Goblin King: My Innate Skill Is OP

”It’s been a while since I lost my abilities to the chief,” Grakk said as he continued walking toward me, his boots pressing heavily into the soil with each step. ”He promised me he’d make sure I get them back by having me take out a Chosen. But since then, I’ve been stuck on these walls, fending off intruders.”

He rolled one shoulder as though loosening an old frustration.

”And to think a Chosen is foolish enough to walk right up to me.”

There it was.

Ambition.

So I had been right.

He had once been a Chosen. Lost that status—likely to his own leader—and now sought to reclaim it by killing another.

But that was never going to happen.

”Foolish?” I echoed calmly. ”You don’t think you’re the foolish one? Leaving the protection of that barrier to face what is, from your perspective, guaranteed death?”

Grakk snorted, the sound harsh and dismissive.

”Arrogant fool… Die!”

He didn’t hesitate after that.

Both axes left his hands in the same instant, spinning toward me with frightening speed. They weren’t thrown wildly either; the rotation was tight, controlled, designed for maximum penetration on impact. As they cut through the air, I noticed something else.

His aura flared.

It wasn’t subtle.

Power surged outward from his body in a sharp spike, veins along his arms darkening slightly as his muscles swelled. A temporary enhancement—some kind of self-amplifying skill.

The axes accelerated mid-flight.

I didn’t need to overreact.

With minimal movement, I shifted my footing just enough to let the first axe pass by my shoulder. The second, I redirected slightly with a flick of spatial distortion, causing it to graze past my side before embedding itself in the ground several meters behind me.

Before the blades had even finished their arcs, Grakk was already moving.

He didn’t wait to see the result.

He reached over his shoulders and drew two more axes from crossed sheaths on his back in one smooth motion.

And then he disappeared from his previous position.

The ground cracked beneath where he had been standing, the burst of force propelling him forward.

In less than a second, he was directly in front of me, axes raised, his enhanced aura still flaring violently around him.

The first axe swung downward in a brutal overhead arc, followed immediately by a left slash, then a right, his movements surprisingly fluid for someone carrying that much muscle mass. He wasn’t just strong. He was trained.

Each strike adjusted mid-motion, following my footwork as I shifted backward and to the side. He wasn’t flailing. He was reading.

But none of them landed.

Every time his blades descended, I was already a step out of reach. Every time he tried to cut off my angle, I slipped past it with minimal movement, conserving energy rather than showing off speed.

”You couldn’t have chosen a worse opponent to use as your stepping stone back to Chosen status, Grakk,” I said calmly as another axe head sliced through empty air inches from my torso.

”Shut up and die!” he roared.

He raised both axes and brought them down with everything he had.

BOOM!

The impact cracked the ground where I had been standing a moment earlier, dirt and fragments of compacted earth erupting outward in a short shockwave.

But it caught nothing.

By the time the dust cleared, I was already several paces ahead of him, untouched.

Grakk straightened, chest rising and falling heavily, enhanced aura still burning around his body like unstable flame. His jaw clenched as he locked onto me again.

”Don’t underestimate me, fool,” he snarled. ”Fight!”

I tilted my head slightly.

”Is that what you want?” I asked evenly. ”You would die if I did that.”

It wasn’t arrogance.

It was fact.

But the statement only fueled him further.

He roared, the sound raw and furious, and charged again, boots tearing into the ground as he closed the distance in a heartbeat.

This time, when he swung downward with both axes, I didn’t move.

The blades descended with crushing force.

CLANG!

His axes struck the invisible spatial distortion surrounding me, the impact vibrating through his arms. But the barrier didn’t shimmer dramatically or flare. It simply held.

Grakk gritted his teeth and pressed downward harder, trying to force his axes through the invisible resistance. The muscles in his forearms bulged, veins standing out against his skin as he poured strength into the push.

But nothing happened.

I moved, raising a single finger and touched the flat of his axe head, activating [Deathroot] through the contact point.

The effect was immediate.

The metal darkened as though moisture had been sucked from it. Fine cracks spread across the blade’s surface, corrosion racing outward in jagged patterns. The reinforced edge dulled and crumbled, the structure of the weapon collapsing as the parasitic energy consumed not just its material integrity but the latent force embedded within it.

Grakk felt it.

He let go instantly, releasing the decaying axe before the corruption could crawl up the handle toward his hands. He jumped backward, boots digging trenches into the soil as he widened the distance between us.

Smart.

But I was done entertaining him.

In a blink, I appeared directly in front of him, my body rotating as I drove upward into an uppercut. Flames spiraled around my fist as I invoked [Hellbrand], fire coiling tight and dense rather than wild and scattered.

Grakk’s eyes widened.

He tried to lift his remaining axe defensively, but he couldn’t do so in time as my fist connected with his jaw with an explosion.

BOOM!

The explosion of heat and pressure sent his body upward violently, his head disintegrating from the point of contact before it even had the chance to detach cleanly.

His flaming body soared briefly before crashing back down, skidding across the ground and breaking apart under the residual heat.

When the smoke thinned, only charred bone fragments and scattered metal remained.

Silence followed.

Up on the wall, the goblins stared down in horror.

Their captain—the one who had commanded them, who had moved with confidence and authority—had been erased in a single blow.

I lowered my hand slowly, the flames dissipating into faint embers that vanished into the air.

Then I looked up at them.