The F-Rank Goblin didn't offer a battle cry. Instead, it simply lunged, thrusting the scavenged spear with a sudden speed that immediately forced Henry onto the defensive. Its strikes were leagues faster and far more precise than the clumsy vanguard goblins.
Despite being pushed onto his back foot, Henry's practiced Lower Regium defensive stances held firm. He deflected the rapid-fire thrusts with relative ease, standing his ground and refusing to give up a single inch of the cavern floor during the explosive burst of attacks.
'Although we're both F-Rank, goblins are clearly a species that sits physically beneath humans on the evolutionary ladder,' Henry realized, tracking the goblin's movements.
He backed up just out of the goblin's striking range, trying to find an angle to counterattack. But it offered him no reprieve, constantly surging forward to maintain the relentless assault.
Five minutes dragged on. Henry did nothing but parry and deflect. He couldn't find a single viable opening because the goblin's strikes possessed absolutely no formal technique or recognizable pattern.
Ironically, its wild, erratic flailing made it significantly harder for Henry to predict what would come next.
Although Henry possessed superior stats, he had already been fighting an entire squad of goblins before this duel had even begun. Even though defending consumed less stamina than attacking, the last goblin was almost entirely fresh, but he wasn't.
Henry rapidly backpedaled out of striking distance again. But this time, just as the goblin loaded its weight to lunge forward, Henry completely flipped the script.
He exploded forward.
Henry instantly closed the gap, stepping cleanly inside the goblin's effective guard so that the wooden shaft of the spear was rendered completely useless.
Realizing Henry was suddenly far too close for it to properly leverage its weapon to block, the goblin panicked and desperately tried to retreat. But Henry was much faster. His blade blurred in a three-strike combination: a quick right-to-left horizontal slash that tore across the goblin's abdomen, seamlessly reversed using his momentum into a rising left-to-right slash across its chest, and finally punctuated by a two-handed downward thrust that pinned it to the cavern floor.
The glowing blue F shattered into light, and the goblin dissolved into dust.
"Shit... that was tiring," Henry breathed heavily, resting his hands on his knees.
After regulating his breathing for a few seconds, he stood back up. "System stats."
He focused his eyes on the rank progression tab hovering in the translucent blue interface.
Rank Progress: [ 4 / 100 ]
Seeing the number, he immediately swiped the panel away in disgust. "Fuck. I did all of that for two measly points."
His stomach let out a hollow, painful growl. "I think I need some food and a drink a little early," Henry said out loud to the empty cavern.
But he immediately dismissed the idea. Not only was it far from noon the next day, but if he used the 'System Restart' command to return to the entrance for his rations, the entire cavern would reset. He would have to fight his way through the goblins all over again.
"Let's take a peek at what's next first," Henry decided. He knew if the next room was anything like the goblin fight, he wouldn't have the energy reserves left to keep fighting anyway.
He gripped his sword and walked deeper into the cavern.
He was met with... absolutely nothing.
For ten tense minutes, Henry walked on high alert, his eyes darting to every shadow, expecting an ambush. But the cavern remained eerily silent and entirely empty.
Eventually, the path abruptly ended at a fork. The cavern split entirely into one wide tunnel curving deep to the left, and another mirroring it to the right.
'Left, right, left, right, left,' Henry mentally debated, weighing the blind choices. He finally settled on the left.
The exact second his boot crossed the threshold into the left passageway, his ears picked up a sharp, violent sizzle from directly above him.
Henry violently threw himself backward.
A split second later, a massive, human-sized ball of glowing green slime plummeted from the ceiling. It smashed into the exact spot Henry had just been standing. The violent, hissing acid instantly ate through the solid stone walkway, dissolving the rock in seconds and leaving a massive, gaping hole that dropped away into absolute blackness.
The green slime completely dissolved along with the stone, leaving nothing behind but the horrific, acrid smell of melted rock.
'Well, that can't be a good sign,' Henry thought, his heart beating like a drum.
Carefully hugging the left wall, he shimmied past the smoldering, melted crater and continued deeper down the left passageway.
After a few more minutes of walking down the dimly lit left passageway, Henry heard a chorus of heavy scratching.
He rounded a slight bend and was met with 6 giant rats. They were easily a quarter of his size, their yellow teeth glinting in the faint bioluminescent light. Floating above every single one of them was the familiar white number 10.
Henry actually let out a long, relieved exhale. After the tactical coordination of the goblins and the lethal acid trap, this was a desperately needed downgrade.
He didn't even bother dropping into a defensive stance. Using his overwhelming speed and strength, Henry waded into the rats. His blade moved in sweeping arcs, completely outclassing the mindless beasts. He cut them down with ease, leaving a trail of carcasses on the cavern floor.
As he flicked the dark rat blood off his sword, Henry felt a surge of confidence. 'If the encounters in this tunnel stay like this, maybe I can actually make it all the way to the dungeon boss on this run,' he thought, picking up his pace.
The passageway steadily descended until it hit another sharp, blind left turn.
The moment Henry stepped around the corner, he froze dead in his tracks.
The tunnel widened into a large chamber. Spread out across the stone floor were at least twenty giant, terrifyingly thick cobras. They were coiled defensively, their massive hoods flared, standing upright to at least Henry's chest height. Hovering above almost all of them were standard white 10s.
But positioned dead center in the front was one that was different.
It shared the same pitch-black, obsidian scales as the rest of its brood, but a pulsating, glowing red line ran directly down the center of its widened hood. Hovering above its head was a glowing letter F. But instead of the standard white light, this letter was cast in a bright, warning yellow.
Before Henry could even attempt to process the color change, the F-Rank cobra reared back and let out an intimidating hiss.
As its jaws unhinged, Henry caught something terrifying.
Mixed into the venom spraying from its fangs was a glowing, volatile red liquid that matched the mark on its hood.
Henry instinctively jumped backward just as a few stray droplets of the saliva arced through the air and hit the stone floor right in front of his boots.
It didn't sizzle or melt the rock like the green acid trap from earlier. Instead, Henry felt an intense, unnatural wave of heat suddenly radiate from the stone in the freezing cave.
Henry snapped his eyes back up to the swarm. All eleven cobras were now slithering across the cavern floor, rushing directly toward him at a terrifying speed, with the glowing F-Rank cobra leading the charge.
There was zero hesitation.
"System Restart!" Henry yelled as fast as humanly possible.
A blinding flash of blue light consumed his vision. The hissing of death vanished, instantly replaced by the quiet, cold air of the cavern's entrance.
Henry stood there for a long moment, staring blankly at the stone wall in front of him, his heart hammering against his ribs.
"What in the fuck?" Henry breathed, dragging a shaking hand over his face.
He turned his gaze back toward the mouth of the cavern, staring into the dark depths of the dungeon.
"Right cave it is."