He stood at the threshold of the corridor, the same corridor, the same damp stone, the same dust that smelled of old parchment and older decay. His fingers tightened around the sword hilt. The broken wrist from before had healed, of course. The gash across his scalp had vanished. He was new again, fresh again, empty again. But something in his chest remembered. Not the pain. Not the fear. Something deeper, something that lived in the spaces between his bones.
'The goblin,' he thought. 'The small one. The one I ignored.'
He walked. The corridor stretched ahead, and he counted his steps. One hundred and twelve to the turn. Forty-seven to the next turn. Two hundred and three to the chamber where the worm had died. He did not see the worm this time. Perhaps it had not respawned yet. Perhaps the tower had other plans.
He reached the narrow passage where the goblin had waited. He slowed his breathing. He listened.
A scuttling sound. Small feet on stone. A high-pitched breathing, rapid and eager.
It came around the corner, the same green skin, the same makeshift spear held in its knobby fist. Its eyes locked onto him, and it grinned with too many teeth.
He moved before it could strike. His left hand shot out, caught the spear shaft, and twisted. The goblin squealed. He stepped inside its guard, his right hand releasing the sword for just a moment, both hands now grabbing the creature's head. A twist. A crack. The neck gave way like a dry branch. He let the body drop to the floor. The movement had been clean, calculated, efficient. Minimal loss. Maximum result.
He stood over it for a moment, breathing evenly. 'That is the difference,' he thought. 'That is what six thousand deaths teach you.'
More sounds. Not one set of feet now. Many.
They came from the shadows ahead, a tide of green bodies pouring out of side passages and doorways he had not noticed before. Goblins. Dozens of them. Their eyes glowed yellow in the dim light, and their spears and clubs and rusty blades caught the faint reflections from above. They did not charge all at once. They spread out, encircling him, their movements almost coordinated.
He raised his sword.
The first one lunged. He sidestepped, his blade opening its throat. The second came from behind. He turned, parried, kicked it into a third. The fourth stabbed at his leg. He hopped back, felt the tip scrape his thigh, and answered with a slash that cut through its collarbone. Blood sprayed across his chest. Warm. Metallic.
He moved like a dance. Not graceful. Not beautiful. Efficient. Each step placed him where the next attack would not be. Each swing killed or maimed. He took damage where damage was unavoidable, letting a club bruise his shoulder so that a spear would miss his heart. A gash opened across his stomach, a line of fire that reminded him of a previous death, a previous body, a previous failure. He pushed away from the goblin that had cut him, used a pillar to support himself for half a breath, and saw another goblin already stabbing at his head. He ducked. The blade cut his ear instead. He moved past the corpse before it hit the ground.
Each corpse represented a regression. Each death he had died to these creatures in earlier attempts, in earlier floors, in earlier versions of himself that no longer existed. He had learned them. He had memorized their tells, their weaknesses, the way their eyes widened before they struck. He wove through the horde, a needle through cloth, leaving bodies behind him.
The last one fell. He was covered from head to toe in green blood, his own blood mixing with theirs, his clothes clinging to his skin. His expression remained the same. Indifferent. Flat. The face of a man who had seen too much to be moved by anything.
But something was wrong.
One goblin remained. It had not attacked. It stood apart from the others, smaller than the rest, its skin a darker shade of green, almost black. Its eyes were not yellow but red, and they did not blink. It held no weapon. Its hands hung at its sides, fingers twitching.
He moved toward it. His sword came up. He struck.
The goblin caught the blade. With its bare hand.
He felt the impact travel up his arm, and then he felt something else. The sword shattered. Not cracked. Not bent. Shattered into a dozen pieces that flew past his face, cutting his cheeks, his forehead, his lips. The goblin had not moved. It had simply closed its fingers around the steel and crushed it like old bread.
'What is that force,' he thought. 'What is that strength.'
He stepped back, empty-handed now, and the goblin stepped forward. It was manipulating something. He could feel it in the air, a pressure against his skin, a weight in his chest. The goblin raised its hand, and something invisible slammed into his head. He staggered. The goblin kicked him, and he felt ribs crack. He tried to block the next strike, but his arms were too slow, his body too heavy.
The goblin's presence expanded. It was no longer small. It was huge, an imposing shadow that filled the corridor, and from that shadow came a blade that pierced his chest. He looked down at the hilt protruding from his sternum. He looked up at the red eyes.
Then nothing.
[ You are dead ]
[ Go forth koalemos, conquer the inverted spire ]
He awoke at the pillar. The archive. The dust. He did not move for a long moment. His hands lay in his lap, palms up, empty. He stared at the calluses that had already reformed, the small scars that the resurrection could not quite erase.
'That goblin,' he thought. 'That was not a goblin. Not like the others.'
He stood. He found his sword leaning against the pillar. He picked it up. He walked.