Chapter 1: Act 1 - Green Invaders | Rare Encounter

A cold sweat trickled down David's neck. The air thickened with apprehension as their surroundings grew increasingly hostile.

David's fists clenched, knuckles white with a spark of grim acceptance and unwavering determination. His heart raced, each beat a thunderous echo of the impending danger. The weight of the predicament pressed down on him, suffocating but bearable.

In the face of looming peril, Ruther's calm demeanor helped David's inner turmoil disappear completely like the fleeting wind.

—-

(Daydream)

"Aye David, you and I are both F-ranks. Truly the bottom of the barrel, the losers of losers." Aaron said whilst looking sternly towards David.

"But did you know that even if we are F-ranks, we are still naturally stronger than athletes."

Without a moments notice, Aaron launches a low kick to David's lower left calf.

David falls down grabbing onto his left calf and rolling around painfully.

"Agh, what was that for idiot?!" David looks up at Aaron with a pained expression.

Aaron walks up to David to lift him up whilst telling him, "my ability is to manipulate my muscules, basically muscle control."

As David gets up, he ponders at Aaron's ability.

"Pretty cool not gonna lie. But why did you tell me this."

After he said that, Aaron lunges himself forward to do a right hook to David's face.

Anticipating this, he ducks down and initiates a devastating uppercut.

After getting his chin utterly punched, Aaron's mind became distorted, his vision temporarily impaired and his defense was left opened.

He follows up with a jab to Aaron's face knocking him straight to the ground.

After a couple of seconds, Aaron regains his consciousness.

"Wow… Didn't know you were a boxing genius." Aaron said while laughing quite enthusiastically.

"Great… F-rank ability with S-rank fighting sense. Quite funny isn't it?"

"Your jab felt twice as strong as your uppercut, amplification powers?"

—-

David immediately dashes towards the goblin at the forefront and launches a deadly 1-1-2 boxing combo. Using the strength of his lower half of his body, he utilises leg muscles and a short rotational hip motion on his last hit to break through goblins guard and planted his punch onto its face.

The goblin's body falls down to the ground creating a miniature crater, it lied there with its tongue out, motionless.

Its dead body disintegrated. The particles formed a reward in front of him. A long wooden pole with a pointed head appeared mid air.

He quickly picked up the item and ran back.

He read the description of the hard earned reward.

[Wooden Spear(Common)]

"Haven't held a weapon for fighting before." He looks at his weapon with a look of anticipation. 

---

A follow up attack was initiated by Ruther, he sprints towards one of the goblins situated on his left and jumped towards it to bite his neck.

The goblins swings his right arm heavily almost as if he backhanded Ruther's face and proceeds to landed a right hook onto his face.

The scared and injured Ruther walks slowly towards David.

Hearing the weak groans from Ruther, he was in a distraught situation.

"What do I do?" He anticipated that Ruther had to fight during his turn. But parry? Since when can these monsters parry?

"I couldn't move, as if invisible and intangible chains were blocking me from my position. I can't even help Ruther... THESE STUPID CHAINS!"

Pessimism spreads like a miasmic, contagious disease. It envelops David's mind, eating away at his thoughts.

"What if they attack Ruther?" Shivering in despair, he looked at Ruther with deep regret and concern.

He scans Ruther looking at him left to right and tells him, "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have made you press that button."

Without a moment's notice, a goblin begins approaching him.

As if his dormant talents were awakening, he adopted a fighting posture instinctively. His legs spread apart, lowering his torso to engage his upper muscles more effectively. Both hands gripped the spear's handle, comfortably spaced apart.

The goblin came at David with an intent to kill. When the figure of the goblin lunges himself into the air and towards David. He used his spear to aim at its body like a spiked wooden barricade.

The goblin didn't have any tools or weapons to parry his attack.

It died quite tragically with its entire torso was impaled.

Another goblin noticing that the other one's attempt ended both a failure and death, it figures that it would be best to use a different method and target Ruther who seem to be an easier target.

It picked up a rock from a nearby bush, fiddling with it to find a lethal grip, then hurled it at Ruther. David's eyes widened as he saw the rock, seemingly surrounded by a menacing aura. It felt immensely powerful. Capable enough to killing an average adult human with a single blow.

"No! Ruther, you have to dodge!" David screamed, frantically swinging his arms toward Ruther, desperate to get him to move out of the way.

However, just before Ruther and the rock intersected.

The rock's line of direction had shifted to another direction.

David seeing this interaction, he was left flabbergasted and was pondering about what just had happened.

"Huh?!" David didn't blink at all.

"How did you do that Ruther?" Seeing wind spiraling around Ruther.

He figured, "Wind Control? That's the most insane ability I have seen yet."

David understood what control meant before an attribute/ability. To make that thing your domain with manipulation powers.

There was one goblin left at the far back to the right. 

The goblin's face twisted, stretching into a grotesque, hideous grin. Its eyes swelled and turned bloodshot red, veins bulging on the verge of bursting.

"What are you planning now, little shit?" David muttered, his eyes fixated on the goblin, tracking every movement with a mix of dread and fascination.

The goblin sauntered over to its comrade on the far left. Without warning, it sank its teeth deep into the neck of its fellow goblin, tearing flesh with a sickening crunch. It devoured the corpse with ravenous hunger, blood and guts smeared across its face.

David's heart pounded, his senses screaming in alarm. A suffocating dread began to seep into the air, the atmosphere growing heavier with each passing second.

[Rare Encounter]

[Defeat: Deranged Hobgoblin]

[Extra Rewards buff applied]

"D rank..." David whispered, feeling the weight of the notification. Before him stood a monstrous figure, now towering at two metres, emanating an aura of immeasurable power. Its eyes, filled with malevolent intelligence, locked onto David, promising a brutal and deadly encounter.