Gaia World, Day 15 After the Shattering.

  Pawel spent the night training, sharpening his new knife, and eating raw meat. He didn’t dare start a fire, so he had to endure tough, chewy muscle with no spices to improve the taste. It was nowhere near as satisfying as the liver and brain he had eaten earlier. In fact, it was truly awful—but hunger was worse.

  The goblin knife he had looted was poor quality and completely dull. Still, after enough time and effort, he managed to grind it into something better than his old bone dagger.

  He set up a barrier to hide and sleep behind, similar to the one he had used to ambush the goblins earlier. He had intended to get some rest that night, but his nerves refused to let him drift off. So instead, he used the time practicing the routine he had devised for himself.

  It was self-evident that his new life was going to involve a lot of fighting, so it made sense for him to get serious about it.

  In his teenage years, Pawel had trained in martial arts for a while, but none of the dojos taught techniques meant to kill, obviously. He had also gotten into quite a few fistfights with other boys, but those weren’t fights to the death either. So his past experience wasn’t entirely applicable to his current situation. Still, there were aspects he could use—especially if his new enemies turned out to be humanoid.

  He remembered how to coordinate his breathing with each strike. How to observe without focusing on a single point—taking in a wide area instead, so as not to reveal his intentions. And how to keep his muscles relaxed, tensing them only at the last possible moment to strike faster and with greater force.

  Pawel practiced all of this while moving with the heavy hammer, forcing every muscle group to work and preparing himself for any possible movement in a real fight. He tried to create a sort of kata—only with a hammer. It also seemed to help loosen the stiffness caused by his new ability. Or perhaps it was simply time that helped—he couldn’t be sure.

  The most important skill he trained, though, was healing while in motion. Every few minutes he would stop the wild swinging and cut himself. It wasn’t easy. Even with magical healing and dulled pain, deliberately injuring himself was difficult. The wounds were usually too small and healed too quickly.

  Still, he kept practicing—attempting to half-meditate and heal while performing his “hammer katas.” He was concerned about spending mana on practice like that, but gaining the ability to heal during a fight was very important.

  With how things were up until now, he could power through every fight and meditate in peace to heal afterward; however, it was a clear trend that things were getting harder. What if he was bleeding out rapidly while some enemies were still alive? No—he needed to get a grasp of healing mid-combat before things got too hard.

  The accumulated exhaustion of the long day and sleepless night finally wore Pawel down enough to let him fall asleep. By then, dawn could not have been far away.

  Pawel jolted awake to the sound of rustling leaves and guttural grunts, his hand instinctively reaching for the hammer beside him. The barrier of bushes and branches he'd piled up shielded him from immediate view, but the noises were close—too close. He peered through a gap in the foliage, carefully controlling his breath, as he took in the scene.

  A group of five goblins had wandered into the clearing near the stream, their scrawny forms silhouetted against the morning light filtering through the canopy. They were similar to the ones he'd fought the night before: chest-high, emaciated, with dirty, oily green skin and crude spears fashioned from sharpened sticks. One carried a rusted dagger, its edge chipped and dull. They wore ragged hides—untanned and filthy, draped loosely over their bony frames. No metal armor, no helmets, nothing that looked remotely useful for protection. Pawel suppressed a sigh; he'd been hoping for something to scavenge, at least bigger chunks of metal, but these creatures seemed too primitive for that.

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  The goblins sniffed the air, their beady eyes darting around. One barked something in their harsh language, pointing roughly toward Pawel's current location. They'd smelled him—or perhaps the remnants of his raw meat meal. Pawel gripped the hammer tighter, his muscles tensing in that familiar, controlled way he'd practiced.

  He waited until they drew closer, their steps clumsy and argumentative—one shoving another over some perceived slight. When the lead goblin was just a few paces from his barrier, Pawel exploded into action. He burst through the foliage with a wide swing, the hammer's head catching the surprised leader square in the chest. Bones crunched, and the goblin folded like wet paper, a gurgling wheeze escaping its throat as it was pushed back so hard it flew two meters away before finally landing, still rolling back even further away.

  Chaotic rage consumed the other four goblins, their spears stabbing haphazardly in a disorganized assault. Pawel held the maul firmly in both hands, dodging a thrust with a practiced shift of weight from his training, then countered with a powerful overhead swing that connected solidly with one goblin's shoulder. The blunt head thudded against flesh and bone, eliciting a sharp crack as the creature staggered back, arm dangling uselessly. A second spear nicked his thigh, drawing blood and a spike of pain, so he pushed mana into the injury without breaking rhythm, the healing flow staunching the bleed even as he parried another attack with the maul's sturdy handle. He released one hand briefly to shove a goblin off-balance, then regripped for a sideways bash that felled it with a resounding impact to the ribs.

  It wasn't as strong as the first attack, but it still pushed the monster to the ground, unable to breathe. This meant that one enemy was decisively dead after the initial attack, another had collapsed, clutching its crushed shoulder in shock, and the third was already on the ground, about to drown in its own blood.

  But Pawe? was only one man and couldn’t deal with all the monsters at once. The goblin with the dagger drove the tip of its blade into Pawe?’s back. Fortunately, the strike was slowed by a rib, sparing his lung and vital organs—but the pain shattered his carefully maintained rhythm.

  As he spun on his heel to counter the dagger-wielding creature, he accidentally knocked aside the last opponent’s spear. By sheer luck, the thrust only sliced deep into his skin instead of sliding beneath his ribs. Still, that exchange left him with two more wounds. Pawe? struggled to keep part of his focus on sustaining his healing ability.

  His hammer was now trapped in an awkward bind with the enemy’s spear. Rather than trying to wrench it free, he released the shaft with one hand, grabbed the goblin’s spear, and yanked hard—tearing it from the creature’s grip and sending it sprawling to the ground.

  At that moment, the last one—the knife-wielder—drove the blade into Pawe?’s thigh, just below the hip. It was the leg bearing his full weight. The limb buckled instantly, and he crumpled to the ground with a pained yelp.

  This completely broke Pawel's concentration. The last flash of pain and ensuing chaos made him forget any idea of techniques—or even a semblance of meditation to maintain his healing. He collapsed into an unwilling embrace of the dagger-wielding monster, crushing the smaller creature under his mass.

  Now everyone was on the ground. Three dead or dying. One goblin under Pawel, trying to wrestle away, clawing at his skin, and the last one—disarmed—for some reason, decided to join the wrestling match instead of rearming itself.

  A wild scuffle ensued with fists flying, nails scratching, and pointy teeth biting. Even with all the wounds and the dagger still lodged below his hip, causing flares of intense pain, Pawel was able to overpower the green monsters.

  After he managed to pile the two goblins and pin them under his own mass, he grabbed two wooden spikes and began stabbing the monsters repeatedly in whatever seemed the most vital . Finally, they stopped moving, and Pawel relaxed somewhat, rolling off the disgusting enemies and again half-concentrating on his healing abilities. He was struggling to breathe, not so much because of the wounds, but from the stench.

  He had more mana to be used for healing than ever—now that he had gotten three more kills. Two goblins were still alive. One drowning in its blood, gurgling, and one sitting and whimpering silently with its shattered shoulder. Pawel kept some of his attention listening to those—making sure they would not attack. Eventually, in a few minutes, they both died.

  The monster with the crushed arm just decided to lay down and died soon after.

  Pawel noticed mana from both of them flowing into himself. It was adding to the pool that could be used for active abilities. In order to get upgrades of those abilities, he'd need to collect mana crystals.

  He kept everything he had active at maximum capacity, not caring much for saving power. He was sure there would be some mana crystals to get even more energy.

  Eventually, he felt the dagger disconnect from his body. The entire part that penetrated his flesh was cleanly cut off and gone. The remaining part slid off to the ground.

  Pawel took a deep breath in relief and immediately regretted it, gagging.

  "Oh, God—I need to cut out mana crystals and get rid of the bodies..."

  He contemplated bothering with the mana crystals, weighing pros and conns of enduring the foulness, when he heard the quarrel of another goblin party "sneaking" into his hideout.

  " Great. " He grumbled, forcing himself up.