The silence was absolute.
It was a heavy, pressurized void, a silence so total that the sound of his own blood—a hot, wet drip... drip... drip... onto the stone floor—was as loud as a drum.
He stood, frozen, his entire being locked in the aftershock of the kill. His [E-Rank Chitin-Shiv] was clutched in a white-knuckled, green-knuckled grip. His chest was a ruin, a map of raw, gaping flesh.
The [Grave-Hound]'s headless corpse lay steaming at his feet.
Gruk's massive, gutted body lay on the garbage-throne.
And the locket, the locket… it was gone. Just gone. The sinew-cord around his neck was a snapped, empty loop.
His 27 Intelligence, a magnificent, god-tier engine of pure reason, struggled to reconcile with the fact of what had just happened.
He had not won.
He had survived, by the thinnest, most idiotic, luckiest of margins.
He had, in his moment of supreme calculation, been saved by a random, booby-trapped piece of F-Rank trash.
He had been prepared for a chess match. His opponent had been a rabid dog. And just as the dog's jaws were closing on his throat, a stray meteorite had vaporized its head.
This wasn't strategy. This wasn't skill. This was the universe reminding him, once again, that it hated him and found his hubris adorable.
The warm, familiar rush of a level-up washed over him. It did nothing for the pain. His new 16 Stamina was irrelevant in the face of the [Heavy Lacerations] still gushing blood.
The debuff was still active. [Bleeding (Minor)].
It was, he noted with a detached, clinical horror, not so "minor" anymore. The pool at his feet was growing.
He was, he realized, bleeding to death.
He had perhaps ten minutes before his Stamina bar, drained by the constant blood-loss, hit zero and he simply… died.
He looked at his new kingdom.
The thirty-two goblins were still unconscious, scattered across the floor like piles of discarded, green-skinned laundry. They had fainted from the collective terror of the roar, the acid-melting, the assassination, the Grave-Hound's charge, and, finally, the silent, head-imploding curse. Their 3-INT minds had simply blue-screened.
They were useless.
He was alone, crippled, and dying, in a room full of corpses and fainted-fan-club members.
"This," he rasped, his voice a wet gurgle, "is stupid."
He needed his workshop.
His 27 INT took the wheel, suppressing the agony and the panic.
Problem: Bleeding.
Solution: Cauterization/Coagulation.
Materials: In his alcove. [Queen's Jelly (Tainted – Fire)].
Objective: Get from the cavern to the alcove.
Obstacles: A 100-meter crawl, a climb into a tight crawlspace, and a chest that was no longer structurally sound.
He took a step.
PAIN.
His vision whited out, a pure, static-filled shriek of sensory overload. The [Heavy Lacerations] weren't just cuts. The Grave-Hound's claws had torn muscle, ripped sinew. His 16 Agility was a lie. He was a broken marionette.
He fell, catching himself on his hands and knees.
The thud made one of the fainted goblins groan in his sleep.
Pathetic.
He began to crawl.
It was the most agonizing journey of his two lives. He, the Llvl 12 King, the [Colony-Killer], the creature of 27 Intelligence, dragged himself across the filthy, bone-littered floor.
He crawled past the headless, twitching corpse of the Grave-Hound. The smell of obliteration, a sharp, ozone-and-dust scent, mixed with the stench of its grave-rot. He left a thick, crimson-green trail in his wake.
He crawled past his new subjects, his blood dripping onto their prostrate, pathetic backs.
He reached the fissure. The crawlspace entrance.
It was a one-meter climb.
He looked at it. His 14 Strength felt like 4. His arms were shaking.
"The fly that has no one to advise it follows the corpse into the grave," his human-mind gibbered, a random Cameroonian proverb bubbling up in his delirium. He was the fly. The Grave-Hound was the corpse.
"Shut up," he hissed, and lunged.
He hooked one arm, his good arm (the one that wasn't as torn) onto the ledge. He kicked with his 16-Agility legs, his entire body screaming.
He flopped, like a landed fish, into the dark, tight safety of the crawlspace.
He lay there, wheezing, for a full minute. The [Bleeding] debuff was accelerating.
He couldn't rest.
He crawled.
The tunnel was a black, claustrophobic nightmare. He couldn't see the trail of blood he was leaving, but he could smell it.
Finally. Finally.
The dim, watery, beautiful blue light of his alcove.
He fell into his workshop, a ruined, bloody, Lvl 12 thing, and collapsed onto the stone floor.
He was safe.
He was still dying.
He dragged himself, claw-mark by bloody claw-mark, to his loot-pile.
There. [Queen's Jelly (Tainted – Fire)] x 2.
They were in the leathery slime-sacs he'd packaged them in. They were two grapefruit-sized lumps of warm, grey-black goo.
He fumbled with the knot, his fingers slick with his own blood.
He got one open. The jelly slumped out. It was thick, warm, and smelled of ash and honey.
His [Lvl 3 Class] and 27 INT didn't even need to [Appraise] it. His [Analysis (Passive)] skill had already given him the data.
[Queen's Jelly (Tainted – Fire) (Consumable/Material)]
Description: Royal Jelly from the Matriarch, slightly cooked. Saturated with proteins and coagulants. Tainted with [Ash] and [Volatile Heat-Energy].
Effect (Consume): Restores 50 Stamina. 40% Chance of [Internal Burns (Minor)].
Effect (Topical): Potent Coagulant. Will instantly seal F-Rank wounds.
Risk (Topical): The [Volatile Heat-Energy] will inflict [Cauterization] damage. It will be… exceptionally painful.
He looked at the two options. A 40% chance of more internal pain, or a 100% chance of immediate, agonizing, external pain.
He laughed. A wet, bloody gasp.
"When you tell the naked man you want to give him a shirt," he thought, his Douala-born gallows humor kicking in, "he will first look at the quality of the shirt."
This was a bad shirt. But it was the only shirt.
He wasn't gambling again. Not after the locket. He would take the 100% chance. He would own the pain.
He put his [E-Rank Chitin-Shiv] between his teeth.
He looked at the four, massive, weeping gashes across his chest.
"Okay," he whispered. "Let's be a man. Or a goblin. Or... whatever."
He grabbed a massive handful of the warm, ash-grey, honey-scented jelly.
And slapped it onto the open wounds.
…
…
…
There was no sound.
His throat opened to scream, but his 27 Intelligence, in a last-ditch act of self-preservation, cut the signal.
It was not pain. Pain was the Grave-Hound's claws. Pain was the core-overload.
This was transcendence.
This was pure, white-hot, static. It was the feeling of a thousand blacksmith's-quenches, of ten thousand hornets, of a sun exploding inside his nerves.
The [Volatile Heat-Energy] ignited. The jelly sizzled.
His wounds, his blood, his flesh… were cauterized.
Instantly.
He saw the notification as his vision tunneled to a pinprick.
[Debuff: [Bleeding (Minor)] has been removed!]
[New Buff/Debuff Acquired: [Crude Cauterization]!]
Your wounds are sealed with [Queen's Jelly]. They are not healed. You feel a constant, deep, burning pain.
Effect: -3 Agility, -3 Strength (Temporary – 48 Hours).
Effect: Your [Chitinous Buds] have been fused with the jelly, accelerating their growth.
And then, his 27 INT, his 16 Stamina, and his Lvl 12 body collectively said "Nope," and he slammed into unconsciousness.
He woke up.
The blue light of his hovel was the same. The air was the same.
The pain... was different.
It was no longer the sharp, shrieking agony of the cauterization. It was a deep, dull, throbbing... burn.
He sat up.
His chest was covered in a hard, black, glassy scab. The [Queen's Jelly] had cooled and hardened, creating a crude, organic, disgusting breastplate. It pulled at his skin when he moved.
He was alive.
His temporary debuff was active.
AGI: 13 (16 – 3).
STR: 11 (14 – 3).
He was crippled. He was Lvl 12, but he was weaker than he had been at Lvl 9.
He hated it.
But he was alive.
And he was King.
And his subjects… were unattended, in a room with two massive, rotting corpses.
The smell of those corpses, his 22 Perception noted, would draw every scavenger in this cave system. His Grave-Hound "boss-fight" was just the appetizer. If he didn't secure his territory, he'd be fighting them all.
He needed his subjects. He needed manpower.
He needed to talk to them.
He stood, his new black-scab-armor cracking and pulling. He gritted his teeth, his [Acid Gland] gurgling in protest.
He needed a name.
He wasn't "He" anymore.
He was... Klik.
He liked it. It was the sound his [Chert Rock] made against the [Iron Pyrite]. Klik. The sound of the spark. The sound of an idea.
It was the sound his reign would make. Sharp. Sudden. Decisive.
He, Klik, grabbed his [E-Rank Chitin-Shiv]. He hobbled, his 13 Agility feeling like he was walking through wet cement, back into the crawlspace.
When he emerged back into the main cavern, the scene was… worse.
The 32 goblins were awake.
They were not working. They were not organized.
They were cowering. They had, as a group, retreated to the furthest possible wall from the two massive, reeking corpses. They were huddled in a single, shivering, quivering mass of green-skinned misery.
The smell of the cavern had ripened. The Grave-Hound's headless body and Gruk's gutted-one were... pungent.
When they saw him, it was a new kind of terror.
He was not the goblin-king they'd seen before.
He was a thing, caked in his own dried blood, his chest a hideous, black, glassy mass of scabs. He looked like he had bled tar. He looked like a nightmare.
They screamed. And prostrated. Instantly.
"GAAAAH!" (It's him!)
"GRUK-KILLER!" (It's the demon!)
Klik hobbled to the center of the room. He was in agony. His [Crude Cauterization] burned with every step.
He grabbed Gruk's discarded [Nail-Studded Club], his 11 Strength straining to lift it. He used it as a crutch.
He stood over the cowering, whimpering mass of his new nation.
He was King. This was his court.
He opened his mouth, his new [Acid Gland] making his throat feel alien. He hadn't spoken in… weeks?
"I…"
His voice was a monstrosity. It wasn't the reedy, weak-goblin cackle. It was a rasp. A low, grating, clicking sound, backed by the faint, acidic hiss from his new gland.
The goblins screamed at the sound of his voice.
He gritted his teeth. This is impossible.
His 27 INT took over. Simple. Short. Commands.
He pointed at his own chest, the black, glassy scab.
"I…"
He pointed at Gruk's corpse. He pointed at the Hound's corpse.
"I… am… King."
The goblins shivered.
"I… AM… KLIK!"
He slammed the butt of the Lvl 7 club on the stone. THUD.
The goblins jumped.
He pointed at the two massive, rotting, fly-covered corpses.
"MEAT!" he roared.
He pointed at the hoard. The piles of scavenged junk and rotted food that Gruk had collected.
"FOOD!"
He looked at his cowering, useless, Lvl-3-INT subjects.
This was not working. They were too terrified to understand.
"The monkey cannot (knows not how to) judge the case of the forest," he thought, his 27 INT spitting out another proverb. They are toostupidto see the bigger picture.
He needed to show them.
He hobbled over to the nearest Lvl 2 goblin—a skeletal, weeping, stinking thing.
He grabbed the goblin by his ear-rag. The goblin shrieked as if he'd been stabbed.
"GAAAAAAAA!"
"QUIET!" Klik hissed, the acidic sizzle in his voice making the goblin instantly faint.
Klik dropped him.
"Useless!"
He looked at the others. They were scrambling backward, a wave of pure, uncut panic.
This was chaos.
His 27 INT saw the flaw. He was trying to be a King. He needed to be a God.
He ignored them.
He hobbled to Gruk's hoard. He found his [Chert Rock]. His [Iron Pyrite]. His [Dessicated Diseased Rag].
He walked to the center of the cavern.
He knelt, his scabs pulling, his chest burning.
He struck the stones.
KLIK. KLIK. KLIK-SKRAK!
A spark. An ember.
He blew.
A flame.
He added some of Gruk's broken-club-scraps, some of the junk-cloth from the hoard.
In thirty seconds, there was a fire burning in the middle of the cavern. A real, crackling, warm fire.
The screaming stopped.
The cowering stopped.
The 31 conscious goblins... stared.
Their 3-INT minds had never, in their entire, miserable, lightless lives, seen this.
This was not acid. This was not rot.
This was light. This was warmth.
This was magic.
Klik, the wounded, scab-covered goblin-king, stood up in the flickering, orange light of his own creation.
He looked like a demon. He looked like a god.
He pointed at the fire.
"I…" he rasped, "…am KLIK."
He grabbed a piece of [Tainted Roach Meat] from the hoard. He impaled it on his [E-Rank Chitin-Shiv].
He held it in the fire.
It sizzled. It blackened. The smell of "Cave-Crackle" (burnt tires) filled the air.
He pulled the [Cooked Roach Meat (Poor)] off the shiv.
He looked at the goblin he'd dragged—the one who had fainted and was just now stirring.
He threw the hot, non-toxic meat. It hit the goblin in the face.
The goblin yelped, then sniffed.
He had been starving for weeks. He grabbed the meat. He bit it.
His eyes went wide.
It was hot. It was smoky. It was… good. It wasn't rotten. It didn't burn his throat.
He devoured it, hissing with pleasure.
The other 30 goblins watched.
Their terror… was now changing. It was still there. But underneath it…
A new sensation. Hunger. And... Awe.
Klik pointed at the Lvl 2 goblin who was now licking his fingers.
"EAT."
He pointed at the two massive corpses.
"MEAT."
He pointed at his [E-Rank Chitin-Shiv], and then at the other [Junk] shivs and bone-shards in the hoard.
"CUT."
He pointed at the fire.
"BURN."
He limped to the garbage-throne—his throne—and sat, his club across his lap, his black, scabby chest glowing in the light of the new fire.
He, Klik, the First-King, the Fire-Bringer, the Food-Cooker, was in agony.
But his subjects…
…slowly, fearfully, one by one…
…they got to their feet.
They crept towards the hoard. They picked up the [Junk] blades.
And they began to work.
The Age of Klik had begun.