of the tunnel. Meanwhile, the "monster", having struck several blows in the neck of the last of the three, moved towards the overturned goblin, when the captain's angry cries were heard. Hearing their leader, the dumbfounded goblins took up arms and rushed towards the enemy, who was already finishing off their fifth kinsman.

The goblin commander significantly broke away from his subordinates and, approaching close to the enemy, inflicted a sweeping blow with his blade. Elim had no intention of dodging the blow; instead, he exposed the body of the goblin he had just killed. The blade cut through almost half of the corpse, and then got stuck in it, taking advantage of the moment until the enemy could use the weapon, Elim attacked with each of his weapons: one blow was blocked by a shield, and the second hit right in the opponent's chest. When the knife almost pierced the chest of the goblin commander, he was covered with a thin layer of stone and the knife, instead of piercing the chest of the goblin, only slightly scratched it.

The petrification, your mother, will be difficult, Elim thought as he watched the goblin commander's stone crust peel off, returning him to its former appearance. The rest of the goblins had already arrived as he exchanged blows with their commander and tried to surround him. Elim smiled as he watched the huge number of holes in their formation, and a second later he darted towards the far right goblin. He was shorter than the others, and in his hands he held a short sword and looked with fear towards the approaching Elim. When he came close, the goblin attacked, but Elim quickly parried his blow, and with the second knife cut his throat. Turning around, he threw the still living goblin at his kin.

The captain and one of his subordinates were able to evade, the remaining goblin collided with the body of a dying comrade and, together with him, rolled head over heels on the ground. The two remaining on their feet looked at the man with hatred, uttering some words in their own language, obviously cursing and scolding him. The captain was the first to attack, but Elim was in no hurry to get involved in a fight with him because of his ability, and, dodging, moved towards his subordinate. The goblin, of course, tried to defend himself, but how could he, without any skills, withstand a man who had been fighting continuously for several centuries? The answer is simple - no way.

A moment later, the goblin was dead, and Elim rushed towards the last living subordinate of the goblin commander, who stood up after the collision with the corpse launched at him. He got up, but did not have time to do anything else, because Elim on the run, with one movement, practically cut his neck. Now all he had to do was defeat the goblin commander, who was already grumbling with rage, not taking his eyes off the man.

After several exchanges of blows, the situation repeated itself: Elim, thanks to his superior speed, was able to bypass his goblin commander's defenses and strike, but he immediately used [Petrification], nullifying all his efforts. After several unsuccessful attempts, he decided to change tactics and began aiming at the enemy's eyes, which was much more difficult and, after another failure, his opponent was able to counterattack. The blow was supposed to pierce his chest, but Elim managed to dodge minimizing the damage - now he had a shallow cut a couple of centimeters long on his chest.

This finally pissed off the guy and, under the influence of emotions, he struck another blow. His opponent used [Petrification] again, hoping

I wanted to block the attack and counterattack myself, but contrary to his expectations, the knife in the man's hands entered his chest up to the hilt. The goblin commander stared blankly at the weapon in his chest, which shattered the stone crust that covered his entire body, but after a moment the enemy hit him hard in the face, knocking him to the ground.

"Well, finally, my darling has returned" - such thoughts were in his head when he looked at his hands filled with mana, under the influence of emotions he was finally able to use the mana in his body and multiply the power of his attack. After that, he returned his attention to the dying captain, who was writhing on the ground.

"Since I can control my mana, now I can try to do it."

The goblin, seeing the expression on the face of the approaching man, fell into despair and tried to fight back with his last strength, but after receiving another strong blow, he could no longer force his body to move. Elim grabbed the goblin by the throat and, closing his eyes, concentrated on managing his mana, which he, after several attempts, was able to send into the goblin's body.

In the past, Elim was so feared, even by the angels, not simply because he was strong and merciless. They feared him because of the way he dealt with many of his defeated opponents - he captured their souls. He had many nicknames, but the most common was: "Numismatist of Souls", and his most terrible ability was the ability to call these enslaved souls to his aid in battle. And that was exactly what he was about to do with the defeated captain of the goblin outpost.

At first, the goblin felt how alien energy invaded his body, but he no longer had the strength to resist, so he could only watch how it slowly spreads through his body. For a couple of minutes everything was calm, but then he shuddered and began to kick like crazy, but the man held him tightly by the throat. He looked at the man with horror, but did not understand what was happening, but he instinctively knew that this was the most terrible and terrible thing that could happen to him in his entire life. After a couple of moments, a terrible pain appeared in his entire body, as if every part of it was being torn to pieces, he wanted to scream, but the man held his throat tightly, he could only wait until he finally died. For several minutes the goblin writhed in agony, after which it calmed down, forever, while Elim sighed with relief - it was quite difficult for him to take his soul, especially if the target was approximately equal to you in strength.

This time, he did not succeed, but from the very beginning he had little faith in success, so there was no reason to be upset.

After he opened his eyes, his lips parted in a satisfied smile, after which he picked up the book that appeared on the goblin's chest. It was a thin book with a gray cover with black drawings at the corners, and in the center of the same color was the word: [Petrification].

"The skill book, phew, it was not in vain that I took a chance," the guy thought, putting the skill book into his backpack. As soon as a person begins to read it, no one else will be able to find out what is written in it, so he hid it without opening it. Skill books were actually a concentration of some of the knowledge that a slain monster had during its lifetime and they were magically transferred to the reader. All skills could be learned without books, but they allowed you to use the minimum power of the skill immediately after reading the book. But the most important thing was that the knowledge from this book could make an ordinary person "Reborn" and Elim already had in mind the person to whom he wanted to give it.

In addition to the skill book, he found something else interesting:

[Nice Goblin Sword]

[Attack 7-11]

[Durability: 18/30]

This blade belonged to the former commander of the outpost and looked a little like a scimitar of very rough work. The reason Elim took it was in the blade: it was made of an alloy of iron and a coil. The serpentine did not exist in their world, which means that this metal already contained a small portion of magical energy, which made it stronger than almost any metal or alloy on Earth.

- Well, it's time to go back, - Elim said to himself, and moved towards the exit.