"What is this?"

I stopped walking immediately. The place was the same: the cracked ground, the dead trees, and the dark blood staining the earth. Everything was exactly as I remembered, except for the corpses.

The goblin bodies had covered the battlefield earlier were gone. But now, not a single one remained. Only dried blood and broken claw marks proved they had ever existed.

Slowly, I crouched beside one of the bloodstains. It hadn’t dried up completely; some of it was still fresh.

"That is impossible..."

I couldn’t focus my thoughts on any possible reason why they had gone missing. Was it the Gate playing tricks, or had the goblins gotten up by themselves, or worse... had one of the guys moved them?

I didn’t trust the mercenaries completely either. Who knows if they realized I was just using them, and that I wasn’t the one who was supposed to be with them in the first Gate.

I need to keep my guard up without ruling out any possibility. If it is them, I have to take countermeasures before I get tangled up in their plan.

Squish.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of flesh being stitched together and my head snapped toward the direction it came from, as my grip on my dagger tightened.

"What could it be?"

For a moment, there was no other sound, and I began to think I was just hearing things. However, to prove me wrong, another sound soon came. This time, from a different direction.

Squish.

Squish.

Squish.

The sound began to multiply. At first it was one, then it turned to three, and slowly it became too many to count.

Soon, the entire forest seemed alive with movement. The branches above me began to shake violently, then a shadow appeared behind a tree.

My pupils shrank as I focused my gaze on the figure stepping out from behind the tree. It was just a goblin, but not a normal one.

The creature stood nearly three meters tall. Its body was grotesquely swollen and its shoulders were enormous. Moreover, its limbs looked stitched together with actual stitches.

Thick black threads ran across its chest, neck, and arms. It was as if multiple bodies had been crudely sewn into one.

"Krrrk..."

The creature tilted its head as its yellow eyes locked onto me. A cold chill crept up my whole body. But that wasn’t the end yet. After it, more began to appear one by one.

Soon, ten of them stood in front of my eyes. And that was the jaw-dropping thing. They were ten, not forty.

One of them dragged its arm across the ground as it stepped forward. My eyes immediately locked onto it.

That wasn’t a normal arm anymore. Three different forearms had been stitched together into one massive limb. Thick black threads connected flesh to flesh while mismatched green skin stretched unnaturally.

Another goblin had two lower jaws sewn side by side beneath its mouth. Yellow teeth protruded from both sets of jaws as black saliva dripped continuously onto the ground.

And one of them...

One of them had extra eyes embedded along its neck. The eyes blinked independently from each other while staring in completely different directions.

My stomach twisted. These weren’t evolved goblins. They were corpses crudely merged together.

"No way..."

Earlier, there had been over forty goblins. Now they were a quarter of that quantity, but their bodies were almost twice as large in size.

And every single one possessed stitched flesh. The answer was obvious. They had merged. The dead goblins had fused together.

This realization made me take two steps back, and before I could think further or make sense of the situation I was in, they moved and circled around me.

BOOM!

Then, in an instant, one of them charged toward me. The ground exploded beneath its feet as it reached me before I could even blink.

"Shit!"

Subconsciously, I rolled my body sideways and dodged its claws.

CRASH!

The goblin slammed into the tree behind me, and the entire trunk shattered at the point of impact. Splinters of wood exploded everywhere, yet it didn’t do any kind of damage to the goblin as it turned toward me again.

Its mouth slowly stretched open and rows of broken yellow teeth became visible as it let out the same horrible laugh as before.

"Kekeke..."

There was only one difference. This time, it was hungrier and stronger.

More importantly... it wasn’t acting like a beast. Its yellow eyes never left me. They followed every movement I made while the corners of its stitched mouth twitched occasionally.

"Tch."

I clicked my tongue. I couldn’t fight ten of these things alone. There wasn’t a single chance of me surviving if the others joined in, but for some reason, the others didn’t even attempt to move.

They simply watched. Their eyes shifted between me and the goblin standing at the front.

It felt less like a hunting pack... and more like predators waiting for their turn. If one died, another would likely replace it. The thought alone made my skin crawl.

’If it is like this...’

I took a fighting stance by getting low and raised my dagger in front of me. For a bit, I looked straight into the eyes of the goblin.

"Get ready..." I let out in a low tone. "I am going to..."

Without hesitation, I turned around and sprinted away from the goblins.

"...RUN!"

To my surprise, all the other goblins didn’t try to stop me or follow me, except for the one that was trying to kill me.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

He chased after me, and with each step he took, I could feel the earth shake slightly. Furthermore, it was far faster than the earlier ones.

Branches snapped and trees shook wherever it passed through. Even when I was running with all my strength, the distance between us rapidly decreased.

I glanced behind and noticed its enormous claw being lifted as it swung downward.

WHOOSH!

I ducked and the claw missed my head by centimeters; instead, it struck a tree and left a big mark in it.

That attack would’ve torn me apart. There was no question about it. So, I accelerated even harder.

However, while running, a sharp pain suddenly exploded across my back.

The wound I had received earlier from the goblin attack reopened beneath my shirt. And my body lost balance for only a second.

But inside a Gate, one second was enough. My foot caught on a loose stone and I crashed onto the ground.

"URRG!"

My face hit the floor and a sharp pain shot through my nose as blood immediately trickled from it.

"My nose!"

I let out a cry because I didn’t have the luxury to whine any further, and before I could even push myself up, a massive shadow fell over me. The goblin grabbed my feet and grinned.

"Krkkrkkekeke..."

"...."

For a second, my thoughts froze. I wasn’t able to think of anything except for the goblin’s creepy smile, which was just a few meters away from my face.

"No way... Is it...?"

Its grip gradually began to tighten around my ankle as its laugh vanished.

Cra...

Crack...

Moving my hand, I stabbed the dagger right into the fist which was wrapped around my foot.

Black blood gushed out of the wound, but the goblin’s grip didn’t loosen even a bit; if anything, it tightened even further.

And with its other hand, it grabbed my hand in which the dagger was, and stabbed itself even deeper.

Then, it instantly increased the strength in its grip and broke both my ankle and my hand.

CRACK!!!

"ARRRGGG!!!"