My Goblin System : Levelling up with my SSS Class Devouring skill-Chapter 274

He didn’t kill anyone. That was what made it even more terrifying. If he’d been cutting through them with lethal force, it would have been horrific but understandable. Instead, he was dismantling the entire formation with non-lethal precision that showed he was so far above their level that he didn’t even need to try.

A guard swung an enchanted sword at TheReaper’s head with enough force to split stone. The hero simply wasn’t there anymore, having already moved inside the guard’s reach. His fingers jabbed specific points along the guard’s sword arm—pressure points that caused the man’s grip to spasm open. The sword clattered to the marble floor, and before the guard could recover, TheReaper had struck his chest with a palm strike that stopped his breathing temporarily, forcing him to collapse and focus on gasping for air.

Three guards attacked simultaneously from different angles, clearly having practiced coordinated strikes against powerful opponents. TheReaper ducked under one blade, sidestepped another, and caught the third’s wrist mid-swing. He twisted with perfect leverage that had nothing to do with physical strength and everything to do with three hundred years of combat experience. The guard’s shoulder dislocated with an audible pop, and he stumbled away crying out in pain.

"Holy binding!" one of the guards called out—a chaplain-warrior who’d been integrated into the formation specifically to counter magical threats. Golden chains of pure holy energy shot toward TheReaper, seeking to bind and restrict movement.

TheReaper looked at the chains, raised one eyebrow in an expression that clearly said "really?", and simply stepped between them. The holy energy passed harmlessly around him, unable to lock onto a target that moved with such precision that he was literally flowing through the gaps in the binding spell.

Then he was on the chaplain-warrior, and three precise strikes later, the man was unconscious before he hit the ground.

Within thirty seconds of combat starting, fifteen guards were down. Not dead, but completely incapacitated in ways that would take healing magic or hours of recovery to fix.

"FORMATION!" Commander Elric bellowed again, his tactical mind racing. "All ranged units, fire on my mark! Melee units, defensive positions! Don’t engage directly, just contain!"

The guards reformed with impressive discipline despite the fear and confusion. Those with ranged weapons—crossbows, throwing axes, even a few with basic offensive magic—took aim at TheReaper’s position.

"FIRE!"

A volley of projectiles filled the air, converging on TheReaper from multiple angles simultaneously. Enchanted crossbow bolts, blessed throwing knives, bolts of magical force—each one deadly, each one aimed with professional precision.

TheReaper moved through the barrage like he was dancing, his body shifting with minimal movement to avoid each projectile by inches or less. A crossbow bolt passed so close to his face that it literally parted his hair. A throwing axe came within a finger’s width of his ribs. A magic missile actually grazed his coat without touching skin.

And then he was closing distance again, moving toward the ranged attackers with speed that made him blur.

Commander Elric interceded, his massive sword coming down in an overhead strike that carried genuine power—this was a man who’d killed demon-class entities, and his attack showed it. The blade was wreathed in holy energy and moved with the kind of speed that only decades of practice could produce.

TheReaper actually had to move to avoid this one, shifting his weight and redirecting the sword’s momentum rather than simply dodging. The blade struck the marble floor where he’d been standing a split-second earlier, and the enchanted steel bit deep into the supposedly indestructible blessed stone.

"Good," TheReaper acknowledged, his voice carrying genuine respect. "You’re actually competent."

Then he was inside Elric’s guard, moving faster than the commander could recover his sword. A series of strikes targeted not nerve clusters but specific points that would disrupt the commander’s strength without causing permanent damage—hitting muscle knots, striking joints at angles that would cause temporary weakness.

Elric grunted in pain but managed to shoulder-check TheReaper, using his armor’s weight as a weapon. The impact would have broken ribs on a normal person.

TheReaper rolled with it, using the momentum to spin away and put distance between them. He landed lightly, not even breathing hard.

"You’ve trained well," TheReaper said, circling the commander with the calm patience of a predator assessing prey. "How many demon lords have you actually fought?"

"Three!" Elric growled, bringing his sword up into a defensive guard despite the pain in his joints. "And I survived all of them!"

"Survived is the key word there," TheReaper noted. His hand moved, and suddenly there was a knife in it—not his legendary sword, just a simple combat knife pulled from somewhere in his coat. "You survived because they weren’t trying to kill you specifically. They were fighting armies, and you were just one soldier. That’s very different from dueling."

He demonstrated by throwing the knife. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Commander Elric’s training saved him—barely. He brought his sword up to deflect, and the knife spanged off the blessed steel with a shower of sparks. But in the split-second he was focused on the projectile, TheReaper closed the distance.

A flurry of hand-to-hand strikes followed. Elric managed to block two, deflect one with his armored forearm, but the fourth caught him in the solar plexus with enough force to drive the air from his lungs. The fifth hit a nerve cluster in his sword arm.

Elric’s grip weakened involuntarily, and TheReaper simply plucked the massive sword from his hand like taking a toy from a child.

Then TheReaper reversed the weapon and struck Elric in the head with the pommel—not hard enough to kill or cause permanent damage, but enough to knock him unconscious. The commander toppled like a felled tree, his armor clanging against the marble.

The guards who’d been watching their commander fall let out cries of rage and fear. Some broke formation entirely, attacking TheReaper with reckless abandon driven by emotion rather than training.

It made them even easier to defeat.

TheReaper moved through them like a whirlwind, faster now that he didn’t need to be as careful. Guards fell left and right, disabled but alive, scattered across the throne room floor like discarded dolls.