Three days later...
Henry's blade flashed in the dim bioluminescent light, cleanly cleaving the F-Rank archer goblin in half with absolute ease. The monster shattered into blue light before its upper half even hit the cavern floor.
Henry stood up straight and stretched out his chest, rolling his shoulders. The deep bruising from the hobgoblin's desperate punch had been steadily fading. The passive healing boost from his rising rank progress was doing its job.
'I think I'm ready to take on the hobgoblin again,' Henry thought, rolling his neck until it popped.
For the first time in three days, after grinding the first goblin area repeatedly until he could clear it in his sleep, Henry marched down the right-hand passageway to face the monster that had nearly caved his chest in.
The moment Henry rounded the corner and saw the hobgoblin, he didn't wait for it to react. He exploded forward with maximum power. The sudden burst of speed caused a sharp twinge of pain in his healing chest, but he ignored it.
The hobgoblin was completely caught off guard by Henry's sheer, decisive aggression. It only managed to take a few clumsy steps forward before Henry was already inside its guard, his blade crashing into the monster's heavy broadsword.
The force of Henry's strike was massive, pushing the monster back five feet, its boots sliding on the stone floor as it tried to catch its balance. But as Henry's forward momentum died, the bind stabilized.
Even with his recent stat progression, Henry instantly realized that in a stationary test of pure muscle, he was still slightly weaker than the hobgoblin.
He smoothly disengaged, falling right back into his trusted strategy of bleeding the beast out.
This time, the execution was flawless. Having learned his lesson from the lingering pain in his chest, Henry gave the monster absolutely no breaks and no chance for a desperate counterattack. He danced around the heavy swings, slicing tendon and muscle.
As the hobgoblin lunged forward with a desperate, heavy cleave, Henry met the strike dead in the middle. Instead of holding the block, he fluidly twirled his sword, slipping the bind, and ducked, letting the broadsword whistle harmlessly over his head.
Using his coiled momentum, he thrust his arming sword upward, driving it directly through the left side of the hobgoblin's chest, piercing its heart.
The monster instantly dissolved into shards of blue light.
"System Restart," Henry called out confidently, turning back to the entrance to claim his first meal of the day.
Three more days later...
Henry decapitated the first hobgoblin in record time. His chest was completely healed, and his movements were sharper and faster than they had ever been.
"System R—" Henry started to say, but he cut himself off. He lowered his sword and stared down the dark tunnel.
It was time.
He walked past the fading blue light of the first hobgoblin and ventured deeper into the cavern, heading straight toward the massive chamber where the second hobgoblin and its five spear-wielding grunts waited.
As Henry stepped over the threshold into the wide cavern, he stood completely still, his eyes darting across the enemy formation as he tried to formulate a tactical approach. But before he could properly analyze the room, the second hobgoblin let out a deafening roar and charged, leaving the five regular goblins behind.
Henry raised his sword and caught the monster's opening strike head-on.
Clang!
Henry was violently pushed backward, his boots skidding across the rock. The hobgoblin had all the momentum, but as Henry locked eyes with the beast, a realization washed over him.
Although both monsters shared the exact same white F above their heads, this hobgoblin was definitely noticeably stronger and faster than the first one.
As Henry was forced into the defensive and struggled to deflect a relentless barrage of heavy strikes, the five spearmen finally caught up. But instead of charging blindly into the melee, they fanned out, spreading around the perimeter of the fight.
They were cutting off Henry's evasive angles.
Unable to sidestep or weave because of the encroaching spears, Henry had no choice but to continuously backpedal, absorbing the brunt of the stronger hobgoblin's attacks instead of cleanly avoiding them. The concussive force of the blows was rattling his bones.
He was pushed further and further back toward the entrance of the chamber, his boots dragging against the stone.
Suddenly, his back slammed into something solid.
Henry gasped, glancing over his shoulder. There was no rock behind him, just empty air. But when he tried to step backward into the tunnel he had just come from, he hit an impenetrable, invisible wall.
'A room lock mechanic,' Henry realized, horror dawning on him. Unlike the very first cavern entrance, where he could freely back up into the safe zone, once he crossed the threshold into this room, the system trapped him inside. He couldn't retreat.
The five spearmen closed the net, thrusting their crude weapons directly at Henry's exposed sides while the hobgoblin raised its broadsword for a decapitating strike.
"System Restart!" Henry screamed.
The blue light consumed the cavern, narrowly swallowing him before the steel could bite into his flesh.
He materialized back at the dungeon entrance, his chest heaving, as he dropped to one knee, steadying his breathing.
"Okay. So once you enter a deeper cavern, you can't leave without defeating the opponents or resetting the entire run," Henry muttered to himself, wiping the sweat from his eyes. "Good to know."
He slowly stood up, sheathing his sword. He needed a radically different plan for this challenge. Brute force and speed alone weren't going to break a coordinated, locked-room ambush.
"Let's see where I'm at now," Henry breathed. "System stats."
Name: Henry Sinclair
Rank: F
Rank Progress: [ 28 / 100 ]
Strength: 48
Speed: 55
Agility: 54
Stamina: 58
Vitality: 36
A fierce smile spread across Henry's face as he stared at the glowing blue interface, realizing just how fast he was actually improving.
Twenty points of Rank Progress in just six days. That meant forty new attribute points had been seamlessly woven into his muscles, bones, and reflexes while he grinded the earlier chambers.
He began pacing the safe zone near the entrance, his mind tearing apart the encounter he had just barely escaped.
He realized he had made a fatal error in his approach. He had treated the cavern like a standard duel, allowing the hobgoblin to engage him head-on near the entrance while the five spearmen dictated the boundaries of the fight. The invisible wall trap had acted as the perfect anvil for the goblin squad's hammer.
'I have the stats to beat this room,' Henry concluded, swiping the translucent blue panel away with a thought. 'My physical ability isn't the bottleneck anymore. The problem was my positioning.'
"I can't let the hobgoblin pin me against the threshold," Henry muttered to himself, his eyes tracing imaginary lines of movement across the stone floor. "If I lock swords with it right at the start, the spearmen will just close the net around me again. I need to break the net before they can even cast it."
His new plan crystallized rapidly. When he crossed that threshold, he couldn't afford to backpedal. He had to do the exact opposite. He had to go deep.