The world returned, not as a snap, but as a slow, agonizing dissolve.
The blackness of his Lvl 15-induced-level-up-coma gave way to the first sensation: Itching.
It was not the deep, burning throb of his [Crude Cauterization]. This was a new pain. A worse pain. It was a shallow, sizzling, all-over itch, as if he had been rolled in fiberglass, doused in lemon juice, and set on fire. It was the feeling of every single nerve-ending in his skin being exposed and screaming at the same time.
The second sensation was the smell. Sulfur, ozone, and boiled meat.
The third was the sound.
"Grik?"
A reedy, terrified whimper.
"King...? King... wake...?"
Poke.
Something hard and wooden prodded his face.
Klik's eyes snapped open.
His vision was… terrible. It was a blurry, smeared vaseline-haze.
He saw a green-blur recoil, screaming. "GAAAAAAAAH! EYES!"
Grik, his one-eared, Lvl 2 "lieutenant," fell backward onto his rear, crab-walking away in terror.
Klik groaned. The sound that came out was not his. It was a dry, calcifiedcroak, like two pieces of sulfur-rock being ground together.
He tried to sit up.
Agony.
The world was a symphony of pain. The E-Rank acid hadn't just hit him. It had drenched him. It had peeled him.
He looked down at his hands.
They were not green.
They were a raw, weeping, pinkish-grey, like the flesh of an un-butchered fish. His old, tough, goblin-skin was gone. It had been melted away.
His [Chitinous Buds], the hard-won prize from the Roach-Core, were also gone. Melted.
But the skin underneath… it felt… wrong. It was tight. It was hard. It felt like his entire body was one, massive, weeping scab.
He was, he realized with his 32 Intelligence, alive because of a horrifying synergy.
The [Grave-Hound]'s resistance had saved him from immediate death by acid.
The acid, in turn, had re-cauterized the bleeding wounds from the Grave-Hound.
He had survived a fatal mauling by being blown up and dissolved.
"When the house collapses on the owner," his 32 INT supplied, the proverb a cold, bitter draught, "he can no longer complain about the leaking roof."
He was the owner. The house was his body. And it had absolutely collapsed.
A new, permanent debuff notification was glowing in the corner of his vision.
[DEBUFF ACTIVE: [E-Rank Acid-Burns]!]
Your epidermis has been dissolved. Your nerves are exposed. Your new, raw skin is hard, but inflexible.
Effect: You are in constant, agonizing pain.
Effect: -5 to [Agility], -5 to [Strength].
Duration: Permanent (until healed by E-Rank [Restorative] or higher).
He stared at the numbers.
Minus five.
His god-tier Lvl 15 stats…
STR: 12 (17 – 5).
AGI: 14 (19 – 5).
STA: 19.
INT: 32.
PER: 27.
MANA: 16.
He was crippled. He was stronger than he had been during the last fight, but he was weaker than his level-up promised. He was a god-king trapped in a broken, itchy, pink shell.
He hated it. He hated this world. He hated that his luck was always, always… this bad.
He survived. But he never won clean.
"King…?" Grik whimpered, his 3-INT mind mistaking Klik's silent, pain-fueled rage for dormancy.
Klik turned his head.
His new, raw-pink, skinless face, his acid-fogged eyes (which were also burned, hence the blurry vision), his grotesque appearance…
Grik screamed again.
But the other goblins… the thirty remaining…
They were not screaming.
They were huddled by the ruins of Gruk's throne, watching him.
Their terror, their panic… was gone.
It had been burned away by the acid-explosion.
They had watched him charge the monster. They had watched him burn it. They had watched him explode.
And he was sitting up.
This was not a King. This was not a Bully.
This was God.
This was the Fire-Bringer. This was the Acid-Walker. This was The-One-Who-Does-Not-Die.
They were staring at him with a new, terrifying, religious awe.
He was, he realized, their Jesus. A horrible, pink, scabby goblin-Jesus.
He ignored them. He ignored Grik.
He crawled, his raw-pink hands scraping on the acid-pitted stone, to the center of the blast-crater.
The loot.
It was all he cared about.
There it was. The only thing to survive the cascade-detonation.
The [Sulfuric Gastropod Core].
It was the size of his head. It was a glowing, pulsating, sulfur-yellow orb, crackling with static energy. It was hot to the touch, and the heat felt good against his raw, exposed nerves.
He clutched it to his chest. It was the only thing in this world that made sense.
He had to [Appraise] it.
He had to know.
He dumped 1 Mana into it.
[System: Activating [Appraisal (Common) Lvl 1]…]
[Scanning... Target is E-Rank (High)!]
[Full Scan Complete!]
Core: [Volcanic Gastropod Core (E-Rank)]
Description: An exceptionally rare and unstable E-Rank Core. The slug's [Acid-Proof] nature, combined with the extreme heat of your fire-attack and its own [Sulfur-Detonation], has refined this core into a state of pure, volatile, thermal energy. It is less a power-source and more a bomb.
Use (Consume): Can be consumed. Provides a catastrophic boost to [Evolutionary Progress] (Est: +40-50%). Will guarantee evolution towards [Thermal], [Volcanic], [Heat-Resist], and [Explosive] paths.
Risk (Consume):[90% CHANCE OF CATASTROPHIC, INSTANTANEOUS, HOST-VAPORIZING DETONATION.]
Use (Tinker): Can be used as a power-source or primary component for a high-yield explosive device, via [Trap Crafting] or [Junk-Tinker] skills (Skill-Check Difficulty: 25 - Insanely Hard).
Klik stared at the notification, his 32 INT reeling.
Ninety. Percent. Chance. Of. Detonation.
This was not a shortcut. This was suicide. This was a glowing, yellow, 10-pound "Eat Me and Die" sign.
He was never eating this.
But… Use (Tinker).
He could make a bomb. A real one.
He laughed. The sound was a dry, painfulcroak.
He had survived this explosion, only to be given the recipe for a bigger one.
This System. This world. It was obsessed with FWOOMPH.
He clutched the bomb-core to his ruined chest. The heat was soothing.
He had to get back to his Workshop. He had to heal. This [E-Rank Acid-Burn] was a death sentence. He stank of chemical-burn and cooked-flesh. He was a dinner-bell for whatever-was-next.
He looked at his subjects. They were still staring.
He needed to move.
He pushed himself to his feet.
He was a horror. A Lvl 15, raw-pink, skinless god-king, caked in acid-slime and blood, crippled by his own wounds, holding a pulsating, thermal-bomb to his chest.
He hobbled, his 14 Agility stuttering with pain, to the throne.
He sat.
The silence stretched.
He looked at the cavern.
His 32 INT and 27 PER did the math.
The bonfire was out, a smoking, acid-drenched pile of sludge.
The food… Gruk's hoard… was a puddle. The E-Rank acid-blast had splatteredeverything. The [Goblin Meat], the [Roach Meat]… it was all contaminated. Inedible.
The corpses… Gruk's body was a half-dissolved, smoking ruin. The Grave-Hound, already ravaged by the slug, was now just a stain.
The air… was toxic. The smell of sulfur-dioxide was overpowering. It was making his blurry-vision worse.
This cavern… this Kingdom he had bled and died (almost) for…
It was uninhabitable.
It was a toxic, acid-drenched, foodless, undefendableshthole*.
"The house has collapsed on the owner."
"Grik!" he croaked.
The one-eared goblin flnched, then ran forward, prostrating himself at Klik's feet.
"King! King-God! Klik!"
"Stop…" Klik wheezed. He was in too much pain for this. "Up. Stand."
Grik stood, his Lvl 2 body shaking so hard he looked like he was vibrating.
Klik looked at this… creature. His 3-INT, first-follower.
"You," Klik said, his voice a click-hiss. "You… strong. You… smart."
(He was, of course, lying. Grik was neither. But his 27 INT knew that 3-INT creatures thrived on praise.)
Grik puffed his chest out. He was smart! The Fire-God said so!
"Grik… is… King's-Hand!" Grik declared, inventing a title on the spot.
"…Good. Fine. Yes," Klik rasped, waving a pink, skinless hand. He didn't have the energy to argue. "King's-Hand Grik."
He needed to build his tribe. They were idiots, but they were his idiots.
He pointed at the biggest, least-fainted goblin cowering by the wall. A Lvl 3.
"You. Name?"
The Lvl 3 goblin gulped. He was bigger than Grik, stronger (maybe 6 STR), but he was a coward.
"…Bruk…"
"Bruk," Klik nodded. "You… Grik's-Hand. You… strong. You… guard."
He had a lieutenant. And a bodyguard. This was progress.
Now, the exodus.
He stood, his entire body screaming. He held the glowing-yellow-bomb-core in one arm, like a scepter. He used his [Nail-Studded Club] as a crutch.
"THIS. PLACE. IS. DEAD!" he roared, the acid in his voice making the words sizzle.
The tribe flnched.
He pointed at the floor. The acid-slime. The puddles that used to be food.
"DEAD! POISON!"
The 3-INT minds slowly processed this. Food… gone. Lair… bad.
"WE… MOVE!"
A collectivegasp. Move?Move where? This cavern was all they had ever known.
Klik ignored them. He limped past his throne. He limped past his newly-christened lieutenants.
He walked towards the tunnel.
Not the main-tunnel, the death-corridor where the Slug and the Hound had come from.
He hobbled towards the crawlspace. The rat's-path.
The tunnel that led to his Workshop. And, beyond that, to the other cavern.
The Roach Queen's Lair.
His 32 INT had already made the calculation.
It was huge. It was empty. It was defensible—one, single entrance that he could trap. It had other tunnels he had not explored.
It was the only viable base.
He reached the crawlspace. He looked back.
His tribe. His 31 subjects. His King's-Hand. His Guard.
They were huddled at the mouth of the main-tunnel, staring at him, terrified of the new-darkness he was entering.
They were too scared to follow him.
And too scared to be left behind.
"The chick that stays too close to its mother," Klik's mind supplied, "will be cooked with her when she sits on the hot stone."
He was the mother. He was hot-stone. He had to force them.
He hissed, a furious, acidic sound.
"GRIK! BRUK! MOVE!"
He limped into the darkness.
He didn't look back.
He heard it. The scramble. The whimpers. The clatter of 31 pairs of clawed feet on stone.
"King-God! Wait!"
"Don't leave!"
"Dark! Dark!"
He heard Grik slapping them. "MOVE! FIRE-GOD MOVES! WE MOVE! STUPID!"
A new sound. The sound of his tribe, his people, following him into the dark.
He was a raw, pink, crippled, Lvl 15 God.
He was bleeding. He was itching. He was carrying a bomb.
And he was leading an exodus.
His new, terrible life... had truly begun.