25 The Raid Begins

After the three had left, Stanis continued lying on the ground, his mind beyond paranoid as his vibrant imagination began thinking the worst of his future. It would take an hour or so for him to crawl back into his cave, a few hours to finally go to sleep, only to wake back up two hours later. And yet despite the short time asleep, Stanis still found himself in crippling nightmares.

Stanis opened his eyes, only to set his sight upon his arms. No longer were they covered in midnight's veils, rather he could see them with clarity. One arm was slightly chubby, had hair all down it, and its muscles contracted around each other like hungry pythons as he gripped his fist.

He did the same for the other arm, but this time there were no contractive movements, in fact there was no movement at all. There was no hair down the arm, there wasn't any flesh on the arm, and it wasn't even the same skin tone as the rest of his body! Rather it was a dark orange covered monstrosity, showing Stanis exactly what he was becoming.

And then he walked. He didn't walk in a certain direction, or towards anything, but rather just walked. A timeless period later, he was surrounded by the people of the Camp. They were not demanding anything of him, nor haunting him, rather they looked at him with fearful eyes. All of them were becoming crueller by the day, but Stanis was more like the monsters they fought on a daily basis than one of them. It started with jeering, and then a few rocks being thrown. And then Stanis saw the crowd splitting, only to reveal Anatoly, Orena and Ailean. They were armed…

He had no time to think, nevertheless react, as cold steel bit into his thigh. He fell down, before squirming around in pain. Anatoly then booted him across the ground, laughing as the others watched.

"Squeal you little bitch...

It's shit like you that makes us weak...

Just die already!"

What followed that was punches being thrown, stones being thrown, and Humanity being thrown away as they assaulted him like Monsters. The very Monsters he fought on a daily basis…

He didn't know what he felt last. Was it numbing pain, was it grief at what he was going through, or was it scalding anger at what his life had become?

And then Stanis woke up, sweat dripping down his face as he tried to regain his composure. He was in pain: he felt like crying, he felt like screaming, he felt like he was dying. Fortunately, his body stopped him from doing anything rash as he found himself without the energy to even get up.

It was a few torturous minutes later that Stanis forced himself up, before walking outside of his cave. The sun was shining, and Stanis looked at his arms. Both were fully opaque and looked exactly the same.

After having reassured himself, Stanis paced down the beach several times. Only after coming to a conclusion did he stop, only to start walking across the beach once more. This time he didn't stop by the end of the beach and kept walking. Soon his feet were treading over the smooth, dusk coloured stone. He was going back to the Temple.

It was then that he noticed the long cave, which acted as the entrance, was no longer there. Surprised and confused, Stanis spent several minutes looking around before giving up. This would have played largely on his mind, was it not for all the absurd things he had already been through. Giving up, Stanis walked back to his own cave, before equipping himself ready for battle.

It was then that he noticed the skill scroll that he had looted last battle. He had left it tied to his waist, only to have it far overshadowed by yesterday's friendly meeting. Now mostly-calm, Stanis opened up the scroll.

[Scout and Sense

A skill which uses mana to instantly scout out your surrounding area. Using more mana will increase scouted area.

Do you wish to accept this skill?]

Having no reason to deny it, Stanis accepted it.

[You now have 2 skills: Layman's Rush and Scout and Sense.]

Unsure of what to expect, Stanis immediately used it.

<Activate Scout and Sense. Use 6 mana>

Instantly, Stanis fell into a brief ethereal moment as his soul seemed to come out of his body, feeling lighter than ever before as his prison-like shell came off.

And then he was back inside his body, shocked by the sudden roller-coaster ups and downs he momentarily lost control of himself.

Managing to catch himself, Stanis went through the information that had just been injected into his brain.

He could see what 100m around him looked like a few seconds ago. It wasn't to the detail of able to count grass, but he could see the landscape and what was in the area. It also didn't have a penetrative element, and so he couldn't see underground, or into completely closed-off areas. There was also no other sense involved other than sight, but that alone was good enough.

Realising the potential of his new skill, Stanis ran across to where the Temple should be and used his skill. But it was to no avail as he realised that the cave had completely disappeared from Earth.

Still, that no longer plagued his mind as Stanis realised how this skill allowed him to be able to do more. Now he could better react to difficult situations.

It was on his way to Camp that Stanis began formulating his own plan, one that revolved around the two he already knew. He knew the whole Camp was going to be raiding the Goblins, and he knew that Anatoly was going to use them, and then leave them to die. He was certain that Anatoly hadn't given him all the details, but it was more than enough for him to think about.

The whole point of the raid was to kill the tier-one monster and harvest its Stone of wonders. Anatoly hadn't explicitly told him, but Stanis was sure that Anatoly meant to steal it and flee with it. This was the reason why he and his group hadn't left yet, and also the reason why they had come to force Stanis in, through carrot and stick. After all, he was one of the stronger ones, and especially with Layman's Rush, he could completely ruin their plan.

Stanis guessed that they had most likely done this to anyone else who was strong in the Camp, as they needed assurance of help to get inside the Goblin's Camp, kill the tier-one Goblin and then to not attack them as they began fleeing with the Stone of Wonders.

Of course, they had hidden things away from him, as well as anyone else the cajoled in. But that was to be expected considering the danger they would be placing themselves in if they didn't.

In the end, after a bit of thought, Stanis decided he would act upon the moment. Perhaps he was still too "soft" in thinking like Anatoly had said, but he preferred not to kill others like they were going to do. However, he had also grown and now had his own ego, the very same ego that Anatoly had yesterday trampled over with muddy feet. Stanis felt feelings of indignation and anger at the fear he had been forced through…

Soon enough, he reached the Camp. It was loud in the Camp as he realised everyone was getting ready, with a few who already were. By chance, Jayesh turned out to be one of them.

Stanis walked over to the large Indian man. He had a pensive look on his face as if he was thinking something deep. It went without saying that the man in front Stanis right now was different to the one Stanis had met during the tutorial, and the same thing applied to him as well.

"Jayesh, you ready?" said Stanis, to which Jayesh raised his head.

"I am. Although I don't know if I'll be leaving that wretched place alive" responded Jayesh. He then waited a moment to collect his thoughts, before speaking them.

"You don't know how the previous raids went since you were injured. But every time we did it, we never managed to get deep into the Goblin Camp as the number of those monsters increases massively.

Perhaps it will be different considering this is a full Camp raid. But all I'm saying is that we are putting all our hopes into this raid: we win and we get to make a village, but if we lose…

Well if we lose, we'll all be dead!"

It was almost as if Jayesh was directly talking to the thoughts Stanis had minutes back. However, Stanis maintained his straight face as he listened. The two continued talking for a while as the others got ready.

It was as they were talking that Stanis decided that he would at least try to make sure Jayesh didn't die. They hadn't known each other for long, nor had they spent that much time together. But Stanis was sure that Jayesh was one of the better men here, and people like that deserved to survive for longer in his opinion.

Moments later after his decision, the powerhouses of the Camp began walking out. This ranged from Juan, to Anatoly's group, which included Orena, Ailean and two others who had migrated Camps alongside Ailean. One of them was a thin African man of short stature, while the other was an Asian man of average build. Neither looked very friendly, but it wasn't to the stage of giving away their plan.

Stanis nodded towards Anatoly, who merely smirked in response.

Soon enough, Juan did a little inspirational speech before the whole company set off in motion. There were 23 of them to be exact. Stanis was sure that the number of people coming back would be 0. This would be due to the combination of the Goblins and Wolves, Anatoly's plan, and Stanis's plan…