A few dozen of the little green fuckers ran inside the auditorium building. There were bodies everywhere. The majority were dead Goblins, but there were some humans on the ground. No one I recognized, but it's not like I knew a lot of people here. The human bodies were close to the entrance, while the Goblins were pretty much everywhere.

I kept scanning the battleground until I finally saw it. Standing two heads above any of the other Goblins, a bulky slab of green flesh stood with a massive wooden club. That club was probably the size of my sledge hammer, but much thicker. Different from the others, this one had no boils or other ailments on it's skin. He looked surprisingly healthy, and powerful. He stood a considerable distance from the entrance while gazing at it. Reluctantly, I had to admit, there was a tinge of intelligence in those beady eyes. There was fury, plenty of it. But enough intelligence to restrain its blind charge.

The sounds of battle were faint, I could barely hear them. They were probably deep into the auditorium by now, and this creature was likely waiting for the perfect opportunity to rush in and make the most out of the tired people inside. Caught in my indecision, I waited too long and the creature finally decided it was time to move in.

At the moment I don't know if it was greed, plain stupidity or the revolting sight of the creature grabbing the dismembered arm of a human and munching on it like a snack that made me do it. But I moved away from my cover in the corner and with a resounding thud of my sledgehammer against the pavement I silently challenged the creature.

Its hateful beady eyes looked at me and a sneer quickly formed on its repulsive lips. He spit the arm from its mouth like a cheap piece of meat. Grabbing his club with both hands he didn't hesitate charging at me. Glad to take up my challenge. Screaming his battle cry he came at me swinging his club wildly.

The green cunt was bigger than the others, but his reach was still shorter than mine. With a quick step back I avoided his wild swing. I stepped to my right and let him pass and swung the hammer on his side. The weight of the sledgehammer was weirdly distributed, but after swinging it for a while, I was somewhat familiar with it. He didn't react in time and the blow sent him skidding. I could see a bruise rapidly forming on the skin of its left shoulder, but otherwise he was fine.

Even if a sideways swing doesn't carry as much power as an overhead one, it was still enough to crack the bones of an adult male. Was this thing tougher than an adult man? I shouldn't be surprised, he did look powerful, but after how weak the small ones were I wasn't expecting him to be so strong. He was really a few cuts above those little shits.

He came at me with rage. The pain of my blow must have snapped the thin veil of intelligence holding back his fury. I did my best to avoid his wild swings, but a glancing blow caught me in my thigh. Adrenaline allowed me to keep going, but I knew I was hurt.

I avoided wasting my energy with another sideway swing, but it was hard to find an opening for an overhead blow when I had to keep dodging his relentless attack. This bloody green murder machine was unstoppable. He would have short breaks to catch his breath but would soon resume. I fear that even considering I’m just dodging I might tire before him. Pressed into the theoretical corner, I started to think of other ways to deal with him.

Suddenly I had a crazy idea. It was utterly insane, but it was better than slowly losing by my own fatigue. When he stopped to catch his breath I suddenly threw my sledgehammer at him in a wide arc. He was caught completely unprepared and fumbled trying to block the flying hammer. While he waved his weapon and his free hand trying to recover his balance I was already in front of him, knife out.

I stabbed him in the shoulder. The knife didn't go as deep as I wanted it to. His skin was tougher than I expected. But that was fine. While he was distracted by the pain on his bleeding shoulder, I moved to his back and did something I never thought I would do against a creature like this. I put one of my arms under his chin, while the other boxed in his head between my biceps. The hand of the arm across its neck grabbed the inner joint of my elbow, while I locked my elbow with my hand inside. The hand of the locked elbow pushed his head towards my forearm on his neck. When the lock was done I pulled with all my might, lifting the green cunt out of the floor.

He kicked the air and his hands moved chaotically grasping at nothing. To make sure he would be able to escape I dropped him straight on the ground, my body weight over his. My arms hurt as we hit the ground hard, but I endured. He smelled as bad as I had imagined. Like rotten meat mixed with a year worth of dry sweat. I endured.

With my knees on top of the back of his thighs thighs and my pull stretching his back there wasn't much he could do to escape. He might be smarter than the other Goblins, but he was still dumb as a rock compared to humans. He scratched at my arms, his claws trying to dig into my flesh, but the jacket held surprisingly well against his assault.

It took long before he finally showed signs of slowing down. How much stamina did this fucking creature had? I don't know how long it was before he finally stopped moving, but it was an unreasonable amount of time. At some point I thought he would be able to survive longer than I could keep squeezing him. My arms hurt a lot, my hands were already numb, but I kept squeezing him under the lock for a good extra time. When I couldn't anymore and I finally let go, there was still no message from the system that the fucker was dead.

I scrambled to my feet as fast as my tired body allowed me and made my way to my sledgehammer laying on the ground. I'm not sure if it was my stressed mind playing tricks on me. But I swear that in the few seconds it took me to grab the sledgehammer and position myself to swing it the tough cunt was already twitching, as if about to wake up. I didn't waste any time, and with a grunt of pain I raised the sledgehammer overhead and let it crash down with all the strength I could muster. It exploded the head of the twitchy green horror. I let go of the sledgehammer as the system messages started to come in.

[You have slain a Fledgling Warrior Goblin.]

[Congratulations! You have levelled up.]

[The first wave has been cleared.]

[Participants will be rewarded according to their contribution.]

[The contribution rank is:

Leo - 60 Points

John - 49 Points

Sarah - 35 Points

Takeshi - 33 Points

Somchai - 27 Points]

[You have been awarded 60 points.]

[You have been awarded one free stat point for being the highest contributor.]

As the system flooded me with information I flopped to the ground, exhausted. Looking at the sky I could see that the red was slowly fading from the dome and the pyramid no longer emitted the ominous red beam. As much as I was curious to understand the implications of the system's messages and the events of today, I was too tired to think right now.