Chapter 22: [Vol-1] Ch.22 Mortal Combat

I ready myself near the entrance of the slaughterhouse area, watching for when the goblin comes in. I ready my gauntlet, hoping to land a surprise blow to start the fight off. After a few moments, I hear the goblin's footsteps running up. I ready my gauntlet, and as soon as I see a little bit of the goblin, I launch a punch towards its center of mass. I feel as the spikes on the gauntlet dig in to the goblin's stomach, but I don't have any time to register it, as the goblin takes an angry swipe at me.

I feel flesh shred and a sharp pain spread across my left side. I failed to protect myself with my buckler from a counter attack. I yank hard, and pull my gauntlet out from the goblin's abdomen, and take a few steps back. Now that I'm close to it, and can get a good look, the goblin's nails are still sharp and pointed. They aren't nearly as big as my talons, but it was enough to tear off a bunch of my skin. Before I can get a further look at it, the goblin charges at me with a very angry look on its face.

I ready myself by taking a lowered stance. As the goblin reaches out with one arm, I aim to intercept it with my buckler. The goblin smashes into the buckler, and it takes everything in me not to just get blown back completely by the hit. As I go to regain my posture, there is already another fist being thrown at me. I make the quick judgement that I won't be able to dodge this hit, so instead I throw another punch with the gauntlet. In an unfortunate twist of fate for the goblin, his blow hit just after mine, and he knocks me sideways, with the gauntlet's spikes tearing at his innards before breaking off.

I'm in real bad shape now. One of my legs is definitely broken, and I can't stand up. The goblin is also looking quite bad. The puncture wounds from before have been bleeding quite heavily, and the new wound looks even more gruesome. The goblin begins unsteadily moving towards me while using one hand to hold the new wound. The gauntlet is basically useless now, so I throw it at the goblin with all my strength. The gauntlet hits the goblin in the shoulder, and the goblin stumbles a few steps, but then continues limping towards my prone form.

Not good, very not good. I look around the room in a panic. A little ways away is the knife I've been using for butchering. If I can crawl over to it, I might stand a chance. As dangerous as it is to turn my back on someone trying to kill me, I don't have much of a choice here. I turn and start crawling towards my knife. My entire body aches as I crawl across the stone floor, and my flesh wound stings as the rock's abrasive texture drags across it. If I reach it, I don't think I'll have the opportunity to actually get a good stab on the goblin, but given its condition, I don't think I'll need to.

I'm almost at the knife now. I can hear the goblin's labored breathing getting closer behind me. I reach out and grab the knife, and turn my body to face the goblin. It's only about two steps away, and it already has both it's arms raised over its head. It seems like it also knows this will probably be each of our last chances to survive. I prepare myself for its strike as it closes in. When it finally gets in range, it lurches with its whole body, to try to slam me with both fists.

Based on the way it approached, this is exactly what I hoped it would do. My injuries, while extensive, aren't as severe as the goblin's. I roll to the side just enough to dodge its slam. Previously, the goblin would have been able to quickly regain its posture from this, but now I have an opening. From where I am, I can only reach one of its legs. I reach out with the knife, and start hacking and slicing at its leg before crawling away.

After crawling outside of the goblin's reach, I turn back to face it. The goblin first attempts to stand up, but quickly finds that it's leg, much like mine, won't support it's weight any longer. So next, it attempts to crawl after me. After it attempts to crawl though, it winces, and stops. It's abdominal wounds are clearly too severe to allow it to crawl, so it rolls onto it's back, and begins just looking around the room. I don't know if it noticed when it ran in, but if it didn't notice before, it clearly noticed now, that the walls of this room have multiple dead imps hanging from them. It looks at each imp, then eventually touches its own wound, and stares at me.

I'm not sure exactly how long we maintained eye contact. It felt like hours, but it was probably only a minute until the goblin stopped breathing. I just laid on the floor for a little while, my own wounds being quite severe. Eventually though, I was certain that the goblin was dead. Now, I had an even bigger problem though. I am severely injured and the cavern is open. How injured I don't know yet, but I can't walk. I begin slowly crawling towards the cavern, with the intent to close it off. While I crawl, I check my status.

<LEGENDARY IMP>
Level: 34
HP: 26/360
MP: 107/107
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Mighty Imp
Magic: Stone Shaping

I'm severely injured alright. I keep watching my status as I crawl towards the entrance. 25. 24. 23. 22. I'm still steadily losing hp as I crawl. I know that moving in this injured state is a bad idea. If I don't close my sub-cave off though, I'm probably just as likely to die as doing this, so I'd rather die on my own terms. I finally make it to the entryway. 20 hp. I start building up a wall to close off the space again. I brace myself up against the wall to keep building. 19. 18. 17. I'm about halfway up the gap now. 16. 15. 14.

I've closed it off. I slowly lower myself back down onto the ground. 13. I carefully position myself on my back, trying to put my injuries in the best position I can. I lie there for a little bit, and just watch my hp. After a minute, it ticks down to 12. I just sit there and watch. 11. 10. 9. The time between the hp ticks is slowing down. I just hope it's enough. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. I'm really worried now. It's going to be very close. After a very long time, it ticks down to 2. I just lie there, motionless. I don't want any accidental movement to cause any wounds to reopen. I'm really really exhausted now too, but I'm also afraid that if I move in my sleep, that could be it, so I just lie there, and wait. Many minutes pass, and my HP moves up to 3, so I keep waiting.

I keep waiting. Minutes turn to hours as I lie there motionless, just behind the sealed entrance to the sub-cave. After those hours, I'm finally back up to 15 hp. I'm still terrified of opening an injury up though, so I only move a little bit at a time. First my arms, which were relatively uninjured in the fight. They ache as I move, but at least I'm not losing any hp. If that is the case, then I can do something to help myself here. I can only reach to my upper thigh, but I begin stone shaping a shackle over each thigh, then I repeat for each shoulder. With that, I hope that I can at least sleep. It's not perfect, but I shouldn't roll over, and it should stop me from kicking my leg from pain.

Finally, despite all the pain I'm in, my exhaustion overwhelms me and I fall asleep. It's not a good sleep though. I'm constantly waking up from pain, only to fade back into sleep.

I don't know how long I stayed like that. I noticed at some point that I started to feel hunger pain in addition to my other pain. Eventually though, I awoke enough to evaluate my situation, and I check my status.

<LEGENDARY IMP>

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Level: 36
HP: 71/372
MP: 110/110
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Mighty Imp
Magic: Stone Shaping

I've noticed before that I was gaining about one level a day, so I'm going to work on the assumption that it's been almost two days. I look down at myself. The surface flesh wound has some nasty scarring going on, and my broken leg is clearly messed up. If I had to guess, my lower leg has a full break, because half way down it changes direction slightly. For right now then, I should work on it. I'm by no means a doctor, but I also know that if I just leave it like this, the results will be very bad. It's going to hurt a lot, but I need to re-align my leg. Considering what I just went through, I think 71 hp should be more than enough.

I remove my shoulder restraints, lean over my broken leg, and clench my jaw. I feel sharp pain from my broken leg as I move it so that it's straight. It's too far gone for me to actually attach the bone together at this point, especially without any medical equipment, but what I can do is make a stone cast to support the leg. I form a circular tube around the leg to keep it from moving, and then tighten the stone down through various points to keep it all in place from foot to knee. I'll have to make adjustments as I see fit for circulation. I'm still in a lot of pain, but this should be manageable. I check my hp just in case, and while it's slowly dropping now, I'm still at 40, so I should be good for now.

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