Lys stepped forward.
The goblin was still in mid-lunge, mouth wide open in a roar, arms swinging. Lys kept CorpseSlayer pointed straight ahead. His broken ribs sent a sharp stab through his chest with every step. Blood ran from his split lip and dripped off his chin. His left hand hung limp and useless at his side. But his right hand held the sword steady.
He was holding the sword with only one hand now.
"You should have never messed with me," he said, voice low and rough. "Because now, I'll make sure you can never mess with anybody else. And I'll make it final."
The goblin's foot came first, a heavy kick aimed straight at his chest from mid-air. Lys twisted his body at the last moment. The foot grazed his shoulder instead of smashing into his ribs. Pain exploded across the joint and down his numb left arm. He felt the skin tear under his shirt, but he stayed on his feet.
He brought CorpseSlayer down on the goblin's extended leg. The blade drew a shallow line along the calf. It was not a deep cut. Just enough for the edge to touch its skin and bite hard on it.
The goblin jerked its leg back like it had stepped in fire. It let out a short, high sound and stumbled sideways. The small wound did not close. Blood kept running down its green skin.
And a new system notification appeared in Lys's vision.
[Corrupt Mana Absorbed: +8]
[Host Mana Restored: +4]
[EXP Gained: 12]
[Level 0: 88 / 100]
Lys read the numbers and felt a short, tired laugh rise in his throat. "Heh, of course I'm still level zero," he muttered to himself. "All this time, every drill with Vessa, every quest, every fight I survived, and I was still level zero! Fuck.. so, none of it counted until the sword synced?!"
The goblin did not wait. It lunged again, far more faster than it had moved at the stream. Its arms swung in wide arcs. Though its bad knee made it limp, but the speed was still dangerous.
But even after seeing the creature lunging at him, Lys waited.
He did not run. He did not dodge early. He just watched the goblin commit to its angle.
When the creature was almost on him, Lys pushed everything he had left into the Aura of Intimidation. The last of his mana left him in one hard rush. His head pounded hard with this sudden mana-drain. His vision blurred at the edges. His legs felt like they might give out any second.
The aura of intimidation hit the goblin.
The creature's lunge slowed. Its body fought between the forward momentum and the deep animal terror that the aura forced into it. And that half-second pause was all Lys needed.
He stepped in.
He closed the distance in two steps. With every strength left in his leg he moved forward. He swung the sword with just one hand and the CorpseSlayer came across in one clean arc. The blade caught the goblin right at the neck.
The blade bit deep into the creature's neck.
Its eyes went wide. For a moment, it just stood there, head tilting at a wrong angle.
Then it fell.
THUD
The head hit the grass first with a soft thud. The body followed a second later, heavy and limp, shaking the ground under Lys's boots.
Just as the monster fell, the System messages filled Lys's vision, one after another.
[Kill Confirmed…..Corrupted Entity: Hobgoblin (Premature)]
[EXP Gained: 140]
[Total EXP: 228 / 100]
[Congratulations…LEVEL UP]
[Level 0 → Level 1]
[10 Skills Points Awarded]
Lys stood behind the fallen body and read every line twice. His chest rose and fell hard. Blood still dripped from his lip onto the grass. He felt the weight of the sword in his hand and the sudden quiet of the night around him. It felt weird.
'Level 1! Huh.. '
He had been level zero this entire time. Through waking up in this world inside Lysander's body, through every quest and every moment with Elara and Mira, Sara, Selene, none of it had given him a single point of experience until this sword synced. The thought sat heavy in his chest. He looked down at the goblin's body and whispered as his eyes caught the kill confirmation notification one by one, "What the hell does 'premature' even mean?"
He did not have time to think about it more. The system screen stayed open, glowing softly.
He looked at CorpseSlayer. The blue rune on the blade was fading back to its normal soft glow, as there was no mana inside him to feed to it. The sword felt warm in his hand, almost satisfied, like it had done exactly what it was made for.
Lys smiled at it. A real smile, tired and quiet and genuine. "You really are something else, huh!," he said under his breath.
But the smile lasted only a second.
Before he could take one step forward, the world around him tilted.
The mana drain, the broken ribs, the last push of the aura, everything came due at once.
His legs stopped working mid-thought. He did not fall hard. He lowered himself slowly, more of a controlled collapse than a drop. He landed on his side in the grass at the edge of the forest. CorpseSlayer stayed loose in his right hand, the hilt still warm against his palm.
The system screen was still open in front of his eyes.
He saw the village gate light in the distance. Small and yellow against the dark. Close enough that he could almost imagine Pell standing there, waiting with that bored look on his face.
His eyes started to close.
The last thing he thought before everything went dark was simple.
'At least I got all the herbs…..'
With that the darkness took him completely.
He lay still in the grass, breathing slow and shallow. The goblin's body lay a few feet away, already starting to cool under the moonlight. The night grew quiet around him. Only the soft wind moved the grass near his face.
The system screen faded slowly from his vision as his eyes shut all the way.
[Level 1 Achieved]
[New Title Unlocked: Wielder of the strongest sword]
[Further notifications paused due to Host unconsciousness]
Lys did not see any of it.
He just lay there, broken and still, with the sword in his hand and the first level of his new life finally earned.