A Warlock's Ascent

The three kobolds in front of Dave were growling, making his heart beat faster than a rat, foam-like liquid was dripping from their mouths making them even more terrifying. They all looked pissed, ready to pounce at any moment. While he on the other hand was all alone. He was at a clear disadvantage and didn't know how to handle this situation.

He knew that he could not fight all three of them head-on. That would be suicide. As he had no idea what he should do, he decided to follow his instincts, so he decided to run away. But before he could act on his decision, the kobolds attacked him.

One of them pounced at him, trying to tackle him to the ground. But he was ready for the attack, he raised his shield and tried to intercept the tackle. In the split second in which he raised his shield, he had a brilliant idea, he decided to use a maneuver from one of the movies that he saw

As soon as the kobold made contact with the shield, the blow made him fall backward with the kobold on his chest. As both of them made it to the ground, enacting that movie scene, he pushed his shield hard upwards. With the combination of his legs and the push from his shield, he was able to throw the creature away from him.

After he had thrown the kobold backward, he tried to get up quickly, but till then one of the other kobolds made its move. As he pushed his torso up to the ground, one of the kobolds came close to him and swiped its claws. And he was too late to react, and the kobold was successful at its attack. The sharp claws of the creature were able to make an imprint of 4 red color stripes on his torso.

The cut from the creature burned like hell. He could feel his blood pouring out of his cuts, it felt very painful. But the kobold who injured him was not done yet.

As soon as it saw that its attack was successful, it used its other claw to swipe at him. He noticed it from the corner of his eye. He also noticed that the third kobold had climbed up to a tree adjacent to where he was lying. And based on the position of the creature it was evident that he was going to jump on him…

It was maybe adrenaline, but at that exact moment, he performed a maneuver that he didn't know that he could do. He fell down on the ground, avoiding the strike from the second kobold. He then raised his legs up in the air, curling them to go over his head, thus performing the first reverse barrel roll of his life.

With the roll, he was able narrowly to avoid the attack of the third kobold as well, who jumped on him from up the tree. After performing the barrel roll, he immediately got up and raised his shield. Surprisingly the kobolds didn't attack him but only growled at him. Seeing this he was confused as these guys were so aggressive before. But it was then he realized why weren't they attacking him. But alas, he was too late.

All of a sudden he felt something grabbing onto his shoulders, the kobold that he threw backward had come back. The claws of the creature punctured his shoulder, but that wasn't enough to get the man down. He instinctively knew what he was supposed to do, he immediately started moving backward and then jumped on his back. Both the creature and he landed on the ground once again.

As they landed, the kobold's grip loosened a little bit, he then rolled away from the creature and got up as quickly as he can.

By the time he had gotten up, one of the kobolds came close to him and tried to slice him. But he avoided the attack with sheer luck. But this time he decided to retaliate, he swung his sword toward the kobold.

The kobold saw that attack coming and dogged the attack by stepping sideways. But this time he started getting aggressive, even when kobold avoided the attack, he didn't stop attacking. He started to swing his sword up and down with the intent to slice the creature once but the kobold was more agile and was able to avoid his every attack with ease.

Seeing that kobold was just playing with him, he started panicking. It is then, he was tackled from the side. One of the kobolds tackled him while simultaneously taking a bite off his left shoulder.

AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

It was very painful. He could feel the teeth of the creature rubbing against his bone, now he knew exactly how that baby porcupine felt when he struck it in its neck. The creature gripped his left arm and refused to let go. Using this to his advantage, he immediately slammed the handle of his sword in the creature's eyes.

SCREE!!!!

The creature cried in pain, and immediately let go of his arm. It started wincing in pain while trying to cover its left eye socket. Dave then immediately got up and then thrust his sword toward the creature's torso. The sword went in without any problem. And then the creature struggled for a few seconds before stopping for good.

......…

You have slain a Kobold.

.......

You have been awarded 10 exp for your feat.

........

He then turned around to face the other two kobolds, growling, with anger in their eyes. He then took out the sword from the dead kobold's body and then raised it toward them.

As his left arm was useless for now, he put away the shield back in his inventory. It is only after putting away the shield, he realized how heavy that shield originally was. Because now he felt very light weighed.

Then one of the kobolds raised its hands and started running towards him. It tried to grab him, but he easily sidestepped and avoided it. And after he had avoided the attack, he swung his sword toward the creature who came running to him.

SLING

Originally he just wanted to slice the stomach of the creature. But maybe he still hadn't realized his strength at that time. Because as soon as he sliced the creature, his sword cleaved the whole torso of the creature in half. Although it was not buttery smooth when he cut something of that size, still he was surprised as he was able to do it with a lot of ease.

And now there was only one kobold left.

Seeing that all of his friends had passed away, it got afraid. And after growling for a few seconds, it turned around the ran the other way…

***

He came out of the tree line and sat down at the edge of the patch, basking in the moonlight. He had taken off his shirt and wrapped it around his left arm. He had lost a lot of blood and was thinking that maybe his time has come. He had already realized that if he don't get medical attention soon then he would die. And considering his circumstances, no one was coming for him..

looking at the moonlit grasslands, he started to think that it is the best place to die. It was very beautiful and peaceful…

He didn't know what happened to the last kobold that ran away. While coming here, he did check over and over again to see whether or not that creature was following him. And he could not spot him. But he was not sure.

But now sitting at the end of his life, he wanted to die peacefully rather than by being gnashed between the teeth of a freak of nature.

While lying in the quietness, he clenched his hands. He wanted to live. But alas he would not be able to do so. He started thinking about his friends and started wondering whether they were able to run away or not. Thinking about them, he couldn't help but smile thinking that if they are alive, then his sacrifice was worth it.

At the same time, he felt a little bit angry at the kobolds. He wanted to slice down the last kobold as well, at least he could have his revenge before dying. As he sat there lost in thought, he started hearing some noise coming from the forest. He started hearing screams.

The screams were very weird. It sounded much like a human was screaming in a very high-pitched voice, after inhaling a lot of helium. The sound was weird, but the concerning part about the scream was that it seemed like the source of the scream was coming toward him.

He got up, raised his sword, and went inside the patch. He didn't go deeper. He just went inside a little bit and then hid behind a large fat tree. He could hear the screams getting closer and closer, and the source soon came to him.

As he was hiding by the tree, something rushed past him. He saw that a black color beast was running behind a green color midget. And Dave instantly recognizes the black fur beast as the kobold.

The kobold chased the midget to the edge of the tree line and finally tackled him to the ground. The midget was screaming and yelling in a weird strange language. But the screams and yells weren't able to faze the kobold. And before he knows it, the kobold went straight for the little creature's neck.

The sharp teeth of the kobold bit the soft skin of the little midget's throat and then ripped it out. Before it could do anything else, Dave who had sneaked up to it, swung his sword and sliced the neck of the kobold and thus killing it…

................

You have slain a Kobold.

................

You have been awarded 10 exp for your feat.

................

"This is for my hand mother fucker" Dave cursed while looking at the kobold's corpse. And then he slumped down by the corpses of the midget and kobold.

Now he was truly tiered and had accepted his faith. Once again he got lost in his thoughts, it is only after a few minutes, his attention was then suddenly shifted when the corpses of both monsters vanished in thin air. He was amazed and a little shocked as he saw this. The blood, of the monsters, was still on the ground. But other than that, everything had vanished like a fart wind.

Along with the blood, something else grabbed his attention. There was a satchel on the ground where the bodies were just now. Curious about what was in the bag, he grabbed the bag's strap with his leg and pulled it towards him. He was feeling a little bit lazy at the moment so he didn't want to get up.

There were three glass bottles inside the bag. Two of them were filled with cheery red liquid, while the third one had green liquid inside it. He became curious as to what these liquids were. He first opened the red color liquid and smelled it. The liquid had a fruity smell to it. Thinking that it was a beverage, he chugged the whole red liquid bottle.

After he had drunk all of it, he started feeling weird sensations all around his body. He then looked down towards his torse and was shocked to see that the claw marks on his body were healing at a visible rate. He was very amazed. And after the weird sensation had ended, he started feeling better and more invigorated than before.

He then unwrapped his cloth shirt to look at his arm. And he was shocked yet once again to see his arm looked better than before. His arm hadn't healed fully, but still, it is better than before. Immediately he chugged another red liquid bottle and sure enough, then his arm started healing at a visible rate…

The two bottles of red liquid were not able to heal his arm completely. But it did a hell of a good job. His arm had stopped bleeding and his wound looks better than before. And the amazing thing now was that he was not only alive and he was sure that he would live.

He then got up, he was full of energy. He then opened the last green liquid bottle to see what it contained. But as soon as he opened it, he was assaulted by a rotten egg smell that almost made him throw up. So he quickly closed the bottle.

He didn't know what is in the bottle, but still he decided to keep it. He picked up the satchel as well and started moving outwards. As he got out, he couldn't help but smile, about 300 m away from the tree line he spotted a familiar horse grazing peacefully…

***

"Something is wrong," Thoth mumbled as he looked at the numbers.

They had already calculated and knew that the number of death in the cataclysm would be very huge. But the numbers have surpassed their estimates. And they had surpassed it by 800%. This is something that shouldn't be possible.

"Guys, I think something is wrong. The number of deaths has gone up by 800% of what we have initially estimated." Mimir said from the other end of the room.

"Brahma, could you take a look at it?" Thoth said to the triplets who were playing cards by the other end of the room.

"Yes, we will." One of the brothers suddenly said and then snatched the cards from his other two brothers.

"Whoa, I had a very good hand." One of the brothers protested.

"And I had a very bad one. Now, let's just focus on people." The brother who snatched the cards said with a smirk.

"Fine" the other two brothers said and then all three of them got up. The triplets then came towards each other and put their right hand on each other shoulders and chanted…

"All for one. And one for all"

A bright light then engulfed the tree brothers. As the light was extinguished, emerged a man with three heads. With one head in the middle and two on the side, a being who emitted a divine aura, which made him look quite powerful and distinguished.

"Do you have to chant that ridiculous lines every time you guys combine?" Mimir asked annoyingly.

"No. But we do it anyway, because of something called showmanship." The head in the middle said.

Then Brahma started floating in the air. He then sat down in the air in the lotus position and magically conjured 6 different screens by his side. Then the three heads started looking at the screens simultaneously.

And after a minute or so he finally found the mistake…

"It seems that Mimir's code had a fault. And because of it, our whole calculation was wrong. I would suggest that you guys should stop the cataclysm. Or otherwise, more or less no one in the Midgard would be alive by sunrise." He said.

"My code isn't wrong," Mimir said angrily.

"I have sent you the report. You can check it out." The head in the middle said.

Hearing this Thoth sighed in frustration. But then he immediately did what Brahma had suggested him to do….