Leiden’s life had been a bizarre one.

For the first ten years of his life, he was like most ordinary Giant Goblins. He lived in the boundless Wilderness, leading a troop of Bear Goblins and Goblins, his existence barely better than that of a beast.

Though they claimed to be masters of tactics and strategy, it was merely a case of being the tallest among dwarves. Compared to their ignorant kin—the Goblins—they could indeed be called exceptionally intelligent.

But compared to humans or Elves, their so-called exceptional Wisdom was as laughable as a toddler who had just learned to speak claiming to be fluent in the slang of the Seven Kingdoms.

His ten years of life consisted of leading a few dozen Bear Goblins through a tedious, cyclical existence: find food, eat his fill, sleep, and then go back to plundering or foraging.

Everything changed with a disaster.

It was a memorable summer solstice. The Wilderness was experiencing a long-overdue drought. Creeks began to dry up, and lakes were reduced to nothing but sludge.

Water grew scarce, not just for the Giant Goblins, but for other predators as well.

The only difference was that the Goblin kin could only migrate in search of water, while the predators had another option: temporarily quenching their thirst with blood.

Leiden’s Tribe was, without a doubt, unlucky. They encountered a Mire Earth Lion whose throat was practically smoking with thirst.

For the Goblin Clan, whose combat prowess was unremarkable to begin with, this Magical Beast covered in mud-rock armor was an unstoppable Celestial Calamity.

Moreover, the Mire Earth Lion commanded the powerful Earth Element, capable of turning rock-hard ground as soft as sand in an instant.

In the very first exchange, it sank everyone in the Tribe, including him, into the earth.

Then, the beast used its sharp claws to slice open their necks and greedily suck out the gushing blood.

Only when it had slurped every last drop from the corpse’s veins would it move on to the next, still unsated.

The Bear Goblins and Goblins may have been ignorant and foolish, but that didn’t mean they lacked all Wisdom.

They could only watch helplessly as their kin were decapitated one by one, their blood drained like milk from a carton. Trapped in the ground with only their heads above the surface, unable to move, they could only await their fate. Tears and snot streamed from their faces in terror.

Leiden’s fear was the deepest of all—the one before him had just been drained dry, and he was next.

The Mire Earth Lion approached with unhurried, elegant steps. Those few short breaths felt like months of torment to Leiden.

The waiting was the worst part. It gave him more than enough time to imagine every possible form of torture, stimulating his brain until it was overwhelmed by uncontrollable fear and dread.

The Mire Earth Lion leisurely licked the blood from its claws. In truth, it disliked using blood as a substitute for water, but it had no other choice.

At this time of year, fresh water was harder to find than food. It had undoubtedly chosen the easier option.

As death loomed, his fear reached its zenith and continued to spiral madly, like a storm churning in his mind. With devastating force, it felt as if a great door in his mind had been pushed open with a CREAK.

In that instant, a miracle occurred.

It was as if a Giant Axe, fast as Lightning, had split the chaos in his mind, separating the clear from the murky.

His ignorant brain was ignorant no more; his chaotic consciousness was no longer chaotic.

The world, which had always been a hazy fog, seemed to have its mysterious veil lifted. Everything became so clear he could see every single hair on the Mire Earth Lion before him.

The muddle-headed Leiden died that day, and the wise Leiden was reborn.

It wasn’t until much, much later that Leiden learned he had awakened his Innate Wisdom. In terms of Magic, this was known as an enlightenment, an opening of the spirit.

A Legendary Magic Master could use Magic comparable to that of the Gods to enlighten a lamb, granting it human-like intelligence.

Leiden’s case was different; he had awakened on his own. He was one in a million, perhaps even rarer.

He was lucky, a fortunate soul blessed by the Gods. But this growth in Wisdom did not grant him the strength to overcome his current predicament. If nothing unexpected happened, his fate would be the same as that of his kin before him.

He would be drained of his blood, drop by drop, in a most gruesome fashion by this beast. The irrevocable agony of feeling something that was his own flow away from his body, little by little, was enough to make anyone tremble uncontrollably.

Just as this glimmer of hope seemed destined to be as fleeting as a dream, Leiden saw him: Gus. He stood like an iron tower, a giant Broadsword on his back and a Bow and Arrow in hand.

He was standing on a high slope, looking down at the scene. His golden horns glinted in the sun, and his thick mane danced in the wind.

Back then, he wasn’t as massive as he is today, perhaps only a little larger than an ordinary Minotaur.

He had just become the Centaur Leader and was leading his Tribe in a migration.

He had spotted the Magical Beast and, without hesitation, launched an attack. The beast, who knows how many lives it had claimed in the same manner, was pierced through the skull by a single arrow.

Its mud armor, as hard as rock, shattered as if it were nothing but cloth strips.

And so, Leiden was saved.

To the powerful Races of the Wilderness, the Goblin Clan—be they Bear Goblins or Giant Goblins—were beneath notice.