Chapter 20

Thane descended the stairs like a man sneaking into a sleeping dragon's den—each footstep measured, controlled. Mourning hung loose at his side, but ready. The fight club in front of him was chaos incarnate—screams, snarls, and the dull crack of wood on stone.

The golden-yellow light rose from the arena like steam off a sewer grate. Thane couldn't smell anything through the suit—but judging by the haze and the sheer number of goblins who clearly weren't on speaking terms with hygiene, he didn't need to. Whatever was down there, it had flavor.

He crouched low, careful not to let Mourning scrape stone, and crept closer to the bottom. The final few steps were a decision. No turning back. Once he was spotted, the whole room would come apart at the seams.

From his vantage, he could just make out the edge of the pit and the goblins ringing it—dozens pressed shoulder to shoulder, screeching and waving fistfuls of what looked like bones and ears. Betting chips, apparently. Their frenzy masked everything. Thane could have fired a shotgun into the ceiling and maybe one of them would've noticed, maybe not.

Then he heard it.

A voice. Low. Deep. Resonant like a landslide.

The crowd parted like water, forming a lopsided semicircle. Whoever had spoken wasn't in view, but their authority was. The goblins didn't flee. They made room. That meant reverence—or fear. Probably both.

The boss. Had to be.

Thane's fingers tightened on Mourning's haft. His instincts itched. It wasn't the pit brawl setting off alarm bells. This was something more.

He shifted his weight, ready to descend, but paused. The stairs weren't made for anyone over four feet tall. One slip, and he'd either tumble into the fight like a sack of potatoes or worse—get caught mid-clatter and speared before he could stand.

He took a slow breath, and carefully placed his foot on the thirst step. One down. Dozens to go.

Below, the pit fight reached its climax. Goblins screeched in delight as one of the fighters crumpled. The crowd erupted—shouting, jostling, clawing at one another for gruesome winnings. Eyes turned away from the ring. Goblins started eyeing each other like medieval peasants looked at their beloved tax collector. Thane could feel a storm of violent chaos brewing.

He stood at a precipice. Time slowed as the chaotic momentum reached critical mass. The perfect storm.

He launched himself down the final dozen steps, his body at 50% mass, a controlled drop like a rock dropped from a great height—quick and inevitable. The goblin below him had no time to react, unaware of the impending collision. His legs barely buckled under the reduced weight, the impact of his landing barely a ripple as his body absorbed the force like a spring coil compressing.

The goblin never saw Mourning, but he definitely experienced it. Briefly. One moment, it was snarling, teeth like dirty dice clacking together. The next? Mourning came down like a falling anvil. The impact shattered its skull like a hardboiled egg smashed on a countertop. Bone splinters launched sideways, glinting like tragic confetti.

Thane exhaled—barely a breath—and pivoted. The next goblin lunged with all the grace of a drunk raccoon wielding a screwdriver. He sidestepped, Mourning swung under its chin, and launched it skyward like he was swatting the world's ugliest golf ball. It didn't come down intact.

Thane spun like a blender full of bad decisions. Mourning became a screaming arc of metal, a flail-shaped hurricane of overcompensation and unresolved trauma. Goblins closed in—six, maybe eight, maybe a baker's dozen of failure incarnate.

The first one got clipped in the temple. Its head snapped sideways like it was trying to hear a juicy secret—only the secret was "internal bleeding." Another reached out with a crude spear. Mourning caught the shaft and kept spinning. The goblin got dragged along for half a rotation before physics, mercy, and bone integrity gave out.

They rushed him from all angles, screaming in rage. Thane yanked mass like a yo-yo flipping backward—like a demented gymnast in a physics demo gone wrong. By some miracle, he managed to land without injury.

Another one charged from the side. Thane whipped the flail low, tripping it mid-screech. He stomped its face like it owed him rent, the wet crunch echoing louder than it should have.

There were too many. Thane needed a plan, but fate seemed to have it out for him. Before he could cobble together some hair-brained idea, another goblin was upon him. Only to become intimately involved with Mourning.

The hit launched the goblin's head skyward. The body stood for a moment, twitching like it hadn't read the memo. Then it collapsed. Its head landed with a plop nearby, like a grotesque cherry on top.

Whirling to the side, Mourning met another goblin and judged him lacking. The creature didn't fly. It folded. Spine to sternum. Like a meat accordion playing its final note.

That's when he saw him.

A ripple in the cavern's stale air. The scraping grind of stone against bone. Something shifted in the periphery of Thane's vision—subtle, slow, inevitable—as if the dungeon itself exhaled in dread.

To his right, from a throne choked in bones and jagged stone, a monster rose.

Eight feet tall and built like a landslide made flesh.

The Feral Stone Goblin Boss.

Its basalt skin was layered in thick plates, blackened and cracked like cooling magma. Muscles rippled beneath that armor, shifting with the confidence of a born predator. Beady eyes, cold and calculating, locked onto Thane without a trace of fear—only the faint curl of disdain.

[spoiler] [/spoiler]

It grunted. Not a roar, not a challenge. Just a grim acknowledgement.

Then it leapt.

The throne shattered behind it, bone fragments raining down as the boss lunged forward, war club cocking back for a blow that would spike him like a volleyball. The sheer speed defied its size—the creature moved like it had been carved from the dungeon's violence itself.

But Thane was already in motion.

He pivoted hard on his heel, knees bending low.

No hesitation.

He launched upward—like a dandelion seed flung by a hurricane. Mourning extended in one arm as he spun through the air like a figure skater with bloodlust. The wind howled around him. One rotation. Two. The cavern blurred into a storm of shadow and motion. On the third, he caught the boss's eyes—gleaming with savage glee, lips pulled into a smug, toothy grin.

Mourning rose to meet that grin with the inevitability of sunrise.

Thane smirked.

Weight—maxed like his body had inhaled the mountain beneath him.

Mourning screamed as it whipped through the air, a blur of metal and malice.

The flail struck first.

It collided with the boss's left arm mid-windup. There was a sickening CRUNCH, like a tree snapping under pressure. The boss's forearm tore free with a fountain of green blood, spinning through the air like a grotesque baton, thudding wetly against the cavern wall.

The force twisted the boss's body—his downward strike veered, wild and off-balance.

But not harmless.

The club, still gripped in the remaining hand, smashed into Thane's right arm on the downswing. A glancing blow—but from something that size, even glancing meant pain. A sharp crack shot through his shoulder, and his body cartwheeled midair.

He hit the stone floor in a tangle of limbs, rolled twice, and came up kneeling—flail dragging behind him like a comet's tail. His right arm hung limp at his side, nerves screaming.

But he was alive.

And the boss was howling, one arm geysering blood, teeth bared in wounded fury.

"Round one goes to me, big guy."

Thane's brief victory was cut short like a song silenced mid-note. He'd tried to rise, instinctively bracing on his injured arm. His vision blinked to black the moment the pain hit—like lightning kissed his nerves with bad intentions.

Thane's vision cleared just in time to see the boss seconds from reducing him to pulp.

He became the world's most unfortunate paddle ball as he launched into a desperate upward dodge. In his panic, he'd vented only his own mass—forgetting Mourning entirely. The chain snapped taut like a naughty pomeranian on a leash held by a bodybuilder, yanking him out of the air and jerking his body back down.

His luck stat wasn't just for show—the boss's charge missed by inches.

Dust exploded as stone cracked.

Thane landed awkwardly—on the boss's back. They were now back-to-back, the spiked head of Mourning wedged beneath the goblin's chest.

Thane couldn't keep a manic grin from spreading, as an idea took hold.

He made like a drag car and floored the mass pedal.

The boss dropped like a felled cathedral, stone and fury crashing to the earth.

Judging by the horrendous bellow and the sickening crunch that followed, Thane's mad plan had worked.

He barely had a second to breathe.

Beyond the crumpled form of the boss, a wave of goblins surged—dozens of them. Snarling. Foaming. Leaping like rabid dogs loosed from a cage.

Thane rolled off the boss's back just in time. Two goblins flew past him, claws slicing empty air.

One didn't.

It came in low—too low. He caught it mid-leap with a clenched fist. The impact cracked stone and cartilage alike. The goblin spun away like a punted football, limbs flailing wildly as it bounced off the cavern wall and didn't get back up.

Thane didn't wait.

He reached down and yanked Mourning free with a wet, grinding shhlk—the kind of sound that meant nerves, bone, and spite were all part of the deal. The boss beneath him let out a low, bubbling groan, thick with the promise of vengeance if it ever rose again

.

Thane rose with the motion. His body screamed in protest, but he didn't slow. He pivoted, planting his feet, and swung. Overhead. Full arc. All his weight, all his rage, behind it.

Mourning howled through the air like a freight train made of chain and hate. The haft buzzed in his hands—eager, electric. Hungry for carnage.

The boss rolled to the side, stone skin carving trenches through the dirt, narrowly avoiding another death sentence.

But Thane's swing wasn't for naught. It had new targets.

The two goblins he'd dodged earlier came bounding back—fangs bared, claws extended, eyes bulging with bloodlust.

They met Mourning head-on. The impact was immediate. Catastrophic.

CRACK.

It sounded like a boulder being dropped onto a watermelon.

One goblin simply detonated—shattered into a cloud of stone shards and green mist. The other twisted mid-air, launched sideways like a broken doll hurled across the cavern. It hit the wall with a crunch and stuck there like bad art.

Thane staggered back from the force of the follow-through, his grip faltering as fresh pain flared in his injured arm. He gritted his teeth, sucking breath between clenched molars.

His eyes snapped back to the boss, who had made it a surprising distance considering the condition of its body. Thane started toward it, but a glance to his right revised that plan—the main horde was already upon him.

He kicked off the ground, light as a feather, and finally did something he'd always wanted to try. He planted one foot against the wall, launched from it, and screamed "Parkour!" like a wizard from one of his favorite book series. The moment was absurd. Surreal. And completely his.

Somewhere between takeoff and landing, it hit him—his daydreams at work were no longer just daydreams. He'd imagined this kind of life a thousand times: the books, the quests, the magic. And now? Now he was living it. Mid-air, flying over goblin heads, with actual momentum magic running through his bones.

He was on the verge of completing a quest. He had magic—Magic! His body was superhuman. And despite the pain, the grime, and the goblin blood soaking the floor, he was starting to enjoy it.

He landed hard. Goblins crumpled beneath him as his mass cratered the stone. Chips and dust erupted outward like shrapnel. Mourning exhaled a choking fog, thick as thunderclouds, and the screams around him shifted—from rage to agony.

He leapt again.

Not to flee. Not to dodge. But to destroy.

Mourning swung low, trailing behind like a comet on a chain, and slammed into the ground a split second after he did. The result was ridiculous. Thane couldn't stop laughing—it was like a double bounce on a trampoline. Goblins scattered like popcorn in a microwave with rage issues, and when they landed, it was with a wet, meaty finality.

That laughter died the moment he spotted the boss. It had made it to its feet—barely—and was watching him with seething, molten hatred. Then, behind it, a stone door swung open. A hidden exit. The boss backed through and vanished inside.

"No."

Thane cursed, spun, and charged. He plowed through the swarm like a battering ram, eyes locked on the shrinking sliver of escape.

A deep thud reverberated through his soles.

The stone door boomed shut with the grinding finality of a tomb.

He lost it.

But there was no time to process, just violence.

The goblins were still coming.

He danced. Killed. Bled. Mourning became momentum incarnate, fury written into a hymn only pain could sing. Five minutes later, silence fell like a guillotine.

Bodies lay scattered like forgotten headstones, limbs jutting skyward like twisted statues in a graveyard drowned in fog.

He stood in the aftermath, breathing hard. Blood and sweat stung his eyes—he wasn't sure when that started. His armor was torn in half a dozen places, red pooling at the seams and steaming off the surface like water on a skillet. The suit pulsed faintly, knitting itself together.

He'd deal with the injuries later.

He turned toward the sealed wall. Staggered up to it. Rested a trembling hand against the cool, slick stone.

There were no seams. No cracks.

But there was a keyhole.

Not a subtle one. This one looked straight out of a cartoon—wide, jagged, and absurdly large. The key must've been at least two feet long.

System: Unfortunately sir, the boss has temporarily escaped justice. Find the key required to reopen negotiations—with violence.