Purge

'Chimey, go to the goblin closest to me and shine as bright as you can in its eyes. Do this and come back.'

The orange system wasted no time and stopped chasing after Cal, the goblins behind him paid this no mind and continued sprinting forwards with ever-increasing fervour.

"HuGYAH?!" Cal was focused on his path forward, but the surprised screech of a goblin accompanied by a few thumps on the ground was indicative of the goblin falling backwards, catching a few of its friends in the process.

Chimey caught up with Cal immediately afterwards, Cal was surprised that the system was so fast, he tabled that thought to be discussed later.

'Once again Chimey, do this until they are evenly dispersed.'

"HyuwAG?!"

*THUMP THUMP*

"HssckEET?!"

*TH-TH-THUMP*

"GReavVEE??!!"

Goblins screeched and yelped as their visions were temporarily blinded, having even a tiny lapse in judgement when running forwards with all your might can cause even the most agile to fall, these goblins were no exception.

[Done! There are only a few right behind you! The others are still trying to catch up now!]

'Good.'

By now, Cal's ankle had visible cracks etched on its surface, he relied on those bones to spring him forward with each leap and had imposed too much pressure on them in desperation, there was no way to fix it before getting in this fight.

Chakra that was once dispersed throughout Cal's entire body dispersed and focused entirely on the skeleton's sword-wielding hand, with the increase in Chakra, Cal knew that focusing it's entirety on one part of his body could be dangerous, but there was no other choice.

The Chakra which Cal once had to meditate to sense was now buzzing along his hands, filling them with a strange sense of strength and power. Through the guise of the buzz, Cal could feel the instability that came from his arms.

'My bones grew a lot more strong and agile yet they've become brittle...' Cal mused.

'If I allow even one goblin a hit, chances are my bones will snap.'

'No mistakes Cal. Not this time.'

Re-directing Chakra to his arms lowered his speed by a large margin, the closest goblin had almost caught up to Cal and was now within range.

*SCHLEEK!*

Cal dug his heels into the dungeon floor and threw his arm out, grasping the sword tightly. His Chakra infused attack was launched with such force that his whole body pivoted about the heel, turning him to face the creature he had cleanly cut through the neck of.

*THUMP*

The goblin fell to the floor, its head attached to its body barely by the grasp of a few tendons and strings of muscle.

'One.'

The next goblin was fast approaching, Chimey had done an excellent job of thinning out the density of monsters, Cal was able to easily take care of this goblin as well, carefully targeting their vitals.

'Two.'

Cal's mind flowed like river, each strike, each swing, each thought; all carefully calculated.

'Five.'

The blade which usually shone with a silver lustre had been dyed a deep crimson, with each slash, more and more blood accumulated on the blade's tip.

'Eight.'

Even Cal's bones had flecks of red adorning them, the harsh contrast making the skeleton look as if it were a fierce monster.

*SHCKLEEK!*

With a final swipe of the sword, the final goblin fell onto the floor, the gash across it's neck noticeably thinner and closer to the surface than the first goblin's, the pain caused the goblin to fall onto the floor before choking on its own blood and passing away.

'...'

<<Will || Level ? (D) cancelled>>

A wave of fatigue crashed into Cal, his knees which before were rooted in place began to tremble and give way, even though the goblins were few in number and not even comparable to the amount that most adventurers could take on, the skeleton felt exhausted. Beyond the physical pain, his mind ached for some reason, fighting had never taken such a mental toll on him before.

Yet even with this pain, Cal remained standing.

He heard Chimey making sounds in the background but Cal wanted to take stock of himself first. The ankles on both of his feet showed visible strains, thin lines and gashes that were born from Cal's reckless running covered them, along Cal's right arm, his wrist had the same worrying gashes laced across it; major bones such as his leg and arm were much sturdier than most other bones were unaffected.

'I focused on Chakra and Agility to take on the monsters but if I knew I was weak to the extent where *running* could break me... dammit. Constitution needs to be raised ASAP.'

Cal cursed his foolishness.

The boy was used to fighting and coordinating attacks with his party, and in such a group, having people specialise in certain stats and jobs can make the group immeasurably stronger than one where all the members are average at everything. Cal used that same mentality to grow in strength all alone in the dungeon, his mind lapsing over the fact that there was now nobody to make up for his lack of stats.

Cal shook his head, breaking himself out of his self-induced rebuke and looked at the small hill of goblin carcasses he had made, they were all of varying sizes and shapes, only now was Cal able to compare how strange each creature was.

Usually, they were mere clones of one another, during Cal's 6 years as an adventurer he had killed an enormous amount of goblins; they all had similar height, features, shapes and strengths.

But that wasn't the case here.

Some goblins were small and wiry in their frame, grasping a small dagger between their grimy claws, others were taller and had rippling muscles across their body; Cal remembered how much tougher it was to get his sword through that goblin's neck. The differences between goblins even went as in-depth as having different types of claws! Some were short and stubby while others were long and hooked at the edges, Cal was shocked.

'Are these even goblins?' he thought, prodding the "body-builder-goblin"'s muscles with the tip of his sword, this sight confused him to no end.

If the first goblin Cal faced as a 13-year-old was anything like this muscle-headed creature here, Cal would've quit and taken a job as a fisherman.

*ding!*

*ding!*

*ding!!!*

While Cal was examining the bodies, Chimey did everything it could to get Cal's attention.

Cal finally noticed when the system jumped ionfront of Cal's face, using the same tactic it used on the goblins.

'HuGYa- I mean, what?!'

[It's not finished! There's another!]

'What?!'

Cal rocked his neck both ways, checking behind him for a stray goblin. Cal dispersed his Chakra around his body and tried to sense his surroundings, using Ki, he was able to sense other beings doing this act, yet sensing was a whole lot harder without skin or muscle.

He sensed nothing.

'Chimey... are you sure?'

[Yes... I remember seeing it! I don't think it stopped chasing either!]

Cal was surprised that Chimey was so worried, considering the system's usual behaviour, he expected Chimey to ask him to feed it some cores before battling, yet it was desperately warning him.

'Go check it out Chimey!' Cal commanded, bravely pointing a bony finger into the darkness.

[What?! No that's dangerous! You check it out!]

'I can get hurt! You can't! It's obvious who should go and explore!'

[No way, it's scary!]

'The more we argue, the longer it'll be till you get to eat the cores!'

[Yes sir.]

Chimey shamelessly drifted into the darkness with haste, the thought of delicious cores clouding any sense of self-preservation that it had.

Cal looked at Chimey's leaving figure with a wry expression, he liked how straightforward the system was when it came to delicious things. As the orange screen made its way into the darkness, his surroundings grew darker until a point where Chimey's light no longer reached him. Cal could still see the outline of the dungeon and the corpses that littered the floor but he wasn't able to make out any details; if he were in this situation in his human body, he would've seen nothing at all.

Circulating Chakra was getting increasingly difficult, most of it had been used up when taking care of the small horde, and the leftover energy was more thin and difficult to coordinate, nevertheless, Cal kept at it to lower the chances of being snuck up on.

'Chimey it probably just left! Just come ba-'

Behind Cal's left shoulder, he felt as if a whisper of a breeze nudged his bone, a touch so slight he almost thought he imagined it. Cal wasted no time and threw his body to the right, ducking as he did so.

*THUNK!*

Through the darkness of the cave, Cal could see a figure fly out from behind him and embed itself in the dungeon's wall, narrowly missing Cal's spine.

Cal snapped his head backwards and looked at the creature that attacked.

'...'

'Shit.'