Adventuresse
patreon
The Apocalypse Grinder - Chapter 19
🕑 Added 2025-06-18 09:13:42 +0000 UTC<< Chapter 18 | Index | Chapter 20 >>
Ronan had a crazed grin painted on his face, marked with the blood and guts of half a dozen slain goblins. He was every bit the savage, but his movements contained a hint of grace.
To a seasoned warrior he would still seem like a stumbling child, even when wielding his most natural weapons—his bare fists. However, with every monster he crushed and every battle he survived, a lifetime of modern comfort and laziness was chipped away to reveal hints of potential greatness.
Ronan’s foot was buried in a goblin’s scrotum. It squealed like a pig while clutching its delicates. Ronan silenced it by smashing the rim of his shield into its rotting teeth.
Half shattered on impact. He didn’t need magic strike for this. He raised the shield.
The goblin somehow managed a half-arsed screech and thrust its dagger into his calf.
With a roar of fury he smashed the shield down once more, shattering its jaw and jellifying its brain.
You have killed [Lesser Goblin Archer Lv.7]!
+9 Copper Credits
+3 [Shield] Mastery
+Lesser Goblin Ears (Common)
You have leveled up to Lv.7!
You have been restored!
+1 Vitality
+1 Endurance
+1 Free Stat Point
Last time he’d put most of his free points into agility. He’d felt that what he needed was more speed so that he would get hit less.
However, as his technique and instincts slowly improved, he found that it hadn’t been speed that was lacking, but rather control of his existing strength. As he fought, he fell into a trance.
The archers all drew their daggers and pounced on him, four against one. Ronan suffered a dozen wounds under their onslaught, but for every pound of flesh they took, he paid it back tenfold.
System chimes rang in his ears, an intensifying crescendo that distracted him from the battle. He slowly tuned them out, the pounding of his heart becoming the only tune he danced to.
He swirled on his feet and threw a heavy haymaker, only for his fist to smash against solid stone. Three thin cracks spread across the wall from where he struck.
That isn’t stone. Not ordinary stone, anyway, he realised. That wasn’t too surprising. This was the tutorial—the dungeon probably wasn’t even a real place.
Ronan wiped the worst of the gore from his fists and forearms onto his suit. It was ripped and torn, stained with blood and goblins guts—and worse. Hopefully there was still a way to get well tailored clothes in this new world the system had thrust him into.
He glanced briefly at the notifications screaming for his attention. He’d reached level 8 during the carnage.
Ronan wasn’t sure how much damage he’d taken during the battle. As it stood, he had most of a full health bar and was bleeding for 2 points a second.
That wasn’t life threatening, unless he took too long to kill the second shaman. Oh crap, the shaman!
He’d given in to the lust of battle, allowing the pounding of his heart, the racing of his blood, and the thrill of slaughter to guide his actions. He had forgotten to keep an eye on the third and final archway.
Half expecting to find Keith’s bloody corpse for the second time, Ronan turned away from the dead archers. Keith wasn’t dead, but what he saw was perhaps an even worse outcome.
Keith was crawling backwards, face pale as he trailed blood along the tiles from a nasty gash on his thigh. A hulking beast towered over him, stalking the terrified man at a lethargic pace.
The monster didn’t need to rush—it knew its prey couldn’t escape. Ronan hissed when he saw the information floating above the creature’s head.
He’d recognised it the moment he saw it, but it truly drove home how deep of a dung pile they’d fallen into when he saw:
[Zombified Goblin Fleshbeast Lv.16]
That was 3 levels higher than the one which had fought him to death during his first… life. He blamed himself.
If he hadn’t thrown himself at the archers like a rabid dog, he might’ve had the presence of mind to watch out for the arrival of the second shaman. Even if Keith was a useless lump, taking out two lesser goblin warriors shouldn’t have been an insurmountable task.
Finishing them off together would’ve been easy. He was torn. The fleshbeast was slow, but it would catch up to Keith soon.
However, if he left the shaman to its own devices, its stacking buffs and curses might condemn them both to death. It all came down to whether he could take down the shaman fast enough to save Keith.
What was the point of living through the same hell a second time if it led to the same shitty ending? Ronan clenched his jaw.
He’d been saving his free stat points all this time, waiting for a moment when his life or death depended on them. That moment wasn’t now.
But he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he let Keith die while he had a chance to save him, purely to satisfy his own selfish desire to get the most from his stats. He was sure to gain plenty of levels in the coming stages of the tutorial.
This sadistic bastard of a system seemed to love throwing him into unwinnable fights, but that was fine by him. Ronan had overcome untenable odds a dozen times.
Deathmatches were a different field of battle to cutthroat corporate backrooms, but he would adapt. He would overcome.
Health: 95/110
Stamina: 160/160
Mana: 19/100
His health wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t plan to get hit. Not by the shaman, anyway. Full stamina was ideal, but less than a fifth of his mana pool meant he would barely have room to utilise magic strike.
And magic strike seemed like a perfect counter to the fleshbeast’s excessive bulk. Heaps of fat guarded its vulnerable insides, but what if he could liquefy them in a single strike?
Ronan was level 8. The same level that he’d been when he died. Thinking back, that didn’t make much sense. There were still two living enemies, both of which he’d killed before dying the first time around, so why was he the same level?
He chalked it up to the weirdness with his heritage and the absurd fact that he had literally come back to life after bleeding out. If it let him kill more goblins he’d die a thousand times.
Four free stat points and not much time to deliberate about how to allocate them. Ronan didn’t need much time.
Two points into wisdom, giving him enough mana to use magic strike another two times—perhaps only one, if it was lethal enough. The other two he split between agility and strength.
And then he ran. The goblin shaman noticed his approach when he’d crossed half the dungeon.
It screeched at the fleshbeast, but the hideous creature was too focused on its prey. It groaned and kept shambling towards the desperately crawling Keith.
With a snarl, the shaman smashed its twisted bone staff into the ground. A purple glow fell over Ronan’s body. He slowed instantly, feeling as if he was running along a beach instead of solid stone.
Now he saw the impact that investing less points into agility made. No matter. This was only a single curse. It wouldn’t have the chance to use a second.
Ronan wondered why it didn’t use its strengthening buff. The red spell. Maybe it couldn’t use it on itself?
He smirked.
Even with his reduced speed, he closed the distance in short time. There was nowhere for the shaman to run. Nowhere it could hide.
Its only recourse was to hide behind its hulking guardian of corpses and black magic, but even its monstrous creation ignored the will of its creator. When he was still four strides away, he planted his forward foot and twisted backwards, drawing the goblin buckler from his inventory to his hand in a single fluid action.
He’d accidentally brought it into his hand at the rim, rather than the handle. He was still getting used to ‘fast-equipping’ his gear. It didn’t matter.
His muscles rippled as he sprang back to a forward position, unleashing a devastating amount of torsion that sent the shield flying at the shaman’s head. A lethal frisbee that heralded death’s arrival.
The shaman swung its staff without grace, but it smashed the wooden buckler to the ground. It shattered, the crumpled iron cap no longer having the integrity to hold it together.
Ronan didn’t need the shield to kill the shaman. He wanted it to block. The heavy swing left it wide open.
He’d realised while fighting them the first time that the shamans were awful when it came to physical combat. Which was ironic, given that they wielded the most lethal weapons of all the goblins he’d encountered so far.
Ronan arrived in front of the gnarled, snarling snout of the lanky shaman. Its bloodshot eyes widened in surprise and it took a step back.
Its arms snapped upwards, yanking the staff with them in a sudden counter attack. Ronan grunted as the thick joint that capped the staff slammed into his ribcage.
<< Chapter 18 | Index | Chapter 20 >>
