Chapter 38: In-Game Skin Synchronization—100%

Chapter 38: Chapter 38: In-Game Skin Synchronization—100%

The Goblin smiled. Like it could already see Hana’s blood in the air.

And then.

SLUSH

The penetrating sound of blade through flesh.

The goblin’s blood splashed on her face and white robes, frightened her eyes shut.

Silence.

Even the goblins seemed to pause in disbelief.

Slowly, Hana’s eyelids fluttered open. A figure stood before her.

His spear impaled the attacking goblin by the neck.

"How...when did he?" Her words froze mid speech as gratefulness overwhelmed her.

Still, was she seeing things?

A mere civilian... normal human, just took down a goblin like it was nothing.

Mira and Paul were also perplexed.

But how would they understand?

Victor had been watching the battle play out as it had.

The killing... the blood... the chaos, and it excited something within him.

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—28%]

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—30%]

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—35%]

It was like something deep, foundational and primal had been aching to come out, but restricted.

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—40%]

Victor looked at the spear in his hand. The red blood that fell from it.

Badump... Badump...

His heart beat louder than ever.

In Dungeon Conquest, he had not understood it, when he killed the first Bug, his instincts screaming at motion his being swore he was born with.

And then after coming back, instinctively dodging loan shark boss Jack’s assault, killing that goblin in the house and the battles that followed.

The flow of blood calling for him to...

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—44%]

This was him. This was the new him.

An arrow suddenly whistled. But he caught it, inches from his eye.

The beat from his chest increased.

Badump... Badump...

Why was I holding back?

His gaze moved sideways from the arrow point.

Far ahead, he saw it. The goblin archer that fired.

A kind of excitement suddenly filled him, a curve appeared on one side of his lips. With swift motion, he pulled the spear back, and launched it into the air.

It whooshed past the little gap of goblins, narrowly brushing past Mira’s cheek and nailing the goblin right in the head.

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—50%]

Paul started laughing.

A full, unhinged, bent-over-the-knee kind of laugh.

"HAH! I KNEW IT!" he roared, pointing his axe at Victor like he’d just won a bet with himself. "I KNEW you weren’t just some random civilian who wandered in here! Nobody throws a spear like that by accident!"

Mira said nothing. She had not expected the situation to develop the way it had. She had barely given Victor a glance when Paul rescued him and the boy.

And now, he was doing the unbelievable. Nevertheless she could not just let this happen. What would the guild say when they returned? How would she face those higher ups that act and walk like the rules originated from their assholes.

She had to stop him.

"Civi... Victor," she remembered his name. "Back down now. This is an order."

But Victor wasn’t listening to her.

His heart slamming against his ribs.

Badump. Badump.

He’d nailed the goblin archer through the skull from thirty feet. But it wasn’t enough.

Something in his chest wanted more, and it scared him a little how badly he wanted to give it what it wanted.

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—52%]

He moved... fast, snatching another fallen spear off a dead goblin’s body, he felt the weight once. Twice.

And then his body remembered.

Those lessons he had unwillingly taken under Kiki’s eyes when fighting the left over bugs in mallet arena.

He hadn’t thought about those lessons once since waking up. Then again, he didn’t need to think about them now either.

His hands and body, just did it.

The first thrust took a goblin through the throat. It was clean. Too clean.

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—56%]

The second was faster. The spear felt lighter in his grip than it had a second ago. It was like his arms had finally remembered what they were for.

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—61%]

Every motion sharpened the next. Every goblin that dropped made the one after it easier to drop.

Babarians were a people made for battle. Is this what they meant by that?

Victor was not getting tired. It was the opposite. Like some engine inside him was spinning up, and the sync number kept climbing to match it.

Then something clipped him from behind. A blade, shallow, raking across his shoulder blade.

He should have felt pain. But it activated.

[STONESKIN — Passive]

Victor turned, "how dare you?"

His tattoos became clearer, veins bulged. His muscles swelled under his skin, stretching his loose shirt tight across his back.

Something in his skull went very, very quiet, and something else older, primal and hungrier, stood up in its place.

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—68%]

[BERSERKER INSTINCT — LV 1]

The scream, raw and primal ripped out from his chest.

His gaze fell on the goblins, by instinct, they felt it too, backing off.

He didn’t swing the spear so much as become it. Goblins that came within three feet of him simply stopped being whole.

He opened one from collarbone to the hip. He drove the spear clean through a second one’s skull and used the body as a lever to throw a third off its feet before it hit the ground. Blood sprayed hot across his face, his arms, soaking into fabric that used to be a shirt, and he didn’t stop, didn’t slow, didn’t think.

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—74%]

"HAHAHA — YEAH! THAT’S IT, KID!" Paul waded in beside him, laughing like a madman, axe swinging in wild arcs, matching Victor goblin for goblin like he’d caught whatever had gotten into him.

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—81%]

Mira joined a moment later, quieter about it, but her eyes could barely leave Victor. This enigma of a person.

Victor barely took note of her. He barely took note of anything. There was only the next goblin, and the one after that, and the next, his spear became a blur of motion and red, his own heartbeat became the only sound left in his ears.

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—89%]

One by one, the others fell back.

Paul was the first.The injured arm and the fatigue that came with two buffs had started getting to him.

Then Mira, followed. She too had taken hits here and there.

And then it was just Victor. Alone in a street slick with blood that wasn’t his, cutting down anything that still moved.

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—96%]

The last goblin fell.

Victor stood there, chest heaving, spear dripping, the street around him a ruin of broken bodies and churned red earth.

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—100%]

He threw his head back and screamed,and the sound of it rolled out over the town.